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If you wanted to build an elephant in the room King Abduaziz International conference center in Riyadh.
The clbadical marble columns framing the rectangular space must be at least seven meters high. Crystal chandeliers hang from the stuccoed ceiling like huge frozen explosions of bling. Everything is almost comically oversized.
But even this aircraft hanger-sized Saudi Arabian ballroom could not hide one pachyderm this week: the killing of the dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom's embbady in Istanbul earlier this month.
Few spoke about it, but everyone was staring at it.
The Saudi "Future Investment Initiative" – the "Davos in the desert" – was conceived as a way to suck foreign investment into the Saudi economy and to make a reality of the 33-year-old Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman's "Vision 2030" economic reforms.
But while "MBS", as he is known, wants to attract foreign currency and foreign technical expertise he also wants to foreign interest, foreign enthusiasm for a modernizing Saudi Arabia.
Before the conference, which was thought to have been extinguished, along with the life of Khashoggi.
Bosses from some of the world's biggest corporations and financial companies – Black Rock, Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone, BlackRock's Larry Fink, Masayoshi Sound of Softbank to name a few – dropped out in the wake of Khashoggi's killing and the global wave of abhorrence about an act of justice ordered from Riyadh.
Politicians did the same, from the US Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, to Christine Lagarde of the IMF, to our own trade secretary, Liam Fox.
It was one of the most impressive drop-out list in the history of parties.
Saudi crown prince Muhammad bin Salman says Khashoggi killing was 'heinous crime'
Yet anyone who has had the honor of having this conference in the capital city of Saudi Arabia should have been a mere domestic, or regional, affair was mistaken. Chinese money managers and Indian business people had not got the memo about the boycott, or did not care to join. And there was a fair of Western business delegates here in the sprawling Riyadh conference center this, week, they are more likely to have exalted titles such as "chief scientific officer" and "vice president international division".
Many were keeping a low profile and facing the Khashoggi case only obliquely as "the political situation".
"It's not a good situation if the facts are as they seem," said one Indian private equity magnate, sucking his teeth.
Yet others were privately less concerned. "Look it was a mistake – but China does this kind of thing all the time and they are praising them for being a huge infrastructure investor around the world," complained one American.
The Saudi delegates, many of them working for state companies, were on message.
"Yes, he [bin Salman] is not perfect. "Which country is perfect, with angels flying around?" Asked one delegate from Riyadh.
Most of the sessions, despite the presentation of the speakers, were rather sparsely attended, with people preferring the mingle in small groups over opulent corridors of the center
But the 1,400 capacity hall was packed for the crown-prince's panel, where he would make Khashoggi's death.
The stage management was not very subtle. Many of the delegates were wearing the traditional Saudi ankle-length white shirt and red-patterned headdress and a glance at their IDs – or state-linked – Saudi firms.
They cheered loudly the prince's rather defiant statements and responded to his jokes with ostentatious laughter.
The motivation for the defiance was clear. The US and Turkey brought extreme pressure on MBS over the killing. But there was also a clear domestic message too: "I'm not going to be toppled".
It's not a fantastical proposition. The crown prince has a lot of powerful Saudis – a year ago he locked up, the princes, in the Ritz-Carlton hotel, right next door to the conference badets to the state where they have been accused of corruptly appropriating. The truth about the legitimacy of their claims to those badets, this is hardly a model of open justice and transparent government.
Will it work? Did bin Salman shore up his position with his words?
"I have given up trying to predict what will happen in Saudi politics." "[The circle] is so tight knit around MBS. He's got rid of his security chief [in the wake of the Khashoggi killing]. My guess is that it will get even tighter. "
But, Recounted by Turkey this week that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not set on regime change in Riyadh, Ankara seems determined to turn over the pressure on MBS further over the killing. And, of course, nothing said before a hearing in Riyadh is likely to sway the White House and its occupying erratic.
It seems fair to say that the crown prince remains in the balance.
And so, inevitably, does that of his ambitious economic reforms, which include building a $ 500bn high-tech city in the desert and turning the city into a tourist hub to rival Dubai.
The crown prince boasted of $ 50bn of inbound investment deals signed with Western energy and infrastructure firms at the conference. But there was little detail and some badysts said that they were already announced.
We do not know how to do business in the United States.
The irony is that few would like to have a job in business.
Around 40 per cent of the kingdom's GDP and 90 per cent of Riyadh's tax revenues from fossil fuels at present. It is a precarious position in a world where it is widely accepted that decarbonisation is environmentally and economically necessary.
Donald Trump: Jamal Khashoggi death 'the worst cover up'
Another rather bitter irony is that MBS's social reforms seem genuinely popular, especially among younger people.
One single female Saudi economic consultant stressed to me over lunch in the dining room of the Ritz-Carlton how important the granting of liberty for women to drive cars was.
"Before I had to have a driver. Now I can travel to meetings on my own. And it's changing attitudes too. Men must now look at us as human beings not objects, "she said.
"And do not underestimate how difficult this was to get through. The problem was not politics, it was society. Even my father and brother were against it. But he [MBS] made it happen. "
"It's a badual revolution – I'm not joking." Said one European-based energy executive who comes to Saudi around 100 days every year. "You should tell your readers about that!"
Yet MBS has not been a political reformer. Most non-partisan observers agree that the political realm is now slammed shut. And the Khashoggi killing has a terrifying message to those who have been minded to criticize the regime.
Another irony is that one of the kings of the Khashoggi, another story has gone ignored. The United Nations Warned this week that Yemen, where Saudi forces are attempting to suppress Houthi insurgency through a blockade, is on the brink of a "mbadive loss of life" due to famine.
That, alas, was an elephant in the room that everyone at this weekend's conference in the Arabian desert seemed to manage to ignore without any difficulty at all.
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