Текст книги "The James Bond Anthology"

Автор книги: Ian Fleming

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 190 страниц)

26 | ‘SLEEP WELL, MY DARLING’

The next two days were much the same.

On the fourth day of their stay Vesper went off early to Royale. A taxi came and fetched her and brought her back. She said she needed some medicine.

That night she made a special effort to be gay. She drank a lot and when they went upstairs, she led him into her bedroom and made passionate love to him. Bond’s body responded, but afterwards she cried bitterly into her pillow and Bond went to his room in grim despair.

He could hardly sleep and in the early hours he heard her door open softly. Some small sounds came from downstairs. He was sure she was in the telephone booth. Very soon he heard her door softly close and he guessed that again there had been no reply from Paris.

This was Saturday.

On Sunday the man with the black patch was back again. Bond knew it directly he looked up from his lunch and saw her face. He had told her all that the patron had told him, withholding only the man’s statement that he might be back. He had thought it would worry her.

He had also telephoned Mathis in Paris and checked on the Peugeot. It had been hired from a respectable firm two weeks before. The customer had had a Swiss triptique. His name was Adolph Gettler. He had given a bank in Zurich as his address.

Mathis had got on to the Swiss police. Yes, the bank had an account in this name. It was little used. Herr Gettler was understood to be connected with the watch industry. Inquiries could be pursued if there was a charge against him.

Vesper had shrugged her shoulders at the information.

This time when the man appeared she left her lunch in the middle and went straight up to her room.

Bond made up his mind. When he had finished, he followed her. Both her doors were locked and when he made her let him in, he saw that she had been sitting in the shadows by the window, watching, he presumed.

Her face was of cold stone. He led her to the bed and drew her down beside him. They sat stiffly, like people in a railway carriage.

‘Vesper,’ he said, holding her cold hands in his, ‘we can’t go on like this. We must finish with it. We are torturing each other and there is only one way of stopping it. Either you must tell me what all this is about or we must leave. At once.’

She said nothing and her hands were lifeless in his.

‘My darling,’ he said. ‘Won’t you tell me? Do you know, that first morning I was coming back to ask you to marry me. Can’t we go back to the beginning again? What is this dreadful nightmare that is killing us?’

At first she said nothing, then a tear rolled slowly down her cheek.

‘You mean you would have married me?’

Bond nodded.

‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘My God.’ She turned and clutched him, pressing her face against his chest.

He held her closely to him. ‘Tell me, my love,’ he said. ‘Tell me what’s hurting you.’

Her sobs became quieter.

‘Leave me for a little,’ she said and a new note had come into her voice. A note of resignation. ‘Let me think for a little.’ She kissed his face and held it between her hands. She looked at him with yearning. ‘Darling, I’m trying to do what’s best for us. Please believe me. But it’s terrible. I’m in a frightful …’ She wept again, clutching him like a child with nightmares.

He soothed her, stroking the long black hair and kissing her softly.

‘Go away now,’ she said. ‘I must have time to think. We’ve got to do something.’

She took his handkerchief and dried her eyes.

She led him to the door and there they held tightly to each other. Then he kissed her again and she shut the door behind him.

That evening most of the gayness and intimacy of their first night came back. She was excited and some of her laughter sounded brittle, but Bond was determined to fall in with her new mood and it was only at the end of dinner that he made a passing remark which made her pause.

She put her hand over his.

‘Don’t talk about it now,’ she said. ‘Forget it now. It’s all past. I’ll tell you about it in the morning.’

She looked at him and suddenly her eyes were full of tears. She found a handkerchief in her bag and dabbed at them.

‘Give me some more champagne,’ she said. She gave a queer little laugh. ‘I want a lot more. You drink much more than me. It’s not fair.’

They sat and drank together until the bottle was finished. Then she got to her feet. She knocked against her chair and giggled.

‘I do believe I’m tight,’ she said, ‘how disgraceful. Please, James, don’t be ashamed of me. I did so want to be gay. And I am gay.’

She stood behind him and ran her fingers through his black hair.

‘Come up quickly,’ she said. ‘I want you badly tonight.’

She blew a kiss at him and was gone.

For two hours they made slow, sweet love in a mood of happy passion which the day before Bond would never have thought they could regain. The barriers of self-consciousness and mistrust seemed to have vanished and the words they spoke to each other were innocent and true again and there was no shadow between them.

‘You must go now,’ said Vesper when Bond had slept for a while in her arms.

As if to take back her words she held him more closely to her, murmuring endearments and pressing her body down the whole length of his.

When he finally rose and bent to smooth back her hair and finally kiss her eyes and her mouth good night, she reached out and turned on the light.

‘Look at me,’ she said, ‘and let me look at you.’

He knelt beside her.

She examined every line on his face as if she was seeing him for the first time. Then she reached up and put an arm round his neck. Her deep blue eyes were swimming with tears as she drew his head slowly towards her and kissed him gently on the lips. Then she let him go and turned off the light.

‘Good night, my dearest love,’ she said.

Bond bent and kissed her. He tasted the tears on her cheek.

He went to the door and looked back.

‘Sleep well, my darling,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, everything’s all right now.’

He closed the door softly and walked to his room with a full heart.

27 | THE BLEEDING HEART

The patron brought him the letter in the morning.

He burst into Bond’s room holding the envelope in front of him as if it was on fire.

‘There has been a terrible accident. Madame …’

Bond hurled himself out of bed and through the bathroom, but the communicating door was locked. He dashed back and through his room and down the corridor past a shrinking, terrified maid.

Vesper’s door was open. The sunlight through the shutters lit up the room. Only her black hair showed above the sheet and her body under the bedclothes was straight and moulded like a stone effigy on a tomb.

Bond fell on his knees beside her and drew back the sheet.

She was asleep. She must be. Her eyes were closed. There was no change in the dear face. She was just as she would look and yet, and yet she was so still, no movement, no pulse, no breath. That was it. There was no breath.

Later the patron came and touched him on the shoulder. He pointed at the empty glass on the table beside her. There were white dregs in the bottom of it. It stood beside her book and her cigarettes and matches and the small pathetic litter of her mirror and lipstick and handkerchief. And on the floor the empty bottle of sleeping pills, the pills Bond had seen in the bathroom that first evening.

Bond rose to his feet and shook himself. The patron was holding out the letter towards him. He took it.

‘Please notify the Commissaire,’ said Bond. ‘I will be in my room when he wants me.’

He walked blindly away without a backward glance.

He sat on the edge of his bed and gazed out of the window at the peaceful sea. Then he stared dully at the envelope. It was addressed simply in a large round hand ‘Pour Lui’.

The thought passed through Bond’s mind that she must have left orders to be called early, so that it would not be he who found her.

He turned the envelope over. Not long ago it was her warm tongue which had sealed the flap.

He gave a sudden shrug and opened it.

It was not long. After the first few words he read it quickly, the breath coming harshly through his nostrils.

Then he threw it down on the bed as if it had been a scorpion.

My darling James [the letter opened],

I love you with all my heart and while you read these words I hope you still love me because, now, with these words, this is the last moment that your love will last. So good-bye, my sweet love, while we still love each other. Good-bye, my darling.

I am an agent of the M.W.D. Yes, I am a double agent for the Russians. I was taken on a year after the war and I have worked for them ever since. I was in love with a Pole in the R.A.F. Until you, I still was. You can find out who he was. He had two D.S.O.s and after the war he was trained by M. and dropped back into Poland. They caught him and by torturing him they found out a lot and also about me. They came after me and told me he could live if I would work for them. He knew nothing of this, but he was allowed to write to me. The letter arrived on the fifteenth of each month. I found I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t bear the idea of a fifteenth coming round without his letter. It would mean that I had killed him. I tried to give them as little as possible. You must believe me about this. Then it came to you. I told them you had been given this job at Royale, what your cover was and so on. That was why they knew about you before you arrived and why they had time to put the microphones in. They suspected Le Chiffre, but they didn’t know what your assignment was except that it was something to do with him. That was all I told them.

Then I was told not to stand behind you in the Casino and to see that neither Mathis nor Leiter did. That was why the gunman was nearly able to shoot you. Then I had to stage that kidnapping. You may have wondered why I was so quiet in the night club. They didn’t hurt me because I was working for M.W.D.

But when I found out what had been done to you, even though it was Le Chiffre who did it and he turned out to be a traitor, I decided I couldn’t go on. By that time I had begun to fall in love with you. They wanted me to find out things from you while you were recovering, but I refused. I was controlled from Paris. I had to ring up an Invalides number twice a day. They threatened me, and finally they withdrew my control and I knew my lover in Poland would have to die. But they were afraid I would talk, I suppose, and I got a final warning that SMERSH would come for me if I didn’t obey them. I took no notice. I was in love with you. Then I saw the man with the black patch in the Splendide and I found he had been making inquiries about my movements. This was the day before we came down here. I hoped I could shake him off. I decided that we would have an affair and I would escape to South America from Le Havre. I hoped I would have a baby of yours and be able to start again somewhere. But they followed us. You can’t get away from them.

I knew it would be the end of our love if I told you. I realized that I could either wait to be killed by SMERSH, and perhaps get you killed too, or I could kill myself.

There it is, my darling love. You can’t stop me calling you that or saying that I love you. I am taking that with me and the memories of you.

I can’t tell you much to help you. The Paris number was Invalides 55200. I never met any of them in London. Everything was done through an accommodation address, a newsagents at 450 Charing Cross Place.

At our first dinner together you talked about that man in Yugoslavia who was found guilty of treason. He said: ‘I was carried away by the gale of the world.’ That’s my only excuse. That, and for love of the man whose life I tried to save.

It’s late now and I’m tired, and you’re just through two doors. But I’ve got to be brave. You might save my life, but I couldn’t bear the look in your dear eyes.

My love, my love.

Bond threw the letter down. Mechanically he brushed his fingers together. Suddenly he banged his temples with his fists and stood up. For a moment he looked out towards the quiet sea, then he cursed aloud, one harsh obscenity.

His eyes were wet and he dried them.

He pulled on a shirt and trousers and with a set cold face he walked down and shut himself in the telephone booth.

While he was getting through to London, he calmly reviewed the facts of Vesper’s letter. They all fitted. The little shadows and question marks of the past four weeks, which his instinct had noted but his mind rejected, all stood out now like signposts.

He saw her now only as a spy. Their love and his grief were relegated to the boxroom of his mind. Later, perhaps they would be dragged out, dispassionately examined, and then bitterly thrust back with other sentimental baggage he would rather forget. Now he could only think of her treachery to the Service and to her country and of the damage it had done. His professional mind was completely absorbed with the consequences – the covers which must have been blown over the years, the codes which the enemy must have broken, the secrets which must have leaked from the centre of the very section devoted to penetrating the Soviet Union.

It was ghastly. God knew how the mess would be cleared up.

He ground his teeth. Suddenly Mathis’s words came back to him: ‘There are plenty of really black targets around,’ and, earlier, ‘What about SMERSH? I don’t like the idea of these chaps running around France killing anyone they feel has been a traitor to their precious political system.’

Bond grinned bitterly to himself.

How soon Mathis had been proved right and how soon his own little sophistries had been exploded in his face!

While he, Bond, had been playing Red Indians through the years (yes, Le Chiffre’s description was perfectly accurate), the real enemy had been working quietly, coldly, without heroics, right there at his elbow.

He suddenly had a vision of Vesper walking down a corridor with documents in her hand. On a tray. They just got it on a tray while the cool secret agent with a Double O number was gallivanting round the world – playing Red Indians.

His finger nails dug into the palms of his hands and his body sweated with shame.

Well, it was not too late. Here was a target for him, right to hand. He would take on SMERSH and hunt it down. Without SMERSH, without this cold weapon of death and revenge, the M.W.D. would be just another bunch of civil servant spies, no better and no worse than any of the western services.

SMERSH was the spur. Be faithful, spy well, or you die. Inevitably and without any question, you will be hunted down and killed.

It was the same with the whole Russian machine. Fear was the impulse. For them it was always safer to advance than to retreat. Advance against the enemy and the bullet might miss you. Retreat, evade, betray, and the bullet would never miss.

But now he would attack the arm that held the whip and the gun. The business of espionage could be left to the white-collar boys. They could spy, and catch the spies. He would go after the threat behind the spies, the threat that made them spy.

The telephone rang and Bond snatched up the receiver.

He was on to ‘the Link’, the outside liaison officer who was the only man in London he might telephone from abroad. Then only in dire necessity.

He spoke quietly into the receiver.

‘This is 007 speaking. This is an open line. It’s an emergency. Can you hear me? Pass this on at once. 3030 was a double, working for Redland.

‘Yes, dammit, I said “was”. The bitch is dead now.’

THE END

LIVE AND LET DIE

 

Book 2

 

1 | THE RED CARPET

There are moments of great luxury in the life of a secret agent. There are assignments on which he is required to act the part of a very rich man; occasions when he takes refuge in good living to efface the memory of danger and the shadow of death; and times when, as was now the case, he is a guest in the territory of an allied Secret Service.

From the moment the B.O.A.C. Stratocruiser taxied up to the International Air Terminal at Idlewild, James Bond was treated like royalty.

When he left the aircraft with the other passengers he had resigned himself to the notorious purgatory of the U.S. Health, Immigration and Customs machinery. At least an hour, he thought, of overheated, drab-green rooms smelling of last year’s air and stale sweat and guilt and the fear that hangs round all frontiers, fear of those closed doors marked PRIVATE that hide the careful men, the files, the teleprinters chattering urgently to Washington, to the Bureau of Narcotics, Counter Espionage, the Treasury, the F.B.I.

As he walked across the tarmac in the bitter January wind he saw his own name going over the network: BOND, JAMES. BRITISH DIPLOMATIC PASSPORT 0094567, the short wait and the replies coming back on the different machines: NEGATIVE, NEGATIVE, NEGATIVE. And then, from the F.B.I: POSITIVE AWAIT CHECK. There would be some hasty traffic on the F.B.I. circuit with the Central Intelligence Agency and then: F.B.I. TO IDLEWILD: BOND OKAY OKAY, and the bland official out front would hand him back his passport with a ‘Hope you enjoy your stay, Mr Bond.’

Bond shrugged his shoulders and followed the other passengers through the wire fence towards the door marked U.S. HEALTH SERVICE.

In his case it was only a boring routine, of course, but he disliked the idea of his dossier being in the possession of any foreign power. Anonymity was the chief tool of his trade. Every thread of his real identity that went on record in any file diminished his value and, ultimately, was a threat to his life. Here in America, where they knew all about him, he felt like a negro whose shadow has been stolen by the witchdoctor. A vital part of himself was in pawn, in the hands of others. Friends, of course, in this instance, but still …

‘Mr Bond?’

A pleasant-looking nondescript man in plain clothes had stepped forward from the shadow of the Health Service building.

‘My name’s Halloran. Pleased to meet you!’

They shook hands.

‘Hope you had a pleasant trip. Would you follow me, please?’

He turned to the officer of the Airport police on guard at the door.

‘Okay, Sergeant.’

‘Okay, Mr Halloran. Be seeing you.’

The other passengers had passed inside. Halloran turned to the left, away from the building. Another policeman held open a small gate in the high boundary fence.

‘’Bye, Mr Halloran.’

‘’Bye, Officer. Thanks.’

Directly outside a black Buick waited, its engine sighing quietly. They climbed in. Bond’s two light suitcases were in front next to the driver. Bond couldn’t imagine how they had been extracted so quickly from the mound of passengers’ luggage he had seen only minutes before being trolleyed over to Customs.

‘Okay, Grady. Let’s go.’

Bond sank back luxuriously as the big limousine surged forward, slipping quickly into top through the Dynaflow gears.

He turned to Halloran.

‘Well, that’s certainly one of the reddest carpets I’ve ever seen. I expected to be at least an hour getting through Immigration. Who laid it on? I’m not used to V.I.P. treatment. Anyway, thanks very much for your part in it all.’

‘You’re very welcome, Mr Bond.’ Halloran smiled and offered him a cigarette from a fresh pack of Luckies. ‘We want to make your stay comfortable. Anything you want, just say so and it’s yours. You’ve got some good friends in Washington. I don’t myself know why you’re here but it seems the authorities are keen that you should be a privileged guest of the Government. It’s my job to see you get to your hotel as quickly and as comfortably as possible and then I’ll hand over and be on my way. May I have your passport a moment, please.’

Bond gave it to him. Halloran opened a brief-case on the seat beside him and took out a heavy metal stamp. He turned the pages of Bond’s passport until he came to the US Visa, stamped it, scribbled his signature over the dark blue circle of the Department of Justice cypher and gave it back to him. Then he took out his pocket-book and extracted a thick white envelope which he gave to Bond.

‘There’s a thousand dollars in there, Mr Bond.’ He held up his hand as Bond started to speak. ‘And it’s Communist money we took in the Schmidt-Kinaski haul. We’re using it back at them and you are asked to co-operate and spend this in any way you like on your present assignment. I am advised that it will be considered a very unfriendly act if you refuse. Let’s please say no more about it and,’ he added, as Bond continued to hold the envelope dubiously in his hand, ‘I am also to say that the disposal of this money through your hands has the knowledge and approval of your own Chief.’

Bond eyed him narrowly and then grinned. He put the envelope away in his notecase.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘And thanks. I’ll try and spend it where it does most harm. I’m glad to have some working capital. It’s certainly good to know it’s been provided by the opposition.’

‘Fine,’ said Halloran, ‘and now, if you’ll forgive me, I’ll just write up my notes for the report I’ll have to put in. Have to remember to get a letter of thanks sent to Immigration and Customs and so forth for their co-operation. Routine.’

‘Go ahead,’ said Bond. He was glad to keep silent and gaze out at his first sight of America since the war. It was no waste of time to start picking up the American idiom again: the advertisements, the new car models and the prices of second-hand ones in the used-car lots; the exotic pungency of the road signs: SOFT SHOULDERS – SHARP CURVES – SQUEEZE AHEAD – SLIPPERY WHEN WET; the standard of driving; the number of women at the wheel, their menfolk docilely beside them; the men’s clothes; the way the women were doing their hair; the Civil Defence warnings: IN CASE OF ENEMY ATTACK – KEEP MOVING – GET OFF BRIDGE; the thick rash of television aerials and the impact of TV on hoardings and shop windows; the occasional helicopter; the public appeals for cancer and polio funds: THE MARCH OF DIMES – all the small, fleeting impressions that were as important to his trade as are broken bark and bent twigs to the trapper in the jungle.

The driver chose the Triborough Bridge and they soared across the breath-taking span into the heart of up-town Manhattan, the beautiful prospect of New York hastening towards them until they were down amongst the hooting, teeming, petrol-smelling roots of the stressed-concrete jungle.

Bond turned to his companion.

‘I hate to say it,’ he said, ‘but this must be the fattest atomic bomb target on the whole face of the globe.’

‘Nothing to touch it,’ agreed Halloran. ‘Keeps me awake nights thinking what would happen.’

They drew up at the best hotel in New York, the St Regis, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 55th Street. A saturnine middle-aged man in a dark blue overcoat and black homburg came forward behind the commissionaire. On the sidewalk, Halloran introduced him.

‘Mr Bond, meet Captain Dexter.’ He was deferential. ‘Can I pass him along to you now, Captain?’

‘Sure, sure. Just have his bags sent up. Room 2100. Top floor. I’ll go ahead with Mr Bond and see he has everything he wants.’

Bond turned to say goodbye to Halloran and thank him. For a moment Halloran had his back to him as he said something about Bond’s luggage to the commissionaire. Bond looked past him across 55th Street. His eyes narrowed. A black sedan, a Chevrolet, was pulling sharply out into the thick traffic, right in front of a Checker cab that braked hard, its driver banging his fist down on the horn and holding it there. The sedan kept going, just caught the tail of the green light, and disappeared north up Fifth Avenue.

It was a smart, decisive bit of driving, but what startled Bond was that it had been a negress at the wheel, a fine-looking negress in a black chauffeur’s uniform, and through the rear window he had caught a glimpse of the single passenger – a huge grey-black face which had turned slowly towards him and looked directly back at him, Bond was sure of it, as the car accelerated towards the Avenue.

Bond shook Halloran by the hand. Dexter touched his elbow impatiently.

‘We’ll go straight in and through the lobby to the elevators. Half-right across the lobby. And would you please keep your hat on, Mr Bond.’

As Bond followed Dexter up the steps into the hotel he reflected that it was almost certainly too late for these precautions. Hardly anywhere in the world will you find a negress driving a car. A negress acting as a chauffeur is still more extraordinary. Barely conceivable even in Harlem, but that was certainly where the car was from.

And the giant shape in the back seat? That grey-black face? Mister Big?

‘Hm,’ said Bond to himself as he followed the slim back of Captain Dexter into the elevator.

The elevator slowed up for the twenty-first floor.

‘We’ve got a little surprise ready for you, Mr Bond,’ said Captain Dexter, without, Bond thought, much enthusiasm.

They walked down the corridor to the corner room.

The wind sighed outside the passage windows and Bond had a fleeting view of the tops of other skyscrapers and, beyond, the stark fingers of the trees in Central Park. He felt far out of touch with the ground and for a moment a strange feeling of loneliness and empty space gripped his heart.

Dexter unlocked the door of No. 2100 and shut it behind them. They were in a small lighted lobby. They left their hats and coats on a chair and Dexter opened the door in front of them and held it for Bond to go through.

He walked into an attractive sitting-room decorated in Third Avenue ‘Empire’ – comfortable chairs and a broad sofa in pale yellow silk, a fair copy of an Aubusson on the floor, pale grey walls and ceiling, a bow-fronted French sideboard with bottles and glasses and a plated ice-bucket, a wide window through which the winter sun poured out of a Swiss-clear sky. The central heating was just bearable.

The communicating door with the bedroom opened.

‘Arranging the flowers by your bed. Part of the famous C.I.A. “Service With a Smile”.’ The tall thin young man came forward with a wide grin, his hand outstretched, to where Bond stood rooted with astonishment.

‘Felix Leiter! What the hell are you doing here?’

Bond grasped the hard hand and shook it warmly. ‘And what the hell are you doing in my bedroom, anyway? God! it’s good to see you. Why aren’t you in Paris? Don’t tell me they’ve put you on this job?’

Leiter examined the Englishman affectionately.

‘You’ve said it. That’s just exactly what they have done. What a break! At least, it is for me. C.I.A. thought we did all right together on the Casino job¹ so they hauled me away from the Joint Intelligence chaps in Paris, put me through the works in Washington and here I am. I’m sort of liaison between the Central Intelligence Agency and our friends of the F.B.I.’ He waved towards Captain Dexter, who was watching this unprofessional ebullience without enthusiasm. ‘It’s their case, of course, at least the American end of it is, but as you know there are some big overseas angles which are C.I.A.’s territory, so we’re running it joint. Now you’re here to handle the Jamaican end for the British and the team’s complete. How does it look to you? Sit down and let’s have a drink. I ordered lunch directly I got the word you were downstairs and it’ll be on its way.’ He went over to the sideboard and started mixing a Martini.

‘Well, I’m damned,’ said Bond. ‘Of course that old devil M never told me. He just gives one the facts. Never tells one any good news. I suppose he thinks it might influence one’s decision to take a case or not. Anyway, it’s grand.’

Bond suddenly felt the silence of Captain Dexter. He turned to him.

‘I shall be very glad to be under your orders here, Captain,’ he said tactfully. ‘As I understand it, the case breaks pretty neatly into two halves. The first half lies wholly on American territory. Your jurisdiction, of course. Then it looks as if we shall have to follow it into the Caribbean. Jamaica. And I understand I am to take over outside United States territorial waters. Felix here will marry up the two halves so far as your government is concerned. I shall report to London through C.I.A. while I’m here, and direct to London, keeping C.I.A. informed, when I move to the Caribbean. Is that how you see it?’

Dexter smiled thinly. ‘That’s just about it, Mr Bond. Mr Hoover instructs me to say that he’s very pleased to have you along. As our guest,’ he added. ‘Naturally we are not in any way concerned with the British end of the case and we’re very happy that C.I.A. will be handling that with you and your people in London. Guess everything should go fine. Here’s luck,’ and he lifted the cocktail Leiter had put into his hand.

They drank the cold hard drink appreciatively, Leiter with a faintly quizzical expression on his hawk-like face.

There was a knock on the door. Leiter opened it to let in the bellboy with Bond’s suitcases. He was followed by two waiters pushing trolleys loaded with covered dishes, cutlery and snow-white linen, which they proceeded to lay out on a folding table.

‘Soft-shell crabs with tartare sauce, flat beef Hamburgers, medium-rare, from the charcoal grill, french-fried potatoes, broccoli, mixed salad with thousand-island dressing, ice-cream with melted butterscotch and as good a Liebfraumilch as you can get in America. Okay?’

‘It sounds fine,’ said Bond with a mental reservation about the melted butterscotch.

They sat down and ate steadily through each delicious course of American cooking at its rare best.

They said little, and it was only when the coffee had been brought and the table cleared away that Captain Dexter took the fifty-cent cigar from his mouth and cleared his throat decisively.

‘Mr Bond,’ he said, ‘now perhaps you would tell us what you know about this case.’

Bond slit open a fresh pack of King Size Chesterfields with his thumb-nail and, as he settled back in his comfortable chair in the warm luxurious room, his mind went back two weeks to the bitter raw day in early January when he had walked out of his Chelsea flat into the dreary half-light of a London fog.

________

1 This terrifying gambling case is described in the author’s Casino Royale.