Текст книги "The James Bond Anthology"

Автор книги: Ian Fleming

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Текущая страница: 36 (всего у книги 190 страниц)

The deep note of his two-inch exhaust thundered back at him from the houses on either side and his tyres screamed on the tarmac. He thanked heavens for the new set of racing Michelins that were only a week old. If only the lights would be kind. He seemed to be getting nothing but amber and red while Drax was always being swept on by the green. Chelsea Bridge. So it did look like the Dover road by the South Circular! Could he hope to keep up with the Mercedes on A20? Drax had two passengers. His car might not be tuned. But with that independent springing he could corner better than Bond. The old Bentley was a bit high off the ground for this sort of work. Bond stamped on his brakes and risked a howl on his triple klaxons as a homeward-bound taxi started to weave over to the right. It jerked back to the left and Bond heard a four-letter yell as he shot past.

Clapham Common and the flicker of the white car through the trees. Bond ran the Bentley up to eighty along the safe bit of road and saw the lights go red just in time to stop Drax at the end of it. He put the Bentley into neutral and coasted up silently. Fifty yards away. Forty, thirty, twenty. The lights changed and Drax was over the crossing and away again, but not before Bond had seen that Krebs was beside the driver and there was no sign of Gala except the hump of a rug over the narrow back seat.

So there was no question. You don’t take a sick girl for a drive like a sack of potatoes. Not at that speed for the matter of that. So she was a prisoner. Why? What had she done? What had she discovered? What the hell, in fact, was all this about?

Each dark conjecture came and for a moment settled like a vulture on Bond’s shoulder and croaked into his ear that he had been a blind fool. Blind, blind, blind. From the moment he had sat in his office after the night at Blades and made his mind up about Drax being a dangerous man he should have been on his toes. At the first smell of trouble, the marks on the chart for instance, he should have taken action. But what action? He had passed on each clue, each fear. What could he have done except kill Drax? And get hanged for his pains? Well, then. What about the present? Should he stop and telephone the Yard? And let the car get away? For all he knew Gala was being taken for a ride and Drax planned to get rid of her on the way to Dover. And that Bond might conceivably prevent if only his car could take it.

As if to echo his thoughts the tortured rubber screamed as he left the South Circular road into the A20 and took the roundabout at forty. No. He had told M. that he would stay with it. He had told Vallance the same. The case had been dumped firmly into his lap and he must do what he could. At least if he kept up with the Mercedes he might shoot up its tyres and apologize afterwards. To let it get away would be criminal.

So be it, said Bond to himself.

He had to slow for some lights and he used the pause to pull a pair of goggles out of the dashboard compartment and cover his eyes with them. Then he leant over to the left and twisted the big screw on the windscreen and then eased the one beside his right hand. He pressed the narrow screen flat down on the bonnet and tightened the screws again.

Then he accelerated away from Swanley Junction and was soon doing ninety astride the cats’ eyes down the Farningham by-pass, the wind howling past his ears and the shrill scream of his supercharger riding with him for company.

A mile ahead the great eyes of the Mercedes hooded themselves as they went over the crest of Wrotham Hill and disappeared down into the moonlit panorama of the Weald of Kent.

20 | DRAX’S GAMBIT

There were three separate sources of pain in Gala’s body. The throbbing ache behind her left ear, the bite of the flex at her wrists, and the chafing of the strap round her ankles.

Every bump in the road, every swerve, every sudden pressure of Drax’s foot on the brakes or the accelerator awoke one or another of these pains and rasped at her nerves. If only she had been wedged into the back seat more tightly. But there was just room enough for her body to roll a few inches on the occasional seat so that she was constantly having to twist her bruised face away from contact with the walls of shiny pig-skin.

The air she breathed was stuffy with a smell of new leather upholstery, exhaust fumes, and the occasional sharp stench of burning rubber as Drax flayed the tyres on a sharp corner.

And yet the discomfort and pain were nothing.

Krebs! Curiously enough her fear and loathing of Krebs tormented her most. The other things were too big. The mystery of Drax and his hatred of England. The riddle of his perfect command of German. The Moonraker. The secret of the atomic warhead. How to save London. These were matters which she had long ago put away in the back of her mind as insoluble.

But the afternoon alone with Krebs was present and dreadful and her mind went back and back to the details of it like a tongue to an aching tooth.

Long after Drax had gone she had kept up her pretence of unconsciousness. At first Krebs had occupied himself with the machines, talking to them in German in a cooing baby-talk. ‘There, my Liebchen. That’s better now, isn’t it? A drop of oil for you, my Pupperl. But certainly. Coming up at once. No, no, lazybones. I said a thousand revolutions. Not nine hundred. Come along now. We can do better than that, can’t we. Yes, my Schatz. That’s it. Round and round we go. Up and down. Round and round. Let me wipe your pretty face for you so that we can see what the little dial is saying. Jesu Maria, bist du ein braves Kind!’

And so it had gone on with intervals of standing in front of Gala, picking his nose and sucking his teeth in a horribly ruminative way. Until he stayed longer and longer in front of her, forgetting the machines, wondering, making up his mind.

And then she had felt his hand undo the top button of her dress and the automatic recoil of her body had had to be covered by a realistic groan and a pantomime of consciousness returning.

She had asked for water and he had gone into a bathroom and fetched some for her in a toothglass. Then he had pulled a kitchen chair up in front of her and had sat down astride it, his chin resting on the top rail of its back, and had gazed at her speculatively from under his pale drooping lids.

She had been the first to break the silence. ‘Why have I been brought here?’ she asked. ‘What are all those machines?’

He licked his lips and the little pouting red mouth opened under the smudge of yellow moustache and formed itself slowly into a rhomboid-shaped smile. ‘That is a lure for little birds,’ he said. ‘Soon it will lure a little bird into this warm nest. Then the little bird will lay an egg. Oh, such a big round egg! Such a beautiful fat egg.’ The lower half of his face giggled with delight while his eyes mooned. ‘And the pretty girl is here because otherwise she might frighten the little bird away. And that would be so sad, wouldn’t it,’ he spat out the next three words, ‘filthy English bitch?’

His eyes became intent and purposeful. He hitched his chair nearer so that his face was only a foot away from hers and she was enveloped in the miasma of his breath. ‘Now, English bitch. Who are you working for?’ He waited. ‘You must answer me, you know,’ he said softly. ‘We are all alone here. There is no one to hear you scream.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Gala desperately. ‘How could I be working for anyone except Sir Hugo?’ (Krebs smiled at the name.) ‘I was just curious about the flight plan … ’ she went into a rambling explanation about her figures and Drax’s figures and how she had wanted to share in the success of the Moonraker.

‘Try again,’ whispered Krebs when she had finished. ‘You must do better than that,’ and suddenly his eyes had turned hot with cruelty and his hands had reached towards her from behind the back of his chair …

In the rear of the hurtling Mercedes Gala ground her teeth together and whimpered at the memory of the soft crawling fingers on her body, probing, pinching, pulling, while all the time the hot vacant eyes gazed curiously into hers until finally she gathered the saliva in her mouth and spat full in his face.

He hadn’t even paused to wipe his face, but suddenly he had really hurt her and she had screamed once and then mercifully fainted.

And then she had found herself being pushed into the back of the car, a rug was thrown over her, and they were hurtling through the streets of London and she could hear other cars near them, the frantic ringing of a bicycle bell, an occasional shout, the animal growl of an old klaxon, the whirring putter of a motor-scooter, a scream of brakes, and she had realized that she was back in the real world, that English people, friends, were all around her. She had struggled to get to her knees and scream, but Krebs must have felt her movement because his hands were suddenly at her ankles, strapping them to the foot-rail along the floor, and she knew that she was lost and suddenly the tears were pouring down her cheeks and she was praying that somehow, somebody would be in time.

That had been less than an hour ago and now she could tell from the slow pace of the car and the noise of other traffic that they had reached a large town – Maidstone if she was being taken back to the site.

In the comparative silence of their progress through the town she suddenly heard Krebs’s voice. There was a note of urgency in it.

‘Mein Kapitän,’ he said. ‘I have been watching a car for some time. It is certainly following us. It has seldom been using its lights. It is only a hundred metres behind us now. I think it is the car of Commander Bond.’

Drax grunted with surprise and she could hear his big body shift round to get a quick look.

He swore sharply and then there was silence and she could feel the big car weaving and straining in the thin traffic. ‘Ja, sowas!’ said Drax finally. His voice was thoughtful. ‘So that old museum-piece of his can still move. So much the better, my dear Krebs. He seems to be alone.’ He laughed harshly. ‘So we will give him a run for his money and if he survives it we will get him in the bag with the woman. Turn on the radio. Home Service. We will soon find out if there is a hitch.’

There was a short crackle of static and then Gala could hear the voice of the Prime Minister, the voice of all the great occasions in her life, coming through in broken fragments as Drax put the car into third and accelerated out of the town, ‘ … weapon devised by the ingenuity of man … a thousand miles into the firmament … area patrolled by Her Majesty’s ships … designed exclusively for the defence of our beloved island … a long era of peace … development for Man’s great journey away from the confines of this planet … Sir Hugo Drax, that great patriot and benefactor of our country … ’

Gala heard Drax’s roar of laughter above the howling of the wind, a great scornful bray of triumph, and then the set was switched off.

‘James,’ whispered Gala to herself. ‘There’s only you left. Be careful. But make haste.’

Bond’s face was a mask of dust and filthy with the blood of flies and moths that had smashed against it. Often he had had to take a cramped hand off the wheel to clear his goggles but the Bentley was going beautifully and he felt sure of holding the Mercedes.

He was touching ninety-five on the straight just before the entrance to Leeds Castle when great lights were suddenly switched on behind him and a four-tone wind-horn sounded its impudent ‘pom-pim-pom-pam’ almost in his ear.

The apparition of a third car in the race was almost unbelievable. Bond had hardly troubled to look in his driving-mirror since he left London. No one but a racing-driver or a desperate man could have kept up with them, and his mind was in a turmoil as he automatically pulled over to the left and saw out of the corner of his eye a low, fire-engine-red car come up level with him and draw away with a good ten miles an hour extra on its clock.

He caught a glimpse of the famous Alfa radiator and along the edge of the bonnet in bold white script the words ‘Attaboy II’. Then there was the grinning face of a youth in shirt-sleeves who stuck two rude fingers in the air before he pulled away in the welter of sound which an Alfa at speed compounds from the whine of its supercharger, the Gatling crackle of its exhaust, and the thunderous howl of its transmission.

Bond grinned in admiration as he raised a hand to the driver. Alfa-Romeo supercharged straight-eight, he thought to himself. Must be nearly as old as mine. ’Thirty-two or ’33 probably. And only half my c.c. Targa Florio in 1931 and did well everywhere after that. Probably a hot-rod type from one of the R.A.F. stations round here. Trying to get back from a party in time to sign in before he’s put on the report. He watched affectionately as the Alfa wagged its tail in the S-bend abreast of Leeds Castle and then howled off on the long wide road towards the distant Charingfork.

Bond could imagine the grin of delight as the boy came up with Drax. ‘Oh, boy. It’s a Merc!’ And the rage of Drax at the impudent music of the windhorn. Must be doing 105, reflected Bond. Hope the damn fool doesn’t run out of road. He watched the two sets of tail lights closing up, the boy in the Alfa preparing for his trick of coming up behind and suddenly switching everything on when he could see a chance to get by.

There. Four hundred yards away the Mercedes showed white in the sudden twin shafts from the Alfa. There was a mile of clear road ahead, straight as a die. Bond could almost feel the boy’s feet stamping the pedal still further into the floorboards. Attaboy!

Up front in the Mercedes Krebs had his mouth close to Drax’s ear. ‘Another of them,’ he shouted urgently. ‘Can’t see his face. Coming up to pass now.’

Drax let out a harsh obscenity. His bared teeth showed white in the pale glimmer from the dashboard. ‘Teach the swine a lesson,’ he said, setting his shoulders and gripping the wheel tightly in the great leather gauntlets. Out of the corner of his eye he watched the nose of the Alfa creep up to starboard. ‘Pom-pim-pom-pam’ chirped the windhorn, softly, delicately, Drax inched the wheel of the Mercedes to the right and, at the horrible crash of metal, whipped it back again to correct the slew of his tail.

‘Bravo! Bravo!’ screamed Krebs, beside himself with excitement as he knelt on the seat and looked back. ‘Double somersault. Jumped the hedge upside down. I think he’s burning already. Yes. There are flames.’

‘That’ll give our fine Mister Bond something to think about,’ snarled Drax, breathing heavily.

But Bond, his face a tight mask, had hardly checked his speed and there was nothing but revenge in his mind as he hurtled on after the flying Mercedes.

He had seen it all. The grotesque flight of the red car as it turned over and over, the flying figure of the driver, his arms and legs spreadeagled as he soared out of the driving seat, and the final thunder as the car hurdled the hedge upside down and crashed into the field.

As he flashed by, noting the horrible graffiti of the black skid-marks across the tarmac, his mind recorded one final macabre touch. Somehow undamaged in the holocaust, the windhorn was still making contact and its ululations were going on up to the sky, stridently clearing imaginary roads for the passage of Attaboy II–‘Pom-pim-pom-pam.’ ‘Pom-pim-pom-pam … ’

So a murder had taken place in front of his eyes. Or at any rate an attempted murder. So, whatever his motives, Sir Hugo Drax had declared war and didn’t mind Bond knowing it. This made a lot of things easier. It meant that Drax was a criminal and probably a maniac. Above all it meant certain danger for the Moonraker. That was enough for Bond. He reached under the dashboard and from its concealed holster drew out the long-barrelled .45 Colt Army Special and laid it on the seat beside him. The battle was now in the open and somehow the Mercedes must be stopped.

Using the road as if it was Donington, Bond rammed his foot down and kept it there. Gradually, with the needle twitching either side of the hundred mark he began to narrow the gap.

Drax took the left-hand fork at Charing and hissed up the long hill. Ahead, in the giant beam of his headlights, one of Bowaters’ huge eight-wheeled A.E.C. Diesel carriers was just grinding into the first bend of the hairpin, labouring under the fourteen tons of newsprint it was taking on a night run to one of the East Kent newspapers.

Drax cursed under his breath as he saw the long carrier with the twenty gigantic rolls, each containing five miles of newsprint, roped to its platform. Right in the middle of the tricky S-bend at the top of the hill.

He looked in the driving mirror and saw the Bentley coming into the fork.

And then Drax had his idea.

‘Krebs,’ the word was a pistol shot. ‘Get out your knife.’

There was a sharp click and the stiletto was in Krebs’s hand. One didn’t dawdle when there was that note in the master’s voice.

‘I am going to slow down behind this lorry. Take your shoes and socks off and climb out on to the bonnet and when I come up behind the lorry jump on to it. I shall be going at walking-pace. It will be safe. Cut the ropes that hold the rolls of paper. The left ones first. Then the right. I shall have pulled up level with the lorry and when you have cut the second lot jump into the car. Be careful you are not swept off with the paper. Verstanden? Also. Hals und Beinbruch!’

Drax dowsed his headlights and swept round the bend at eighty. The lorry was twenty yards ahead and Drax had to brake hard to avoid crashing into its tail.

The Mercedes executed a dry skid until its radiator was almost underneath the platform of the carrier.

Drax changed down to second. ‘Now!’ He held the car steady as a rock as Krebs, with bare feet, went over the windscreen and scrambled along the shining bonnet, his knife in his hand.

With a leap he was up and hacking at the left-hand ropes. Drax pulled away to the right and crawled up level with the rear wheels of the Diesel, the oily smoke from its exhaust in his eyes and nostrils.

Bond’s lights were just showing round the bend.

There was a series of huge thuds as the left-hand rolls poured off the back of the lorry into the road and went hurtling off into the darkness. And more thuds as the right-hand ropes parted. One roll burst as it landed and Drax heard a tearing rattle as the unwinding paper crashed back down the one-in-ten gradient.

Released of its load the lorry almost bounded forward and Drax had to accelerate a little to catch the flying figure of Krebs who landed half across Gala’s back and half in the front seat. Drax stamped his foot into the floor and sped off up the hill, ignoring a shout from the lorry-driver above the clatter of the Diesel pistons as he shot ahead.

As he hurtled round the next bend he saw the shaft of two headlights curve up into the sky above the tops of the trees until they were almost vertical. They wavered there for an instant and then the beams whirled away across the sky and went out.

A great barking laugh broke out of Drax as for a split second he took his eyes off the road and raised his face triumphantly towards the stars.

21 | ‘THE PERSUADER’

Krebs echoed the maniac laugh with a high giggle. ‘A master-stroke, mein Kapitän. You should have seen them charge off down the hill. The one that burst. Wunderschön! Like the lavatory paper of a giant. That one will have made a pretty parcel of him. He was just coming round the bend. And the second salvo was as good as the first. Did you see the driver’s face? Zum Kotzen! And the Firma Bowater! A fine paperchase they have got on their hands.’

‘You did well,’ said Drax briefly, his mind elsewhere. Suddenly he pulled into the side of the road with a scream of protest from the tyres.

‘Donnerwetter,’ he said angrily, as he started to turn the car. ‘But we can’t leave the man there. We must get him.’ The car was already hissing back down the road. ‘Gun,’ ordered Drax briefly.

They passed the lorry at the top of the hill. It was stopped and there was no sign of the driver. Probably telephoning to the company, thought Drax, slowing up as they went round the first bend. There were lights on in the two or three houses and a group of people were standing round one of the rolls of newsprint that lay amongst the ruins of their front gate. There were more rolls in the hedge on the right side of the road. On the left a telegraph pole leant drunkenly, snapped in the middle. Then at the next bend was the beginning of a great confusion of paper stretching away down the long hill, festooning the hedges and the road like the sweepings of some elephantine fancy-dress ball.

The Bentley had nearly broken through the railings that fenced off the right of the bend from a steep bank. Amidst a puzzle of twisted iron stanchions it hung, nose down, with one wheel, still attached to the broken back axle, poised crookedly over its rump like a surrealist umbrella.

Drax pulled up and he and Krebs got out and stood quietly, listening.

There was no sound except the distant rumination of a car travelling fast on the Ashford road and the chirrup of a sleepless cricket.

With their guns out they walked cautiously over to the remains of the Bentley, their feet crunching the broken glass on the road. Deep furrows had been cut across the grass verge and there was a strong smell of petrol and burnt rubber in the air. The hot metal of the car ticked and crackled softly and steam was still fountaining from the shattered radiator.

Bond was lying face downwards at the bottom of the bank twenty feet away from the car. Krebs turned him over. His face was covered with blood but he was breathing. They searched him thoroughly and Drax pocketed the slim Beretta. Then together they hauled him across the road and wedged him into the back seat of the Mercedes, half on top of Gala.

When she realized who it was she gave a cry of horror.

‘Halt’s Maul,’ snarled Drax. He got into the front seat and while he turned the car Krebs leant over from the front seat and busied himself with a long piece of flex. ‘Make a good job of it,’ said Drax. ‘I don’t want any mistakes.’ He had an afterthought. ‘And then go back to the wreck and get the number plates. Hurry. I will watch the road.’

Krebs pulled the rug over the two inert bodies and jumped out of the car. Using his knife as a screwdriver he was soon back with the plates, and the big car started to move just as a group of the local residents appeared walking nervously down the hill shining their torches over the scene of devastation.

Krebs grinned happily to himself at the thought of the stupid English having to clean up all this mess. He settled himself back to enjoy the part of the drive he had always liked best, the spring woods full of bluebells and celandines on the way to Chilham.

They had made him particularly happy at night. Lit up amongst the green torches of the young trees by the great headlamps of the Mercedes, they made him think of the beautiful forests of the Ardennes and of the devoted little band with which he had served, and of driving along in a captured American jeep with, just like tonight, his adored leader at the wheel. Der Tag had been a long time coming, but now it was here. With young Krebs in the van. At last the cheering crowds, the medals, the women, the flowers. He gazed out at the fleeting hosts of bluebells and felt warm and happy.

Gala could taste Bond’s blood. His face was beside hers on the leather seat and she shifted to give him more room. His breathing was heavy and irregular and she wondered how badly he was hurt. Tentatively she whispered into his ear. And then louder. He groaned and his breath came faster.

‘James,’ she whispered urgently. ‘James.’

He mumbled something and she pushed hard against him.

He uttered a string of obscenities and his body heaved.

He lay still again and she could almost feel him exploring his sensations.

‘It’s me, Gala.’ She felt him stiffen.

‘Christ,’ he said. ‘Hell of a mess.’

‘Are you all right? Is anything broken?’

She felt him tense his arms and legs. ‘Seems all right,’ he said. ‘Crack on the head. Am I talking sense?’

‘Of course,’ said Gala. ‘Now listen.’

Hurriedly she told him all she knew, beginning with the notebook.

His body was as rigid as a board against her, and he hardly breathed as he listened to the incredible story.

Then they were running into Canterbury and Bond put his mouth to her ear. ‘Going to try and chuck myself over the back,’ he whispered. ‘Get to a telephone. Only hope.’

He started to heave himself up on his knees, his weight almost grinding the breath out of the girl.

There was a sharp crack and he fell back on top of her.

‘Another move out of you and you’re dead,’ said the voice of Krebs coming softly between the front seats.

Only another twenty minutes to the site! Gala gritted her teeth and set about bringing Bond back to consciousness again.

She had only just succeeded when the car drew up at the door of the launching-dome and Krebs, a gun in his hand, was undoing the bonds round their ankles.

They had a glimpse of the familiar moonlit cement and of the semi-circle of guards some distance away before they were hustled through the door and, when their shoes had been torn off by Krebs, out on to the iron catwalk inside the launching-dome.

There the gleaming rocket stood, beautiful, innocent, like a new toy for Cyclops.

But there was a horrible smell of chemicals in the air and to Bond the Moonraker was a giant hypodermic needle ready to be plunged into the heart of England. Despite a growl from Krebs he paused on the stairway and looked up at its glittering nose. A million deaths. A million. A million. A million.

On his hands? For God’s sake! On HIS hands?

With Krebs’s gun prodding him, he went slowly down the steps on the heels of Gala.

As he turned through the doors of Drax’s office, he pulled himself together. Suddenly his mind was clear and all the lethargy and pain had left his body. Something, anything, must be done. Somehow he would find a way. His whole body and mind became focused and sharp as a blade. His eyes were alive again and defeat sloughed off him like the skin of a snake.

Drax had gone ahead and was sitting at his desk. He had a Luger in his hand. It was pointing at a spot halfway between Bond and Gala and it was steady as a rock.

Behind him, Bond heard the double doors thud shut.

‘I was one of the best shots in the Brandenburg Division,’ said Drax conversationally. ‘Tie her to that chair, Krebs. Then the man.’

Gala looked desperately at Bond.

‘You won’t shoot,’ said Bond. ‘You’d be afraid of touching off the fuel.’ He walked slowly towards the desk.

Drax smiled cheerfully and looked along the barrel at Bond’s stomach. ‘Your memory is bad, Englishman,’ he said flatly. ‘I told you this room is cut off from the shaft by the double doors. Another step and you will have no stomach.’

Bond looked at the confident, narrowed eyes and stopped.

‘Go ahead, Krebs.’

When they were both tied securely and painfully to the arms and legs of two tubular steel chairs a few feet apart beneath the glass wall map, Krebs left the room. He came back in a moment with a mechanic’s blowtorch.

He set the ugly machine on the desk, pumped air into it with a few brisk strokes of the plunger, and set a match to it. A blue flame hissed out a couple of inches into the room. He picked up the instrument and walked towards Gala. He stopped a few feet to one side of her.

‘Now then,’ said Drax grimly. ‘Let’s get this over without any fuss. The good Krebs is an artist with one of those things. We used to call him “Der Zwangsmann – The Persuader”. I shall never forget the way he went over the last spy we caught together. Just south of the Rhine, wasn’t it, Krebs?’

Bond pricked up his ears.

‘Yes, mein Kapitän,’ Krebs chuckled reminiscently. ‘It was a pig of a Belgian.’

‘All right then,’ said Drax. ‘Just remember, you two. There’s no fair play down here. No jolly good sports and all that. This is business.’ The voice cracked like a whip on the word. ‘You,’ he looked at Gala Brand, ‘who are you working for?’

Gala was silent.

‘Anywhere you like, Krebs.’

Krebs’s mouth was half open. His tongue ran up and down his lower lip. He seemed to be having difficulty with his breathing as he took a step towards the girl.

The little flame roared greedily.

‘Stop,’ said Bond coldly. ‘She works for Scotland Yard. So do I.’ These things were pointless now. They were of no conceivable use to Drax. In any case, by tomorrow afternoon there might be no Scotland Yard.

‘That’s better,’ said Drax. ‘Now, does anybody know you are prisoners? Did you stop and telephone anyone?’

If I say yes, thought Bond, he will shoot us both and get rid of the bodies and the last chance of stopping the Moonraker will be gone. And if the Yard knows, why aren’t they here already? No. Our chance may come. The Bentley will be found. Vallance may get worried when he doesn’t hear from me.

‘No,’ he said. ‘If I had, they’d be here by now.’

‘True,’ said Drax reflectively. ‘In that case I am no longer interested in you and I congratulate you on making the interview so harmonious. It might have been more difficult if you had been alone. A girl is always useful on these occasions. Krebs, put that down. You may go. Tell the others what is necessary. They will be wondering. I shall entertain our guests for a while and then I shall come up to the house. See the car gets properly washed down. The back seat. And get rid of the marks on the right-hand side. Tell them to take the whole panel off if necessary. Or they can set fire to the dam’ thing. We shan’t be needing it any more,’ he laughed abruptly. ‘Verstanden?’

‘Yes, mein Kapitän.’ Krebs reluctantly placed the softly roaring blowtorch on the desk beside Drax. ‘In case you need it,’ he said, looking hopefully at Gala and Bond. He went out through the double doors.