Текст книги "The James Bond Anthology"

Автор книги: Ian Fleming

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 88 (всего у книги 190 страниц)

4 | OVER THE BARREL

After luncheon – the traditional shrimp cocktail, ‘native’ snapper with a minute paper cup of tartare sauce, roast prime ribs of beef au jus, and pineapple surprise – it was time for the siesta before meeting Goldfinger at three o’clock for the afternoon session.

Mr Du Pont, who had lost a further ten thousand dollars or more, confirmed that Goldfinger had a secretary. ‘Never seen her. Sticks to the suite. Probably just some chorine he’s brought down for the ride.’ He smiled wetly. ‘I mean the daily ride. Why? You on to something?’

Bond was non-committal. ‘Can’t tell yet. I probably won’t be coming down this afternoon. Say I got bored watching – gone into the town.’ He paused. ‘But if my idea’s right, don’t be surprised at what may happen. If Goldfinger starts to behave oddly, just sit quiet and watch. I’m not promising anything. I think I’ve got him, but I may be wrong.’

Mr Du Pont was enthusiastic. ‘Good for you, boyo!’ he said effusively. ‘I just can’t wait to see that bastard over the barrel. Damn his eyes!’

Bond took the elevator up to his suite. He went to his suitcase and extracted an M3 Leica, an MC exposure meter, a K2 filter and a flash-holder. He put a bulb in the holder and checked the camera. He went to his balcony, glanced at the sun to estimate where it would be at about three-thirty and went back into the sitting-room, leaving the door to the balcony open. He stood at the balcony door and aimed the exposure meter. The exposure was one-hundredth of a second. He set this on the Leica, put the shutter at f 11, and the distance at twelve feet. He clipped on a lens hood and took one picture to see that all was working. Then he wound on the film, slipped in the flash-holder and put the camera aside.

Bond went to his suitcase again and took out a thick book – The Bible Designed to be Read as Literature – opened it and extracted his Walther PPK in the Berns Martin holster. He slipped the holster inside his trouser band to the left. He tried one or two quick draws. They were satisfactory. He closely examined the geography of his suite, on the assumption that it would be exactly similar to the Hawaii. He visualized the scene that would almost certainly greet him when he came through the door of the suite downstairs. He tried his pass-key in the various locks and practised opening the doors noiselessly. Then he pulled a comfortable chair in front of the open balcony door and sat and smoked a cigarette while he gazed out across the sea and thought of how he would put things to Goldfinger when the time came.

At three-fifteen, Bond got up and went out on to the balcony and cautiously looked down at the two tiny figures across the square of green baize. He went back into the room and checked the exposure meter on the Leica. The light was the same. He slipped on the coat of his dark blue tropical worsted suit, straightened his tie and slung the strap of the Leica round his neck so that the camera hung at his chest. Then, with a last look round, he went out and along to the elevator. He rode down to the ground floor and examined the shop windows in the foyer. When the elevator had gone up again, he walked to the staircase and slowly climbed up two floors. The geography of the second floor was identical with the twelfth. Room 200 was where he had expected it to be. There was no one in sight. He took out his pass-key and silently opened the door and closed it behind him. In the small lobby, a raincoat, a light camel-hair coat and a pale grey Homburg hung on hooks. Bond took his Leica firmly in his right hand, held it up close to his face and gently tried the door to the sitting-room. It was not locked. Bond eased it open.

Even before he could see what he expected to see he could hear the voice. It was a low, attractive, girl’s voice, an English voice. It was saying, ‘Drew five and four. Completed canasta in fives with two twos. Discarding four. Has singletons in kings, knaves, nines, sevens.’

Bond slid into the room.

The girl was sitting on two cushions on top of a table which had been pulled up a yard inside the open balcony door. She had needed the cushions to give her height. It was at the top of the afternoon heat and she was naked except for a black brassière and black silk briefs. She was swinging her legs in a bored fashion. She had just finished painting the nails on her left hand. Now she stretched the hand out in front of her to examine the effect. She brought the hand back close to her lips and blew on the nails. Her right hand reached sideways and put the brush back in the Revlon bottle on the table beside her. A few inches from her eyes were the eyepieces of a powerful-looking pair of binoculars supported on a tripod whose feet reached down between her sunburned legs to the floor. Jutting out from below the binoculars was a microphone from which wires led to a box about the size of a portable record player under the table. Other wires ran from the box to a gleaming indoor aerial on the sideboard against the wall.

The briefs tightened as she leant forward again and put her eyes to the binoculars. ‘Drew a queen and a king. Meld of queens. Can meld kings with a joker. Discarding seven.’ She switched off the microphone.

While she was concentrating, Bond stepped swiftly across the floor until he was almost behind her. There was a chair. He stood on it, praying it wouldn’t squeak. Now he had the height to get the whole scene in focus. He put his eye to the viewfinder. Yes, there it was, all in line, the girl’s head, the edge of the binoculars, the microphone and, twenty yards below, the two men at the table with Mr Du Pont’s hand of cards held in front of him. Bond could distinguish the reds and the blacks. He pressed the button.

The sharp explosion of the bulb and the blinding flash of light forced a quick scream out of the girl. She swivelled round.

Bond stepped down off the chair. ‘Good afternoon.’

‘Whoryou? Whatyouwant?’ The girl’s hand was up to her mouth. Her eyes screamed at him.

‘I’ve got what I want. Don’t worry. It’s all over now. And my name’s Bond, James Bond.’

Bond put his camera carefully down on the chair and came and stood in the radius of her scent. She was very beautiful. She had the palest blonde hair. It fell heavily to her shoulders, unfashionably long. Her eyes were deep blue against a lightly sunburned skin and her mouth was bold and generous and would have a lovely smile.

She stood up and took her hand away from her mouth. She was tall, perhaps five feet ten, and her arms and legs looked firm as if she might be a swimmer. Her breasts thrust against the black silk of the brassière.

Some of the fear had gone out of her eyes. She said in a low voice, ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Nothing to you. I may tease Goldfinger a bit. Move over like a good girl and let me have a look.’

Bond took the girl’s place and looked through the glasses. The game was going on normally. Goldfinger showed no sign that his communications had broken down.

‘Doesn’t he mind not getting the signals? Will he stop playing?’

She said hesitatingly, ‘It’s happened before when a plug pulled or something. He just waits for me to come through again.’

Bond smiled at her. ‘Well, let’s let him stew for a bit. Have a cigarette and relax.’ He held out a packet of Chesterfields. She took one. ‘Anyway it’s time you did the nails on your right hand.’

A smile flickered across her mouth. ‘How long were you there? You gave me a frightful shock.’

‘Not long, and I’m sorry about the shock. Goldfinger’s been giving poor old Mr Du Pont shocks for a whole week.’

‘Yes,’ she said doubtfully. ‘I suppose it’s really rather mean. But he’s very rich, isn’t he?’

‘Oh yes. I shouldn’t lose any sleep over Mr Du Pont. But Goldfinger might choose someone who can’t afford it. Anyway, he’s a zillionaire himself. Why does he do it? He’s crawling with money.’

Animation flooded back into her face. ‘I know. I simply can’t understand him. It’s a sort of mania with him, making money. He can’t leave it alone. I’ve asked him why and all he says is that one’s a fool not to make money when the odds are right. He’s always going on about the same thing, getting the odds right. When he talked me into doing this,’ she waved her cigarette at the binoculars, ‘and I asked him why on earth he bothered, took these stupid risks, all he said was, “That’s the second lesson. When the odds aren’t right, make them right.” ’

Bond said, ‘Well, it’s lucky for him I’m not Pinkertons or the Miami Police Department.’

The girl shrugged her shoulders. ‘Oh, that wouldn’t worry him. He’d just buy you off. He can buy anyone off. No one can resist gold.’

‘What do you mean?’

She said indifferently, ‘He always carries a million dollars’ worth of gold about with him except when he’s going through the Customs. Then he just carries a belt full of gold coins round his stomach. Otherwise it’s in thin sheets in the bottom and sides of his suitcases. They’re really gold suitcases covered with leather.’

‘They must weigh a ton.’

‘He always travels by car, one with special springs. And his chauffeur is a huge man. He carries them. No one else touches them.’

‘Why does he carry around all that gold?’

‘Just in case he needs it. He knows that gold will buy him anything he wants. It’s all twenty-four carat. And anyway he loves gold, really loves it like people love jewels or stamps or – well,’ she smiled, ‘women.’

Bond smiled back. ‘Does he love you?’

She blushed and said indignantly, ‘Certainly not.’ Then, more reasonably, ‘Of course you can think anything you like. But really he doesn’t. I mean, I think he likes people to think that we – that I’m – that it’s a question of love and all that. You know. He’s not very prepossessing and I suppose it’s a question of – well – of vanity or something.’

‘Yes, I see. So you’re just a kind of secretary?’

‘Companion,’ she corrected him. ‘I don’t have to type or anything.’ She suddenly put her hand up to her mouth. ‘Oh, but I shouldn’t be telling you all this! You won’t tell him, will you? He’d fire me.’ Fright came into her eyes. ‘Or something. I don’t know what he’d do. He’s the sort of man who might do anything.’

‘Of course I won’t tell. But this can’t be much of a life for you. Why do you do it?’

She said tartly, ‘A hundred pounds a week and all this,’ she waved at the room, ‘doesn’t grow on trees. I save up. When I’ve saved enough I shall go.’

Bond wondered if Goldfinger would let her. Wouldn’t she know too much? He looked at the beautiful face, the splendid, unselfconscious body. She might not suspect it, but, for his money, she was in very bad trouble with this man.

The girl was fidgeting. Now she said with an embarrassed laugh, ‘I don’t think I’m very properly dressed. Can’t I go and put something on over these?’

Bond wasn’t sure he could trust her. It wasn’t he who was paying the hundred pounds a week. He said airily, ‘You look fine. Just as respectable as those hundreds of people round the pool. Anyway,’ he stretched, ‘it’s about time to light a fire under Mr Goldfinger.’

Bond had been glancing down at the game from time to time. It seemed to be proceeding normally. Bond bent again to the binoculars. Already Mr Du Pont seemed to be a new man, his gestures were expansive, the half-profile of his pink face was full of animation. While Bond watched, he took a fistful of cards out of his hand and spread them down – a pure canasta in kings. Bond tilted the binoculars up an inch. The big red-brown moon face was impassive, uninterested. Mr Goldfinger was waiting patiently for the odds to adjust themselves back in his favour. While Bond watched, he put up a hand to the hearing aid, pushing the amplifier more firmly into his ear, ready for the signals to come through again.

Bond stepped back. ‘Neat little machine,’ he commented. ‘What are you transmitting on?’

‘He told me, but I can’t remember.’ She screwed up her eyes. ‘A hundred and seventy somethings. Would it be mega-somethings?’

‘Megacycles. Might be, but I’d be surprised if he doesn’t get a lot of taxicabs and police messages mixed up with your talk. Must have fiendish concentration.’ Bond grinned. ‘Now then. All set? It’s time to pull the rug away.’

Suddenly she reached out and put a hand on his sleeve. There was a Claddagh ring on the middle finger – two gold hands clasped round a gold heart. There were tears in her voice. ‘Must you? Can’t you leave him alone? I don’t know what he’ll do to me. Please.’ She hesitated. She was blushing furiously. ‘And I like you. It’s a long time since I’ve seen someone like you. Couldn’t you just stay here for a little more?’ She looked down at the ground. ‘If only you’d leave him alone I’d do –’ the words came out in a rush – ‘I’d do anything.’

Bond smiled. He took the girl’s hand off his arm and squeezed it. ‘Sorry. I’m being paid to do this job and I must do it. Anyway –’ his voice went flat – ‘I want to do it. It’s time someone cut Mr Goldfinger down to size. Ready?’

Without waiting for an answer he bent to the binoculars. They were still focused on Goldfinger. Bond cleared his throat. He watched the big face carefully. His hand felt for the microphone switch and pressed it down.

There must have been a whisper of static in the deaf aid. Goldfinger’s expression didn’t alter, but he slowly raised his face to heaven and then down again, as if in benediction.

Bond spoke softly, menacingly into the microphone. ‘Now hear me, Goldfinger.’ He paused. Not a flicker of expression, but Goldfinger bent his head a fraction as if listening. He studied his cards intently, his hands quite still.

‘This is James Bond speaking. Remember me? The game’s finished and it’s time to pay. I have a photograph of the whole set-up, blonde, binoculars, microphone and you and your hearing aid. This photograph will not go to the F.B.I. and Scotland Yard so long as you obey me exactly. Nod your head if you understand.’

The face was still expressionless. Slowly the big round head bent forward and then straightened itself.

‘Put your cards down face upwards on the table.’

The hands went down. They opened and the cards slid off the fingers on to the table.

‘Take out your cheque book and write a cheque to cash for fifty thousand dollars. That is made up as follows, thirty-five you have taken from Mr Du Pont. Ten for my fee. The extra five for wasting so much of Mr Du Pont’s valuable time.’

Bond watched to see that his order was being obeyed. He took a glance at Mr Du Pont. Mr Du Pont was leaning forward, gaping.

Mr Goldfinger slowly detached the cheque and counter-signed it on the back.

‘Right. Now jot this down on the back of your cheque book and see you get it right. Book me a compartment on the Silver Meteor to New York tonight. Have a bottle of vintage champagne on ice in the compartment and plenty of caviar sandwiches. The best caviar. And keep away from me. And no monkey business. The photograph will be in the mails with a full report to be opened and acted upon if I don’t show up in good health in New York tomorrow. Nod if you understand.’

Again the big head came slowly down and up again. Now there were traces of sweat on the high, unlined forehead.

‘Right, now hand the cheque across to Mr Du Pont and say, “I apologize humbly. I have been cheating you.” Then you can go.’

Bond watched the hand go across and drop the cheque in front of Mr Du Pont. The mouth opened and spoke. The eyes were placid, slow. Goldfinger had relaxed. It was only money. He had paid his way out.

‘Just a moment, Goldfinger, you’re not through yet.’ Bond glanced up at the girl. She was looking at him strangely. There was misery and fear but also a look of submissiveness, of longing.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Jill Masterton.’

Goldfinger had stood up, was turning away. Bond said sharply, ‘Stop.’

Goldfinger stopped in mid-stride. Now his eyes looked up at the balcony. They had opened wide, as when Bond had first met him. Their hard, level, X-ray gaze seemed to find the lenses of the binoculars, travel down them and through Bond’s eyes to the back of his skull. They seemed to say, ‘I shall remember this, Mr Bond.’

Bond said softly, ‘I’d forgotten. One last thing. I shall be taking a hostage for the ride to New York. Miss Masterton. See that she’s at the train. Oh, and make that compartment a drawing-room. That’s all.’

5 | NIGHT DUTY

It was a week later. Bond stood at the open window of the seventh-floor office of the tall building in Regent’s Park that is the headquarters of the Secret Service. London lay asleep under a full moon that rode swiftly over the town through a shoal of herring-bone clouds. Big Ben sounded three. One of the telephones rang in the dark room. Bond turned and moved quickly to the central desk and the pool of light cast by the green shaded reading-lamp. He picked up the black telephone from the rank of four.

He said, ‘Duty officer.’

‘Station H, sir.’

‘Put them on.’

There was the echoing buzz and twang of the usual bad radio connection with Hong Kong. Why were there always sunspots over China? A sing-song voice asked, ‘Universal Export?’

‘Yes.’

A deep, close voice – London – said, ‘You’re through to Hong Kong. Speak up, please.’

Bond said impatiently, ‘Clear the line, please.’

The sing-song voice said, ‘You’re through now. Speak up, please.’

‘Hullo! Hullo! Universal Export?’

‘Yes.’

‘Dickson speaking. Can you hear me?’

‘Yes.’

‘That cable I sent you about the shipment of mangoes. Fruit. You know?’

‘Yes. Got it here.’ Bond pulled the file towards him. He knew what it was about. Station H wanted some limpet mines to put paid to three Communist spy junks that were using Macao to intercept British freighters and search them for refugees from China.

‘Must have payment by the tenth.’

That would mean that the junks were leaving, or else that the guards on the junks would be doubled after that date, or some other emergency.

Bond said briefly, ‘Wilco.’

‘Thanks. ’Bye.’

‘’Bye.’ Bond put down the receiver. He picked up the green receiver and dialled Q Branch and talked to the section duty officer. It would be all right. There was a B.O.A.C. Britannia leaving in the morning. Q Branch would see that the crate caught the plane.

Bond sat back. He reached for a cigarette and lit it. He thought of the badly air-conditioned little office on the waterfront in Hong Kong, saw the sweat marks on the white shirt of 279, whom he knew well and who had just called himself Dickson. Now 279 would probably be talking to his number two: ‘It’s okay. London says can do. Let’s just go over this ops. schedule again.’ Bond smiled wryly. Better they than he. He’d never liked being up against the Chinese. There were too many of them. Station H might be stirring up a hornets’ nest, but M. had decided it was time to show the opposition that the Service in Hong Kong hadn’t quite gone out of business.

When, three days before, M. had first told him his name was down for night duty, Bond hadn’t taken to the idea. He had argued that he didn’t know enough about the routine work of the stations, that it was too responsible a job to give a man who had been in the double-O section for six years and who had forgotten all he had ever known about station work.

‘You’ll soon pick it up,’ M. had said unsympathetically. ‘If you get in trouble there are the duty section officers or the Chief of Staff – or me, for the matter of that.’ (Bond had smiled at the thought of waking M. up in the middle of the night because some man in Aden or Tokyo was in a flap.) ‘Anyway, I’ve decided. I want all senior officers to do their spell of routine.’ M. had looked frostily across at Bond. ‘Matter of fact, 007, I had the Treasury on to me the other day. Their liaison man thinks the double-O section is redundant. Says that kind of thing is out of date. I couldn’t bother to argue’ – M.’s voice was mild. ‘Just told him he was mistaken.’ (Bond could visualize the scene.) ‘However, won’t do any harm for you to have some extra duties now you’re back in London. Keep you from getting stale.’

And Bond wasn’t minding it. He was half way through his first week and so far it had just been a question of common sense or passing routine problems on down to the sections. He rather liked the peaceful room and knowing everybody’s secrets and being occasionally fed coffee and sandwiches by one of the pretty girls from the canteen.

On the first night the girl had brought him tea. Bond had looked at her severely. ‘I don’t drink tea. I hate it. It’s mud. Moreover it’s one of the main reasons for the downfall of the British Empire. Be a good girl and make me some coffee.’ The girl had giggled and scurried off to spread Bond’s dictum in the canteen. From then on he had got his coffee. The expression ‘a cup of mud’ was seeping through the building.

A second reason why Bond enjoyed the long vacuum of night duty was that it gave him time to get on with a project he had been toying with for more than a year – a handbook of all secret methods of unarmed combat. It was to be called Stay Alive! It would contain the best of all that had been written on the subject by the Secret Services of the world. Bond had told no one of the project, but he hoped that, if he could finish it, M. would allow it to be added to the short list of Service manuals which contained the tricks and techniques of Secret Intelligence.

Bond had borrowed the original textbooks, or where necessary, translations, from Records. Most of the books had been captured from enemy agents or organizations. Some had been presented to M. by sister Services such as O.S.S., C.I.A. and the Deuxième. Now Bond drew towards him a particular prize, a translation of the manual, entitled simply Defence, issued to operatives of SMERSH, the Soviet organization of vengeance and death.

That night he was half way through Chapter Two, whose title, freely translated, was ‘Come-along and Restraint Holds’. Now he went back to the book and read for half an hour through the sections dealing with the conventional ‘Wrist Come-along’, ‘Arm Lock Come-along’, ‘Forearm Lock’, ‘Head Hold’ and ‘Use of Neck Pressure Points’.

After half an hour, Bond thrust the typescript away from him. He got up and went across to the window and stood looking out. There was a nauseating toughness in the blunt prose the Russians used. It had brought on another of the attacks of revulsion to which Bond had succumbed ten days before at Miami Airport. What was wrong with him? Couldn’t he take it any more? Was he going soft, or was he only stale? Bond stood for a while watching the moon riding, careering, through the clouds. Then he shrugged his shoulders and went back to his desk. He decided that he was as fed up with the variations of violent physical behaviour as a psychoanalyst must become with the mental aberrations of his patients.

Bond read again the passage that had revolted him: ‘A drunken woman can also usually be handled by using the thumb and forefinger to grab the lower lip. By pinching hard and twisting, as the pull is made, the woman will come along.’

Bond grunted. The obscene delicacy of that ‘thumb and forefinger’! Bond lit a cigarette and stared into the filament of the desk light, switching his mind to other things, wishing that a signal would come in or the telephone ring. Another five hours to go before the nine o’clock report to the Chief of Staff or to M., if M. happened to come in early. There was something nagging at his mind, something he had wanted to check on when he had the time. What was it? What had triggered off the reminder? Yes, that was it, ‘forefinger’ – Goldfinger. He would see if Records had anything on the man.

Bond picked up the green telephone and dialled Records.

‘Doesn’t ring a bell, sir. I’ll check and call you back.’

Bond put down the receiver.

It had been a wonderful trip up in the train. They had eaten the sandwiches and drunk the champagne and then, to the rhythm of the giant diesels pounding out the miles, they had made long, slow love in the narrow berth. It had been as if the girl was starved of physical love. She had woken him twice more in the night with soft demanding caresses, saying nothing, just reaching for his hard, lean body. The next day she had twice pulled down the roller blinds to shut out the hard light and had taken him by the hand and said, ‘Love me, James’ as if she was a child asking for a sweet.

Even now Bond could hear the quick silver poem of the level-crossing bells, the wail of the big windhorn out front and the quiet outside clamour at the stations when they lay and waited for the sensual gallop of the wheels to begin again.

Jill Masterton had said that Goldfinger had been relaxed, indifferent over his defeat. He had told the girl to tell Bond that he would be over in England in a week’s time and would like to have that game of golf at Sandwich. Nothing else – no threats, no curses. He had said he would expect the girl back by the next train. Jill had told Bond she would go. Bond had argued with her. But she was not frightened of Goldfinger. What could he do to her? And it was a good job.

Bond had decided to give her the ten thousand dollars Mr Du Pont had shuffled into his hand with a stammer of thanks and congratulations. Bond made her take the money. ‘I don’t want it,’ Bond had said. ‘Wouldn’t know what to do with it. Anyway, keep it as mad money in case you want to get away in a hurry. It ought to be a million. I shall never forget last night and today.’

Bond had taken her to the station and had kissed her once hard on the lips and had gone away. It hadn’t been love, but a quotation had come into Bond’s mind as his cab moved out of Pennsylvania station: ‘Some love is fire, some love is rust. But the finest, cleanest love is lust.’ Neither had had regrets. Had they committed a sin? If so, which one? A sin against chastity? Bond smiled to himself. There was a quotation for that too, and from a saint – Saint Augustine: ‘Oh Lord, give me Chastity. But don’t give it yet!’

The green telephone rang. ‘Three Goldfingers, sir, but two of them are dead. The third’s a Russian post office in Geneva. Got a hairdressing business. Slips the messages into the right-hand coat pocket when he brushes the customers down. He lost a leg at Stalingrad. Any good, sir? There’s plenty more on him.’

‘No thanks. That couldn’t be my man.’

‘We could put a trace through C.I.D. Records in the morning. Got a picture, sir?’

Bond remembered the Leica film. He hadn’t even bothered to have it developed. It would be quicker to mock up the man’s face on the Identicast. He said, ‘Is the Identicast room free?’

‘Yes, sir. And I can operate it for you if you like.’

‘Thanks. I’ll come down.’

Bond told the switchboard to let heads of sections know where he would be and went out and took the lift down to Records on the first floor.

The big building was extraordinarily quiet at night. Beneath the silence, there was a soft whisper of machinery and hidden life – the muffled clack of a typewriter as Bond passed a door, a quickly suppressed stammer of radio static as he passed another, the soft background whine of the ventilation system. It gave you the impression of being in a battleship in harbour.

The Records duty officer was already at the controls of the Identicast in the projection room. He said to Bond, ‘Could you give me the main lines of the face, sir? That’ll help me leave out the slides that are obviously no good.’

Bond did so and sat back and watched the lighted screen.

The Identicast is a machine for building up an approximate picture of a suspect – or of someone who has perhaps only been glimpsed in a street or a train or in a passing car. It works on the magic lantern principle. The operator flashes on the screen various head-shapes and sizes. When one is recognized it stays on the screen. Then various haircuts are shown, and then all the other features follow and are chosen one by one – different shapes of eyes, noses, chins, mouths, eyebrows, cheeks, ears. In the end there is the whole picture of a face, as near as the scanner can remember it, and it is photographed and put on record.

It took some time to put together Goldfinger’s extraordinary face, but the final result was an approximate likeness in monochrome. Bond dictated one or two notes about the sunburn, the colour of the hair and the expression of the eyes, and the job was done.

‘Wouldn’t like to meet that on a dark night,’ commented the man from Records. ‘I’ll put it through to C.I.D. when they come on duty. You should get the answer by lunch time.’

Bond went back to the seventh floor. On the other side of the world it was around midnight. Eastern stations were closing down. There was a flurry of signals that had to be dealt with, the night’s log to be written up, and then it was eight o’clock. Bond telephoned the canteen for his breakfast. He had just finished it when there came the harsh purr of the red telephone. M.! Why the hell had he got in half an hour early?

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Come up to my office, 007. I want to have a word before you go off duty.’

‘Sir.’ Bond put the telephone back. He slipped on his coat and ran a hand through his hair, told the switchboard where he would be, took the night log and went up in the lift to the eighth and top floor. Neither the desirable Miss Moneypenny nor the Chief of Staff was on duty. Bond knocked on M.’s door and went in.

‘Sit down, 007.’ M. was going through the pipe-lighting routine. He looked pink and well scrubbed. The lined sailor’s face above the stiff white collar and loosely tied spotted bow tie was damnably brisk and cheerful. Bond was conscious of the black stubble on his own chin and of the all-night look of his skin and clothes. He sharpened his mind.

‘Quiet night?’ M. had got his pipe going. His hard, healthy eyes regarded Bond attentively.

‘Pretty quiet, sir. Station H –’

M. raised his left hand an inch or two. ‘Never mind. I’ll read all about it in the log. Here, I’ll take it.’

Bond handed over the Top Secret folder. M. put it to one side. He smiled one of his rare, rather sardonic, bitten-off smiles. ‘Things change, 007. I’m taking you off night duty for the present.’