Рыбаченко Олег Павлович : другие произведения.

To empty a man's pocket, a woman must take off her shoes in time

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  • Аннотация:
    In vain, the enemy believes that he managed to pick up the girl, who dares wins in battle - we will beat the enemies fiercely! And girls barefoot and in bikinis. It is very cool!

   Chapter 1
  
  
   Holiday Task!
  
   It was getting dark. Outside the weather was thickening. M reached over and switched on the green-shaded desklight. The centre of the room became a warm yellow pool in which the leather top of the desk glowed blood-red.
  
   M pulled the thick file towards him. Bond noticed it for the first time. He read the reversed lettering without difficulty. What had Strangways been up to? Who was Trueblood?
  
   M pressed a button on his desk. "I"ll get the Chief of Staff in on this," he said. "I know the bones of the case, but he can fill in the flesh. It"s a drab little story, I"m afraid."
  
   The Chief of Staff came in. He was a colonel in the Sappers, a man of about Bond"s age, but his hair was prematurely grey at the temples from the endless grind of work and responsibility. He was saved from a nervous breakdown by physical toughness and a sense of humour. He was Bond"s best friend at headquarters. They smiled at each other.
  
   "Bring up a chair, Chief of Staff. I"ve given 007 the Strangways case. Got to get the mess cleared up before we make a new appointment there. 007 can be acting Head of Station in the meantime. I want him to leave in a week. Would you fix that with the Colonial Office and the Governor? And now let"s go over the case." He turned to Bond. "I think you knew Strangways, 007. See you worked with him on that treasure business about five years ago. What did you think of him?"
  
   "Good man, sir. Bit highly strung, I"d have thought he"d have been relieved by now. Five years is a long time in the tropics."
  
   M ignored the comment. "And his number two, this girl Trueblood, Mary Trueblood. Ever come across her?"
  
   "No, sir."
  
   "I see she"s got a good record. Chief Officer WRNS and then came to us. Nothing against her on her Confidential Record. Good-looker to judge from her photographs. That probably explains it. Would you say Strangways was a bit of a womanizer?"
  
   "Could have been," said Bond carefully, not wanting to say anything against Strangways, but remembering the dashing good looks. "But what"s happened to them, sir?"
  
   "That"s what we want to find out," said M. "They"ve gone, vanished into thin air. Both went on the same evening about three weeks ago. Left Strangways"s bungalow burned to the ground-radio, codebooks, files. Nothing left but a few charred scraps. The girl left all her things intact. Must have taken only what she stood up in. Even her passport was in her room. But it would have been easy for Strangways to cook up two passports. He had plenty of blanks. He was Passport Control Officer for the island. Any number of planes they could have taken-to Florida or South America or one of the other islands in his area. Police are still checking the passenger lists. Nothing"s come up yet, but they could always have gone to ground for a day or two and then done a bunk. Dyed the girl"s hair and so forth. Airport security doesn"t amount to much in that part of the world. Isn"t that so, Chief of Staff?"
  
   "Yes, sir." The Chief of Staff sounded dubious. "But I still can"t understand that last radio contact." He turned to Bond. "You see, they began to make their routine contact at eighteen-thirty Jamaican time. Someone, Radio Security thinks it was the girl, acknowledged our WWW and then went off the air. We tried to regain contact but there was obviously something fishy and we broke off. No answer to the Blue Call, or to the Red. So that was that. Next day Section III sent 258 down from Washington. By that time the police had taken over and the Governor had already made up his mind and was trying to get the case hushed up. It all seemed pretty obvious to him. Strangways has had occasional girl trouble down there. Can"t blame the chap myself. It"s a quiet station. Not much to occupy his time. The Governor jumped to the obvious conclusions. So, of course, did the local police. Sex and machete fights are about all they understand. 258 spent a week down there and couldn"t turn up a scrap of contrary evidence. He reported accordingly and we sent him back to Washington. Since then the police have been scraping around rather ineffectually and getting nowhere." The Chief of Staff paused. He looked apologetically at M. "I know you"re inclined to agree with the Governor, sir, but that radio contact sticks in my throat. I just can"t see where it fits into the runaway-couple picture. And Strangways"s friends at his club say he was perfectly normal. Left in the middle of a rubber of bridge-always did, when he was getting close to his deadline. Said he"d be back in twenty minutes. Ordered drinks all round-again just as he always did-and left the club dead on six-fifteen, exactly to schedule. Then he vanished into thin air. Even left his car in front of the club. Now, why should he set the rest of his bridge four looking for him if he wanted to skip with the girl? Why not leave in the morning, or better still, late at night, after they"d made their radio call and tidied up their lives? It just doesn"t make sense to me."
  
   M grunted non-committally. "People in-er-love do stupid things," he said gruffly. "Act like lunatics sometimes. And anyway, what other explanation is there? Absolutely no trace of foul play-no reason for it that anyone can see. It"s a quiet station down there. Same routines every month-an occasional communist trying to get into the island from Cuba, crooks from England thinking they can hide away just because Jamaica"s so far from London. I don"t suppose Strangways has had a big case since 007 was there." He turned to Bond. "On what you"ve heard, what do you think, 007? There"s not much else to tell you."
  
   Bond was definite. "I just can"t see Strangways flying off the handle like that, sir. I daresay he was having an affair with the girl, though I wouldn"t have thought he was a man to mix business with pleasure. But the Service was his whole life. He"d never have let it down. I can see him handing in his papers, and the girl doing the same, and then going off with her after you"d sent out reliefs. But I don"t believe it was in him to leave us in the air like this. And from what you say of the girl, I"d say it would be much the same with her. Chief Officers WRNS don"t go out of their senses."
  
   "Thank you, 007." M"s voice was controlled. "These considerations had also crossed my mind. No one"s been jumping to conclusions without weighing all the possibilities. Perhaps you can suggest another solution."
  
   M sat back and waited. He reached for his pipe and began filling it. The case bored him. He didn"t like personnel problems, least of all messy ones like this. There were plenty of other worries waiting to be coped with round the world. It was only to give Bond the pretence of a job, mixed with a good rest, that he had decided to send him out to Jamaica to close the case. He put the pipe in his mouth and reached for the matches. "Well?"
  
   Bond wasn"t going to be put off his stride. He had liked Strangways and he was impressed by the points the Chief of Staff had made. He said: "Well, sir. For instance, what was the last case Strangways was working on? Had he reported anything, or was there anything Section III had asked him to look into. Anything at all in the last few months?"
  
   "Nothing whatsoever." M was definite. He took the pipe out of his mouth and cocked it at the Chief of Staff. "Right?"
  
   "Right, sir," said the Chief of Staff. "Only that damned business about the birds."
  
   "Oh that," said M contemptuously. "Some rot from the Zoo or somebody. Got wished on us by the Colonial Office. About six weeks ago, wasn"t it?"
  
   "That"s right, sir. But it wasn"t the Zoo. It was some people in America called the Audubon Society. They protect rare birds from extinction or something like that. Got on to our Ambassador in Washington, and the FO passed the buck to the Colonial Office. They shoved it on to us. Seems these bird people are pretty powerful in America. They even got an atom bombing range shifted on the West Coast because it interfered with some birds" nests."
  
   M snorted. "Damned thing called a Whooping Crane. Read about in the papers."
  
   Bond persisted. "Could you tell me about it, sir? What did the Audubon people want us to do?"
  
   M waved his pipe impatiently. He picked up the Strangways file and tossed it down in front of the Chief of Staff. "You tell him, Chief of Staff," he said wearily. "It"s all in there."
  
   The Chief of Staff took the file and riffled through the pages towards the back. He found what he wanted and bent the file in half. There was silence in the room while he ran his eye over three pages of typescript which Bond could see were headed with the blue and white cipher of the Colonial Office. Bond sat quietly, trying not to feel M"s coiled impatience radiating across the desk.
  
   The Chief of Staff slapped the file shut. He said, "Well, this is the story as we passed it to Strangways on January 20th. He acknowledged receipt, but after that we heard nothing from him." The Chief of Staff sat back in his chair. He looked at Bond. "It seems there"s a bird called a Roseate Spoonbill. There"s a coloured photograph of it in here. Looks like a sort of pink stork with an ugly flat bill which it uses for digging for food in the mud. Not many years ago these birds were dying out. Just before the war there were only a few hundred left in the world, mostly in Florida and thereabouts. Then somebody reported a colony of them on an island called Crab Key between Jamaica and Cuba. It"s British territory-a dependency of Jamaica. Used to be a guano island, but the quality of the guano was too low for the cost of digging it. When the birds were found there, it had been uninhabited for about fifty years. The Audubon people went there and ended up by leasing a corner as a sanctuary for these spoonbills. Put two wardens in charge and persuaded the airlines to stop flying over the island and disturbing the birds. The birds flourished and at the last count there were about five thousand of them on the island. Then came the war. The price of guano went up and some bright chap had the idea of buying the island and starting to work it again. He negotiated with the Jamaican Government and bought the place for ten thousand pounds with the condition that he didn"t disturb the lease of the sanctuary. That was in 1943. Well, this man imported plenty of cheap labour and soon had the place working at a profit and it"s gone on making a profit until recently. Then the price of guano took a dip and it"s thought that he must be having a hard time making both ends meet."
  
   "Who is this man?"
  
   "Chinaman, or rather half Chinese and half German. Got a daft name. Calls himself Doctor No-Doctor Julius No."
  
   "No? Spelt like Yes?"
  
   "That"s right."
  
   "Any facts about him?"
  
   "Nothing except that he keeps very much to himself. Hasn"t been seen since he made his deal with the Jamaican Government. And there"s no traffic with the island. It"s his and he keeps it private. Says he doesn"t want people disturbing the guanay birds who turn out his guano. Seems reasonable. Well, nothing happened until just before Christmas when one of the Audubon wardens, a Barbadian, good solid chap apparently, arrived on the north shore of Jamaica in a canoe. He was very sick. He was terribly burned-died in a few days. Before he died he told some crazy story about their camp having been attacked by a dragon, with flames coming out of its mouth. This dragon had killed his pal and burned up the camp and gone roaring off into the bird sanctuary belching fire among the birds and scaring them off to God knows where. He had been badly burned but he"d escaped to the coast and stolen a canoe and sailed all one night to Jamaica. Poor chap was obviously off his rocker. And that was that, except that a routine report had to be sent off to the Audubon Society. And they weren"t satisfied. Sent down two of their big brass in a Beechcraft from Miami to investigate. There"s an airstrip on the island. This Chinaman"s got a Grumman Amphibian for bringing in supplies..."
  
   M interjected sourly. "All these people seem to have a hell of a lot of money to throw about on their damned birds."
  
   Bond and the Chief of Staff exchanged smiles. M had been trying for years to get the Treasury to give him an Auster for the Caribbean Station.
  
   The Chief of Staff continued: "And the Beechcraft crashed on landing and killed the two Audubon men. Well, that aroused these bird people to a fury. They got a corvette from the US Training Squadron in the Caribbean to make a call on Doctor No. That"s how powerful these people are. Seems they"ve got quite a lobby in Washington. The captain of the corvette reported that he was received very civilly by Doctor No but was kept well away from the guano workings. He was taken to the airstrip and examined the remains of the plane. Smashed to pieces, but nothing suspicious-came in to land too fast probably. The bodies of the two men and the pilot had been reverently embalmed and packed in handsome coffins which were handed over with quite a ceremony. The captain was very impressed by Doctor No"s courtesy. He asked to see the wardens" camp and he was taken out there and shown the remains of it. Doctor No"s theory was that the two men had gone mad because of the heat and the loneliness, or at any rate that one of them had gone mad and burned down the camp with the other inside it. This seemed possible to the captain when he"d seen what a godforsaken bit of marsh the men had been living in for ten years or more. There was nothing else to see and he was politely steered back to his ship and sailed away." The Chief of Staff spread his hands. "And that"s the lot except that the captain reported that he saw only a handful of roseate spoonbills. When his report got back to the Audubon Society it was apparently the loss of their blasted birds that infuriated these people most of all, and ever since then they"ve been nagging at us to have an inquiry into the whole business. Of course nobody at the Colonial Office or in Jamaica"s in the least interested. So in the end the whole fairy story was dumped in our lap." The Chief of Staff shrugged his shoulders with finality. "And that"s how this pile of bumf," he waved the file, "or at any rate the guts of it, got landed on Strangways."
  
   M looked morosely at Bond. "See what I mean, 007? Just the sort of mares" nest these old women"s societies are always stirring up. People start preserving something-churches, old houses, decaying pictures, birds-and there"s always a hullabaloo of some sort. The trouble is these sort of people get really worked up about their damned birds or whatever it is. They get the politicians involved. And somehow they all seem to have stacks of money. God knows where it comes from. Other old women, I suppose. And then there comes a point when someone has to do something to keep them quiet. Like this case. It gets shunted off on to me because the place is British territory. At the same time it"s private land. Nobody wants to interfere officially. So I"m supposed to do what? Send a submarine to the island? For what? To find out what"s happened to a covey of pink storks." M snorted. "Anyway, you asked about Strangways"s last case and that"s it." M leant forward belligerently. "Any questions? I"ve got a busy day ahead."
  
   Bond grinned. He couldn"t help it. M"s occasional outbursts of rage were so splendid. And nothing set him going so well as any attempt to waste the time and energies and slim funds of the Secret Service. Bond got to his feet. "Perhaps if I could have the file, sir," he said placatingly. "It just strikes me that four people seem to have died more or less because of these birds. Perhaps two more did-Strangways and the Trueblood girl. I agree it sounds ridiculous, but we"ve got nothing else to go on."
  
   "Take it, take it," said M impatiently. "And hurry up and get your holiday over. You may not have noticed it, but the rest of the world happens to be in a bit of a mess."
  
   Bond reached across and picked up the file. He also made to pick up his Beretta and the holster. "No," said M sharply. "Leave that. And mind you"ve got the hang of the other two guns by the time I see you again."
  
   Bond looked across into M"s eyes. For the first time in his life he hated the man. He knew perfectly well why M was being tough and mean. It was deferred punishment, for having nearly got killed on his last job. Plus getting away from this filthy weather into the sunshine. M couldn"t bear his men to have an easy time. In a way Bond felt sure he was being sent on this cushy assignment to humiliate him. The old bastard.
  
   With the anger balling up inside him like cats" fur, Bond said, "I"ll see to it, sir," and turned and walked out of the room.
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 4
  
  
   Reception Committee
  
   The sixty-eight tons deadweight of the Super Constellation hurtled high above the green and brown chequerboard of Cuba and, with only another hundred miles to go, started its slow declining flight towards Jamaica.
  
   Bond watched the big green turtle-backed island grow on the horizon and the water below him turn from the dark blue of the Cuba Deep to the azure and milk of the inshore shoals. Then they were over the North Shore, over its rash of millionaire hotels, and crossing the high mountains of the interior. The scattered dice of small-holdings showed on the slopes and in clearings in the jungle, and the setting sun flashed gold on the bright worms of tumbling rivers and streams. "Xaymaca" the Arawak Indians had called it-"The Land of Hills and Rivers." Bond"s heart lifted with the beauty of one of the most fertile islands in the world.
  
   The other side of the mountains was in deep violet shadow. Lights were already twinkling in the foothills and spangling the streets of Kingston, but, beyond, the far arm of the harbour and the airport were still touched with the sun against which the Port Royal lighthouse blinked ineffectually. Now the Constellation was getting its nose down into a wide sweep beyond the harbour. There was a slight thump as the tricycle landing gear extended under the aircraft and locked into position, and a shrill hydraulic whine as the brake flaps slid out of the trailing edge of the wings. Slowly the great aircraft turned in again towards the land and for a moment the setting sun poured gold into the cabin. Then, the plane had dipped below the level of the Blue Mountains and was skimming down towards the single north-south runway. There was a glimpse of a road and telephone wires. Then the concrete, scarred with black skid-marks, was under the belly of the plane and there was the soft double thump of a perfect landing and the roar of reversing props as they taxied in towards the low white airport buildings.
  
   The sticky fingers of the tropics brushed Bond"s face as he left the aircraft and walked over to Health and Immigration. He knew that by the time he had got through Customs he would be sweating. He didn"t mind. After the rasping cold of London, the stuffy, velvet heat was easily bearable.
  
   Bond"s passport described him as "Import and Export Merchant."
  
   "What company, sir?"
  
   "Universal Export."
  
   "Are you here on business or pleasure, sir?"
  
   "Pleasure."
  
   "I hope you enjoy your stay, sir." The Negro immigration officer handed Bond his passport with indifference.
  
   "Thank you."
  
   Bond walked out into the Customs hall. At once he saw the tall brown-skinned man against the barrier. He was wearing the same old faded blue shirt and probably the same khaki twill trousers he had been wearing when Bond first met him five years before.
  
   "Quarrel!"
  
   From behind the barrier the Cayman Islander gave a broad grin. He lifted his right forearm across his eyes in the old salute of the West Indians. "How you, cap"n?" he called delightedly.
  
   "I"m fine," said Bond. "Just wait till I get my bag through. Got the car?"
  
   "Sure, cap"n."
  
   The Customs officer who, like most men from the waterfront, knew Quarrel, chalked Bond"s bag without opening it and Bond picked it up and went out through the barrier. Quarrel took it from him and held out his right hand. Bond took the warm dry calloused paw and looked into the dark grey eyes that showed descent from a Cromwellian soldier or a pirate of Morgan"s time. "You haven"t changed, Quarrel," he said affectionately. "How"s the turtle fishing?"
  
   "Not so bad, cap"n, an" not so good. Much de same as always." He looked critically at Bond. "Yo been sick, or somepun?"
  
   Bond was surprised. "As a matter of fact I have. But I"ve been fit for weeks. What made you say that?"
  
   Quarrel was embarrassed. "Sorry, cap"n," he said, thinking he might have offended Bond. "Dere some pain lines in yo face since de las" time."
  
   "Oh well," said Bond. "It was nothing much. But I could do with a spell of your training. I"m not as fit as I ought to be."
  
   "Sho ting, cap"n."
  
   They were moving towards the exit when there came the sharp crack and flash of a Press camera. A pretty Chinese girl in Jamaican dress was lowering her Speed Graphic. She came up to them. She said with synthetic charm, "Thank you, gentlemen. I am from the Daily Gleaner." She glanced down at a list in her hand. "Mister Bond, isn"t it? And how long will you be with us, Mister Bond?"
  
   Bond was offhand. This was a bad start. "In transit," he said shortly. "I think you"ll find there were more interesting people on the plane."
  
   "Oh no, I"m sure not, Mister Bond. You look very important. And what hotel will you be staying at?"
  
   Damn, thought Bond. He said "Myrtle Bank" and moved on.
  
   "Thank you, Mister Bond," said the tinkling voice. "I hope you"ll enjoy..."
  
   They were outside. As they walked towards the parking place Bond said, "Ever seen that girl at the airport before?"
  
   Quarrel reflected. "Reck"n not, cap"n. But de Gleaner have plenty camera gals."
  
   Bond was vaguely worried. There was no earthly reason why his picture should be wanted by the Press. It was five years since his last adventures on the island, and anyway his name had been kept out of the papers.
  
   They got to the car. It was a black Sunbeam Alpine. Bond looked sharply at it and then at the number plate. Strangways"s car. What the hell? "Where did you get this, Quarrel?"
  
   "ADC tell me fe to take him, cap"n. Him say hit de only spare car dey have. Why, cap"n? Him no good?"
  
   "Oh, it"s all right, Quarrel," said Bond resignedly. "Come on, let"s get going."
  
   Bond got into the passenger seat. It was entirely his fault. He might have guessed at the chance of getting this car. But it would certainly put the finger on him and on what he was doing in Jamaica if anyone happened to be interested.
  
   They moved off down the long cactus-fringed road towards the distant lights of Kingston. Normally, Bond would have sat and enjoyed the beauty of it all-the steady zing of the crickets, the rush of warm, scented air, the ceiling of stars, the necklace of yellow lights shimmering across the harbour-but now he was cursing his carelessness and knowing what he shouldn"t have done.
  
   What he had done was to send one signal through the Colonial Office to the Governor. In it he had first asked that the ADC should get Quarrel over from the Cayman Islands for an indefinite period on a salary of ten pounds a week. Quarrel had been with Bond on his last adventure in Jamaica. He was an invaluable handyman with all the fine seaman"s qualities of the Cayman Islander, and he was a passport into the lower strata of coloured life which would otherwise be closed to Bond. Everybody loved him and he was a splendid companion. Bond knew that Quarrel was vital if he was to get anywhere on the Strangways case-whether it was a case or just a scandal. Then Bond had asked for a single room and shower at the Blue Hills Hotel, for the loan of a car and for Quarrel to meet him with the car at the airport. Most of this had been wrong. In particular Bond should have taken a taxi to his hotel and made contact with Quarrel later. Then he would have seen the car and had a chance to change it.
  
   As it was, reflected Bond, he might just as well have advertised his visit and its purpose in the Gleaner. He sighed. It was the mistakes one made at the beginning of a case that were the worst. They were the irretrievable ones, the ones that got you off on the wrong foot, that gave the enemy the first game. But was there an enemy? Wasn"t he being over-cautious? On an impulse Bond turned in his seat. A hundred yards behind were two dim sidelights. Most Jamaicans drive with their headlights full on. Bond turned back. He said, "Quarrel. At the end of the Palisadoes, where the left fork goes to Kingston and right to Morant, I want you to turn quickly down the Morant road and stop at once and turn your lights off. Right? And now go like hell."
  
   "Okay, cap"n." Quarrel"s voice sounded pleased. He put his foot down to the floorboards. The little car gave a deep growl and tore off down the white road.
  
   Now they were at the end of the straight. The car skidded round the curve where the corner of the harbour bit into the land. Another five hundred yards and they would be at the intersection. Bond looked back. There was no sign of the other car. Here was the signpost. Quarrel did a racing change and hurled the car round on a tight lock. He pulled in to the side and dowsed his lights. Bond turned and waited. At once he heard the roar of a big car at speed. Lights blazed on, looking for them. Then the car was past and tearing on towards Kingston. Bond had time to notice that it was a big American type taxicab and that there was no one in it but the driver. Then it was gone.
  
   The dust settled slowly. They sat for ten minutes saying nothing. Then Bond told Quarrel to turn the car and take the Kingston road. He said, "I think that car was interested in us, Quarrel. You don"t drive an empty taxi back from the airport. It"s an expensive run. Keep a watch out. He may find we"ve fooled him and be waiting for us."
  
   "Sho ting, cap"n," said Quarrel happily. This was just the sort of life he had hoped for when he got Bond"s message.
  
   They came into the stream of Kingston traffic-buses, cars, horse-drawn carts, pannier-laden donkeys down from the hills, and the hand-drawn barrows selling violent coloured drinks. In the crush it was impossible to say if they were being followed. They turned off to the right and up towards the hills. There were many cars behind them. Any one of them could have been the American taxi. They drove for a quarter of an hour up to Halfway Tree and then on to the Junction Road, the main road across the island. Soon there was a neon sign of a green palm tree and underneath "Blue Hills. THE hotel." They drove in and up the drive lined with neatly rounded bushes of bougainvillaea.
  
   A hundred yards higher up the road the black taxi waved the following drivers on and pulled in to the left. It made a U-turn in a break in the traffic and swept back down the hill towards Kingston.
  
   The Blue Hills was a comfortable old-fashioned hotel with modern trimmings. Bond was welcomed with deference because his reservation had been made by King"s House. He was shown to a fine corner room with a balcony looking out over the distant sweep of Kingston harbour. Thankfully he took off his London clothes, now moist with perspiration, and went into the glass-fronted shower and turned the cold water full on and stood under it for five minutes during which he washed his hair to remove the last dirt of big-city life. Then he pulled on a pair of Sea Island cotton shorts and, with sensual pleasure at the warm soft air on his nakedness, unpacked his things and rang for the waiter.
  
   Bond ordered a double gin and tonic and one whole green lime. When the drink came he cut the lime in half, dropped the two squeezed halves into the long glass, almost filled the glass with ice cubes and then poured in the tonic. He took the drink out on to the balcony, and sat and looked out across the spectacular view. He thought how wonderful it was to be away from headquarters, and from London, and from hospitals, and to be here, at this moment, doing what he was doing and knowing, as all his senses told him, that he was on a good tough case again.
  
   He sat for a while, luxuriously, letting the gin relax him. He ordered another and drank it down. It was seven-fifteen. He had arranged for Quarrel to pick him up at seven-thirty. They were going to have dinner together. Bond had asked Quarrel to suggest a place. After a moment of embarrassment, Quarrel had said that whenever he wanted to enjoy himself in Kingston he went to a waterfront nightspot called the Joy Boat. "Hit no great shakes, cap"n," he had said apologetically, "but da food an" drinks an" music is good and I got a good fren" dere. Him owns de joint. Dey calls him "Pus-Feller" seein" how him once fought wit" a big hoctopus."
  
   Bond smiled to himself at the way Quarrel, like most West Indians, added an "h" where it wasn"t needed and took it off when it was. He went into his room and dressed in his old dark blue tropical worsted suit, a sleeveless white cotton shirt and a black knitted tie, looked in the glass to see that the Walther didn"t show under his armpit and went down and out to where the car was waiting.
  
   They swooped down quietly through the soft singing dusk into Kingston and turned to the left along the harbour side. They passed one or two smart restaurants and night clubs from which came the throb and twang of calypso music. There was a stretch of private houses that dwindled into a poor-class shopping centre and then into shacks. Then, where the road curved away from the sea, there was a blaze of golden neon in the shape of a Spanish galleon above green lettering that said "The Joy Boat." They pulled into a parking place and Bond followed Quarrel through the gate into a small garden of palm trees growing out of lawn. At the end was the beach and the sea. Tables were dotted about under the palms, and in the centre was a small deserted cement dance floor to one side of which a calypso trio in sequined scarlet shirts was softly improvising on "Take her to Jamaica where the rum comes from."
  
   Only half the tables were filled, mostly by coloured people. There was a sprinkling of British and American sailors with their girls. An immensely fat Negro in a smart white dinner jacket left one of the tables and came to meet them.
  
   "Hi, Mister Q. Long time no see. Nice table for two?"
  
   "That"s right, Pus-Feller. Closer to da kitchen dan da music."
  
   The big man chuckled. He led them down towards the sea and placed them at a quiet table under a palm tree that grew out of the base of the restaurant building. "Drinks gemmun?"
  
   Bond ordered his gin and tonic with a lime, and Quarrel a Red Stripe beer. They scanned the menu and both decided on broiled lobster followed by a rare steak with native vegetables.
  
   The drinks came. The glasses were dripping with condensation. The small fact reminded Bond of other times in hot climates. A few yards away the sea lisped on the flat sand. The three-piece began playing "Kitch." Above them the palm fronds clashed softly in the night breeze. A gecko chuckled somewhere in the garden. Bond thought of the London he had left the day before. He said, "I like this place, Quarrel."
  
   Quarrel was pleased. "Him a good fren of mine, da Pus-Feller. Him knows mostly what goes hon hin Kingston case you got hany questions, cap"n. Him come from da Caymans. Him an" me once share a boat. Then him go hoff one day catching boobies" heggs hat Crab Key. Went swimmin" to a rock for more heggs an" dis big hoctopus get him. Dey mos"ly small fellers roun" here but dey come bigger at da Crab seein" how its alongside de Cuba Deep, da deepest waters roun" dese parts. Pus-Feller have himself a bad time wit dis hanimal. Bust one lung cuttin" hisself free. Dat scare him an" him sell me his half of da boat an" come to Kingston. Dat were "fore da war. Now him rich man whiles I go hon fishin."" Quarrel chuckled at the quirk of fate.
  
   "Crab Key," said Bond. "What sort of a place is that?"
  
   Quarrel looked at him sharply. "Dat a bad luck place now, cap"n," he said shortly. "Chinee gemmun buy hit durin" da war and bring in men and dig bird-dirt. Don" let nobody land dere and don" let no one get hoff. We gives it a wide bert.""
  
   "Why"s that?"
  
   "Him have plenty watchmen. An" guns-machine guns. An" a radar. An" a spottin" plane. Frens o" mine have landed dere and him never been seen again. Dat Chinee keep him island plenty private. Tell da trut," cap"n," Quarrel was apologetic, "dat Crab Key scare me plenty."
  
   Bond said thoughtfully, "Well, well."
  
   The food came. They ordered another round of drinks and ate. While they ate, Bond gave Quarrel an outline of the Strangways case. Quarrel listened carefully, occasionally asking questions. He was particularly interested in the birds on Crab Key, and what the watchmen had said, and how the plane was supposed to have crashed. Finally he pushed his plate away. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. He took out a cigarette and lit it. He leant forward. "Cap"n," he said softly, "I no mind if hit was birds or butterflies or bees. If dey was on Crab Key and da Commander was stickin" his nose into da business, yo kin bet yo bottom dollar him been mashed. Him and him girl. Da Chinee mash dem for sho."
  
   Bond looked carefully into the urgent grey eyes. "What makes you so certain?"
  
   Quarrel spread his hands. To him the answer was simple. "Dat Chinee love him privacy. Him want be left alone. I know him kill ma frens order keep folk away from da Crab. Him a mos" powerful man. Him kill hanyone what hinterfere with him."
  
   "Why?"
  
   "Don" rightly know, cap"n," said Quarrel indifferently. "People dem want different tings in dis world. An" what dem want sufficient dem gits."
  
   A glint of light caught the corner of Bond"s eye. He turned quickly. The Chinese girl from the airport was standing in the nearby shadows. Now she was dressed in a tight-fitting sheath of black satin slashed up one side almost to her hip. She had a Leica with a flash attachment in one hand. The other was in a leather case at her side. The hand came out holding a flashbulb. The girl slipped the base into her mouth to wet it and improve the contact and made to screw it into the reflector.
  
   "Get that girl," said Bond quickly.
  
   In two strides Quarrel was up with her. He held out his hand. "Evenin," missy," he said softly.
  
   The girl smiled. She let the Leica hang on the thin strap round her neck. She took Quarrel"s hand. Quarrel swung her round like a ballet dancer. Now he had her hand behind her back and she was in the crook of his arm.
  
   She looked up at him angrily. "Don"t. You"re hurting."
  
   Quarrel smiled down into the flashing dark eyes in the pale, almond-shaped face. "Cap"n like you take a drink wit" we," he said soothingly. He came back to the table, moving the girl along with him. He hooked a chair out with his foot and sat her down beside him, keeping the grip on her wrist behind her back. They sat bolt upright, like quarrelling lovers.
  
   Bond looked into the pretty, angry little face. "Good evening. What are you doing here? Why do you want another picture of me?"
  
   "I"m doing the nightspots," the Cupid"s bow of a mouth parted persuasively. "The first picture of you didn"t come out. Tell this man to leave me alone."
  
   "So you work for the Gleaner? What"s your name?"
  
   "I won"t tell you."
  
   Bond cocked an eyebrow at Quarrel.
  
   Quarrel"s eyes narrowed. His hand behind the girl"s back turned slowly. The girl struggled like an eel, her teeth clenched on her lower lip. Quarrel went on twisting. Suddenly she said "Ow!" sharply and gasped, "I"ll tell!" Quarrel eased his grip. The girl looked furiously at Bond: "Annabel Chung."
  
   Bond said to Quarrel, "Call the Pus-Feller."
  
   Quarrel picked up a fork with his free hand and clanged it against a glass. The big Negro hurried up.
  
   Bond looked up at him. "Ever seen this girl before?"
  
   "Yes, boss. She come here sometimes. She bein" a nuisance? Want for me to send her away?"
  
   "No. We like her," said Bond amiably, "but she wants to take a studio portrait of me and I don"t know if she"s worth the money. Would you call up the Gleaner and ask if they"ve got a photographer called Annabel Chung? If she really is one of their people she ought to be good enough."
  
   "Sure, boss." The man hurried away.
  
   Bond smiled at the girl. "Why didn"t you ask that man to rescue you?"
  
   The girl glowered at him.
  
   "I"m sorry to have to exert pressure," said Bond, "but my export manager in London said that Kingston was full of shady characters. I"m sure you"re not one of them, but I really can"t understand why you"re so anxious to get my picture. Tell me why."
  
   "What I told you," said the girl sulkily. "It"s my job."
  
   Bond tried other questions. She didn"t answer them.
  
   The Pus-Feller came up. "That"s right, boss. Annabel Chung. One of their freelance girls. They say she takes fine pictures. You"ll be okay with her." He looked bland. Studio portrait! Studio bed, more like.
  
   "Thanks," said Bond. The Negro went away. Bond turned back to the girl. "Freelance," he said softly. "That still doesn"t explain who wanted my picture." His face went cold. "Now give!"
  
   "No," said the girl sullenly.
  
   "All right, Quarrel. Go ahead." Bond sat back. His instincts told him that this was the sixty-four thousand dollar question. If he could get the answer out of the girl he might be saved weeks of legwork.
  
   Quarrel"s right shoulder started to dip downwards. The girl squirmed towards him to ease the pressure, but he held her body away with his free hand. The girl"s face strained towards Quarrel"s. Suddenly she spat full in his eyes. Quarrel grinned and increased the twist. The girl"s feet kicked wildly under the table. She hissed out words in Chinese. Sweat beaded on her forehead.
  
   "Tell," said Bond softly. "Tell and it will stop and we"ll be friends and have a drink." He was getting worried. The girl"s arm must be on the verge of breaking.
  
   "-- you." Suddenly the girl"s left hand flew up and into Quarrel"s face. Bond was too slow to stop her. Something glinted and there was a sharp explosion. Bond snatched at her arm and dragged it back. Blood was streaming down Quarrel"s cheek. Glass and metal tinkled on to the table. She had smashed the flashbulb on Quarrel"s face. If she had been able to reach an eye it would have been blinded.
  
   Quarrel"s free hand went up and felt his cheek. He put it in front of his eyes and looked at the blood. "Aha!" There was nothing but admiration and a feline pleasure in his voice. He said equably to Bond, "We get nuthin out of dis gal, cap"n. She plenty tough. You want fe me to break she"s arm?"
  
   "Good God, no." Bond let go the arm he was holding. "Let her go." He felt angry with himself for having hurt the girl and still failed. But he had learned something. Whoever was behind her held his people by a steel chain.
  
   Quarrel brought the girl"s right arm from behind her back. He still held on to the wrist. Now he opened the girl"s hand. He looked into her eyes. His own were cruel. "You mark me, Missy. Now I mark you." He brought up his other hand and took the Mount of Venus, the soft lozenge of flesh in the palm below her thumb, between his thumb and forefinger. He began to squeeze it. Bond could see his knuckles go white with the pressure. The girl gave a yelp. She hammered at Quarrel"s hand and then at his face. Quarrel grinned and squeezed harder. Suddenly he let go. The girl shot to her feet and backed away from the table, her bruised hand at her mouth. She took her hand down and hissed furiously. "He"ll get you, you bastards!" Then, her Leica dangling, she ran off through the trees.
  
   Quarrel laughed shortly. He took a napkin and wiped it down his cheek and threw it on the ground and took up another. He said to Bond, "She"s Love Moun" be sore long after ma face done get healed. Dat a fine piece of a woman, de Love Moun." When him fat like wit" dat girl you kin tell her"ll be good in bed. You know dat, cap"n?"
  
   "No," said Bond. "That"s new to me."
  
   "Sho ting. Dat piece of da han" most hindicative. Don" you worry "bout she," he added, noticing the dubious expression on Bond"s face. "Hers got nuttin but a big bruise on she"s Love Moun." But boy, was dat a fat Love Moun"! I come back after dat girl sometime, see if ma teory is da troof."
  
   Appropriately the band started playing "Don" touch me tomato." Bond said "Quarrel, it"s time you married and settled down. And you leave that girl alone or you"ll get a knife between your ribs. Now come on. We"ll get the check and go. It"s three o"clock in the morning in London where I was yesterday. I need a night"s sleep. You"ve got to start getting me into training. I think I"m going to need it. And it"s about time you put some plaster on that cheek of yours. She"s written her name and address on it."
  
   Quarrel grunted reminiscently. He said with quiet pleasure, "Dat were some tough baby." He picked up a fork and clanged it against his glass.
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 5
  
  
   Facts and Figures
  
   "He"ll get you.... He"ll get you.... He"ll get you, you bastards."
  
   The words were still ringing in Bond"s brain the next day as he sat on his balcony and ate a delicious breakfast and gazed out across the riot of tropical gardens to Kingston, five miles below him.
  
   Now he was sure that Strangways and the girl had been killed. Someone had needed to stop them looking any further into his business, so he had killed them and destroyed the records of what they were investigating. The same person knew or suspected that the Secret Service would follow up Strangways"s disappearance. Somehow he had known that Bond had been given the job. He had wanted a picture of Bond and he had wanted to know where Bond was staying. He would be keeping an eye on Bond to see if Bond picked up any of the leads that had led to Strangways"s death. If Bond did so, Bond would also have to be eliminated. There would be a car smash or a street fight or some other innocent death. And how, Bond wondered, would this person react to their treatment of the Chung girl? If he was as ruthless as Bond supposed, that would be enough. It showed that Bond was on to something. Perhaps Strangways had made a preliminary report to London before he was killed. Perhaps someone had leaked. The enemy would be foolish to take chances. If he had any sense, after the Chung incident, he would deal with Bond and perhaps also with Quarrel without delay.
  
   Bond lit his first cigarette of the day-the first Royal Blend he had smoked for five years-and let the smoke come out between his teeth in a luxurious hiss. That was his "Enemy Appreciation." Now, who was this enemy?
  
   Well, there was only one candidate, and a pretty insubstantial one at that, Doctor No, Doctor Julius No, the German Chinese who owned Crab Key and made his money out of guano. There had been nothing on this man in Records and a signal to the FBI had been negative. The affair of the roseate spoonbills and the trouble with the Audubon Society meant precisely nothing except, as M had said, that a lot of old women had got excited about some pink storks. All the same, four people had died because of these storks and, most significant of all to Bond, Quarrel was scared of Doctor No and his island. That was very odd indeed. Cayman Islanders, least of all Quarrel, did not scare easily. And why had Doctor No got this mania for privacy? Why did he go to such expense and trouble to keep people away from his guano island? Guano-bird dung. Who wanted the stuff? How valuable was it? Bond was due to call on the Governor at ten o"clock. After he had made his number he would get hold of the Colonial Secretary and try and find out all about the damned stuff and about Crab Key and, if possible, about Doctor No.
  
   There was a double knock on the door. Bond got up and unlocked it. It was Quarrel, his left cheek decorated with a piratical cross of sticking-plaster. "Mornin," cap"n. Yo said eight-tirty."
  
   "Yes, come on in, Quarrel. We"ve got a busy day. Had some breakfast?"
  
   "Yes, tank you, cap"n. Salt fish an" ackee an" a tot of rum."
  
   "Good God," said Bond. "That"s tough stuff to start the day on."
  
   "Mos" refreshin,"" said Quarrel stolidly.
  
   They sat down outside on the balcony. Bond offered Quarrel a cigarette and lit one himself. "Now then," he said. "I"ll be spending most of the day at King"s House and perhaps at the Jamaica Institute. I shan"t need you till tomorrow morning, but there are some things for you to do downtown. All right?"
  
   "Okay, cap"n. Jes" yo say."
  
   "First of all, that car of ours is hot. We"ve got to get rid of it. Go down to Motta"s or one of the other hire people and pick up the newest and best little self-drive car you can find, the one with the least mileage. Saloon. Take it for a month. Right? Then hunt around the waterfront and find two men who look as near as possible like us. One must be able to drive a car. Buy them both clothes, at least for their top halves, that look like ours. And the sort of hats we might wear. Say we want a car taken over to Montego tomorrow morning-by the Spanish Town, Ocho Rios road. To be left at Levy"s garage there. Ring up Levy and tell him to expect it and keep it for us. Right?"
  
   Quarrel grinned. "Yo want fox someone?"
  
   "That"s right. They"ll get ten pounds each. Say I"m a rich American and I want my car to arrive in Montego Bay driven by a respectable couple of men. Make me out a bit mad. They must be here at six o"clock tomorrow morning. You"ll be here with the other car. See they look the part and send them off in the Sunbeam with the roof down. Right?"
  
   "Okay, cap"n."
  
   "What"s happened to that house we had on the North Shore last time-Beau Desert at Morgan"s Harbour? Do you know if it"s let?"
  
   "Couldn"t say, cap"n. Hit"s well away from de tourist places and dey askin" a big rent for it."
  
   "Well, go to Graham Associates and see if you can rent it for a month, or another bungalow near by. I don"t mind what you pay. Say it"s for a rich American, Mr James. Get the keys and pay the rent and say I"ll write and confirm. I can telephone them if they want more details." Bond reached into his hip pocket and brought out a thick wad of notes. He handed half of it to Quarrel. "Here"s two hundred pounds. That should cover all this. Get in touch if you want some more. You know where I"ll be."
  
   "Tanks, cap"n," said Quarrel, awestruck by the big sum. He stowed it away inside his blue shirt and buttoned the shirt up to his neck. "Anyting helse?"
  
   "No, but take a lot of trouble about not being followed. Leave the car somewhere downtown and walk to these places. And watch out particularly for any Chinese near you." Bond got up and they went to the door. "See you tomorrow morning at six-fifteen and we"ll get over to the North Coast. As far as I can see that"s going to be our base for a while."
  
   Quarrel nodded. His face was enigmatic. He said "Okay, cap"n" and went off down the corridor.
  
   Half an hour later Bond went downstairs and took a taxi to King"s House. He didn"t sign the Governor"s book in the cool hall. He was put in a waiting room for the quarter of an hour necessary to show him that he was unimportant. Then the ADC came for him and took him up to the Governor"s study on the first floor.
  
   It was a large cool room smelling of cigar smoke. The Acting Governor, in a cream tussore suit and an inappropriate wing collar and spotted bow tie, was sitting at a broad mahogany desk on which there was nothing but the Daily Gleaner, the Times Weekly and a bowl of hibiscus blossoms. His hands lay flat on the desk in front of him. He was sixtyish with a red, rather petulant face and bright, bitter blue eyes. He didn"t smile or get up. He said, "Good morning, Mr-er-Bond. Please sit down."
  
   Bond took the chair across the desk from the Governor and sat down. He said, "Good morning, sir," and waited. A friend at the Colonial Office had told him his reception would be frigid. "He"s nearly at retiring age. Only an interim appointment. We had to find an Acting Governor to take over at short notice when Sir Hugh Foot was promoted. Foot was a great success. This man"s not even trying to compete. He knows he"s only got the job for a few months while we find someone to replace Foot. This man"s been passed over for the Governor Generalship of Rhodesia. Now all he wants is to retire and get some directorships in the City. Last thing he wants is any trouble in Jamaica. He keeps on trying to close this Strangways case of yours. Won"t like you ferreting about."
  
   The Governor cleared his throat. He recognized that Bond wasn"t one of the servile ones. "You wanted to see me?"
  
   "Just to make my number, sir," said Bond equably. "I"m here on the Strangways case. I think you had a signal from the Secretary of State." This was a reminder that the people behind Bond were powerful people. Bond didn"t like attempts to squash him or his Service.
  
   "I recall the signal. And what can I do for you? So far as we"re concerned here the case is closed."
  
   "In what way "closed," sir?"
  
   The Governor said roughly, "Strangways obviously did a bunk with the girl. Unbalanced sort of fellow at the best of times. Some of your-er-colleagues don"t seem to be able to leave women alone." The Governor clearly included Bond. "Had to bail the chap out of various scandals before now. Doesn"t do the Colony any good, Mr-er-Bond. Hope your people will be sending us a rather better type of man to take his place. That is," he added coldly, "if a Regional Control man is really needed here. Personally I have every confidence in our police."
  
   Bond smiled sympathetically. "I"ll report your views, sir. I expect my Chief will like to discuss them with the Minister of Defence and the Secretary of State. Naturally, if you would like to take over these extra duties it will be a saving in manpower so far as my Service is concerned. I"m sure the Jamaican Constabulary is most efficient."
  
   The Governor looked at Bond suspiciously. Perhaps he had better handle this man a bit more carefully. "This is an informal discussion, Mr Bond. When I have decided on my views I will communicate them myself to the Secretary of State. In the meantime, is there anyone you wish to see on my staff?"
  
   "I"d like to have a word with the Colonial Secretary, sir."
  
   "Really? And why, pray?"
  
   "There"s been some trouble on Crab Key. Something about a bird sanctuary. The case was passed to us by the Colonial Office. My Chief asked me to look into it while I"m here."
  
   The Governor looked relieved. "Certainly, certainly. I"ll see that Mr Pleydell-Smith receives you straight away. So you feel we can leave the Strangways case to sort itself out? They"ll turn up before long, never fear." He reached over and rang a bell. The ADC came in. "This gentleman would like to see the Colonial Secretary, ADC. Take him along, would you? I"ll call Mr Pleydell-Smith myself and ask him to make himself available." He got up and came round the desk. He held out his hand. "Goodbye, then Mr Bond. And I"m so glad we see eye to eye. Crab Key, eh? Never been there myself, but I"m sure it would repay a visit."
  
   Bond shook hands. "That was what I was thinking. Goodbye, sir."
  
   "Goodbye, goodbye." The Governor watched Bond"s back retreating out of the door and himself returned well satisfied to his desk. "Young whippersnapper," he said to the empty room. He sat down and said a few peremptory words down the telephone to the Colonial Secretary. Then he picked up the Times Weekly and turned to the Stock Exchange prices.
  
   The Colonial Secretary was a youngish shaggy-haired man with bright, boyish eyes. He was one of those nervous pipe smokers who are constantly patting their pockets for matches, shaking the box to see how many are left in it, or knocking the dottle out of their pipes. After he had gone through this routine two or three times in his first ten minutes with Bond, Bond wondered if he ever got any smoke into his lungs at all.
  
   After pumping energetically at Bond"s hand and waving vaguely at a chair, Pleydell-Smith walked up and down the room scratching his temple with the stem of his pipe. "Bond. Bond. Bond! Rings a bell. Now let me see. Yes, by jove! You were the chap who was mixed up in that treasure business here. By jove, yes! Four, five years ago. Found the file lying around only the other day. Splendid show. What a lark! I say, wish you"d start another bonfire like that here. Stir the place up a bit. All they think of nowadays is Federation and their bloody self-importance. Self-determination indeed! They can"t even run a bus service. And the colour problem! My dear chap, there"s far more colour problem between the straight-haired and the crinkly-haired Jamaicans than there is between me and my black cook. However-" Pleydell-Smith came to rest beside his desk. He sat down opposite Bond and draped one leg over the arm of his chair. Reaching for a tobacco jar with the arms of King"s College, Cambridge, on it, he dug into it and started filling his pipe-"I mean to say I don"t want to bore you with all that. You go ahead and bore me. What"s your problem? Glad to help. I bet it"s more interesting than this muck," he waved at the pile of papers in his In tray.
  
   Bond grinned at him. This was more like it. He had found an ally, and an intelligent one at that. "Well," he said seriously, "I"m here on the Strangways case. But first of all I want to ask you a question that may sound odd. Exactly how did you come to be looking at that other case of mine? You say you found the file lying about. How was that? Had someone asked for it? I don"t want to be indiscreet, so don"t answer if you don"t want to. I"m just inquisitive."
  
   Pleydell-Smith cocked an eye at him. "I suppose that"s your job." He reflected, gazing at the ceiling. "Well, now I come to think of it I saw it on my secretary"s desk. She"s a new girl. Said she was trying to get up to date with the files. Mark you," the Colonial Secretary hastened to exonerate his girl, "there were plenty of other files on her desk. It was just this one that caught my eye."
  
   "Oh, I see," said Bond. "It was like that." He smiled apologetically. "Sorry, but various people seem to be rather interested in me being here. What I really wanted to talk to you about was Crab Key. Anything you know about the place. And about this Chinaman, Doctor No, who bought it. And anything you can tell me about his guano business. Rather a tall order, I"m afraid, but any scraps will help."
  
   Pleydell-Smith laughed shortly through the stem of his pipe. He jerked the pipe out of his mouth and talked while he tamped down the burning tobacco with his matchbox. "Bitten off a bit more than you can chew on guano. Talk to you for hours about it. Started in the Consular before I transferred to the Colonial Office. First job was in Peru. Had a lot to do with their people who administer the whole trade-Campania Aministradora del Guano. Nice people." The pipe was going now and Pleydell-Smith threw his matchbox down on the table. "As for the rest, it"s just a question of getting the file." He rang a bell. In a minute the door opened behind Bond. "Miss Taro, the file on Crab Key, please. The one on the sale of the place and the other one on that warden fellow who turned up before Christmas. Miss Longfellow will know where to find them."
  
   A soft voice said, "Yes, sir." Bond heard the door close.
  
   "Now then, guano." Pleydell-Smith tilted his chair back. Bond prepared to be bored. "As you know, it"s bird dung. Comes from the rear end of two birds, the masked booby and the guanay. So far as Crab Key is concerned, it"s only the guanay, otherwise known as the green cormorant, same bird as you find in England. The guanay is a machine for converting fish into guano. They mostly eat anchovies. Just to show you how much fish they eat, they"ve found up to seventy anchovies inside one bird!" Pleydell-Smith took out his pipe and pointed it impressively at Bond. "The whole population of Peru eats four thousand tons of fish a year. The sea birds of the country eat five hundred thousand tons!"
  
   Bond pursed his lips to show he was impressed. "Really."
  
   "Well, now," continued the Colonial Secretary, "every day each one of these hundreds of thousands of guanays eat a pound or so of fish and deposit an ounce of guano on the guanera-that"s the guano island."
  
   Bond interrupted, "Why don"t they do it in the sea?"
  
   "Don"t know." Pleydell-Smith took the question and turned it over in his mind. "Never occurred to me. Anyway they don"t. They do it on the land and they"ve been doing it since before Genesis. That makes the hell of a lot of bird dung-millions of tons of it on the Pescadores and the other guanera. Then, around 1850 someone discovered it was the greatest natural fertilizer in the world-stuffed with nitrates and phosphates and what have you. And the ships and the men came to the guaneras and simply ravaged them for twenty years or more. It"s a time known as the "Saturnalia" in Peru. It was like the Klondyke. People fought over the muck, hi-jacked each other"s ships, shot the workers, sold phoney maps of secret guano islands-anything you like. And people made fortunes out of the stuff."
  
   "Where does Crab Key come in?" Bond wanted to get down to cases.
  
   "That was the only worthwhile guanera so far north. It was worked too, God knows who by. But the stuff had a low nitrate content. Water"s not as rich round here as it is down along the Humboldt Current. So the fish aren"t so rich in chemicals. So the guano isn"t so rich either. Crab Key got worked on and off when the price was high enough, but the whole industry went bust, with Crab Key and the other poor-quality deposits in the van, when the Germans invented artificial chemical manure. By this time Peru had realized that she had squandered a fantastic capital asset and she set about organizing the remains of the industry and protecting the guanera. She nationalized the industry and protected the birds, and slowly, very slowly, the supplies built up again. Then people found that there were snags about the German stuff, it impoverishes the soil, which guano doesn"t do, and gradually the price of guano improved and the industry staggered back to its feet. Now it"s going fine, except that Peru keeps most of the guano to herself, for her own agriculture. And that was where Crab Key came in again."
  
   "Ah."
  
   "Yes," said Pleydell-Smith, patting his pockets for the matches, finding them on the desk, shaking them against his ear, and starting his pipe-filling routine, "at the beginning of the war, this Chinaman, who must be a wily devil, by the way, got the idea that he could make a good thing out of the old guanera on Crab Key. The price was about fifty dollars a ton on this side of the Atlantic and he bought the island from us, for about ten thousand pounds as I recall it, brought in labour and got to work. Been working it ever since. Must have made a fortune. He ships direct to Europe, to Antwerp. They send him a ship once a month. He"s installed the latest crushers and separators. Sweats his labour, I daresay. To make a decent profit, he"d have to. Particularly now. Last year I heard he was only getting about thirty-eight to forty dollars a ton c.i.f. Antwerp. God knows what he must pay his labour to make a profit at that price. I"ve never been able to find out. He runs that place like a fortress-sort of forced labour camp. No one ever gets off it. I"ve heard some funny rumours, but no one"s ever complained. It"s his island, of course, and he can do what he likes on it."
  
   Bond hunted for clues. "Would it really be so valuable to him, this place? What do you suppose it"s worth?"
  
   Pleydell-Smith said, "The guanay is the most valuable bird in the world. Each pair produces about two dollars" worth of guano in a year without any expense to the owner. Each female lays an average of three eggs and raises two young. Two broods a year. Say they"re worth fifteen dollars a pair, and say there are one hundred thousand birds on Crab Key, which is a reasonable guess on the old figures we have. That makes his birds worth a million and a half dollars. Pretty valuable property. Add the value of the installations, say another million, and you"ve got a small fortune on that hideous little place. Which reminds me," Pleydell-Smith pressed the bell, "what the hell has happened to those files? You"ll find all the dope you want in them."
  
   The door opened behind Bond.
  
   Pleydell-Smith said irritably, "Really, Miss Taro. What about those files?"
  
   "Very sorry, sir," said the soft voice. "But we can"t find them anywhere."
  
   "What do you mean "can"t find them"? Who had them last?"
  
   "Commander Strangways, sir."
  
   "Well, I remember distinctly him bringing them back to this room. What happened to them then?"
  
   "Can"t say, sir," the voice was unemotional. "The covers are there but there"s nothing inside them."
  
   Bond turned in his chair. He glanced at the girl and turned back. He smiled grimly to himself. He knew where the files had gone. He also knew why the old file on himself had been out on the Secretary"s desk. He also guessed how the particular significance of "James Bond, Import and Export Merchant" seemed to have leaked out of King"s House, the only place where the significance was known.
  
   Like Doctor No, like Miss Annabel Chung, the demure, efficient-looking little secretary in the horn-rimmed glasses was a Chinese.
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 6
  
  
   The Finger on the Trigger
  
   The Colonial Secretary gave Bond lunch at Queen"s Club. They sat in a corner of the elegant mahogany panelled dining-room with its four big ceiling fans and gossiped about Jamaica. By the time coffee came, Pleydell-Smith was delving well below the surface of the prosperous, peaceful island the world knows.
  
   "It"s like this." He began his antics with the pipe. "The Jamaican is a kindly lazy man with the virtues and vices of a child. He lives on a very rich island but he doesn"t get rich from it. He doesn"t know how to and he"s too lazy. The British come and go and take the easy pickings, but for about two hundred years no Englishman has made a fortune out here. He doesn"t stay long enough. He takes a fat cut and leaves. It"s the Portuguese Jews who make the most. They came here with the British and they"ve stayed. But they"re snobs and they spend too much of their fortunes on building fine houses and giving dances. They"re the names that fill the social column in the Gleaner when the tourists have gone. They"re in rum and tobacco and they represent the big British firms over here-motor cars, insurance and so forth. Then come the Syrians, very rich too, but not such good businessmen. They have most of the stores and some of the best hotels. They"re not a very good risk. Get overstocked and have to have an occasional fire to get liquid again. Then there are the Indians with their usual flashy trade in soft goods and the like. They"re not much of a lot. Finally there are the Chinese, solid, compact, discreet-the most powerful clique in Jamaica. They"ve got the bakeries and the laundries and the best food stores. They keep to themselves and keep their strain pure." Pleydell-Smith laughed. "Not that they don"t take the black girls when they want them. You can see the result all over Kingston-Chigroes-Chinese Negroes and Negresses. The Chigroes are a tough, forgotten race. They look down on the Negroes and the Chinese look down on them. One day they may become a nuisance. They"ve got some of the intelligence of the Chinese and most of the vices of the black man. The police have a lot of trouble with them."
  
   Bond said, "That secretary of yours. Would she be one of them?"
  
   "That"s right. Bright girl and very efficient. Had her for about six months. She was far the best of the ones that answered our advertisement."
  
   "She looks bright," said Bond non-committally. "Are they organized, these people? Is there some head of the Chinese Negro community?"
  
   "Not yet. But someone"ll get hold of them one of these days. They"d be a useful little pressure group." Pleydell-Smith glanced at his watch. "That reminds me. Must be getting along. Got to go and read the riot act about those files. Can"t think what happened to them. I distinctly remember..." He broke off. "However, main point, is that I haven"t been able to give you much dope about Crab Key and this doctor fellow. But I can tell you there wasn"t much you"d have found out from the files. He seems to have been a pleasant spoken chap. Very businesslike. Then there was that argument with the Audubon Society. I gather you know all about that. As for the place itself, there was nothing on the files but one or two pre-war reports and a copy of the last ordnance survey. God-forsaken bloody place it sounds. Nothing but miles of mangrove swamps and a huge mountain of bird dung at one end. But you said you were going down to the Institute. Why don"t I take you there and introduce you to the fellow who runs the map section?"
  
   An hour later Bond was ensconced in a corner of a sombre room with the ordnance survey map of Crab Key, dated 1910, spread out on a table in front of him. He had a sheet of the Institute"s writing-paper and had made a rough sketch-map and was jotting down the salient points.
  
   The overall area of the island was about fifty square miles. Three-quarters of this, to the east, was swamp and shallow lake. From the lake a flat river meandered down to the sea and came out halfway along the south coast into a small sandy bay. Bond guessed that somewhere at the headwaters of the river would be a likely spot for the Audubon wardens to have chosen for their camp. To the west, the island rose steeply to a hill stated to be five hundred feet high and ended abruptly with what appeared to be a sheer drop to the sea. A dotted line led from this hill to a box in the corner of the map which contained the words Guano deposits. Last workings 1880.
  
   There was no sign of a road, or even of a track on the island, and no sign of a house. The relief map showed that the island looked rather like a swimming water rat-a flat spine rising sharply to the head-heading west. It appeared to be about thirty miles due north of Galina Point on the north shore of Jamaica and about sixty miles south of Cuba.
  
   Little else could be gleaned from the map. Crab Key was surrounded by shoal water except below the western cliff where the nearest marking was five hundred fathoms. After that came the plunge into the Cuba Deep. Bond folded the map and handed it in to the librarian.
  
   Suddenly he felt exhausted. It was only four o"clock, but it was roasting in Kingston and his shirt was sticking to him. Bond walked out of the Institute and found a taxi and went back up into the cool hills to his hotel. He was well satisfied with his day, but nothing else could be done on this side of the island. He would spend a quiet evening at his hotel and be ready to get up early next morning and be away.
  
   Bond went to the reception desk to see if there was a message from Quarrel. "No messages, sir," said the girl. "But a basket of fruit came from King"s House. Just after lunch. The messenger took it up to your room."
  
   "What sort of a messenger?"
  
   "Coloured man, sir. Said he was from the ADC"s office."
  
   "Thank you." Bond took his key and went up the stairs to the first floor. It was ridiculously improbable. His hand on the gun under his coat, Bond softly approached his door. He turned the key and kicked the door open. The empty room yawned at him. Bond shut and locked the door. On his dressing table was a large, ornate basket of fruit-tangerines, grapefruit, pink bananas, soursop, star-apples and even a couple of hot-house nectarines. Attached to a broad ribbon on the handle was a white envelope. Bond removed it and held it up to the light. He opened it. On a plain sheet of expensive white writing paper was typed "With the Compliments of His Excellency the Governor."
  
   Bond snorted. He stood looking at the fruit. He bent his ear to it and listened. He then took the basket by the handle and tipped its contents out on to the floor. The fruit bounced and rolled over the coconut matting. There was nothing but fruit in the basket. Bond grinned at his precautions. There was a last possibility. He picked up one of the nectarines, the most likely for a greedy man to choose first, and took it into the bathroom. He dropped it in the washbasin and went back to the bedroom and, after inspecting the lock, unlocked the wardrobe. Gingerly he lifted out his suitcase and stood it in the middle of the room. He knelt down and looked for the traces of talcum powder he had dusted round the two locks. They were smeared and there were minute scratches round the keyholes. Bond sourly examined the marks. These people were not as careful as some others he had had to deal with. He unlocked the case and stood it up on end. There were four innocent copper studs in the welting at the front right-hand corner of the lid. Bond prised at the top one of these studs with his nail and it eased out. He took hold of it and pulled out three feet of thick steel wire and put it on the floor beside him. This wire threaded through small wire loops inside the lid and sewed the case shut. Bond lifted the lid and verified that nothing had been disturbed. From his "tool case" he took out a jeweller"s glass and went back into the bathroom and switched on the light over the shaving mirror. He screwed the glass into his eye and gingerly picked the nectarine out of the washbasin and revolved it slowly between finger and thumb.
  
   Bond stopped turning the nectarine. He had come to a minute pinhole, its edges faintly discoloured brown. It was in the crevice of the fruit, invisible except under a magnifying glass. Bond put the nectarine carefully down in the washbasin. He stood for a moment and looked thoughtfully into his eyes in the mirror.
  
   So it was war! Well, well. How very interesting. Bond felt the slight tautening of the skin at the base of his stomach. He smiled thinly at his reflection in the mirror. So his instincts and his reasoning had been correct. Strangways and the girl had been murdered and their records destroyed because they had got too hot on the trail. Then Bond had come on the scene and, thanks to Miss Taro, they had been waiting for him. Miss Chung, and perhaps the taxi driver, had picked up the scent. He had been traced to the Blue Hills hotel. The first shot had been fired. There would be others. And whose finger was on the trigger? Who had got him so accurately in his sights? Bond"s mind was made up. The evidence was nil. But he was certain of it. This was long-range fire, from Crab Key. The man behind the gun was Doctor No.
  
   Bond walked back into the bedroom. One by one he picked up the fruit and took each piece back to the bathroom and examined it through his glass. The pin-prick was always there, concealed in the stalk-hole or a crevice. Bond rang down and asked for a cardboard box and paper and string. He packed the fruit carefully in the box and picked up the telephone and called King"s House. He asked for the Colonial Secretary. "That you, Pleydell-Smith? James Bond speaking. Sorry to bother you. Got a bit of a problem. Is there a public analyst in Kingston? I see. Well, I"ve got something I want analysed. If I sent the box down to you, would you be very kind and pass it on to this chap? I don"t want my name to come into this. All right? I"ll explain later. When you get his report would you send me a short telegram telling me the answer? I"ll be at Beau Desert, over at Morgan"s Harbour, for the next week or so. Be glad if you"d keep that to yourself too. Sorry to be so damned mysterious. I"ll explain everything when I see you next. I expect you"ll get a clue when you see what the analyst has to say. And by the way, tell him to handle the specimens carefully, would you. Warn him there"s more in them than meets the eye. Very many thanks. Lucky I met you this morning. Goodbye."
  
   Bond addressed the parcel and went down and paid a taxi to deliver it at once to King"s House. It was six o"clock. He went back to his room and had a shower and changed and ordered his first drink. He was about to take it out on the balcony when the telephone rang. It was Quarrel.
  
   "Everyting fixed, cap"n."
  
   "Everything? That"s wonderful. That house all right?"
  
   "Everyting okay." Quarrel repeated, his voice careful. "See yo as yo done said, cap"n."
  
   "Fine," said Bond. He was impressed with Quarrel"s efficiency and a sense of security. He put down the telephone and went out on to the balcony.
  
   The sun was just setting. The wave of violet shadow was creeping down towards the town and the harbour. When it hits the town, thought Bond, the lights will go on. It happened as he had expected. Above him there was the noise of a plane. It came into sight, a Super Constellation, the same flight that Bond had been on the night before. Bond watched it sweep out over the sea and then turn and come in to land at the Palisadoes airport. What a long way he had come since-that moment, only twenty-four hours before, when the door of the plane had clanged open and the loudspeaker had said, "This is Kingston, Jamaica. Will passengers please remain seated until the aircraft has been cleared by the Health Authorities."
  
   Should he tell M how the picture had changed? Should he make a report to the Governor? Bond thought of the Governor and dismissed that idea. But what about M? Bond had his own cipher. He could easily send M a signal through the Colonial Office. What would he say to M? That Doctor No had sent him some poisoned fruit? But he didn"t even know that it was poisoned, or, for the matter of that, that it had come from Doctor No. Bond could see M"s face as he read the signal. He saw him press down the lever on the intercom: "Chief of Staff, 007"s gone round the bend. Says someone"s been trying to feed him a poisoned banana. Fellow"s lost his nerve. Been in hospital too long. Better call him home."
  
   Bond smiled to himself. He got up and rang down for another drink. It wouldn"t be quite like that, of course. But still...No, he"d wait until he had something more to show. Of course if something went badly wrong, and he hadn"t sent a warning, he"d be in trouble. It was up to him to see that nothing did go wrong.
  
   Bond drank his second drink and thought over the details of his plan. Then he went down and had dinner in the half-deserted dining-room and read the Handbook of the West Indies. By nine o"clock he was half asleep. He went back to his room and packed his bag ready for the morning. He telephoned down and arranged to be called at five-thirty. Then he bolted the door on the inside, and also shut and bolted the slatted jalousies across the windows. It would mean a hot, stuffy night. That couldn"t be helped. Bond climbed naked under the single cotton sheet and turned over on his left side and slipped his right hand on to the butt of the Walther PPK under the pillow. In five minutes he was asleep.
  
   The next thing Bond knew was that it was three o"clock in the morning. He knew it was three o"clock because the luminous dial of his watch was close to his face. He lay absolutely still. There was not a sound in the room. He strained his ears. Outside, too, it was deathly quiet. Far in the distance a dog started to bark. Other dogs joined in and there was a brief hysterical chorus which stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Then it was quite quiet again. The moon coming through the slats in the jalousies threw black and white bars across the corner of the room next to his bed. It was as if he was lying in a cage. What had woken him up? Bond moved softly, preparing to slip out of bed.
  
   Bond stopped moving. He stopped as dead as a live man can.
  
   Something had stirred on his right ankle. Now it was moving up the inside of his shin. Bond could feel the hairs on his leg being parted. It was an insect of some sort. A very big one. It was long, five or six inches-as long as his hand. He could feel dozens of tiny feet lightly touching his skin. What was it?
  
   Then Bond heard something he had never heard before-the sound of the hair on his head rasping up on the pillow. Bond analysed the noise. It couldn"t be! It simply couldn"t! Yes, his hair was standing on end. Bond could even feel the cool air reaching his scalp between the hairs. How extraordinary! How very extraordinary! He had always thought it was a figure of speech. But why? Why was it happening to him?
  
   The thing on his leg moved. Suddenly Bond realized that he was afraid, terrified. His instincts, even before they had communicated with his brain, had told his body that he had a centipede on him.
  
   Bond lay frozen. He had once seen a tropical centipede in a bottle of spirit on the shelf in a museum. It had been pale brown and very flat and five or six inches long-about the length of this one. On either side of the blunt head there had been curved poison claws. The label on the bottle had said that its poison was mortal if it hit an artery. Bond had looked curiously at the corkscrew of dead cuticle and had moved on.
  
   The centipede had reached his knee. It was starting up his thigh. Whatever happened he mustn"t move, mustn"t even tremble. Bond"s whole consciousness had drained down to the two rows of softly creeping feet. Now they had reached his flank. God, it was turning down towards his groin! Bond set his teeth! Supposing it liked the warmth there! Supposing it tried to crawl into the crevices! Could he stand it? Supposing it chose that place to bite? Bond could feel it questing amongst the first hairs. It tickled. The skin on Bond"s belly fluttered. There was nothing he could do to control it. But now the thing was turning up and along his stomach. Its feet were gripping tighter to prevent it falling. Now it was at his heart. If it bit there, surely it would kill him. The centipede trampled steadily on through the thin hairs on Bond"s right breast up to his collar bone. It stopped. What was it doing? Bond could feel the blunt head questing blindly to and fro. What was it looking for? Was there room between his skin and the sheet for it to get through? Dare he lift the sheet an inch to help it. No. Never! The animal was at the base of his jugular. Perhaps it was intrigued by the heavy pulse there. Christ, if only he could control the pumping of his blood. Damn you! Bond tried to communicate with the centipede. It"s nothing. It"s not dangerous, that pulse. It means you no harm. Get on out into the fresh air!
  
   As if the beast had heard, it moved on up the column of the neck and into the stubble on Bond"s chin. Now it was at the corner of his mouth, tickling madly. On it went, up along the nose. Now he could feel its whole weight and length. Softly Bond closed his eyes. Two by two the pairs of feet, moving alternately, trampled across his right eyelid. When it got off his eye, should he take a chance and shake it off-rely on its feet slipping in his sweat? No, for God"s sake! The grip of the feet was endless. He might shake one lot off, but not the rest.
  
   With incredible deliberation the huge insect ambled across Bond"s forehead. It stopped below the hair. What the hell was it doing now? Bond could feel it nuzzling at his skin. It was drinking! Drinking the beads of salt sweat. Bond was sure of it. For minutes it hardly moved. Bond felt weak with the tension. He could feel the sweat pouring off the rest of his body on to the sheet. In a second his limbs would start to tremble. He could feel it coming on. He would start to shake with an ague of fear. Could he control it, could he? Bond lay and waited, the breath coming softly through his open, snarling mouth.
  
   The centipede started to move again. It walked into the forest of hair. Bond could feel the roots being pushed aside as it forced its way along. Would it like it there? Would it settle down? How did centipedes sleep? Curled up, or at full length? The tiny centipedes he had known as a child, the ones that always seemed to find their way up the plughole into the empty bath, curled up when you touched them. Now it had come to where his head lay against the sheet. Would it walk out on to the pillow or would it stay on in the warm forest? The centipede stopped. Out! OUT! Bond"s nerves screamed at it.
  
   The centipede stirred. Slowly it walked out of his hair on to the pillow.
  
   Bond waited a second. Now he could hear the rows of feet picking softly at the cotton. It was a tiny scraping noise, like soft fingernails.
  
   With a crash that shook the room Bond"s body jackknifed out of bed and on to the floor.
  
   At once Bond was on his feet and at the door. He turned on the light. He found he was shaking uncontrollably. He staggered to the bed. There it was crawling out of sight over the edge of the pillow. Bond"s first instinct was to twitch the pillow on to the floor. He controlled himself, waiting for his nerves to quieten. Then softly, deliberately, he picked up the pillow by one corner and walked into the middle of the room and dropped it. The centipede came out from under the pillow. It started to snake swiftly away across the matting. Now Bond was uninterested. He looked round for something to kill it with. Slowly he went and picked up a shoe and came back. The danger was past. His mind was now wondering how the centipede had got into his bed. He lifted the shoe and slowly, almost carelessly, smashed it down. He heard the crack of the hard carapace.
  
   Bond lifted the shoe.
  
   The centipede was whipping from side to side in its agony-five inches of grey-brown, shiny death. Bond hit it again. It burst open, yellowly.
  
   Bond dropped the shoe and ran for the bathroom and was violently sick.
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 7
  
  
   Night Passage
  
   "By the way, Quarrel-" Bond dared a bus with "Brown Bomber" painted above its windshield. The bus pulled over and roared on down the hill towards Kingston sounding a furious chord on its triple windhorn to restore the driver"s ego, "-what do you know about centipedes?"
  
   "Centipedes, cap"n?" Quarrel squinted sideways for a clue to the question. Bond"s expression was casual. "Well, we got some bad ones here in Jamaica. Tree, fo, five inches long. Dey kills folks. Dey mos"ly lives in de old houses in Kingston. Dey loves de rotten wood an" de mouldy places. Dey hoperates mos"ly at night. Why, cap"n? Yo seen one?"
  
   Bond dodged the question. He had also not told Quarrel about the fruit. Quarrel was a tough man, but there was no reason to sow the seeds of fear. "Would you expect to find one in a modern house, for instance? In your shoe, or in a drawer, or in your bed?"
  
   "Nossir." Quarrel"s voice was definite. "Not hunless dem put dere a purpose. Dese hinsecks love de holes and de crannies. Dey not love de clean places. Dey dirty-livin" hinsecks. Mebbe yo find dem in de bush, under logs an" stones. But never in de bright places."
  
   "I see." Bond changed the subject. "By the way, did those two men get off all right in the Sunbeam?"
  
   "Sho ting, cap"n. Dey plenty happy wid de job. An" dey look plenty like yo an" me, cap"n." Quarrel chuckled. He glanced at Bond and said hesitantly, "I fears dey weren"t very good citizens, cap"n. Had to find de two men wheres I could. Me, I"m a beggarman, cap"n. An" fo you, cap"n, I get a misrable no-good whiteman from Betsy"s."
  
   "Who"s Betsy?"
  
   "She done run de lousiest brothel in town, cap"n," Quarrel spat emphatically out of the window. "Dis whiteman, he does de book-keepin.""
  
   Bond laughed. "So long as he can drive a car. I only hope they get to Montego all right."
  
   "Don" yo worry," Quarrel misunderstood Bond"s concern. "I say I tell de police dey stole de car if dey don.""
  
   They were at the saddleback at Stony Hill where the Junction Road dives down through fifty S-bends towards the North Coast. Bond put the little Austin A.30 into second gear and let it coast. The sun was coming up over the Blue Mountain peak and dusty shafts of gold lanced into the plunging valley. There were few people on the road-an occasional man going off to his precipitous smallholding on the flank of a hill, his three-foot steel cutlass dangling from his right hand, chewing at his breakfast, a foot of raw sugar cane held in his left, or a woman sauntering up the road with a covered basket of fruit or vegetables for Stony Hill market, her shoes on her head, to be donned when she got near the village. It was a savage, peaceful scene that had hardly changed, except for the surface of the road, for two hundred years or more. Bond almost smelled the dung of the mule train in which he would have been riding over from Port Royal to visit the garrison at Morgan"s Harbour in 1750.
  
   Quarrel interrupted his thoughts. "Cap"n," he said apologetically, "beggin" yo pardon, but kin yo tell me what yo have in mind for we? I"se bin puzzlin" an" Ah caint seem to figger hout yo game."
  
   "I"ve hardly figured it out myself, Quarrel." Bond changed up into top and dawdled through the cool, beautiful glades of Castleton Gardens. "I told you I"m here because Commander Strangways and his secretary have disappeared. Most people think they"ve gone off together. I think they"ve been murdered."
  
   "Dat so?" said Quarrel unemotionally. "Who yo tink done hit?"
  
   "I"ve come to agree with you. I think Doctor No, that Chinaman on Crab Key, had it done. Strangways was poking his nose into this man"s affairs-something to do with the bird sanctuary. Doctor No has this mania for privacy. You were telling me so yourself. Seems he"ll do anything to stop people climbing over his wall. Mark you, it"s not more than a guess about Doctor No. But some funny things happened in the last twenty-four hours. That"s why I sent the Sunbeam over to Montego, to lay a false scent. And that"s why we"re going to hide out at the Beau Desert for a few days."
  
   "Den what, cap"n?"
  
   "First of all I want you to get me absolutely fit-the way you trained me the last time I was here. Remember?"
  
   "Sho, cap"n. Ah kin do dat ting."
  
   "And then I was thinking you and me might go and take a look at Crab Key."
  
   Quarrel whistled. The whistle ended on a downward note.
  
   "Just sniff around. We needn"t get too close to Doctor No"s end. I want to take a look at this bird sanctuary. See for myself what happened to the wardens" camp. If we find anything wrong, we"ll get away again and come back by the front door-with some soldiers to help. Have a full-dress inquiry. Can"t do that until we"ve got something to go on. What do you think?"
  
   Quarrel dug into his hip pocket for a cigarette. He made a fuss about lighting it. He blew a cloud of smoke through his nostrils and watched it whip out of the window. He said, "Cap"n, Ah tink yo"se plumb crazy to trespass hon dat island." Quarrel had wound himself up. He paused. There was no comment. He looked sideways at the quiet profile. He said more quietly, in an embarrassed voice, "Jess one ting, cap"n. Ah have some folks back in da Caymans. Would yo consider takin" hout a life hinsurance hon me afore we sail?"
  
   Bond glanced affectionately at the strong brown face. It had a deep cleft of worry between the eyes. "Of course, Quarrel. I"ll fix it at Port Maria tomorrow. We"ll make it big, say five thousand pounds. Now then, how shall we go? Canoe?"
  
   "Dat"s right, cap"n." Quarrel"s voice was reluctant. "We need a calm sea an" a light wind. Come hin on de Nor-easterly Trades. Mus" be a dark night. Dey startin" right now. By end of da week we git da secon" moon quarter. Where yo reckon to land, cap"n?"
  
   "South shore near the mouth of the river. Then we"ll go up the river to the lake. I"m sure that"s where the wardens" camp was. So as to have fresh water and be able to get down to the sea to fish."
  
   Quarrel grunted without enthusiasm. "How long we stayin," cap"n? Caint take a whole lot of food wit us. Bread, cheese, salt pork. No tobacco-caint risk da smoke an" light. Dat"s mighty rough country, cap"n. Marsh an" mangrove."
  
   Bond said: "Better plan for three days. Weather may break and stop us getting off for a night or two. Couple of good hunting knives. I"ll take a gun. You never can tell."
  
   "No, sir," said Quarrel emphatically. He relapsed into a brooding silence which lasted until they got to Port Maria.
  
   They went through the little town and on round the headland to Morgan"s Harbour. It was just as Bond remembered-the sugar-loaf of the Isle of Surprise rising out of the calm bay, the canoes drawn up beside the mounds of empty conch shells, the distant boom of the surf on the reef which had so nearly been his grave. Bond, his mind full of memories, took the car down the little side road and through the cane fields in the middle of which the gaunt ruin of the old Great House of Beau Desert Plantation stood up like a stranded galleon.
  
   They came to the gate leading to the bungalow. Quarrel got out and opened the gate, and Bond drove through and pulled up in the yard behind the white single-storeyed house. It was very quiet. Bond walked round the house and across the lawn to the edge of the sea. Yes, there it was, the stretch of deep, silent water-the submarine path he had taken to the Isle of Surprise. It sometimes came back to him in nightmares. Bond stood looking at it and thinking of Solitaire, the girl he had brought back, torn and bleeding, from that sea. He had carried her across the lawn to the house. What had happened to her? Where was she? Brusquely Bond turned and walked back into the house, driving the phantoms away from him.
  
   It was eight-thirty. Bond unpacked his few things and changed into sandals and shorts. Soon there was the delicious smell of coffee and frying bacon. They ate their breakfast while Bond fixed his training routine-up at seven, swim a quarter of a mile, breakfast, an hour"s sunbathing, run a mile, swim again, lunch, sleep, sunbathe, swim a mile, hot bath and massage, dinner and asleep by nine.
  
   After breakfast the routine began.
  
   Nothing interrupted the grinding week except a brief story in the Daily Gleaner and a telegram from Pleydell-Smith. The Gleaner said that a Sunbeam Talbot, H. 2473, had been involved in a fatal accident on the Devil"s Racecourse, a stretch of winding road between Spanish Town and Ochos Rio-on the Kingston-Montego route. A runaway lorry, whose driver was being traced, had crashed into the Sunbeam as it came round a bend. Both vehicles had left the road and hurtled into the ravine below. The two occupants of the Sunbeam, Ben Gibbons of Harbour Street, and Josiah Smith, no address, had been killed. A Mr Bond, an English visitor, who had been lent the car, was asked to contact the nearest police station.
  
   Bond burned that copy of the Gleaner. He didn"t want to upset Quarrel.
  
   With only one day to go, the telegram came from Pleydell-Smith. It said:
  
   EACH OBJECT CONTAINED ENOUGH CYANIDE TO KILL A HORSE
  
   STOP SUGGEST YOU CHANGE YOUR GROCER STOP GOOD LUCK
  
   SMITH
  
   Bond also burned the telegram.
  
   Quarrel hired a canoe and they spent three days sailing it. It was a clumsy shell cut out of a single giant cotton tree. It had two thin thwarts, two heavy paddles and a small sail of dirty canvas. It was a blunt instrument. Quarrel was pleased with it.
  
   "Seven, eight hours, cap"n," he said. "Den we bring down de sail an" use de paddles. Less target for de radar to see."
  
   The weather held. The forecast from Kingston radio was good. The nights were as black as sin. The two men got in their stores. Bond fitted himself out with cheap black canvas jeans and a dark blue shirt and rope-soled shoes.
  
   The last evening came. Bond was glad he was on his way. He had only once been out of the training camp-to get the stores and arrange Quarrel"s insurance-and he was chafing to get out of the stable and on to the track. He admitted to himself that this adventure excited him. It had the right ingredients-physical exertion, mystery, and a ruthless enemy. He had a good companion. His cause was just. There might also be the satisfaction of throwing the "holiday in the sun" back in M"s teeth. That had rankled. Bond didn"t like being coddled.
  
   The sun blazed beautifully into its grave.
  
   Bond went into his bedroom and took out his two guns and looked at them. Neither was a part of him as the Beretta had been-an extension of his right hand-but he already knew them as better weapons. Which should he take? Bond picked up each in turn, hefting them in his hand. It had to be the heavier Smith & Wesson. There would be no close shooting, if there was any shooting, on Crab Key. Heavy, long-range stuff-if anything. The brutal, stumpy revolver had an extra twenty-five yards over the Walther. Bond fitted the holster into the waistband of his jeans and clipped in the gun. He put twenty spare rounds in his pocket. Was it over-insurance to take all this metal on what might only be a tropical picnic?
  
   Bond went to the icebox and took a pint of Canadian Club Blended Rye and some ice and soda-water and went and sat in the garden and watched the last light flame and die.
  
   The shadows crept from behind the house and marched across the lawn and enveloped him. The Undertaker"s Wind that blows at night from the centre of the island, clattered softly in the tops of the palm trees. The frogs began to tinkle among the shrubs. The fireflies, the "blink-a-blinks," as Quarrel called them, came out and began flashing their sexual morse. For a moment the melancholy of the tropical dusk caught at Bond"s heart. He picked up the bottle and looked at it. He had drunk a quarter of it. He poured another big slug into his glass and added some ice. What was he drinking for? Because of the thirty miles of black sea he had to cross tonight? Because he was going into the unknown? Because of Doctor No?
  
   Quarrel came up from the beach. "Time, cap"n."
  
   Bond swallowed his drink and followed the Cayman Islander down to the canoe. It was rocking quietly in the water, its bows on the sand. Quarrel went aft and Bond climbed into the space between the forrard thwart and the bows. The sail, wrapped round the short mast, was at his back. Bond took up his paddle and pushed off, and they turned slowly and headed out for the break in the softly creaming waves that was the passage through the reef. They paddled easily, in unison, the paddles turning in their hands so that they did not leave the water on the forward stroke. The small waves slapped softly against the bows. Otherwise they made no noise. It was dark. Nobody saw them go. They just left the land and went off across the sea.
  
   Bond"s only duty was to keep paddling. Quarrel did the steering. At the opening through the reef there was a swirl and suck of conflicting currents and they were in amongst the jagged niggerheads and coral trees, bared like fangs by the swell. Bond could feel the strength of Quarrel"s great sweeps with the paddle as the heavy craft wallowed and plunged. Again and again Bond"s own paddle thudded against rock, and once he had to hold on as the canoe hit a buried mass of brain coral and slid off again. Then they were through, and far below the boat there were indigo patches of sand and around them the solid oily feel of deep water.
  
   "Okay, cap"n," said Quarrel softly. Bond shipped his paddle and got down off one knee and sat with his back to the thwart. He heard the scratching of Quarrel"s nails against canvas as he unwrapped the sail and then the sharp flap as it caught the breeze. The canoe straightened and began to move. It tilted slowly. There was a soft hiss under the bows. A handful of spray tossed up into Bond"s face. The wind of their movement was cool and would soon get cold. Bond hunched up his knees and put his arms round them. The wood was already beginning to bite into his buttocks and his back. It crossed his mind that it was going to be the hell of a long and uncomfortable night.
  
   In the darkness ahead Bond could just make out the rim of the world. Then came a layer of black haze above which the stars began, first sparsely and then merging into a dense bright carpet. The Milky Way soared overhead. How many stars? Bond tried counting a finger"s length and was soon past the hundred. The stars lit the sea into a faint grey road and then arched away over the tip of the mast towards the black silhouette of Jamaica. Bond looked back. Behind the hunched figure of Quarrel there was a faraway cluster of lights which would be Port Maria. Already they were a couple of miles out. Soon they would be a tenth of the way, then a quarter, then half. That would be around midnight when Bond would take over. Bond sighed and put his head down to his knees and closed his eyes.
  
   He must have slept because he was awakened by the clonk of a paddle against the boat. He lifted his arm to show that he had heard and glanced at the luminous blaze of his watch. Twelve-fifteen. Stiffly he unbent his legs and turned and scrambled over the thwart.
  
   "Sorry, Quarrel," he said, and it was odd to hear his voice. "You ought to have shaken me up before."
  
   "Hit don signify, cap"n," said Quarrel with a grey glint of teeth. "Do yo good to sleep."
  
   Gingerly they slipped past each other and Bond settled in the stern and picked up the paddle. The sail was secured to a bent nail beside him. It was flapping. Bond brought the bows into the wind and edged them round so that the North Star was directly over Quarrel"s bent head in the bows. For a time this would be fun. There was something to do.
  
   There was no change in the night except that it seemed darker and emptier. The pulse of the sleeping sea seemed slower. The heavy swell was longer and the troughs deeper. They were running through a patch of phosphorus that winked at the bows and dripped jewels when Bond lifted the paddle out of the water. How safe it was, slipping through the night in this ridiculously vulnerable little boat. How kind and soft the sea could be. A covey of flying fish broke the surface in front of the bows and scattered like shrapnel. Some kept going for a time beside the canoe, flying as much as twenty yards before they dived into the wall of the swell. Was some bigger fish after them or did they think the canoe was a fish, or were they just playing? Bond thought of what was going on in the hundreds of fathoms below the boat, the big fish, the shark and barracuda and tarpon and sailfish quietly cruising, the shoals of kingfish and mackerel and bonito and, far below in the grey twilight of the great depths, the phosphorous jellied boneless things that were never seen, the fifty-foot squids, with eyes a foot, wide, that streamed along like zeppelins, the last real monsters of the sea, whose size was only known from the fragments found inside whales. What would happen if a wave caught the canoe broadside and capsized them? How long would they last? Bond took an ounce more pains with his steering and put the thought aside.
  
   One o"clock, two o"clock, three, four. Quarrel awoke and stretched. He called softly to Bond. "Ah smells land, cap"n." Soon there was a thickening of the darkness ahead. The low shadow slowly took on the shape of a huge swimming rat. A pale moon rose slowly behind them. Now the island showed distinctly, a couple of miles away, and there was the distant grumble of surf.
  
   They changed places. Quarrel brought down the sail and they took up the paddles. For at least another mile, thought Bond, they would be invisible in the troughs of the waves. Not even radar would distinguish them from the crests. It was the last mile they would have to hurry over with the dawn not far off.
  
   Now he too could smell the land. It had no particular scent. It was just something new in the nose after hours of clean sea. He could make out the white fringe of surf. The swell subsided and the waves became choppier. "Now, cap"n," called Quarrel, and Bond, the sweat already dropping off his chin, dug deeper and more often. God, it was hard work! The hulking log of wood which had sped along so well under the sail now seemed hardly to move. The wave at the bows was only a ripple. Bond"s shoulders were aching like fire. The one knee he was resting on was beginning to bruise. His hands were cramped on the clumsy shaft of a paddle made of lead.
  
   It was incredible, but they were coming up with the reef. Patches of sand showed deep under the boat. Now the surf was a roar. They followed along the edge of the reef, looking for an opening. A hundred yards inside the reef, breaking the sandline, was the shimmer of water running inland. The river! So the landfall had been all right. The wall of surf broke up. There was a patch of black oily current swelling over hidden coral heads. The nose of the canoe turned towards it and into it. There was a turmoil of water and a series of grating thuds, and then a sudden rush forward into peace and the canoe was moving slowly across a smooth mirror towards the shore.
  
   Quarrel steered the boat towards the lee of a rocky promontory where the beach ended. Bond wondered why the beach didn"t shine white under the thin moon. When they grounded and Bond climbed stiffly out he understood why. The beach was black. The sand was soft and wonderful to the feet but it must have been formed out of volcanic rock, pounded over the centuries, and Bond"s naked feet on it looked like white crabs.
  
   They made haste. Quarrel took three short lengths of thick bamboo out of the boat and laid them up the flat beach. They heaved the nose of the canoe on to the first and pushed the boat up the rollers. After each yard of progress, Bond picked up the back roller and brought it to the front. Slowly the canoe moved up the sand until at last it was over the back tideline and among the rocks and turtle grass and low sea-grape bushes. They pushed it another twenty yards inland into the beginning of the mangrove. There they covered it with dried seaweed and bits of driftwood from the tideline. Then Quarrel cut lengths of screwpalm and went back over their tracks, sweeping and tidying.
  
   It was still dark, but the breath of grey in the east would soon be turning to pearl. It was five o"clock. They were dead tired. They exchanged a few words and Quarrel went off among the rocks on the promontory. Bond scooped out a depression in the fine dry sand under a thick bush of seagrape. There were a few hermit crabs beside his bed. He picked up as many as he could find and hurled them into the mangrove. Then, not caring what other animals or insects might come to his smell and his warmth, he lay down full length in the sand and rested his head on his arm.
  
   He was at once asleep.
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 8
  
  
   The Elegant Venus
  
   Bond awoke lazily. The feel of the sand reminded him where he was. He glanced at his watch. Ten o"clock. The sun through the round thick leaves of the sea-grape was already hot. A larger shadow moved across the dappled sand in front of his face. Quarrel? Bond shifted his head and peered through the fringe of leaves and grass that concealed him from the beach. He stiffened. His heart missed a beat and then began pounding so that he had to breathe deeply to quieten it. His eyes, as he stared through the blades of grass, were fierce slits.
  
   It was a naked girl, with her back to him. She was not quite naked. She wore a broad leather belt round her waist with a hunting knife in a leather sheath at her right hip. The belt made her nakedness extraordinarily erotic. She stood not more than five yards away on the tideline looking down at something in her hand. She stood in the classical relaxed pose of the nude, all the weight on the right leg and the left knee bent and turning slightly inwards, the head to one side as she examined the things in her hand.
  
   It was a beautiful back. The skin was a very light uniform café au lait with the sheen of dull satin. The gentle curve of the backbone was deeply indented, suggesting more powerful muscles than is usual in a woman, and the behind was almost as firm and rounded as a boy"s. The legs were straight and beautiful and no pinkness showed under the slightly lifted left heel. She was not a coloured girl.
  
   Her hair was ash blonde. It was cut to the shoulders and hung there and along the side of her bent cheek in thick wet strands. A green diving mask was pushed back above her forehead, and the green rubber thong bound her hair at the back.
  
   The whole scene, the empty beach, the green and blue sea, the naked girl with the strands of fair hair, reminded Bond of something. He searched his mind. Yes, she was Botticelli"s Venus, seen from behind.
  
   How had she got there? What was she doing? Bond looked up and down the beach. It was not black, he now saw, but a deep chocolate brown. To the right he could see as far as the river mouth, perhaps five hundred yards away. The beach was empty and featureless except for a scattering of small pinkish objects. There were a lot of them, shells of some sort Bond supposed, and they looked decorative against the dark brown background. He looked to the left, to where, twenty yards away, the rocks of the small headland began. Yes, there was a yard or two of groove in the sand where a canoe had been drawn up into the shelter of the rocks. It must have been a light one or she couldn"t have drawn it up alone. Perhaps the girl wasn"t alone. But there was only one set of footprints leading down from the rocks to the sea and another set coming out of the sea and up the beach to where she now stood on the tideline. Did she live here, or had she too sailed over from Jamaica that night? Hell of a thing for a girl to do. Anyway, what in God"s name was she doing here?
  
   As if to answer him, the girl made a throwaway gesture of the right hand and scattered a dozen shells on the sand beside her. They were violent pink and seemed to Bond to be the same as he had noticed on the beach. The girl looked down into her left hand and began to whistle softly to herself. There was a happy note of triumph in the whistle. She was whistling "Marion," a plaintive little calypso that has now been cleaned up and made famous outside Jamaica. It had always been one of Bond"s favourites. It went:
  
   All day, all night, Marion,
  
   Sittin" by the seaside siftin" sand...
  
   The girl broke off to stretch her arms out in a deep yawn. Bond smiled to himself. He wetted his lips and took up the refrain:
  
   "The water from her eyes could sail a boat,
  
   The hair on her head could tie a goat..."
  
   The hands flew down and across her chest. The muscles of her behind bunched with tension. She was listening, her head, still hidden by the curtain of hair, cocked to one side.
  
   Hesitantly she began again. The whistle trembled and died. At the first note of Bond"s echo, the girl whirled round. She didn"t cover her body with the two classical gestures. One hand flew downwards, but the other, instead of hiding her breasts, went up to her face, covering it below the eyes, now wide with fear. "Who"s that?" The words came out in a terrified whisper.
  
   Bond got to his feet and stepped out through the sea-grape. He stopped on the edge of the grass. He held his hands open at his sides to show they were empty. He smiled cheerfully at her. "It"s only me. I"m another trespasser. Don"t be frightened."
  
   The girl dropped her hand down from her face. It went to the knife at her belt. Bond watched the fingers curl round the hilt. He looked up at her face. Now he realized why her hand had instinctively gone to it. It was a beautiful face, with wide-apart deep blue eyes under lashes paled by the sun. The mouth was wide and when she stopped pursing the lips with tension they would be full. It was a serious face and the jawline was determined-the face of a girl who fends for herself. And once, reflected Bond, she had failed to fend. For the nose was badly broken, smashed crooked like a boxer"s. Bond stiffened with revolt at what had happened to this supremely beautiful girl. No wonder this was her shame and not the beautiful firm breasts that now jutted towards him without concealment.
  
   The eyes examined him fiercely. "Who are you? What are you doing here?" There was the slight lilt of a Jamaican accent. The voice was sharp and accustomed to being obeyed.
  
   "I"m an Englishman. I"m interested in birds."
  
   "Oh," the voice was doubtful. The hand still rested on the knife. "How long have you been watching me? How did you get here?"
  
   "Ten minutes, but no more answers until you tell me who you are."
  
   "I"m no one in particular. I come from Jamaica. I collect shells."
  
   "I came in a canoe. Did you?"
  
   "Yes. Where is your canoe?"
  
   "I"ve got a friend with me. We"ve hidden it in the mangroves."
  
   "There are no marks of a canoe landing."
  
   "We"re careful. We covered them up. Not like you." Bond gestured towards the rocks. "You ought to take more trouble. Did you use a sail? Right up to the reef?"
  
   "Of course. Why not? I always do."
  
   "Then they"ll know you"re here. They"ve got radar."
  
   "They"ve never caught me yet." The girl took her hand away from her knife. She reached up and stripped off the diving mask and stood swinging it. She seemed to think she had the measure of Bond. She said, with some of the sharpness gone from her voice, "What"s your name?"
  
   "Bond. James Bond. What"s yours?"
  
   She reflected. "Rider."
  
   "What Rider?"
  
   "Honeychile."
  
   Bond smiled.
  
   "What"s so funny about it?"
  
   "Nothing. Honeychile Rider. It"s a pretty name."
  
   She unbent. "People call me "Honey.""
  
   "Well, I"m glad to meet you."
  
   The prosaic phrase seemed to remind her of her nakedness. She blushed. She said uncertainly, "I must get dressed." She looked down at the scattered shells around her feet. She obviously wanted to pick them up. Perhaps she realized that the movement might be still more revealing than her present pose. She said sharply, "You"re not to touch those while I"m gone."
  
   Bond smiled at the childish challenge. "Don"t worry, I"ll look after them."
  
   The girl looked at him doubtfully and then turned and walked stiff-legged over to the rocks and disappeared behind them.
  
   Bond walked the few steps down the beach and bent and picked up one of the shells. It was alive and the two halves were shut tight. It appeared to be some kind of a cockle, rather deeply ribbed and coloured a mauve-pink. Along both edges of the hinge, thin horns stood out, about half a dozen to each side. It didn"t seem to Bond a very distinguished shell. He replaced it carefully with the others.
  
   He stood looking down at the shells and wondering. Was she really collecting them? It certainly looked like it. But what a risk to take to get them-the voyage over alone in the canoe and then back again. And she seemed to realize that this was a dangerous place. "They"ve never caught me yet." What an extraordinary girl. Bond"s heart warmed and his senses stirred as he thought of her. Already, as he had found so often when people had deformities, he had almost forgotten her broken nose. It had somehow slipped away behind his memory of her eyes and her mouth and her amazingly beautiful body. Her imperious attitude and her quality of attack were exciting. The way she had reached for her knife to defend herself! She was like an animal whose cubs are threatened. Where did she live? Who were her parents? There was something uncared for about her-a dog that nobody wants to pet. Who was she?
  
   Bond heard her footsteps riffling the sand. He turned to look at her. She was dressed almost in rags-a faded brown shirt with torn sleeves and a knee-length patched brown cotton skirt held in place by the leather belt with the knife. She had a canvas knapsack slung over one shoulder. She looked like a principal girl dressed as Man Friday.
  
   She came up with him and at once went down on one knee and began picking up the live shells and stowing them in the knapsack.
  
   Bond said, "Are those rare?"
  
   She sat back on her haunches and looked up at him. She surveyed his face. Apparently she was satisfied. "You promise you won"t tell anybody? Swear?"
  
   "I promise," said Bond.
  
   "Well then, yes, they are rare. Very. You can get five dollars for a perfect specimen. In Miami. That"s where I deal with. They"re called Venus Elegans-The Elegant Venus." Her eyes sparkled up at him with excitement. "This morning I found what I wanted. The bed where they live," she waved towards the sea. "You wouldn"t find it though," she added with sudden carefulness. "It"s very deep and hidden away. I doubt if you could dive that deep. And anyway," she looked happy, "I"m going to clear the whole bed today. You"d only get the imperfect ones if you came back here."
  
   Bond laughed. "I promise I won"t steal any. I really don"t know anything about shells. Cross my heart."
  
   She stood up, her work completed. "What about these birds of yours? What sort are they? Are they valuable too? I won"t tell either if you tell me. I only collect shells."
  
   "They"re called roseate spoonbills," said Bond. "Sort of pink stork with a flat beak. Ever seen any?"
  
   "Oh, those," she said scornfully. "There used to be thousands of them here. But you won"t find many now. They scared them all away." She sat down on the sand and put her arms round her knees, proud of her superior knowledge and now certain that she had nothing to fear from this man.
  
   Bond sat down a yard away. He stretched out and turned towards her, resting on his elbow. He wanted to preserve the picnic atmosphere and try to find out more about this queer, beautiful girl. He said, easily, "Oh, really. What happened? Who did it?"
  
   She shrugged impatiently. "The people here did it. I don"t know who they are. There"s a Chinaman. He doesn"t like birds or something. He"s got a dragon. He sent the dragon after the birds and scared them away. The dragon burned up their nesting places. There used to be two men who lived with the birds and looked after them. They got scared away too, or killed or something."
  
   It all seemed quite natural to her. She gave the facts indifferently, staring out to sea.
  
   Bond said, "This dragon. What kind is he? Have you ever seen him?"
  
   "Yes, I"ve seen him." She screwed up her eyes and made a wry face as if she was swallowing bitter medicine. She looked earnestly at Bond to make him share her feelings. "I"ve been coming here for about a year, looking for shells and exploring. I only found these," she waved at the beach, "about a month ago. On my last trip. But I"ve found plenty of other good ones. Just before Christmas I thought I"d explore the river. I went up it to the top, where the birdmen had their camp. It was all broken up. It was getting late and I decided to spend the night there. In the middle of the night I woke up. The dragon was coming by only a few chains away from me. It had two great glaring eyes and a long snout. It had sort of short wings and a pointed tail. It was all black and gold." She frowned at the expression on Bond"s face. "There was a full moon. I could see it quite clearly. It went by me. It was making a sort of roaring noise. It went over the marsh and came to some thick mangrove and it simply climbed over the bushes and went on. A whole flock of birds got up in front of it and suddenly a lot of fire came out of its mouth and it burned a lot of them up and all the trees they"d been roosting in. It was horrible. The most horrible thing I"ve ever seen."
  
   The girl leant sideways and peered at Bond"s face. She sat up straight again and stared obstinately out to sea. "I can see you don"t believe me," she said in a furious, tense voice. "You"re one of these city people. You don"t believe anything. Ugh," she shuddered with dislike of him.
  
   Bond said reasonably, "Honey, there just aren"t such things as dragons in the world. You saw something that looked very like a dragon. I"m just wondering what it was."
  
   "How do you know there aren"t such things as dragons?" Now he had made her really angry. "Nobody lives on this end of the island. One could easily have survived here. Anyway, what do you think you know about animals and things? I"ve lived with snakes and things since I was a child. Alone. Have you ever seen a praying mantis eat her husband after they"ve made love? Have you ever seen the mongoose dance? Or an octopus dance? How long is a humming bird"s tongue? Have you ever had a pet snake that wore a bell round its neck and rang it to wake you? Have you seen a scorpion get sunstroke and kill itself with its own sting? Have you seen the carpet of flowers under the sea at night? Do you know that a John Crow can smell a dead lizard a mile away...?" The girl had fired these questions like scornful jabs with a rapier. Now she stopped, out of breath. She said hopelessly, "Oh, you"re just city folk like all the rest."
  
   Bond said, "Honey, now look here. You know these things. I can"t help it that I live in towns. I"d like to know about your things too. I just haven"t had that sort of life. I know other things instead. Like..." Bond searched his mind. He couldn"t think of anything as interesting as hers. He finished lamely, "Like for instance that this Chinaman is going to be more interested in your visit this time. This time he"s going to try and stop you getting away." He paused and added. "And me for the matter of that."
  
   She turned and looked at him with interest. "Oh. Why? But then it doesn"t really matter. One just hides during the day and gets away at night. He"s sent dogs after me and even a plane. He hasn"t got me yet." She examined Bond with a new interest. "Is it you he"s after?"
  
   "Well, yes," admitted Bond. "I"m afraid it is. You see we dropped the sail about two miles out so that their radar wouldn"t pick us up. I think the Chinaman may have been expecting a visit from me. Your sail will have been reported and I"d bet anything he"ll think your canoe was mine. I"d better go and wake my friend up and we"ll talk it over. You"ll like him. He"s a Cayman Islander, name of Quarrel."
  
   The girl said, "Well, I"m sorry if..." the sentence trailed away. Apologies wouldn"t come easy to someone so much on the defensive. "But after all I couldn"t know, could I?" She searched his face.
  
   Bond smiled into the questing blue eyes. He said reassuringly, "Of course you couldn"t. It"s just bad luck-bad luck for you too. I don"t suppose he minds too much about a solitary girl who collects shells. You can be sure they"ve had a good look at your footprints and found clues like that"-he waved at the scattered shells on the beach. "But I"m afraid he"d take a different view of me. Now he"ll try and hunt me down with everything he"s got. I"m only afraid he may get you into the net in the process. Anyway," Bond grinned reassuringly, "we"ll see what Quarrel has to say. You stay here."
  
   Bond got to his feet. He walked along the promontory and cast about him. Quarrel had hidden himself well. It took Bond five minutes to find him. He was lying in a grassy depression between two big rocks, half covered by a board of grey driftwood. He was still fast asleep, the brown head, stern in sleep, cradled on his forearm. Bond whistled softly and smiled as the eyes sprang wide open like an animal"s. Quarrel saw Bond and scrambled to his feet, almost guiltily. He rubbed his big hands over his face as if he was washing it.
  
   "Mornin," cap"n," he said. "Guess Ah been down deep. Dat China girl come to me."
  
   Bond smiled. "I got something different," he said. They sat down and Bond told him about Honeychile Rider and her shells and the fix they were in. "And now it"s eleven o"clock," Bond added. "And we"ve got to make a new plan."
  
   Quarrel scratched his head. He looked sideways at Bond. "Yo don" plan we jess ditch dis girl?" he asked hopefully. "Ain"t nuttin to do wit we..." Suddenly he stopped. His head swivelled round and pointed like a dog"s. He held up a hand for silence, listening intently.
  
   Bond held his breath. In the distance, to the eastwards, there was a faint droning.
  
   Quarrel jumped to his feet. "Quick, cap"n," he said urgently. "Dey"s a comin.""
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 9
  
  
   Close Shaves
  
   Ten minutes later the bay was empty and immaculate. Small waves curled lazily in across the mirrored water inside the reef and flopped exhausted on the dark sand where the mauve shells glittered like shed toenails. The heap of discarded shells had gone and there was no longer any trace of footprints. Quarrel had cut branches of mangrove and had walked backwards sweeping carefully as he went. Where he had swept, the sand was of a different texture from the rest of the beach, but not too different as to be noticed from outside the reef. The girl"s canoe had been pulled deeper among the rocks and covered with seaweed and driftwood.
  
   Quarrel had gone back to the headland. Bond and the girl lay a few feet apart under the bush of sea-grape where Bond had slept, and gazed silently out across the water to the corner of the headland round which the boat would come.
  
   The boat was perhaps a quarter of a mile away. From the slow pulse of the twin diesels Bond guessed that every cranny of the coastline was being searched for signs of them. It sounded a powerful boat. A big cabin cruiser, perhaps. What crew would it have? Who would be in command of the search? Doctor No? Unlikely. He would not trouble himself with this kind of police work.
  
   From the west a wedge of cormorants appeared, flying low over the sea beyond the reef. Bond watched them. They were the first evidence he had seen of the guanay colony at the other end of the island. These, according to Pleydell-Smith"s description, would be scouts for the silver flash of the anchovy near the surface. Sure enough, as he watched, they began to back-pedal in the air and then go into shallow dives, hitting the water like shrapnel. Almost at once a fresh file appeared from the west, then another and another that merged into a long stream and then into a solid black river of birds. For minutes they darkened the skyline and then they were down on the water, covering several acres of it, screeching and fighting and plunging their heads below the surface, cropping at the solid field of anchovy like piranha fish feasting on a drowned horse.
  
   Bond felt a gentle nudge from the girl. She gestured with her head. "The Chinaman"s hens getting their corn."
  
   Bond examined the happy, beautiful face. She had seemed quite unconcerned by the arrival of the search party. To her it was only the game of hide-and-seek she had played before. Bond hoped she wasn"t going to get a shock.
  
   The iron thud of the diesels was getting louder. The boat must be just behind the headland. Bond took a last look round the peaceful bay and then fixed his eyes, through the leaves and grass, on the point of the headland inside the reef.
  
   The knife of white bows appeared. It was followed by ten yards of empty polished deck, glass windshields, a low raked cabin with a siren and a blunt radio mast, the glimpse of a man inside at the wheel, then the long flat well of the stern and a drooping red ensign. Converted MTB, British Government surplus?
  
   Bond"s eyes went to the two men standing in the stern. They were pale-skinned Negroes. They wore neat khaki ducks and shirts, broad belts, and deep visored baseball caps of yellow straw. They were standing side by side, bracing themselves against the slow swell. One of them was holding a long black loud-hailer with a wire attached. The other was manning a machine gun on a tripod. It looked to Bond like a Spandau.
  
   The man with the loud-hailer let it fall so that it swung on a strap round his neck. He picked up a pair of binoculars and began inching them along the beach. The low murmur of his comments just reached Bond above the glutinous flutter of the diesels.
  
   Bond watched the eyes of the binoculars begin with the headland and then sweep the sand. The twin eyes paused among the rocks and moved on. They came back. The murmur of comment rose to a jabber. The man handed the glasses to the machine gunner who took a quick glance through them and gave them back. The scanner shouted something to the helmsman. The cabin cruiser stopped and backed up. Now she lay outside the reef exactly opposite Bond and the girl. The scanner again levelled the binoculars at the rocks where the girl"s canoe lay hidden. Again the excited jabber came across the water. Again the glasses were passed to the machine gunner who glanced through. This time he nodded decisively.
  
   Bond thought: now we"ve had it. These men know their job.
  
   Bond watched the machine gunner pull the bolt back to load. The double click came to him over the bubbling of the diesels.
  
   The scanner lifted his loud-hailer and switched it on. The twanging echo of the amplifier moaned and screeched across the water. The man brought it up to his lips. The voice roared across the bay.
  
   "Okay, folks! Come on out and you won"t get hurt."
  
   It was an educated voice. There was a trace of American accent.
  
   "Now then, folks," the voice thundered, "make it quick! We"ve seen where you came ashore. We"ve spotted the boat under the driftwood. We ain"t fools an" we ain"t fooling. Take it easy. Just walk out with your hands up. You"ll be okay."
  
   Silence fell. The waves lapped softly on the beach. Bond could hear the girl breathing. The thin screeching of the cormorants came to them muted across the mile of sea. The diesels bubbled unevenly as the swell covered the exhaust pipe and then opened it again.
  
   Softly Bond reached over to the girl and tugged at her sleeve. "Come close," he whispered. "Smaller target." He felt her warmth nearer to him. Her cheek brushed against his forearm. He whispered, "Burrow into the sand. Wriggle. Every inch"ll help." He began to worm his body carefully deeper into the depression they had scooped out for themselves. He felt her do the same. He peered out. Now his eyes were only just above the skyline of the top of the beach.
  
   The man was lifting his loud-hailer. The voice roared. "Okay, folks! Just so as you"ll know this thing isn"t for show." He lifted his thumb. The machine gunner trained his gun into the tops of the mangroves behind the beach. There came the swift rattling roar Bond had last heard coming from the German lines in the Ardennes. The bullets made the same old sound of frightened pigeons whistling overhead. Then there was silence.
  
   In the distance Bond watched the black cloud of cormorants take to the air and begin circling. His eyes went back to the boat. The machine gunner was feeling the barrel of his gun to see if it had warmed. The two men exchanged some words. The scanner picked up his loud-hailer.
  
   ""Kay, folks," he said harshly. "You"ve been warned. This is it."
  
   Bond watched the snout of the Spandau swing and depress. The man was going to start with the canoe among the rocks. Bond whispered to the girl, "All right, Honey. Stick it. Keep right down. It won"t last long." He felt her hand squeeze his arm. He thought: poor little bitch, she"s in this because of me. He leant to the right to cover her head and pushed his face deep into the sand.
  
   This time the crash of noise was terrific. The bullets howled into the corner of the headland. Fragments of splintered rock whined over the beach like hornets. Ricochets twanged and buzzed off into the hinterland. Behind it all there was the steady road-drill hammer of the gun.
  
   There was a pause. New magazine, thought Bond. Now it"s us. He could feel the girl clutching at him. Her body was trembling along his flank. Bond reached out an arm and pressed her to him.
  
   The roar of the gun began again. The bullets came zipping along the tideline towards them. There was a succession of quick close thuds. The bush above them was being torn to shreds. "Zwip. Zwip. Zwip." It was as if the thong of a steel whip was cutting the bush to pieces. Bits scattered around them, slowly covering them. Bond could smell the cooler air that meant they were now lying in the open. Were they hidden by the leaves and debris? The bullets marched away along the shoreline. In less than a minute the racket stopped.
  
   The silence sang. The girl whimpered softly. Bond hushed her and held her tighter.
  
   The loud-hailer boomed. "Okay, folks. If you still got ears, we"ll be along soon to pick up the bits. And we"ll be bringing the dogs. "Bye for now."
  
   The slow thud of the diesel quickened. The engine accelerated into a hasty roar and through the fallen leaves Bond watched the stern of the launch settle lower in the water as it made off to the west. Within minutes it was out of earshot.
  
   Bond cautiously raised his head. The bay was serene, the beach unmarked. All was as before except for the stench of cordite and the sour smell of blasted rock. Bond pulled the girl to her feet. There were tear streaks down her face. She looked at him aghast. She said solemnly, "That was horrible. What did they do it for? We might have been killed."
  
   Bond thought, this girl has always had to fend for herself, but only against nature. She knows the world of animals and insects and fishes and she"s got the better of it. But it"s been a small world, bounded by the sun and the moon and the seasons. She doesn"t know the big world of the smoke-filled room, of the bullion broker"s parlour, of the corridors and waiting-rooms of government offices, of careful meetings on park seats-she doesn"t know about the struggle for big power and big money by the big men. She doesn"t know that she"s been swept out of her rock pool into the dirty waters.
  
   He said, "It"s all right, Honey. They"re just a lot of bad men who are frightened of us. We can manage them." Bond put his arm round her shoulders, "And you were wonderful. As brave as anything. Come on now, we"ll look for Quarrel and make some plans. Anyway, it"s time we had something to eat. What do you eat on these expeditions?"
  
   They turned and walked up the beach to the headland. After a minute she said in a controlled voice, "Oh, there"s stacks of food about. Sea urchins mostly. And there are wild bananas and things. I eat and sleep for two days before I come out here. I don"t need anything."
  
   Bond held her more closely. He dropped his arm as Quarrel appeared on the skyline. Quarrel scrambled down among the rocks. He stopped, looking down. They came up with him. The girl"s canoe was sawn almost in half by the bullets. The girl gave a cry. She looked desperately at Bond, "My boat! How am I to get back?"
  
   "Don"t you worry, missy." Quarrel appreciated the loss of a canoe better than Bond. He guessed it might be most of the girl"s capital. "Cap"n fix you up wit" anudder. An" yo come back wit" we. Us got a fine boat in de mangrove. Hit not get broke. Ah"s bin to see him." Quarrel looked at Bond. Now his face was worried. "But cap"n, yo sees what I means about dese folk. Dey mighty tough men an" dey means business. Dese dogs dey speak of. Dose is police-houns-Pinschers dey"s called. Big bastards. Mah frens tell me as der"s a pack of twenty or moh. We better make plans quick-an" good."
  
   "All right, Quarrel. But first we must have something to eat. And I"m damned if I"m going to be scared off the island before I"ve had a good look. We"ll take Honey with us." He turned to the girl. "Is that all right with you, Honey? You"ll be all right with us. Then we"ll sail home together."
  
   The girl looked doubtfully at him. "I guess there"s no alternative. I mean. I"d love to go with you if I won"t be in the way. I really don"t want anything to eat. But will you take me home as soon as you can? I don"t want to see any more of those people. How long are you going to be looking at these birds?"
  
   Bond said evasively, "Not long. I"ve got to find out what happened to them and why. Then we"ll be off." He looked at his watch. "It"s twelve now. You wait here. Have a bathe or something. Don"t walk about leaving footprints. Come on, Quarrel, we"d better get that boat hidden."
  
   It was one o"clock before they were ready. Bond and Quarrel filled the canoe with stones and sand until it sank in a pool among the mangroves. They smeared over their footprints. The bullets had left so much litter behind the shoreline that they could do most of their walking on broken leaves and twigs. They ate some of their rations-avidly, the girl reluctantly-and climbed across the rocks and into the shallow water off-shore. Then they trudged along the shallows towards the river mouth three hundred yards away down the beach.
  
   It was very hot. A harsh, baking wind had sprung up from the north-east. Quarrel said this wind blew daily the year round. It was vital to the guanera. It dried the guano. The glare from the sea and from the shiny green leaves of the mangroves was dazzling. Bond was glad he had taken trouble to get his skin hardened to the sun.
  
   There was a sandy bar at the river mouth and a long deep stagnant pool. They could either get wet or strip. Bond said to the girl, "Honey, we can"t be shy on this trip. We"ll keep our shirts on because of the sun. Wear what"s sensible and walk behind us." Without waiting for her reply the two men took off their trousers. Quarrel rolled them and packed them in the knapsack with the provisions and Bond"s gun. They waded into the pool, Quarrel in front, then Bond, then the girl. The water came up to Bond"s waist. A big silver fish leaped out of the pool and fell back with a splash. There were arrows on the surface where others fled out of their way. "Tarpon," commented Quarrel.
  
   The pool converged into a narrow neck over which the mangroves touched. For a time they waded through a cool tunnel, and then the river broadened into a deep sluggish channel that meandered ahead among the giant spider-legs of the mangroves. The bottom was muddy and at each step their feet sank inches into slime. Small fish or shrimps wriggled and fled from under their feet, and every now and then they had to stoop to brush away leeches before they got hold. But otherwise it was easy going and quiet and cool among the bushes and, at least to Bond, it was a blessing to be out of the sun.
  
   Soon, as they got away from the sea, it began to smell bad with the bad egg, sulphuretted hydrogen smell of marsh gas. The mosquitoes and sandflies began to find them. They liked Bond"s fresh body. Quarrel told him to dip himself in the river water. "Dem like dere meat wid salt on him," he explained cheerfully. Bond took off his shirt and did as he was told. Then it was better and after a while Bond"s nostrils even got used to the marsh gas, except when Quarrel"s feet disturbed some aged pocket in the mud and a vintage bubble wobbled up from the bottom and burst stinking under his nose.
  
   The mangroves became fewer and sparser and the river slowly opened out. The water grew shallower and the bottom firmer. Soon they came round a bend and into the open. Honey said, "Better watch out now. We"ll be easier to see. It goes on like this for about a mile. Then the river gets narrower until the lake. Then there"s the sandspit the birdmen lived on."
  
   They stopped in the shadow of the mangrove tunnel and looked out. The river meandered sluggishly away from them towards the centre of the island. Its banks, fringed with low bamboo and sea-grape, would give only half shelter. From its western bank the ground rose slowly and then sharply up to the sugar-loaf about two miles away which was the guanera. Round the base of the mountain there was a scattering of Quonset huts. A zigzag of silver ran down the hillside to the huts-a Decauville Track, Bond guessed, to bring the guano from the diggings down to the crusher and separator. The summit of the sugar-loaf was white, as if with snow. From the peak flew a smoky flag of guano dust. Bond could see the black dots of cormorants against the white background. They were landing and taking off like bees at a hive.
  
   Bond stood and gazed at the distant glittering mountain of bird dung. So this was the kingdom of Doctor No! Bond thought he had never seen a more godforsaken landscape in his life.
  
   He examined the ground between the river and the mountain. It seemed to be the usual grey dead coral broken, where there was a pocket of earth, by low scrub and screwpalm. No doubt a road or a track led down the mountainside to the central lake and the marshes. It looked bad stuff to cross unless there was. Bond noticed that all the vegetation was bent to the westwards. He imagined living the year round with that hot wind constantly scouring the island, the smell of the marsh gas and the guano. No penal colony could have a worse site than this.
  
   Bond looked to the east. There the mangroves in the marshland seemed more hospitable. They marched away in a solid green carpet until they lost their outline in the dancing heat haze on the horizon. Over them a thick froth of birds tossed and settled and tossed again. Their steady scream carried over on the harsh wind.
  
   Quarrel"s voice broke in on Bond"s thoughts. "Dey"s a comin," cap"n."
  
   Bond followed Quarrel"s eyes. A big lorry was racing down from the huts, dust streaming from its wheels. Bond followed it for ten minutes until it disappeared amongst the mangroves at the head of the river. He listened. The baying of dogs came down on the wind.
  
   Quarrel said, "Dey"ll come down de ribber, cap"n. Dem"ll know we caint move "cept up de ribber, assumin" we ain"t dead. Dey"ll surely come down de ribber to de beach and look for de pieces. Den mos" likely de boat come wit" a dinghy an" take de men and dogs off. Leastways, dat"s what Ah"d do in dere place."
  
   Honey said, "That"s what they do when they look for me. It"s quite all right. You cut a piece of bamboo and when they get near you go under the water and breathe through the bamboo till they"ve gone by."
  
   Bond smiled at Quarrel. He said, "Supposing you get the bamboo while I find a good mangrove clump."
  
   Quarrel nodded dubiously. He started off upstream towards the bamboo thickets. Bond turned back into the mangrove tunnel.
  
   Bond had avoided looking at the girl. She said impatiently, "You needn"t be so careful of looking at me. It"s no good minding those things at a time like this. You said so yourself."
  
   Bond turned and looked at her. Her tattered shirt came down to the waterline. There was a glimpse of pale wavering limbs below. The beautiful face smiled at him. In the mangroves the broken nose seemed appropriate in its animalness.
  
   Bond looked at her slowly. She understood. He turned and went on downstream and she followed him.
  
   Bond found what he wanted, a crack in the wall of mangrove that seemed to go deeper. He said, "Don"t break a branch." He bent his head and waded in. The channel went in ten yards. The mud under their feet became deeper and softer. Then there was a solid wall of roots and they could go no farther. The brown water flowed slowly through a wide, quiet, pool. Bond stopped. The girl came close to him. "This is real hide and seek," she said tremulously.
  
   "Yes, isn"t it." Bond was thinking of his gun. He was wondering how well it would shoot after a bath in the river-how many dogs and men he could get if they were found. He felt a wave of disquiet. It had been a bad break coming across this girl. In combat, like it or not, a girl is your extra heart. The enemy has two targets against your one.
  
   Bond remembered his thirst. He scooped up some water. It was brackish and tasted of earth. It was all right. He drank some more. The girl put out her hand and stopped him. "Don"t drink too much. Wash your mouth out and spit. You could get fever."
  
   Bond looked at her quietly. He did as she told him.
  
   Quarrel whistled from somewhere in the main stream. Bond answered and waded out towards him. They came back along the channel. Quarrel splashed the mangrove roots with water where their bodies might have brushed against them. "Kill da smell of us," he explained briefly. He produced his handful of bamboo lengths and began whittling and cutting them. Bond looked to his gun and the spare ammunition. They stood still in the pool so as not to stir up more mud.
  
   The sunlight dappled down through the thick roof of leaves. The shrimps nibbled softly at their feet. Tension built up in the hot, crouching silence.
  
   It was almost a relief to hear the baying of the dogs.
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 10
  
  
   Dragon Spoor
  
   The search party was coming fast down the river. The two men in bathing trunks and tall waders were having to run to keep up with the dogs. They were big Chinese Negroes wearing shoulder holsters across their naked sweating chests. Occasionally they exchanged shouts that were mostly swear-words. Ahead of them the pack of big Dobermann Pinschers swam and floundered through the water, baying excitedly. They had a scent and they quested frenziedly, the diamond-shaped ears erect on the smooth, serpentine heads.
  
   "May be a --ing crocodile," yelled the leading man though the hubbub. He was carrying a short whip which he occasionally cracked like a whipper-in on the hunting field.
  
   The other man converged towards him. He shouted excitedly, "For my money it"s the --ing limey! Bet ya he"s lying up in the mangrove. Mind he doesn"t give us a --ing ambush." The man took the gun put of its holster and put it under his armpit and kept his hand on the butt.
  
   They were coming out of the open river into the mangrove tunnel. The first man had a whistle. It stuck out of his broad face like a cigar butt. He blew a shrill blast. When the dogs swept on he laid about him with the whip. The dogs checked, whimpering as the slow current forced them to disobey orders. The two men took their guns and waded slowly downstream through the straggly legs of the mangroves.
  
   The leading man came to the narrow break that Bond had found. He grasped a dog by the collar and swung it into the channel. The dog snorted eagerly and paddled forward. The man"s eyes squinted at the mangrove roots on either side of the channel to see if they were scratched.
  
   The dog and the man came into the small enclosed pool at the end of the channel. The man looked round disgustedly. He caught the dog by the collar and pulled him back. The dog was reluctant to leave the place. The man lashed down into the water with his whip.
  
   The second man had been waiting at the entrance to the little channel. The first man came out. He shook his head and they went on downstream, the dogs, now less excited, streaming ahead.
  
   Slowly the noise of the hunt grew less and vanished.
  
   For another five minutes nothing moved in the mangrove pool, then, in one corner among the roots, a thin periscope of bamboo rose slowly out of the water. Bond"s face emerged, the forehead streaked with wet hair, like the face of a surfacing corpse. In his right hand under the water the gun was ready. He listened intently. There was dead silence, not a sound. Or was there? What was that soft swish out in the main stream? Was someone wading very quietly along in the wake of the hunt? Bond reached out on either side of him and softly touched the other two bodies that lay among the roots on the edge of the pool. As the two faces surfaced he put his finger to his lips. It was too late. Quarrel had coughed and spat. Bond made a grimace and nodded urgently towards the main stream. They all listened. There was dead silence. Then the soft swishing began again. Whoever it was was coming into the side-channel. The tubes of bamboo went back into the three mouths and the heads softly submerged again.
  
   Underwater, Bond rested his head in the mud, pinched his nostrils with his left hand and pursed his lips round the tube. He knew the pool had been examined once already. He had felt the disturbance of the swimming dog. That time they had not been found. Would they get away with it again? This time there would have been less chance for the stirred mud to seep away out of the pool. If this searcher saw the darker brown stain, would he shoot into it or stab into it? What weapons would he have? Bond decided that he wouldn"t take chances. At the first movement in the water near him he would get to his feet and shoot and hope for the best.
  
   Bond lay and focused all his senses. What hell this controlled breathing was and how maddening the soft nibbling of the shrimps! It was lucky none of them had a sore on their bodies or the damned things would have eaten into it. But it had been a bright idea of the girl"s. Without it the dogs would have got to them wherever they had hidden.
  
   Suddenly Bond cringed. A rubber boot had stepped on his shin and slid off. Would the man think it was a branch? Bond couldn"t chance it. With one surge of motion he hurled himself upwards, spitting out the length of bamboo.
  
   Bond caught a quick impression of a huge body standing almost on top of him and of a swirling rifle butt. He lifted his left arm to protect his head and felt the jarring blow on his forearm. At the same time his right hand lunged forward and as the muzzle of his gun touched the glistening right breast below the hairless aureole he pulled the trigger.
  
   The kick of the explosion, pent up against the man"s body, almost broke Bond"s wrist, but the man crashed back like a chopped tree into the water. Bond caught a glimpse of a huge rent in his side as he went under. The rubber waders thrashed once and the head, a Chinese Negroid head, broke the surface, its eyes turned up and water pouring from its silently yelling mouth. Then the head went under again and there was nothing but muddy froth and a slowly widening red stain that began to seep away downstream.
  
   Bond shook himself. He turned. Quarrel and the girl were standing behind him, water streaming from their bodies. Quarrel was grinning from ear to ear, but the girl"s knuckles were at her mouth and her eyes were staring horror-struck at the reddened water.
  
   Bond said curtly, "I"m sorry, Honey. It had to be done. He was right on top of us. Come on, let"s get going." He took her roughly by the arm and thrust her away from the place and out into the main stream, only stopping when they had reached the open river at the beginning of the mangrove tunnel.
  
   The landscape was empty again. Bond glanced at his watch. It had stopped at three o"clock. He looked at the westering sun. It might be four o"clock now. How much farther had they to go? Bond suddenly felt tired. Now he"d torn it. Even if the shot hadn"t been heard-and it would have been well muffled by the man"s body and by the mangroves-the man would be missed when the others rendezvoused, if Quarrel"s guess was right, at the river mouth to be taken off to the launch. Would they come back up the river to look for the missing man? Probably not. It would be getting dark before they knew for certain that he was missing. They"d send out a search party in the morning. The dogs would soon get the body. Then what?
  
   The girl tugged at his sleeve. She said angrily, "It"s time you told me what all this is about! Why"s everybody trying to kill each other? And who are you? I don"t believe all this story about birds. You don"t take a revolver after birds."
  
   Bond looked down into the angry, wide-apart eyes. "I"m sorry, Honey. I"m afraid I"ve got you into a bit of a mess. I"ll tell you all about it this evening when we get to the camp. It"s just bad luck you being mixed up with me like this. I"ve got a bit of a war on with these people. They seem to want to kill me. Now I"m only interested in seeing us all off the island without anyone else getting hurt. I"ve got enough to go on now so that next time I can come back by the front door."
  
   "What do you mean? Are you some sort of a policeman? Are you trying to send this Chinaman to prison?"
  
   "That"s about it," Bond smiled down at her. "At least you"re on the side of the angels. And now you tell me something. How much farther to the camp?"
  
   "Oh, about an hour."
  
   "Is it a good place to hide? Could they find us there easily?"
  
   "They"d have to come across the lake or up the river. It"ll be all right so long as they don"t send their dragon after us. He can go through the water. I"ve seen him do it."
  
   "Oh well," said Bond diplomatically, "let"s hope he"s got a sore tail or something."
  
   The girl snorted. "All right, Mr Know-all," she said angrily. "Just you wait."
  
   Quarrel splashed out of the mangroves. He was carrying a rifle. He said apologetically. "No harm"n havin" anudder gun, cap"n. Looks like us may need hit."
  
   Bond took it. It was a U.S. Army Remington Carbine, .300. These people certainly had the right equipment. He handed it back.
  
   Quarrel echoed his thoughts. "Dese is sly folks, cap"n. Dat man mus" of come sneakin" down soffly behind de udders to ketch us comin" out after de dawgs had passed. He sho is a sly mongoose, dat Doctor feller."
  
   Bond said thoughtfully, "He must be quite a man." He shrugged away his thoughts. "Now let"s get going. Honey says there"s another hour to the camp. Better keep to the left bank so as to get what cover we can from the hill. For all we know they"ve got glasses trained on the river." Bond handed his gun to Quarrel who stowed it in the sodden knapsack. They moved off again with Quarrel in the lead and Bond and the girl walking together.
  
   They got some shade from the bamboo and bushes along the western bank, but now they had to face the full force of the scorching wind. They splashed water over their arms and faces to cool the burns. Bond"s eyes were bloodshot with the glare and his arm ached intolerably where the gun butt had struck. And he was not looking forward to his dinner of soaking bread and cheese and salt pork. How long would they be able to sleep? He hadn"t had much last night. It looked like the same ration again. And what about the girl? She had had none. He and Quarrel would have to keep watch and watch. And then tomorrow. Off into the mangrove again and work their way slowly back to the canoe across the eastern end of the island. It looked like that. And sail the following night. Bond thought of hacking a way for five miles through solid mangroves. What a prospect! Bond trudged on, thinking of M"s "holiday in the sunshine." He"d certainly give something for M to be sharing it with him now.
  
   The river grew narrower until it was only a stream between the bamboo clumps. Then it widened out into a flat marshy estuary beyond which the five square miles of shallow lake swept away to the other side of the island in a ruffled blue-grey mirror. Beyond, there was the shimmer of the airstrip and the glint of the sun on a single hangar. The girl told them to keep to the east and they worked their way slowly along inside the fringe of bushes.
  
   Suddenly Quarrel stopped, his face pointing like a gun-dog"s at the marshy ground in front of him. Two deep parallel grooves were cut into the mud, with a fainter groove in the centre. They were the tracks of something that had come down from the hill and gone across the marsh towards the lake.
  
   The girl said indifferently. "That"s where the dragon"s been."
  
   Quarrel turned the whites of his eyes towards her.
  
   Bond walked slowly along the tracks. The outside ones were quite smooth with an indented curve. They could have been made by wheels, but they were vast-at least two feet across. The centre track was of the same shape but only three inches across, about the width of a motor tyre. The tracks were without a trace of tread, and they were fairly fresh. They marched along in a dead straight line and the bushes they crossed were squashed flat as if a tank had gone over them.
  
   Bond couldn"t imagine what kind of vehicle, if it was a vehicle, had made them. When the girl nudged him and whispered fiercely "I told you so," he could only say thoughtfully, "Well, Honey, if it isn"t a dragon, it"s something else I"ve never seen before."
  
   Farther on, she tugged urgently at his sleeve. "Look," she whispered. She pointed forward to a big clump of bushes beside which the tracks ran. They were leafless and blackened. In the centre there showed the charred remains of birds" nests. "He breathed on them," she said excitedly.
  
   Bond walked up to the bushes and examined them. "He certainly did," he admitted. Why had this particular clump been burned? It was all very odd.
  
   The tracks swerved out towards the lake and disappeared into the water. Bond would have liked to follow them but there was no question of leaving cover. They trudged on, wrapped in their different thoughts.
  
   Slowly the day began to die behind the sugar-loaf, and at last the girl pointed ahead through the bushes and Bond could see a long spit of sand running out into the lake. There were thick bushes of sea-grape along its spine and, halfway, perhaps a hundred yards from the shore, the remains of a thatched hut. It looked a reasonably attractive place to spend the night and it was well protected by the water on both sides. The wind had died and the water was soft and inviting. How heavenly it was going to be to take off their filthy shirts and wash in the lake, and, after the hours of squelching through the mud and stench of the river and the marsh, be able to lie down on the hard dry sand!
  
   The sun blazed yellowly and sank behind the mountain. The day was still alive at the eastern tip of the island, but the black shadow of the sugar-loaf was slowly marching across the lake and would soon reach out and kill that too. The frogs started up, louder than in Jamaica, until the thick dusk was shrill with them. Across the lake a giant bull frog began to drum. The eerie sound was something between a tom-tom and an ape"s roar. It sent out short messages that were suddenly throttled. Soon it fell silent. It had found what it had sent for.
  
   They reached the neck of the sandspit and filed out along a narrow track. They came to the clearing with the smashed remains of the wattle hut. The big mysterious tracks led out of the water on both sides and through the clearing and over the nearby bushes as if the thing, whatever it was, had stampeded the place. Many of the bushes were burned or charred. There were the remains of a fireplace made of lumps of coral and a few scattered cooking pots and empty tins. They searched in the debris and Quarrel unearthed a couple of unopened tins of Heinz pork and beans. The girl found a crumpled sleeping-bag. Bond found a small leather purse containing five one-dollar notes, three Jamaica pounds and some silver. The two men had certainly left in a hurry.
  
   They left the place and moved farther along to a small sandy clearing. Through the bushes they could see lights winking across the water from the mountain, perhaps two miles away. To the eastward there was nothing but the soft black sheen of water under the darkening sky.
  
   Bond said, "As long as we don"t show a light we should be fine here. The first thing is to have a good wash. Honey, you take the rest of the sandspit and we"ll have the landward end. See you for dinner in about half an hour."
  
   The girl laughed. "Will you be dressing?"
  
   "Certainly," said Bond. "Trousers."
  
   Quarrel said, "Cap"n, while dere"s henough light I"ll get dese tins open and get tings fixed for de night." He rummaged in the knapsack. "Here"s yo trousers and yo gun. De bread don"t feel so good but hit only wet. Hit eat okay an" mebbe hit dry hout come de mornin." Guess we"d better eat de tins tonight an" keep de cheese an" pork. Dose tins is heavy an" we got plenty footin" tomorrow."
  
   Bond said, "All right, Quarrel. I"ll leave the menu to you." He took the gun and the damp trousers and walked down into the shallow water and back the way they had come. He found a hard dry stretch of sand and took off his shirt and stepped back into the water and lay down. The water was soft but disgustingly warm. He dug up handfuls of sand and scrubbed himself with it, using it as soap. Then he lay and luxuriated in the silence and the loneliness.
  
   The stars began to shine palely, the stars that had brought them to the island last night, a year ago, the stars that would take them away again tomorrow night, a year away. What a trip! But at least it had already paid off. Now he had enough evidence, and witnesses, to go back to the Governor and get a full-dress inquiry going into the activities of Doctor No. One didn"t use machine guns on people, even on trespassers. And, by the same token, what was this thing of Doctor No"s that had trespassed on the leasehold of the Audubon Society, the thing that had smashed their property and had possibly killed one of their wardens? That would have to be investigated too. And what would he find when he came back to the island through the front door, in a destroyer, perhaps, and with a detachment of marines? What would be the answer to the riddle of Doctor No? What was he hiding? What did he fear? Why was privacy so important to him that he would murder, again and again, for it? Who was Doctor No?
  
   Bond heard splashing away to his right. He thought of the girl. And who, for the matter of that, was Honeychile Rider? That, he decided, as he climbed out on to dry land, was at least something that he ought to be able to find out before the night was over.
  
   Bond pulled on his clammy trousers and sat down on the sand and dismantled his gun. He did it by touch, using his shirt to dry each part and each cartridge. Then he reassembled the gun and clicked the trigger round the empty cylinder. The sound was healthy. It would be days before it rusted. He loaded it and tucked it into the holster inside the waistband of his trousers and got up and walked back to the clearing.
  
   The shadow of Honey reached up and pulled him down beside her. "Come on," she said, "we"re starving. I got one of the cooking pots and cleaned it out and we poured the beans into it. There"s about two full handfuls each and a cricket ball of bread. And I"m not feeling guilty about eating your food because you made me work far harder than I would if I"d been alone. Here, hold out your hand."
  
   Bond smiled at the authority in her voice. He could just make out her silhouette in the dusk. Her head looked sleeker. He wondered what her hair looked like when it was combed and dry. What would she be like when she was wearing clean clothes over that beautiful golden body? He could see her coming into a room or across the lawn at Beau Desert. She would be a beautiful, ravishing, Ugly Duckling. Why had she never had the broken nose mended? It was an easy operation. Then she would be the most beautiful girl in Jamaica.
  
   Her shoulder brushed against him. Bond reached out and put his hand down in her lap, open. She picked up his hand and Bond felt the cold mess of beans being poured into it.
  
   Suddenly he smelled her warm animal smell. It was so sensually thrilling that his body swayed against her and for a moment his eyes closed.
  
   She gave a short laugh in which there was shyness and satisfaction and tenderness. She said "There," maternally, and carried his laden hand away from her and back to him.
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 11
  
  
   Amidst the Alien Cane
  
   It would be around eight o"clock, Bond thought. Apart from the background tinkle of the frogs it was very quiet. In the far corner of the clearing he could see the dark outline of Quarrel. There was the soft clink of metal as he dismantled and dried the Remington.
  
   Through the bushes the distant yellow lights from the guanera made festive pathways across the dark surface of the lake. The ugly wind had gone and the hideous scenery lay drowned in darkness. It was cool. Bond"s clothes had dried on him. The three big handfuls of food had warmed his stomach. He felt comfortable and drowsy and at peace. Tomorrow was a long way off and presented no problems except a great deal of physical exercise. Life suddenly felt easy and good.
  
   The girl lay beside him in the sleeping-bag. She was lying on her back with her head cradled in her hands, looking up at the roof of stars. He could just make out the pale pool of her face. She said, "James. You promised to tell me what this is all about. Come on. I shan"t go to sleep until you do."
  
   Bond laughed. "I"ll tell if you"ll tell. I want to know what you"re all about."
  
   "I don"t mind. I"ve got no secrets. But you first."
  
   "All right then." Bond pulled his knees up to his chin and put his arms round them. "It"s like this. I"m a sort of policeman. They send me out from London when there"s something odd going on somewhere in the world that isn"t anybody else"s business. Well, not long ago one of the Governor"s staff in Kingston, a man called Strangways, friend of mine, disappeared. His secretary, who was a pretty girl, did too. Most people thought they"d run away together. I didn"t. I..."
  
   Bond told the story in simple terms, with good men and bad men, like an adventure story out of a book. He ended, "So you see, Honey, it"s just a question of getting back to Jamaica tomorrow night, all three of us in the canoe, and then the Governor will listen to us and send over a lot of soldiers to get this Chinaman to own up. I expect that"ll mean he"ll go to prison. He"ll know that too and that"s why he"s trying to stop us. That"s all. Now it"s your turn."
  
   The girl said, "You seem to live a very exciting life. Your wife can"t like you being away so much. Doesn"t she worry about you getting hurt?"
  
   "I"m not married. The only people who worry about me getting hurt are my insurance company."
  
   She probed, "But I suppose you have girls."
  
   "Not permanent ones."
  
   "Oh."
  
   There was a pause. Quarrel came over to them. "Cap"n, Ah"ll take de fust watch if dat suits. Be out on de point of de sandspit. Ah"ll come call yo around midnight. Den mebbe yo take on till five and den we all git goin." Need to get well away from dis place afore it"s light."
  
   "Suits me," said Bond. "Wake me if you see anything. Gun all right?"
  
   "Him"s jess fine," said Quarrel happily. He said, "Sleep well, missy," with a hint of meaning, and melted noiselessly away into the shadows.
  
   "I like Quarrel," said the girl. She paused, then, "Do you really want to know about me? It"s not as exciting as your story."
  
   "Of course I do. And don"t leave anything out."
  
   "There"s nothing to leave out. You could get my whole life on to the back of a postcard. To begin with I"ve never been out of Jamaica. I"ve lived all my life at a place called Beau Desert on the North Coast near Morgan"s Harbour."
  
   Bond laughed. "That"s odd. So do I. At least for the moment. I didn"t notice you about. Do you live up a tree?"
  
   "Oh, I suppose you"ve taken the beach house. I never go near the place. I live in the Great House."
  
   "But there"s nothing left of it. It"s a ruin in the middle of the cane fields."
  
   "I live in the cellars. I"ve lived there since I was five. It was burned down then and my parents were killed. I can"t remember anything about them so you needn"t say you"re sorry. At first I lived there with my black nanny. She died when I was fifteen. For the last five years I"ve lived there alone."
  
   "Good heavens." Bond was appalled. "But wasn"t there anyone else to look after you? Didn"t your parents leave any money?"
  
   "Not a penny." There was no bitterness in the girl"s voice-pride if anything. "You see the Riders were one of the old Jamaican families. The first one had been given the Beau Desert lands by Cromwell for having been one of the people who signed King Charles"s death warrant. He built the Great House and my family lived in it on and off ever since. But then sugar collapsed and I suppose the place was badly run, and by the time my father inherited it there was nothing but debts-mortgages and things like that. So when my father and mother died the property was sold up. I didn"t mind. I was too young. Nanny must have been wonderful. They wanted people to adopt me, the clergyman and the legal people did, but Nanny collected the sticks of furniture that hadn"t been burned and we settled down in the ruins and after a bit no one came and interfered with us. She did a bit of sewing and laundry in the village and grew a few plantains and bananas and things and there was a big breadfruit tree up against the old house. We ate what the Jamaicans eat. And there was the sugar cane all round us and she made a fishpot which we used to go and take up every day. It was all right. We had enough to eat. Somehow she taught me to read and write. There was a pile of old books left from the fire. There was an encyclopedia. I started with A when I was about eight. I"ve got as far as the middle of T." She said defensively. "I bet I know more than you do about a lot of things."
  
   "I bet you do." Bond was lost in the picture of the little flaxen-haired girl pattering about the ruins with the obstinate old Negress watching over her and calling her in to do the lessons that must have been just as much a riddle to the old woman. "Your nanny must have been a wonderful person."
  
   "She was a darling." It was a flat statement. "I thought I"d die when she did. It wasn"t such fun after that. Before, I"d led a child"s life; then I suddenly had to grow up and do everything for myself. And men tried to catch me and hurt me. They said they wanted to make love to me." She paused. "I used to be pretty then."
  
   Bond said seriously, "You"re one of the most beautiful girls I"ve ever seen."
  
   "With this nose? Don"t be silly."
  
   "You don"t understand." Bond tried to find words that she would believe. "Of course anyone can see your nose is broken. But since this morning I"ve hardly noticed it. When you look at a person you look into their eyes or at their mouth. That"s where the expressions are. A broken nose isn"t any more significant than a crooked ear. Noses and ears are bits of face-furniture. Some are prettier than others, but they"re not nearly as important as the rest. They"re part of the background of the face. If you had a beautiful nose as well as the rest of you you"d be the most beautiful girl in Jamaica."
  
   "Do you mean that?" her voice was urgent. "Do you think I could be beautiful? I know some of me"s all right, but when I look in the glass I hardly see anything except my broken nose. I"m sure it"s like that with other people who are, who are-well-sort of deformed."
  
   Bond said impatiently, "You"re not deformed! Don"t talk such nonsense. And anyway you can have it put right by a simple operation. You"ve only got to get over to America and it would be done in a week."
  
   She said angrily, "How do you expect me to do that? I"ve got about fifteen pounds under a stone in my cellar. I"ve got three skirts and three shirts and a knife and a fishpot. I know all about these operations. The doctor at Port Maria found out for me. He"s a nice man. He wrote to America. Do you know, to have it properly done it would cost me about five hundred pounds, what with the fare to New York and the hospital and everything?" Her voice became hopeless. "How do you expect me to find that amount of money?"
  
   Bond had already made up his mind what would have to be done about that. Now he merely said tenderly, "Well, I expect there are ways. But anyway, go on with your story. It"s very exciting-far more interesting than mine. You"d got to where your Nanny died. What happened then?"
  
   The girl began again reluctantly.
  
   "Well, it"s your fault for interrupting. And you mustn"t talk about things you don"t understand. I suppose people tell you you"re good-looking. I expect you get all the girls you want. Well you wouldn"t if you had a squint or a hare-lip or something. As a matter of fact," he could hear the smile in her voice, "I think I shall go to the obeahman when we get back and get him to put a spell on you and give you something like that." She added lamely, "Then we should be more alike."
  
   Bond reached out. His hand brushed against her. "I"ve got other plans," he said. "But come on. I want to hear the rest of the story."
  
   "Oh well," the girl sighed, "I"ll have to go back a bit. You see all the property is in cane and the old house stands in the middle of it. Well, about twice a year they cut the cane and send it off to the mill. And when they do that all the animals and insects and so on that live in the cane fields go into a panic and most of them have their houses destroyed and get killed. At cutting time some of them took to coming to the ruins of the house and hiding. My Nanny was terrified of them to begin with, the mongooses and the snakes and the scorpions and so on, but I made a couple of the cellar rooms into sort of homes for them. I wasn"t frightened of them and they never hurt me. They seemed to understand that I was looking after them. They must have told their friends or something because after a bit it was quite natural for them all to come trooping into their rooms and settling down there until the young cane had started to grow again. Then they all filed out and went back to living in the fields. I gave them what food we could spare when they were staying with us and they behaved very well except for making a bit of a smell and sometimes fighting amongst each other. But they all got quite tame with me, and their children did, too, and I could do anything with them. Of course the cane-cutters found out about this and saw me walking about with snakes round my neck and so forth, and they got frightened of me and thought I was obeah. So they left us absolutely alone." She paused. "That"s where I found out so much about animals and insects. I used to spend a lot of time in the sea finding out about those people too. It was the same with birds. If you find out what all these people like to eat and what they"re afraid of, and if you spend all your time with them you can make friends." She looked up at him. "You miss a lot not knowing about these things."
  
   "I"m afraid I do," said Bond truthfully. "I expect they"re much nicer and more interesting than humans."
  
   "I don"t know about that," said the girl thoughtfully. "I don"t know many human people. Most of the ones I have met have been hateful. But I suppose they can be interesting too." She paused. "I hadn"t every really thought of liking them like I like the animals. Except for Nanny, of course. Until..." She broke off with a shy laugh. "Well, anyway we all lived happily together until I was fifteen and Nanny died and then things got difficult. There was a man called Mander. A horrible man. He was the white overseer for the people who own the property. He kept coming to see me. He wanted me to move up to his house near Port Maria. I hated him and I used to hide when I heard his horse coming through the cane. One night he came on foot and I didn"t hear him. He was drunk. He came into the cellar and fought with me because I wouldn"t do what he wanted me to do. You know, the things people in love do."
  
   "Yes, I know."
  
   "I tried to kill him with my knife, but he was very strong and he hit me as hard as he could in the face and broke my nose. He knocked me unconscious and then I think he did things to me. I mean I know he did. Next day I wanted to kill myself when I saw my face and when I found what he had done. I thought I would have a baby. I would certainly have killed myself if I"d had a baby by that man. Anyway, I didn"t, so that was that. I went to the doctor and he did what he could for my nose and didn"t charge me anything. I didn"t tell him about the rest. I was too ashamed. The man didn"t come back. I waited and did nothing until the next cane-cutting. I"d got my plan. I was waiting for the Black Widow spiders to come in for shelter. One day they came. I caught the biggest of the females and shut her in a box with nothing to eat. They"re the bad ones, the females. Then I waited for a dark night without any moon. I took the box with the spider in it and walked and walked until I came to the man"s house. It was very dark and I was frightened of the duppies I might meet on the road but I didn"t see any. I waited in his garden in the bushes and watched him go up to bed. Then I climbed a tree and got on to his balcony. I waited there until I heard him snoring and then I crept through the window. He was lying naked on the bed under the mosquito net. I lifted the edge and opened the box and shook the spider out on to his stomach. Then I went away and came home."
  
   "God Almighty!" said Bond reverently. "What happened to him?"
  
   She said happily, "He took a week to die. It must have hurt terribly. They do, you know. The obeahmen say there"s nothing like it." She paused. When Bond made no comment, she said anxiously, "You don"t think I did wrong, do you?"
  
   "It"s not a thing to make a habit of," said Bond mildly. "But I can"t say I blame you the way it was. So what happened then?"
  
   "Well then I just settled down again," her voice was matter-of-fact. "I had to concentrate on getting enough food, and of course all I wanted to do was save up money to get my nose made good again." She said persuasively, "It really was quite a pretty nose before. Do you think the doctors can put it back to how it was?"
  
   "They can make it any shape you like," said Bond definitely. "What did you make money at?"
  
   "It was the encyclopedia. It told me that people collect sea-shells. That one could sell the rare ones. I talked to the local schoolmaster, without telling him my secret of course, and he found out that there"s an American magazine called Nautilus for shell collectors. I had just enough money to subscribe to it and I began looking for the shells that people said they wanted in the advertisements. I wrote to a dealer in Miami and he started buying from me. It was thrilling. Of course I made some awful mistakes to begin with. I thought people would like the prettiest shells, but they don"t. Very often they want the ugliest. And then when I found rare ones I cleaned them and polished them to make them look better. That"s wrong too. They want shells just as they come out of the sea, with the animal in and all. So I got some formalin from the doctor and put it into the live shells to stop them smelling and sent them off to this man in Miami. I only got it right about a year ago and I"ve already made fifteen pounds. I"d worked out that now I knew how they wanted them, and if I was lucky, I ought to make at least fifty pounds a year. Then in ten years I would be able to go to America and have the operation. And then," she giggled delightedly, "I had a terrific stroke of luck. I went over to Crab Key. I"d been there before, but this was just before Christmas, and I found these purple shells. They didn"t look very exciting, but I sent one or two to Miami and the man wrote back at once and said he could take as many as I could get at five dollars each for the whole ones. He said that I must keep the place where they live a dead secret as otherwise we"d what he called "spoil the market" and the price would get cheaper. It"s just like having one"s private gold mine. Now I may be able to save up the money in five years. That"s why I was so suspicious of you when I found you on my beach. I thought you"d come to steal my shells."
  
   "You gave me a bit of a shock. I thought you must be Doctor No"s girl friend."
  
   "Thanks very much."
  
   "But when you"ve had the operation, what are you going to do then? You can"t got on living alone in a cellar all your life."
  
   "I thought I"d be a call girl." She said it as she might have said "nurse" or "secretary."
  
   "Oh, what do you mean by that?" Perhaps she had picked up the expression without understanding it.
  
   "One of those girls who has a beautiful flat and lovely clothes. You know what I mean," she said impatiently. "People ring them up and come and make love to them and pay them for it. They get a hundred dollars for each time in New York. That"s where I thought I"d start. Of course," she admitted, "I might have to do it for less to begin with. Until I learned to do it really well. How much do you pay the untrained ones?"
  
   Bond laughed. "I really can"t remember. It"s quite a long time since I had one."
  
   She sighed. "Yes, I suppose you can have as many women as you want for nothing. I suppose it"s only the ugly men that pay. But that can"t be helped. Any kind of job in the big towns must be dreadful. At least you can earn much more being a call girl. Then I can come back to Jamaica and buy Beau Desert. I"d be rich enough to find a nice husband and have some children. Now that I"ve found these Venus shells I"ve worked out that I might be back in Jamaica by the time I"m thirty. Won"t that be lovely?"
  
   "I like the last part of the plan. But I"m not so sure of the first. Anyway, where did you find out about these call girls? Were they under C in the encyclopedia?"
  
   "Of course not. Don"t be silly. There was a big case about them in New York about two years ago. There was a rich playboy called Jelke. He had a whole string of girls. There was a lot about the case in the Gleaner. They gave all the prices and everything. And anyway, there are thousands of those sort of girls in Kingston, only of course not such good ones. They only get about five shillings and they have nowhere to go and do it except the bush. My Nanny told me about them. She said I mustn"t grow up like them or I"d be very unhappy. I can see that for only five shillings. But for a hundred dollars...!"
  
   Bond said, "You wouldn"t be able to keep all of that. You"d have to have a sort of manager to get the men, and then you"d have to bribe the police to leave you alone. And you could easily go to prison if something went wrong. I really don"t think you"d like the work. I"ll tell you what, with all you know about animals and insects and so on you could get a wonderful job looking after them in one of the American zoos. Or what about the Jamaica Institute? I"m sure you"d like that better. You"d be just as likely to meet a nice husband. Anyway you mustn"t think of being a call girl any more. You"ve got a beautiful body. You must keep it for the men you love."
  
   "That"s what people say in books," she said doubtfully. "The trouble is there aren"t any men to love at Beau Desert." She said shyly, "You"re the first Englishman I"ve ever talked to. I liked you from the beginning. I don"t mind telling you these things at all. I suppose there are plenty of other people I should like if I could get away."
  
   "Of course there are. Hundreds. And you"re a wonderful girl. I thought so directly I saw you."
  
   "Saw my behind, you mean." The voice was getting drowsy, but it was full of pleasure.
  
   Bond laughed. "Well, it was a wonderful behind. And the other side was wonderful too." Bond"s body began to stir with the memory of how she had been. He said gruffly, "Now come on, Honey. It"s time to go to sleep. There"ll be plenty of time to talk when we get back to Jamaica."
  
   "Will there?" she said sleepily. "Promise?"
  
   "Promise."
  
   He heard her stir in the sleeping-bag. He looked down. He could just make out the pale profile turned towards him. She gave the deep sigh of a child before it falls asleep.
  
   There was silence in the clearing. It was getting cold. Bond put his head down on his hunched knees. He knew it was no good trying to get to sleep. His mind was full of the day and of this extraordinary Girl Tarzan who had come into his life. It was as if some beautiful animal had attached itself to him. There would be no dropping the leash until he had solved her problems for her. He knew it. Of course there would be no difficulty about most of them. He could fix the operation-even, with the help of friends, find a proper job and a home for her. He had the money. He would buy her dresses, have her hair done, get her started in the big world. It would be fun. But what about the other side? What about the physical desire he felt for her? One could not make love to a child. But was she a child? There was nothing childish about her body or her personality. She was fully grown and highly intelligent in her fashion, and far more capable of taking care of herself than any girl of twenty Bond had ever met.
  
   Bond"s thoughts were interrupted by a tug at his sleeve. The small voice said, "Why don"t you go to sleep? Are you cold?"
  
   "No, I"m fine."
  
   "It"s nice and warm in the sleeping-bag. Would you like to come in? There"s plenty of room."
  
   "No thank you, Honey. I"ll be all right."
  
   There was a pause, then, almost in a whisper, "If you"re thinking...I mean-you don"t have to make love to me...We could go to sleep back to front, you know, like spoons."
  
   "Honey, darling, you go to sleep. It"d be lovely to be like that, but not tonight. Anyway I"ll have to take over from Quarrel soon."
  
   "Yes, I see." The voice was grudging. "Perhaps when we get back to Jamaica."
  
   "Perhaps."
  
   "Promise. I won"t go to sleep until you promise."
  
   Bond said desperately, "Of course I promise. Now go to sleep, Honeychile."
  
   The voice whispered triumphantly, "Now you owe me slave-time. You"ve promised. Good night, darling James."
  
   "Good night, darling Honey."
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 12
  
  
   The Thing
  
   The grip on Bond"s shoulder was urgent. He was instantly on his feet.
  
   Quarrel whispered fiercely, "Somepn comin" across de water, cap"n! It de dragon fo sho!"
  
   The girl woke up. She said anxiously, "What"s happened?"
  
   Bond said, "Stay here, Honey! Don"t move. I"ll be back." He broke through the bushes on the side away from the mountain and ran along the sand with Quarrel at his elbow.
  
   They came to the tip of the sandspit, twenty yards from the clearing. They stopped under cover of the final bushes. Bond parted them and looked through.
  
   What was it? Half a mile away, coming across the lake, was a shapeless thing with two glaring orange eyes with black pupils. From between these, where the mouth might be, fluttered a yard of blue flame. The grey luminescence of the stars showed some kind of domed head above two short batlike wings. The thing was making a low moaning roar that overlaid another noise, a deep rhythmic thud. It was coming towards them at about ten miles an hour, throwing up a creamy wake.
  
   Quarrel whispered, "Gawd, cap"n! What"s dat fearful ting?"
  
   Bond stood up. He said shortly, "Don"t know exactly. Some sort of tractor affair dressed up to frighten. It"s running on a diesel engine, so you can forget about dragons. Now let"s see." Bond spoke half to himself. "No good running away. The thing"s too fast for us and we know it can go over mangroves and swamps. Have to fight it here. What"ll its weak spots be? The drivers. Of course they"ll have protection. We don"t know how much. Quarrel, you start firing at that dome on top when it gets to two hundred yards. Aim carefully and keep on firing. I"ll go for its headlights when it gets to fifty yards. It"s not running on tracks. Must have some kind of giant tyres, aeroplane tyres probably. I"ll go for them too. Stay here. I"ll go ten yards along. They may start firing back and we"ve got to keep the bullets away from the girl. Okay?" Bond reached out and squeezed the big shoulder. "And don"t worry too much. Forget about dragons. It"s just some gadget of Doctor No"s. We"ll kill the drivers and capture the damn thing and ride it down to the coast. Save us shoe-leather. Right?"
  
   Quarrel laughed shortly. "Okay, cap"n. Since you says so. But Ah sho hopes de Almighty knows he"s no dragon too!"
  
   Bond ran down the sand. He broke through the bushes until he had a clear field of fire. He called softly, "Honey!"
  
   "Yes, James." There was relief in the nearby voice.
  
   "Make a hole in the sand like we did on the beach. Behind the thickest roots. Get into it and lie down. There may be some shooting. Don"t worry about dragons. This is just a painted up motor car with some of Doctor No"s men in it. Don"t be frightened. I"m quite close."
  
   "All right, James. Be careful." The voice was high with fright.
  
   Bond knelt on one knee in the leaves and sand and peered out.
  
   Now the thing was only about three hundred yards away and its yellow headlights were lighting up the sandspit. Blue flames were still fluttering from the mouth. They were coming from a long snout mocked-up with gaping jaws and gold paint to look like a dragon"s mouth. Flame-thrower! That would explain the burned bushes and the warden"s story. The blue flames would be coming from some kind of an after-burner. The apparatus was now in neutral. What would its range be when the compression was unleashed?
  
   Bond had to admit that the thing was an awesome sight as it moaned forward through the shallow lake. It was obviously designed to terrify. It would have frightened him but for the earthy thud of the diesel. Against native intruders it would be devastating. But how vulnerable would it be to people with guns who didn"t panic?
  
   He was answered at once. There came the crack of Quarrel"s Remington. A spark flew off the domed cabin and there was a dull clang. Quarrel fired another single shot and then a burst. The bullets hammered ineffectually against the cabin. There was not even a check in speed. The thing rolled on, swerving slightly to make for the source of the gunfire. Bond cradled the Smith & Wesson on his forearm and took careful aim. The deep cough of his gun sounded above the rattle of the Remington. One of the headlamps shattered and went out. He fired four shots at the other and got it with the fifth and last round in the cylinder. The thing didn"t care. It rolled straight on towards Quarrel"s hiding place. Bond reloaded and began firing at the huge bulge of the tyres under the bogus black and gold wings. The range was now only thirty yards and he could have sworn that he hit the nearest wheel again and again. No effect. Solid rubber? The first breath of fear stirred Bond"s skin.
  
   He reloaded. Was the damn thing vulnerable from the rear? Should he dash out into the lake and try and board it? He took a step forward through the bushes. Then he froze, incapable of movement.
  
   Suddenly, from the dribbling snout, a yellow-tipped bolt of blue flame had howled out towards Quarrel"s hiding place. There was a single puff of orange and red flame from the bushes to Bond"s right and one unearthly scream, immediately choked. Satisfied, the searing tongue of fire licked back into the snout. The thing turned on its axis and stopped dead. Now the blue hole of its mouth aimed straight at Bond.
  
   Bond stood and waited for his unspeakable end. He looked into the blue jaws of death and saw the glowing red filament of the firer deep inside the big tube. He thought of Quarrel"s body-there was no time to think of Quarrel-and imagined the blackened, smoking figure lying in the melted sand. Soon he, too, would flame like a torch. The single scream would be wrung from him and his limbs would jerk into the dancing pose of burned bodies. Then it would be Honey"s turn. Christ, what had he led them into! Why had he been so insane as to take on this man with his devastating armoury. Why hadn"t he been warned by the long finger that had pointed at him in Jamaica? Bond set his teeth. Hurry up, you bastards. Get it over.
  
   There came the twang of a loud-hailer. A voice howled metallically, "Come on out, Limey. And the doll. Quick, or you"ll fry in hell like your pal." To rub in the command, the bolt of flame spat briefly towards him. Bond stepped back from the searing heat. He felt the girl"s body against his back. She said hysterically, "I had to come. I had to come."
  
   Bond said, "It"s all right, Honey. Keep behind me."
  
   He had made up his mind. There was no alternative. Even if death was to come later it couldn"t be worse than this kind of death. Bond reached for the girl"s hand and drew her after him out on to the sand.
  
   The voice howled. "Stop there. Good boy. And drop the pea-shooter. No tricks or the crabs"ll be getting a cooked breakfast."
  
   Bond dropped his gun. So much for the Smith & Wesson. The Beretta would have been just as good against this thing. The girl whimpered. Bond squeezed her hand. "Stick it, Honey," he said. "We"ll get out of this somehow." Bond sneered at himself for the lie.
  
   There was the clang of an iron door being opened. From the back of the dome a man dropped into the water and walked towards them. There was a gun in his hand. He kept out of the line of fire of the flame-thrower. The fluttering blue flame lit up his sweating face. He was a Chinese Negro, a big man, clad only in trousers. Something dangled from his left hand. When he came closer, Bond saw it was handcuffs.
  
   The man stopped a few yards away. He said, "Hold out your hands. Wrists together. Then walk towards me. You first, Limey. Slowly or you get an extra navel."
  
   Bond did as he was told. When he was within sweat-smell of the man, the man put his gun between his teeth and reached out and snapped the handcuffs on Bond"s wrists. Bond looked into the face, gumnetal-coloured from the blue flames. It was a brutal, squinting face. It sneered at him. "Dumb bastard," said the man.
  
   Bond turned his back on the man and started walking away. He was going to see Quarrel"s body. He had to say goodbye to it. There was the roar of a gun. A bullet kicked up sand close to his feet. Bond stopped and turned slowly round. "Don"t be nervous," he said. "I"m going to take a look at the man you"ve just murdered. I"ll be back."
  
   The man lowered his gun. He laughed harshly. "Okay. Enjoy yourself. Sorry we ain"t got a wreath. Come back quick or we give the doll a toastin." Two minutes."
  
   Bond walked on towards the smoking clump of bushes. He got there and looked down. His eyes and mouth winced. Yes, it had been just as he had visualized. Worse. He said softly, "I"m sorry, Quarrel." He kicked into the ground and scooped up a handful of cool sand between his manacled hands and poured it over the remains of the eyes. Then he walked slowly back and stood beside the girl.
  
   The man waved them forward with his gun. They walked round the back of the machine. There was a small square door. A voice from inside said, "Get in and sit on the floor. Don"t touch anything or you get your fingers broke."
  
   They scrambled into the iron box. It stank of sweat and oil. There was just room for them to sit with their knees hunched up. The man with the gun followed them in and banged the door. He switched on a light and sat down on an iron tractor seat beside the driver. He said, "Okay, Sam. Let"s get goin." You can put out the fire. It"s light enough to steer by."
  
   There was a row of dials and switches on the instrument panel. The driver reached forward and pulled down a couple of the switches. He put the machine into gear and peered out through a narrow slit in the iron wall in front of him. Bond felt the machine turn. There came a faster beat from the engine and they moved off.
  
   The girl"s shoulder pressed against his. "Where are they taking us?" The whisper trembled.
  
   Bond turned his head and looked at her. It was the first time he had been able to see her hair when it was dry. Now it was disarrayed by sleep, but it was no longer a bunch of rats" tails. It hung heavily straight down to her shoulders, where it curled softly inwards. It was of the palest ash blonde and shone almost silver under the electric light. She looked up at him. The skin round her eyes and at the corners of her mouth was white with fear.
  
   Bond shrugged with an indifference he didn"t feel. He whispered, "Oh, I expect we"re going to see Doctor No. Don"t worry too much, Honey. These men are just little gangsters. It"ll be different with him. When we get to him don"t you say anything, I"ll talk for both of us." He pressed her shoulder. "I like the way you do your hair. I"m glad you don"t cut it too short."
  
   Some of the tension went out of her face. "How can you think of things like that?" She half smiled at him. "But I"m glad you like it. I wash it in coconut oil once a week." At the memory of her other life her eyes grew bright with tears. She bent her head down to her manacled hands to hide her tears. She whispered almost to herself, "I"ll try to be brave. It"ll be all right as long as you"re there."
  
   Bond shifted so that he was right up against her. He brought his handcuffed hands close up to his eyes and examined them. They were the American police model. He contracted his left hand, the thinner of the two, and tried to pull it through the squat ring of steel. Even the sweat on his skin was no help. It was hopeless.
  
   The two men sat on their iron seats with their backs to them, indifferent. They knew they had total command. There wasn"t room for Bond to give any trouble. Bond couldn"t stand up or get enough momentum into his hands to do any damage to the backs of their heads with his handcuffs. If Bond somehow managed to open the hatch and drop into the water, where would that get him? They would at once feel the fresh air on their backs and stop the machine, and either burn him in the water or pick him up. It annoyed Bond that they didn"t worry about him, that they knew he was utterly in their power. He also didn"t like the idea that these men were intelligent enough to know that he presented no threat. Stupider men would have sat over him with a gun out, would have trussed him and the girl with inexpert thoroughness, might even have knocked them unconscious. These two knew their business. They were professionals, or had been trained to be professionals.
  
   The two men didn"t talk to each other. There was no nervous chatter about how clever they had been, about their destination, about how tired they were. They just drove the machine quietly, efficiently along, finishing their competent job.
  
   Bond still had no idea what this contraption was. Under the black and gold paint and the rest of the fancy dress it was some sort of a tractor, but of a kind he had never seen or heard of. The wheels, with their vast smooth rubber tyres, were nearly twice as tall as himself. He had seen no trade name on the tyres, it had been too dark, but they were certainly either solid or filled with porous rubber. At the rear there had been a small trailing wheel for stability. An iron fin, painted black and gold, had been added to help the dragon effect. The high mudguards had been extended into short backswept wings. A long metal dragon"s head had been added to the front of the radiator and the headlamps had been given black centres to make "eyes." That was all there was to it, except that the cabin had been covered with an armoured dome and the flame-thrower added. It was, as Bond had thought, a tractor dressed up to frighten and burn-though why it had a flame-thrower instead of a machine gun he couldn"t imagine. It was clearly the only sort of vehicle that could travel the island. Its huge wide wheels would ride over mangrove and swamp and across the shallow lake. It would negotiate the rough coral uplands and, since its threat would be at night, the heat in the iron cabin would remain at least tolerable.
  
   Bond was impressed. He was always impressed by professionalism. Doctor No was obviously a man who took immense pains. Soon Bond would be meeting him. Soon he would be up against the secret of Doctor No. And then what? Bond smiled grimly to himself. He wouldn"t be allowed to get away with his knowledge. He would certainly be killed unless he could escape or talk his way out. And what about the girl? Could Bond prove her innocence and have her spared? Conceivably, but she would never be let off the island. She would have to stay there for the rest of her life, as the mistress or wife of one of the men, or Doctor No himself if she appealed to him.
  
   Bond"s thoughts were interrupted by rougher going under the wheels. They had crossed the lake and were on the track that led up the mountain to the huts. The cabin tilted and the machine began to climb. In five minutes they would be there.
  
   The co-driver glanced over his shoulder at Bond and the girl. Bond smiled cheerfully up at him. He said, "You"ll get a medal for this."
  
   The brown and yellow eyes looked impassively into his. The purple, blubbery lips parted in a sneer in which there was slow hate: "Shut your --ing mouth." The man turned back.
  
   The girl nudged him and whispered, "Why are they so rude? Why do they hate us so much?"
  
   Bond grinned down at her, "I expect it"s because we made them afraid. Perhaps they"re still afraid. That"s because we don"t seem to be frightened of them. We must keep them that way."
  
   The girl pressed against him. "I"ll try."
  
   Now the climb was getting steeper. Grey light showed through the slots in the armour. Dawn was coming up. Outside, another day of brazen heat and ugly wind and the smell of marsh gas would be beginning. Bond thought of Quarrel, the brave giant who would not be seeing it, with whom they should now be setting off for the long trek through the mangrove swamps. He remembered the life insurance. Quarrel had smelled his death. Yet he had followed Bond unquestioningly. His faith in Bond had been stronger than his fear. And Bond had let him down. Would Bond also be the death of the girl?
  
   The driver reached forward to the dashboard. From the front of the machine there sounded the brief howl of a police siren. It meandered into a dying moan. After a minute the machine stopped, idling in neutral. The man pressed a switch and took a microphone off a hook beside him. He spoke into it and Bond could hear the echoing voice of the loud-hailer outside. "Okay. Got the Limey and the girl. Other man"s dead. That"s the lot. Open up."
  
   Bond heard a door being pulled sideways on iron rollers. The driver put in the clutch and they rolled slowly forward a few yards and stopped. The man switched off the engine. There was a clang as the iron hatch was opened from the outside. A gush of fresh air and a flood of brighter light came into the cabin. Hands took hold of Bond and dragged him roughly out backwards on to a cement floor. Bond stood up. He felt the prod of a gun in his side. A voice said, "Stay where you are. No tricks." Bond looked at the man. He was another Chinese Negro, from the same stable as the others. The yellow eyes examined him curiously. Bond turned away indifferently. Another man was prodding the girl with his gun. Bond said sharply, "Leave the girl alone." He walked over and stood beside her. The two men seemed surprised. They stood, pointing their guns indecisively.
  
   Bond looked around him. They were in one of the Quonset huts he had seen from the river. It was a garage and workshop. The "dragon" had been halted over an examination pit in the concrete. A dismantled outboard motor lay on one of the benches. Strips of white sodium lighting ran along the ceiling. There was a smell of oil and exhaust smoke. The driver and his mate were examining the machine. Now they sauntered up.
  
   One of the guards said, "Passed the message along. The word is to send them through. Everything go okay?"
  
   The co-driver, who seemed to be the senior man present, said, "Sure. Bit of gunfire. Lights gone. May be some holes in the tyres. Get the boys crackin"-full overhaul. I"ll put these two through and go get myself some shuteye." He turned to Bond. "Okay, git moving," he gestured down the long hut.
  
   Bond said, "Get moving yourself. Mind your manners. And tell those apes to take their guns off us. They might let one off by mistake. They look dumb enough."
  
   The man came closer. The other three closed up behind him. Hate shone redly in their eyes. The leading man lifted a clenched fist as big as a small ham and held it under Bond"s nose. He was controlling himself with an effort. He said tensely, "Listen, mister. Sometimes us boys is allowed to join in the fun at the end. I"m just praying this"ll be one of those times. Once we made it last a whole week. An" Jees, if I get you..." He broke off. His eyes were alight with cruelty. He looked past Bond at the girl. The eyes became mouths that licked their lips. He wiped his hands down the sides of his trousers. The tip of his tongue showed pinkly between the purple lips. He turned to the other three. "What say, fellers?"
  
   The three men were also looking at the girl. They nodded dumbly, like children in front of a Christmas tree.
  
   Bond longed to run berserk among them, laying into their faces with his manacled wrists, accepting their bloody revenge. But for the girl he would have done it. Now all he had achieved with his brave words was to get her frightened. He said, "All right, all right. You"re four and we"re two and we"ve got our hands tied. Come on. We won"t hurt you. Just don"t push us around too much. Doctor No might not be pleased."
  
   At the name, the men"s faces changed. Three pairs of eyes looked whitely from Bond to the leader. For a minute the leader stared suspiciously at Bond, wondering, trying to fathom whether perhaps Bond had got some edge on their boss. His mouth opened to say something. He thought better of it. He said lamely, "Okay, okay. We was just kiddin."" He turned to the men for confirmation. "Right?"
  
   "Sure! Sure thing." It was a ragged mumble. The men looked away.
  
   The leader said gruffly, "This way, mister." He walked off down the long hut.
  
   Bond took the girl"s wrist and followed. He was impressed with the weight of Doctor No"s name. That was something to remember if they had any more dealings with the staff.
  
   The man came to a rough wooden door at the end of the hut. There was a bellpush beside it. He rang twice and waited. There came a click and the door opened to reveal ten yards of carpeted rock passage with another door, smarter and cream-painted, at the end.
  
   The man stood aside. "Straight ahead, mister. Knock on the door. The receptionist"ll take over." There was no irony in his voice and his eyes were impassive.
  
   Bond led the girl into the passage. He heard the door shut behind them. He stopped and looked down at her. He said, "Now what?"
  
   She smiled tremulously. "It"s nice to feel carpet under one"s feet."
  
   Bond squeezed her wrist. He walked forward to the cream-painted door and knocked.
  
   The door opened. Bond went through with the girl at his heels. When he stopped dead in his tracks, he didn"t feel the girl bump into him. He just stood and stared.
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 13
  
  
   Mink-lined Prison
  
   It was the sort of reception room the largest American corporations have on the President"s floor in their New York skyscrapers. It was of pleasant proportions, about twenty feet square. The floor was close-carpeted in the thickest wine-red Wilton and the walls and ceiling were painted a soft dove grey. Colour lithograph reproductions of Degas ballet sketches were well hung in groups on the walls and the lighting was by tall modern standard lamps with dark green silk shades in a fashionable barrel design.
  
   To Bond"s right was a broad mahogany desk with a green leather top, handsome matching desk furniture and the most expensive type of intercom. Two tall antique chairs waited for visitors. On the other side of the room was a refectory-type table with shiny magazines and two more chairs. On both the desk and the table were tall vases of freshly cut hibiscus. The air was fresh and cool and held a slight, expensive fragrance.
  
   There were two women in the room. Behind the desk, with pen poised over a printed form, sat an efficient-looking Chinese girl with horn-rimmed spectacles below a bang of black hair cut short. Her eyes and mouth wore the standard receptionist"s smile of welcome-bright, helpful, inquisitive.
  
   Holding the door through which they had come, and waiting for them to move farther into the room so that she could close it, stood an older, rather matronly woman of about forty-five. She also had Chinese blood. Her appearance, wholesome, bosomy, eager, was almost excessively gracious. Her square cut pince-nez gleamed with the hostess"s desire to make them feel at home.
  
   Both women were dressed in spotless white, with white stockings and white suede brogues, like assistants in the most expensive American beauty-parlours. There was something soft and colourless about their skins as if they rarely went out of doors.
  
   While Bond took in the scene, the woman at the door twittered conventional phrases of welcome as if they had been caught in a storm and had arrived late at a party.
  
   "You poor dears. We simply didn"t know when to expect you. We kept on being told you were on your way. First it was teatime yesterday, then dinner, and it was only half an hour ago we heard you would only be here in time for breakfast. You must be famished. Come along now and help Sister Rose fill in your forms and then I"ll pack you both straight off to bed. You must be tired out."
  
   Clucking softly, she closed the door and ushered them forward to the desk. She got them seated in the chairs and rattled on. "Now I"m Sister Lily and this is Sister Rose. She just wants to ask you a few questions. Now, let me see, a cigarette?" She picked up a tooled leather box. She opened it and put it on the desk in front of them. It had three compartments. She pointed with a little finger. "Those are American, and those are Players, and those are Turkish." She picked up an expensive desk-lighter and waited.
  
   Bond reached out his manacled hands to take a Turkish cigarette.
  
   Sister Lily gave a squeak of dismay. "Oh, but really." She sounded genuinely embarrassed. "Sister Rose, the key, quickly. I"ve said again and again that patients are never to be brought in like that." There was impatience and distaste in her voice. "Really, that outside staff! It"s time they had a talking to."
  
   Sister Rose was just as much put out. Hastily, she scrabbled in a drawer and handed a key across to Sister Lily who, with much cooing and tut-tutting, unlocked the two pairs of handcuffs and walked behind the desk and dropped them as if they were dirty bandages into the wastepaper basket.
  
   "Thank you." Bond was unable to think of any way to handle the situation except to fall in with what was happening on the stage. He reached out and took a cigarette and lit it. He glanced at Honeychile Rider who sat looking dazed and nervously clutching the arms of her chair. Bond gave her a reassuring smile.
  
   "Now, if you please." Sister Rose bent over a long printed form on expensive paper. "I promise to be as quick as I can. Your name please Mister-er..."
  
   "Bryce, John Bryce."
  
   She wrote busily. "Permanent address?"
  
   "Care of the Royal Zoological Society, Regent"s Park, London, England."
  
   "Profession."
  
   "Ornithologist."
  
   "Oh dear," she dimpled at him, "could you please spell that?"
  
   Bond did so.
  
   "Thank you so much. Now, let me see, Purpose of Visit?"
  
   "Birds," said Bond. "I am also a representative of the Audubon Society of New York. They have a lease of part of this island."
  
   "Oh, really." Bond watched the pen writing down exactly what he had said. After the last word she put a neat query in brackets.
  
   "And," Sister Rose smiled politely in the direction of Honeychile, "your wife? Is she also interested in birds?"
  
   "Yes, indeed."
  
   "And her first name?"
  
   "Honeychile."
  
   Sister Rose was delighted. "What a pretty name." She wrote busily. "And now just your next of kin and then we"re finished."
  
   Bond gave M"s real name as next of kin for both of them. He described him as "uncle" and gave his address as "Managing Director, Universal Export, Regent"s Park, London."
  
   Sister Rose finished writing and said, "There, that"s done. Thank you so much, Mr Bryce, and I do hope you both enjoy your stay."
  
   "Thank you very much. I"m sure we will." Bond got up. Honeychile Rider did the same, her face still expressionless.
  
   Sister Lily said, "Now come along with me, you poor dears." She walked to a door in the far wall. She stopped with her hand on the cut-glass doorknob. "Oh deary me, now I"ve gone and forgotten the number of their rooms! It"s the Cream Suite, isn"t it, Sister?"
  
   "Yes, that"s right. Fourteen and fifteen."
  
   "Thank you, my dear. And now," she opened the door, "if you"ll just follow me. I"m afraid it"s a terribly long walk." She shut the door behind them and led the way. "The Doctor"s often talked of putting in one of those moving stairway things, but you know how it is with a busy man," she laughed gaily. "So many other things to think of."
  
   "Yes, I expect so," said Bond politely.
  
   Bond took the girl"s hand and they followed the motherly bustling figure down a hundred yards of lofty corridor in the same style as the reception room but lit at frequent intervals by discreetly expensive wall-brackets.
  
   Bond answered with polite monosyllables the occasional twittering comments Sister Lily threw over her shoulder. His whole mind was focused on the extraordinary circumstances of their reception. He was quite certain the two women had been genuine. Not a look or a word had been dropped that was out of place. It was obviously a front of some kind, but a solid one, meticulously supported by the decor and the cast. The lack of resonance in the room, and now in the corridor, suggested that they had stepped from the Quonset hut into the side of the mountain and that they were now walking through its base. At a guess they would be walking towards the west-towards the cliff-face with which the island ended. There was no moisture on the walls and the air was cool and pure with a strongish breeze coming towards them. A lot of money and good engineering had gone into the job. The pallor of the two women suggested that they spent all their time inside the mountain. From what Sister Lily had said it sounded as if they were part of an inside staff that had nothing to do with the strong-arm squad outside and perhaps didn"t even understand what sort of men they were.
  
   It was grotesque, concluded Bond as they came nearer to a door at the end of the corridor, dangerously grotesque, but it was no good wondering about it. He could only follow the lines of the gracious script. At least this was better than the backstage of the island outside.
  
   At the door, Sister Lily rang. They had been expected. The door opened at once. An enchanting Chinese girl in a mauve and white flowered kimono stood smiling and bowing as Chinese girls are supposed to do. Again there was nothing but warmth and welcome in the pale, flowerlike face. Sister Lily cried, "Here they are at last, May! Mr and Mrs John Bryce. And I know they must be exhausted so we must take them straight to their rooms for some breakfast and a sleep." She turned to Bond. "This is May. Such a dear girl. She will be looking after you both. Anything you want, just ring for May. She"s a favourite with all our patients."
  
   Patients, thought Bond. That"s the second time she"s used the word. He smiled politely at the girl. "How do you do. Yes, we"d certainly both of us like to get to our rooms."
  
   May embraced them both with a warm smile. She said in a low, attractive voice, "I do hope you"ll both be comfortable, Mr Bryce. I took the liberty of ordering breakfast as soon as I heard you had come in. Shall we...?" Corridors branched off to left and right of double lift-doors set in the wall opposite. The girl led the way to the right. Bond and Honeychile followed with Sister Lily taking up the rear.
  
   Numbered doors led off the corridor on either side. Now the decor was in the lightest pink with a dove grey carpet. The numbers on the doors were in the tens. The corridor came to an abrupt end with two doors side by side, 14 and 15. May opened the door of 14, and they followed her in.
  
   It was a charming double bedroom in modern Miami style with dark green walls, dark polished mahogany floor with occasional thick white rugs, and well-designed bamboo furniture with a chintz of large red roses on a white background. There was a communicating door into a more masculine dressing-room and another that led into an extremely luxurious modern bathroom with a step-down bath and a bidet.
  
   It was like being shown into the very latest Florida hotel suite-except for two details which Bond noticed. There were no windows and no inside handles to the doors.
  
   May looked hopefully from one to the other.
  
   Bond turned to Honeychile. He smiled at her. "It looks very comfortable, don"t you think, darling?"
  
   The girl played with the edge of her skirt. She nodded, not looking at him.
  
   There was a timid knock on the door and another girl, as pretty as May, tripped in with a loaded tray balanced on her upturned hand. She put it down on the centre table and pulled up two chairs. She whisked off the speckless linen cloth that covered the dishes and pattered out of the room. There was a delicious smell of bacon and coffee.
  
   May and Sister Lily backed to the door. The older woman stopped on the threshold. "And now we"ll leave you two dear people in peace. If you want anything, just ring. The bells are by the bed. Oh, and by the way, you"ll find plenty of fresh clothes in the cupboards. Chinese style, I"m afraid," she twinkled apologetically, "but I hope they"re the right sizes. The wardrobe room only got the measurements yesterday evening. The Doctor has given strict orders that you"re not to be disturbed. He"d be delighted if you"d join him for dinner this evening. He wants you to have the whole of the rest of the day to yourselves-to get settled down, you know." She paused and looked from one to the other smiling inquiry. "Shall I say you...?"
  
   "Yes, please," said Bond. "Tell the Doctor we shall be delighted to join him for dinner."
  
   "Oh, I know he"ll be so pleased." With a last twitter the two women softly withdrew and closed the door behind them.
  
   Bond turned towards Honeychile. She looked embarrassed. She still avoided his eyes. It occurred to Bond that she could never have met such soft treatment or seen such luxury in her life. To her, all this must be far more strange and terrifying than what they had gone through outside. She stood and fiddled at the hem of her Man Friday skirt. There were streaks of dried sweat and salt and dust on her face. Her bare legs were filthy and Bond noticed that her toes were moving softly as they gripped nervously into the wonderful thick pile carpet.
  
   Bond laughed. He laughed with real pleasure that her fear had been drowned in the basic predicament of clothes and how to behave, and he laughed at the picture they made-she in her rags and he in his dirty blue shirt and black jeans and muddy canvas shoes.
  
   He went to her and took her hands. They were cold. He said, "Honey, we"re a couple of scarecrows. There"s only one problem. Shall we have breakfast first while it"s hot, or shall we get out of these rags and have a bath and eat the breakfast when it"s cold? Don"t worry about anything else. We"re here in this wonderful little house and that"s all that matters. Now then, what shall we do?"
  
   She smiled uncertainly. The blue eyes searched his face for reassurance. "You"re not worried about what"s going to happen to us?" She nodded at the room. "Don"t you think this is all a trap?"
  
   "If it"s a trap we"re in it. There"s nothing we can do now but eat the cheese. The only question is whether we eat it hot or cold." He pressed her hands. "Really, Honey. Leave the worrying to me. Just think where we were an hour ago. Isn"t this better? Now come on and decide the really important things. Bath or breakfast?"
  
   She said reluctantly, "Well, if you think...I mean-I"d rather get clean first." She added quickly, "But you"ve got to help me." She jerked her head towards the bathroom door. "I don"t know how to work one of those places. What do you do?"
  
   Bond said seriously, "It"s quite easy. I"ll fix it all ready for you. While you"re having your bath, I"ll have my breakfast. I"ll keep yours warm." Bond went to one of the built-in clothes cupboards and ran the door back. There were half a dozen kimonos, some silk and some linen. He took out a linen one at random. "You take off your clothes and get into this and I"ll get the bath ready. Later on you can choose the things you want to wear for bed and dinner."
  
   She said gratefully, "Oh yes, James. If you"ll just show me..." She started to unbutton her shirt.
  
   Bond wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her. Instead he said abruptly, "That"s fine, Honey," and went into the bathroom and turned on the taps.
  
   There was everything in the bathroom-Floris Lime bath essence for men and Guerlain bathcubes for women. He crushed a cube into the water and at once the room smelled like an orchid house. The soap was Guerlain"s Sapoceti, Fleurs des Alpes. In a medicine cupboard behind the mirror over the washbasin were toothbrushes and toothpaste, Steradent toothpicks, Rose mouthwash, dental floss, aspirin and Milk of Magnesia. There was also an electric razor, Lentheric aftershave lotion, and two nylon hairbrushes and combs. Everything was brand new and untouched.
  
   Bond looked at his filthy unshaven face in the mirror and smiled grimly into the grey, sunburned castaway"s eyes. The coating on the pill was certainly of the very finest sugar. It would be wise to expect that the medicine inside would be of the bitterest.
  
   He turned back to the bath and felt the water. It would be too hot for someone who presumably had never had a hot bath before. He let in some cold. As he bent over, two arms were thrown round his neck. He stood up. The golden body blazed in the white tiled bathroom. She kissed him hard and clumsily on the lips. He put his arms round her and crushed her to him, his heart pounding. She said breathlessly at his ear. "The Chinese dress felt strange. Anyway, you told that woman we were married."
  
   Bond"s hand was on her left breast. Its peak was hard with passion. Her stomach pressed against his. Why not? Why not? Don"t be a fool! This is a crazy time for it. You"re both in deadly danger. You must stay cold as ice to have any chance of getting out of this mess. Later! Later! Don"t be weak.
  
   Bond took his hand away from her breast and put it round her neck. He rubbed his face against hers and then brought his mouth round to hers and gave her one long kiss.
  
   He stood away and held her at arm"s length. For a moment they looked at each other, their eyes bright with desire. She was breathing fast, her lips parted so that he could see the glint of teeth. He said unsteadily, "Honey, get into that bath before I spank you."
  
   She smiled. Without saying anything she stepped down into the bath and lay at full length. She looked up. The fair hair on her body glittered up through the water like golden sovereigns. She said provocatively, "You"ve got to wash me. I don"t know what to do. You"ve got to show me."
  
   Bond said desperately, "Shut up, Honey. And stop flirting. Just take the soap and the sponge and start scrubbing. Damn you! This isn"t the time for making love. I"m going to have breakfast." He reached for the door handle and opened the door. She said softly, "James!" He looked back. She was sticking her tongue out at him. He grinned savagely back at her and slammed the door.
  
   Bond went into the dressing-room and stood in the middle of the floor and waited for his heart to stop pounding. He rubbed his hands over his face and shook his head to get rid of the thought of her.
  
   To clear his mind he went carefully over both rooms looking for exits, possible weapons, microphones-anything that would add to his knowledge. There were none of these things. There was an electric clock on the wall which said eight-thirty and a row of bells beside the double bed. They said, Room Service, Coiffeur, Manicurist, Maid. There was no telephone. High up in a corner of both rooms was a small ventilator grille. Each was about two feet square. Useless. The doors appeared to be of some light metal, painted to match the walls. Bond threw the whole weight of his body against one of them. It didn"t give a millimetre. Bond rubbed his shoulder. The place was a prison-an exquisite prison. It was no good arguing. The trap had shut tight on them. Now the only thing for the mice to do was to make the most of the cheese.
  
   Bond sat down at the breakfast table. There was a large tumbler of pineapple juice in a silver-plated bowl of crushed ice. He swallowed it down and lifted the cover off his individual hot-plate. Scrambled eggs on toast, four rashers of bacon, a grilled kidney and what looked like an English pork sausage. There were also two kinds of hot toast, rolls inside a napkin, marmalade, honey and strawberry jam. The coffee was boiling hot in a large Thermos decanter. The cream smelled fresh.
  
   From the bathroom came the sound of the girl crooning "Marion." Bond closed his ears to the sound and started on the eggs.
  
   Ten minutes later, Bond heard the bathroom door open. He put down his toast and marmalade and covered his eyes with his hands. She laughed. She said, "He"s a coward. He"s frightened of a simple girl." Bond heard her rummaging in the cupboards. She went on talking, half to herself. "I wonder why he"s frightened. Of course if I wrestled with him I"d win easily. Perhaps he"s frightened of that. Perhaps he"s really not very strong. His arms and his chest look strong enough. I haven"t seen the rest yet. Perhaps it"s weak. Yes, that must be it. That"s why he doesn"t dare take his clothes off in front of me. H"m, now let"s see, would he like me in this?" She raised her voice. "Darling James, would you like me in white with pale blue birds flying all over me?"
  
   "Yes, damn you," said Bond through his hands. "Now stop chattering to yourself and come and have breakfast. I"m getting sleepy."
  
   She gave a cry. "Oh, if you mean it"s time for us to go to bed, of course I"ll hurry."
  
   There was a flurry of feet and Bond heard her sit down opposite. He took his hands down. She was smiling at him. She looked ravishing. Her hair was dressed and combed and brushed to kill, with one side falling down the side of the cheek and the other slicked back behind her ear. Her skin sparkled with freshness and the big blue eyes were alight with happiness. Now Bond loved the broken nose. It had become part, of his thoughts of her and it suddenly occurred to him that he would be sad when she was just an immaculately beautiful girl like other beautiful girls. But he knew it would be no good trying to persuade her of that. She sat demurely, with her hands in her lap below the end of a cleavage which showed half her breasts and a deep vee of her stomach.
  
   Bond said severely, "Now, listen, Honey. You look wonderful, but that isn"t the way to wear a kimono. Pull it up right across your body and tie it tight and stop trying to look like a call girl. It just isn"t good manners at breakfast."
  
   "Oh, you are a stuffy old beast." She pulled her kimono an inch or two closer. "Why don"t you like playing? I want to play at being married."
  
   "Not at breakfast time," said Bond firmly. "Come on and eat up. It"s delicious. And anyway, I"m filthy. I"m going to shave and have a bath." He got up and walked round the table and kissed the top of her head. "And as for playing, as you call it, I"d rather play with you than anyone in the world. But not now." Without waiting for her answer he walked into the bathroom and shut the door.
  
   Bond shaved and had a bath and a shower. He felt desperately sleepy. Sleep came to him in waves so that from time to time he had to stop what he was doing and bend his head down between his knees. When he came to brush his teeth he could hardly do it. Now he recognized the signs. He had been drugged. In the coffee or in the pineapple juice? It didn"t matter. Nothing mattered. All he wanted to do was lie down on the tiled floor and shut his eyes. Bond weaved drunkenly to the door. He forgot that he was naked. That didn"t matter either. Anyway the girl had finished her breakfast. She was in bed. He staggered over to her, holding on to the furniture. The kimono was lying in a pile on the floor. She was fast asleep, naked under a single sheet.
  
   Bond gazed dreamily at the empty pillow beside her head. No! He found the switches and turned out the lights. Now he had to crawl across the floor and into his room. He got to his bed and pulled himself on to it. He reached out an arm of lead and jabbed at the switch on the bed-light. He missed it. The lamp crashed to the floor and the bulb burst. With a last effort Bond turned on his side and let the waves sweep over his head.
  
   The luminous figures on the electric clock in the double room said nine-thirty.
  
   * * * *
  
   At ten o"clock the door of the double room opened softly. A very tall thin figure was silhouetted against the lighted corridor. It was a man. He must have been six feet six tall. He stood on the threshold with his arms folded, listening. Satisfied, he moved slowly into the room and up to the bed. He knew the way exactly. He bent down and listened to the quiet breathing of the girl. After a moment he reached up to his chest and pressed a switch. A flashlight with a very broad diffused beam came on. The flashlight was attached to him by a belt that held it above the breast bone. He bent forward so that the soft light shone on the girl"s face.
  
   The intruder examined the girl"s face for several minutes. One of his hands came up and took the sheet at her chin and softly drew the sheet down to the end of the bed. The hand that drew down the sheet was not a hand. It was a pair of articulated steel pincers at the end of a metal stalk that disappeared into a black silk sleeve. It was a mechanical hand.
  
   The man gazed for a long time at the naked body, moving his chest to and fro so that every corner of the body came under the light. Then the claw came out again and delicately lifted a corner of the sheet from the bottom of the bed and drew it back over the girl. The man stood for another moment gazing down at the sleeping face, then he switched off the torch on his chest and moved quietly away across the room to the open door through which Bond was sleeping.
  
   The man spent longer beside Bond"s bed. He scrutinized every line, every shadow on the dark, rather cruel face that lay drowned, almost extinct, on the pillow. He watched the pulse in the neck and counted it and, when he had pulled down the sheet, he did the same with the area round the heart. He gauged the curve of the muscles on Bond"s arms and thighs and looked thoughtfully at the hidden strength in the flat stomach. He even bent down close over the outflung open right hand and examined its life and fate lines.
  
   Finally, with infinite care, the steel claw drew the sheet back up to Bond"s neck. For another minute the tall figure stood over the sleeping man, then it swished softly away and out into the corridor and the door closed with a click.
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 14
  
  
   Come Into My Parlour
  
   The electric clock in the cool dark room in the heart of the mountain showed four-thirty.
  
   Outside the mountain, Crab Key had sweltered and stunk its way through another day. At the eastern end of the island, the mass of birds, Louisiana herons, pelicans, avocets, sandpipers, egrets, flamingoes and the few roseate spoonbills, went on with building their nests or fished in the shallow waters of the lake. Most of the birds had been disturbed so often that year that they had given up any idea of building. In the past few months they had been raided at regular intervals by the monster that came at night and burned down their roosting places and the beginnings of their nests. This year many would not breed. There would be vague movements to migrate and many would die of the nervous hysteria that seizes bird colonies when they no longer have peace and privacy.
  
   At the other end of the island, on the guanera that gave the mountain its snow-covered look, the vast swarm of cormorants had passed their usual day of gorging themselves with fish and paying back the ounce of precious manure to their owner and protector. Nothing had interfered with their nesting season. Now they were noisily fiddling with the untidy piles of sticks that would be their nests-each pile at exactly sixty centimetres from the next, for the guanay is a quarrelsome bird and this sixty-centimetre ring represents their sparring space. Soon the females would be laying the three eggs from which their master"s flock would be increased by an average of two young cormorants.
  
   Below the peak, where the diggings began, the hundred or so Negro men and women who were the labour force were coming to the end of the day"s shift. Another fifty cubic yards of guano had been dug out of the mountainside and another twenty yards of terrace had been added to the working level. Below, the mountainside looked like terraced vineyards in Upper Italy, except that here there were no vines, only deep barren shelves cut in the mountainside. And here, instead of the stink of marsh gas on the rest of the island, there was a strong ammoniac smell, and the ugly hot wind that kept the diggings dry blew the freshly turned whitish-brown dust into the eyes and ears and noses of the diggers. But the workers were used to the smell and the dust, and it was easy, healthy work. They had no complaints.
  
   The last iron truck of the day started off on the Decauville Track that snaked down the mountainside to the crusher and separator. A whistle blew and the workers shouldered their clumsy picks and moved lazily down towards the high-wired group of Quonset huts that was their compound. Tomorrow, on the other side of the mountain, the monthly ship would be coming in to the deep-water quay they had helped to build ten years before, but which, since then, they had never seen. That would mean fresh stores and fresh goods and cheap jewellery at the canteen. It would be a holiday. There would be rum and dancing and a few fights. Life was good.
  
   Life was good, too, for the senior outside staff-all Chinese Negroes like the men who had hunted Bond and Quarrel and the girl. They also stopped work in the garage and the machine shops and at the guard posts and filtered off to the "officers" " quarters. Apart from watch and loading duties, tomorrow would also be a holiday for most of them. They too would have their drinking and dancing, and there would be a new monthly batch of girls from "inside." Some "marriages" from the last lot would continue for further months or weeks according to the taste of the "husband," but for the others there would be a fresh choice. There would be some of the older girls who had had their babies in the creche and were coming back for a fresh spell of duty "outside," and there would be a sprinkling of young ones who had come of age and would be "coming out" for the first time. There would be fights over these and blood would be shed, but in the end the officers" quarters would settle down for another month of communal life, each officer with his woman to look after his needs.
  
   Deep down in the cool heart of the mountain, far below this well-disciplined surface life, Bond awoke in his comfortable bed. Apart from a slight nembutal headache he felt fit and rested. Lights were on in the girl"s room and he could hear her moving about. He swung his feet to the ground and, avoiding the fragments of glass from the broken lamp, walked softly over to the clothes cupboard and put on the first kimono that came to his hand. He went to the door. The girl had a pile of kimonos out on the bed and was trying them on in front of the wall mirror. She had on a very smart one in sky-blue silk. It looked wonderful against the gold of her skin. Bond said, "That"s the one."
  
   She whirled round, her hand at her mouth. She took it down. "Oh, it"s you!" She smiled at him. "I thought you"d never wake up. I"ve been to look at you several times. I"d made up my mind to wake you at five. It"s half-past four and I"m hungry. Can you get us something to eat?"
  
   "Why not," Bond walked across to her bed. As he passed her he put his arm round her waist and took her with him. He examined the bells. He pressed the one marked "Room Service." He said, "What about the others? Let"s have the full treatment."
  
   She giggled. "But what"s a manicurist?"
  
   "Someone who does your nails. We must look our best for Doctor No." At the back of Bond"s mind was the urgent necessity to get his hands on some kind of weapon-a pair of scissors would be better than nothing. Anything would do.
  
   He pressed two more bells. He let her go and looked round the room. Someone had come while they were asleep and taken away the breakfast things. There was a drink tray on a sideboard against the wall. Bond went over and examined it. It had everything. Propped among the bottles were two menus, huge double-folio pages covered with print. They might have been from the Savoy Grill, or the "21," or the Tour d"Argent. Bond ran his eye down one of them. It began with Caviar double de Beluga and ended with Sorbet à la Champagne. In between was every dish whose constituents would not be ruined by a deep freeze. Bond tossed it down. One certainly couldn"t grumble about the quality of the cheese in the trap!
  
   There was a knock on the door and the exquisite May came in. She was followed by two other twittering Chinese girls. Bond brushed aside their amiabilities, ordered tea and buttered toast for Honeychile and told them to look after her hair and nails. Then he went into the bathroom and had a couple of Aspirins and a cold shower. He put on his kimono again, reflected that he looked idiotic in it, and went back into the room. A beaming May asked if he would be good enough to select what he and Mrs Bryce could care to have for dinner. Without enthusiasm, Bond ordered caviar, grilled lamb cutlets and salad, and angels on horseback for himself. When Honeychile refused to make any suggestions, he chose melon, roast chicken à l"Anglaise and vanilla ice cream with hot chocolate sauce for her.
  
   May dimpled her enthusiasm and approval. "The Doctor asks if seven forty-five for eight would be convenient."
  
   Bond said curtly that it would.
  
   "Thank you so much, Mr Bryce. I will call for you at seven forty-four."
  
   Bond walked over to where Honeychile was being ministered to at the dressing table. He watched the busy delicate fingers at work on her hair and her nails. She smiled at him excitedly in the mirror. He said gruffly, "Don"t let them make too much of a monkey out of you," and went to the drink tray. He poured himself out a stiff Bourbon and soda and took it into his own room. So much for his idea of getting hold of a weapon. The scissors and files and probes were attached to the manicurist"s waist by a chain. So were the scissors of the hairdresser. Bond sat down on his rumpled bed and lost himself in drink and gloomy reflections.
  
   The women went. The girl looked in at him. When he didn"t lift his head she went back into her room and left him alone. In due course Bond came into her room to get himself another drink. He said perfunctorily, "Honey, you look wonderful." He glanced at the clock on the wall and went back and drank his drink and put on another of the idiotic kimonos, a plain black one.
  
   In due course there came the soft knock on the door and the two of them went silently out of the room and along the empty, gracious corridor. May stopped at the lift. Its doors were held open by another eager Chinese girl. They walked in and the doors shut. Bond noticed that the lift was made by Waygood Otis. Everything in the prison was de luxe. He gave an inward shudder of distaste. He noticed the reaction. He turned to the girl. "I"m sorry, Honey. Got a bit of a headache." He didn"t want to tell her that all this luxury play-acting was getting him down, that he hadn"t the smallest idea what it was all about, that he knew it was bad news, and that he hadn"t an inkling of a plan of how to get them out of whatever situation they were in. That was the worst of it. There was nothing that depressed Bond"s spirit so much as the knowledge that he hadn"t one line of either attack or defence.
  
   The girl moved closer to him. She said, "I"m sorry, James. I hope it will go away. You"re not angry with me about anything?"
  
   Bond dredged up a smile. He said, "No, darling. I"m only angry with myself." He lowered his voice: "Now, about this evening. Just leave the talking to me. Be natural and don"t be worried by Doctor No. He may be a bit mad."
  
   She nodded solemnly. "I"ll do my best."
  
   The lift sighed to a stop. Bond had no idea how far down they had gone-a hundred feet, two hundred? The automatic doors hissed back and Bond and the girl stepped out into a large room.
  
   It was empty. It was a high-ceilinged room about sixty feet long, lined on three sides with books to the ceiling. At first glance, the fourth wall seemed to be made of solid blue-black glass. The room appeared to be a combined study and library. There was a big paper-strewn desk in one corner and a central table with periodicals and newspapers. Comfortable club chairs, upholstered in red leather, were dotted about. The carpet was dark green, and the lighting, from standard lamps, was subdued. The only odd feature was that the drink tray and sideboard were up against the middle of the long glass wall, and chairs and occasional tables with ashtrays were arranged in a semi-circle round it so that the room was centred in front of the empty wall.
  
   Bond"s eye caught a swirl of movement in the dark glass. He walked across the room. A silvery spray of small fish with a bigger fish in pursuit fled across the dark blue. They disappeared, so to speak, off the edge of the screen. What was this? An aquarium? Bond looked upwards. A yard below the ceiling, small waves were lapping at the glass. Above the waves was a strip of greyer blue-black, dotted with sparks of light. The outlines of Orion were the clue. This was not an aquarium. This was the sea itself and the night sky. The whole of one side of the room was made of armoured glass. They were under the sea, looking straight into its heart, twenty feet down.
  
   Bond and the girl stood transfixed. As they watched, there was the glimpse of two great goggling orbs. A golden sheen of head and deep flank showed for an instant and was gone. A big grouper? A silver swarm of anchovies stopped and hovered and sped away. The twenty-foot tendrils of a Portuguese man-o"-war drifted slowly across the window, glinting violet as they caught the light. Up above there was the dark mass of its underbelly and the outline of its inflated bladder, steering with the breeze.
  
   Bond walked along the wall, fascinated by the idea of living with this slow, endlessly changing moving picture. A big tulip shell was progressing slowly up the window from the floor level, a frisk of demoiselles and angel fish and a ruby-red moonlight snapper were nudging and rubbing themselves against a corner of the glass and a sea centipede quested along, nibbling at the minute algae that must grow every day on the outside of the window. A long dark shadow paused in the centre of the window and then moved slowly away. If only one could see more!
  
   Obediently, two great shafts of light, from off the "screen," lanced out into the water. For an instant they searched independently. Then they converged on the departing shadow and the dull grey torpedo of a twelve-foot shark showed up in all its detail. Bond could even see the piglike pink eyes roll inquisitively in the light and the slow pulse of the slanting gill-rakers. For an instant the shark turned straight into the converged beam and the white half-moon mouth showed below the reptile"s flat head. It stood poised for a second and then, with an elegant, disdainful swirl, the great swept-back tail came round and with a lightning quiver the shark had gone.
  
   The searchlights went out. Bond turned slowly. He expected to see Doctor No, but still the room was empty. It looked static and lifeless compared with the pulsing mysteries outside the window. Bond looked back. What must this be like in the colours of day, when one could see everything perhaps for twenty yards or more? What must it be like in a storm when the waves crashed noiselessly against the glass, delving almost to the floor and then sweeping up and out of sight. What must it be like in the evening when the last golden shafts of the sun shone into the upper half of the room and the waters below were full of dancing motes and tiny water insects? What an amazing man this must be who had thought of this fantastically beautiful conception, and what an extraordinary engineering feat to have carried it out! How had he done it? There could only be one way. He must have built the glass wall deep inside the cliff and then delicately removed layer after layer of the outside rock until the divers could prise off the last skin of coral. But how thick was the glass? Who had rolled it for him? How had he got it to the island? How many divers had he used? How much, God in heaven, could it have cost?
  
   "One million dollars."
  
   It was a cavernous, echoing voice, with a trace of American accent.
  
   Bond turned slowly, almost reluctantly, away from the window.
  
   Doctor No had come through a door behind his desk. He stood looking at them benignly, with a thin smile on his lips.
  
   "I expect you were wondering about the cost. My guests usually think about the material side after about fifteen minutes. Were you?"
  
   "I was."
  
   Still smiling (Bond was to get used to that thin smile), Doctor No came slowly out from behind the desk and moved towards them. He seemed to glide rather than take steps. His knees did not dent the matt, gunmetal sheen of his kimono and no shoes showed below the sweeping hem.
  
   Bond"s first impression was of thinness and erectness and height. Doctor No was at least six inches taller than Bond, but the straight immovable poise of his body made him seem still taller. The head also was elongated and tapered from a round, completely bald skull down to a sharp chin so that the impression was of a reversed raindrop-or rather oildrop, for the skin was of a deep almost translucent yellow.
  
   It was impossible to tell Doctor No"s age: as far as Bond could see, there were no lines on the face. It was odd to see a forehead as smooth as the top of the polished skull. Even the cavernous indrawn cheeks below the prominent cheekbones looked as smooth as fine ivory. There was something Dali-esque about the eyebrows, which were fine and black and sharply upswept as if they had been painted on as makeup for a conjurer. Below them, slanting jet black eyes stared out of the skull. They were without eyelashes. They looked like the mouths of two small revolvers, direct and unblinking and totally devoid of expression. The thin fine nose ended very close above a wide compressed wound of a mouth which, despite its almost permanent sketch of a smile, showed only cruelty and authority. The chin was indrawn towards the neck. Later Bond was to notice that it rarely moved more than slightly away from centre, giving the impression that the head and the vertebra were in one piece.
  
   The bizarre, gliding figure looked like a giant venomous worm wrapped in grey tin-foil, and Bond would not have been surprised to see the rest of it trailing slimily along the carpet behind.
  
   Doctor No came within three steps of them and stopped. The wound in the tall face opened. "Forgive me for not shaking hands with you," the deep voice was flat and even. "I am unable to." Slowly the sleeves parted and opened. "I have no hands."
  
   The two pairs of steel pincers came out on their gleaming stalks and were held up for inspection like the hands of a praying mantis. Then the two sleeves joined again.
  
   Bond felt the girl at his side give a start.
  
   The black apertures turned towards her. They slid down to her nose. The voice said flatly, "It is a misfortune." The eyes came back to Bond. "You were admiring my aquarium." It was a statement, not a question. "Man enjoys the beasts and the birds. I decided to enjoy also the fish. I find them far more varied and interesting. I am sure you both share my enthusiasm."
  
   Bond said, "I congratulate you. I shall never forget this room."
  
   "No." Again a statement, perhaps with a sardonic inflection, of fact. "But we have much to talk about. And so little time. Please sit down. You will have a drink? Cigarettes are beside your chairs."
  
   Doctor No moved to a high leather chair and folded himself down on to the seat. Bond took the chair opposite. The girl sat between them and slightly back.
  
   Bond felt a movement behind him. He looked over his shoulder. A short man, a Chinese Negro, with the build of a wrestler, stood at the drink tray. He was dressed in black trousers and a smart white jacket. Black almond eyes in a wide moon face met his and slid incuriously away.
  
   Doctor No said, "This is my bodyguard. He is expert in many things. There is no mystery about his sudden appearance. I always carry what is known as a walkie-talkie here," he inclined his chin towards the bosom of his kimono. "Thus I can summon him when he is needed. What will the girl have?"
  
   Not "Your Wife." Bond turned to Honeychile. Her eyes were wide and staring. She said quietly, "A Coca-Cola, please."
  
   Bond felt a moment of relief. At least she was not being got down by the performance. Bond said, "And I would like a medium Vodka dry Martini-with a slice of lemon peel. Shaken and not stirred, please. I would prefer Russian or Polish vodka."
  
   Doctor No gave his thin smile an extra crease. "I see you are also a man who knows what he wants. On this occasion your desires will be satisfied. Do you not find that it is generally so? When one wants a thing one gets it? That is my experience."
  
   "The small things."
  
   "If you fail at the large things it means you have not large ambitions. Concentration, focus-that is all. The aptitudes come, the tools forge themselves. "Give me a fulcrum and I will move the world"-but only if the desire to move the world is there." The thin lips bent minutely downwards in deprecation. "But this is chatter. We are making conversation. Instead, let us talk. Both of us, I am sure, prefer talk to conversation. Is the Martini to your liking? You have cigarettes-enough and the right sort to cosset your cancer? So be it. Sam-sam, put the shaker beside the man and another bottle of Coca-Cola beside the girl. It should now be eight-ten. We will have dinner at nine o"clock precisely."
  
   Doctor No sat slightly more upright in his chair. He inclined himself forward, staring at Bond. There was a moment"s silence in the room. Then Doctor No said, "And now Mister James Bond of the Secret Service, let us tell each other our secrets. First, to show you that I hide nothing, I will tell you mine. Then you will tell me yours." Doctor No"s eyes blazed darkly. "But let us tell each other the truth." He drew one steel claw out of the wide sleeve and held it upwards. He paused, "I shall do so. But you must do the same. If you do not, these," he pointed the claw at his eyes, "will know that you are lying."
  
   Doctor No brought the steel claw delicately in front of each eye and tapped the centre of each eyeball.
  
   Each eyeball in turn emitted a dull ting. "These," said Doctor No, "see everything."
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 15
  
  
   Pandora"s Box
  
   James Bond picked up his glass and sipped at it thoughtfully. It seemed pointless to go on bluffing. His story of representing the Audubon Society was anyway a thin one which could be punctured by anyone who knew about birds. It was obvious that his own cover was in shreds. He must concentrate on protecting the girl. To begin with he must reassure her.
  
   Bond smiled at Doctor No. He said, "I know about your contact in King"s House, Miss Taro. She is your agent. I have recorded the fact and it will be divulged in certain circumstances"-Doctor No"s expression showed no interest-"as will other facts. But, if we are to have a talk, let us have it without any more stage effects. You are an interesting man. But it is not necessary to make yourself more interesting than you are. You have suffered the misfortune of losing your hands. You wear mechanical hands. Many men wounded in the war wear them. You wear contact lenses instead of spectacles. You use a walkie-talkie instead of a bell to summon your servant. No doubt you have other tricks. But, Doctor No, you are still a man who sleeps and eats and defecates like the rest of us. So no more conjuring tricks, please. I am not one of your guano diggers and I am not impressed by them."
  
   Doctor No inclined his head a fraction. "Bravely spoken, Mister Bond. I accept the rebuke. I have no doubt developed annoying mannerisms from living too long in the company of apes. But do not mistake these mannerisms for bluff. I am a technician. I suit the tool to the material. I possess also a range of tools for working with refractory materials. However," Doctor No raised his joined sleeves an inch and let them fall back in his lap, "let us proceed with our talk. It is a rare pleasure to have an intelligent listener and I shall enjoy telling you the story of one of the most remarkable men in the world. You are the first person to hear it. I have not told it before. You are the only person I have ever met who will appreciate my story and also-" Doctor No paused for the significance of the last words to make itself felt-"keep it to himself." He continued, "The second of these considerations also applies to the girl."
  
   So that was it. There had been little doubt in Bond"s mind ever since the Spandau had opened up on them, and since, even before then, in Jamaica, where the attempts on him had not been half-hearted. Bond had assumed from the first that this man was a killer, that it would be a duel to the death. He had had his usual blind faith that he would win the duel-all the way until the moment when the flame-thrower had pointed at him. Then he had begun to doubt. Now he knew. This man was too strong, too well equipped.
  
   Bond said, "There is no point in the girl hearing this. She has nothing to do with me. I found her yesterday on the beach. She is a Jamaican from Morgan"s Harbour. She collects shells. Your men destroyed her canoe so I had to bring her with me. Send her away now and then back home. She won"t talk. She will swear not to."
  
   The girl interrupted fiercely. "I will talk! I shall tell everything. I"m not going to move. I"m going to stay with you."
  
   Bond looked at her. He said icily, "I don"t want you."
  
   Doctor No said softly, "Do not waste your breath on these heroics. Nobody who comes to this island has ever left it. Do you understand? Nobody-not even the simplest fisherman. It is not my policy. Do not argue with me or attempt to bluff me. It is entirely useless."
  
   Bond examined the face. There was no anger in it, no obstinacy-nothing but a supreme indifference. He shrugged his shoulders. He looked at the girl and smiled. He said, "All right, Honey. And I didn"t mean it. I"d hate you to go away. We"ll stay together and listen to what the maniac has to say."
  
   The girl nodded happily. It was as if her lover had threatened to send her out of the cinema and now had relented.
  
   Doctor No said, in the same soft resonant voice, "You are right, Mister Bond. That is just what I am, a maniac. All the greatest men are maniacs. They are possessed by a mania which drives them forward towards their goal. The great scientists, the philosophers, the religious leaders-all maniacs. What else but a blind singleness of purpose could have given focus to their genius, would have kept them in the groove of their purpose? Mania, my dear Mister Bond, is as priceless as genius. Dissipation of energy, fragmentation of vision, loss of momentum, the lack of follow-through-these are the vices of the herd." Doctor No sat slightly back in his chair. "I do not possess these vices. I am, as you correctly say, a maniac-a maniac, Mister Bond, with a mania for power. That"-the black holes glittered blankly at Bond through the contact lenses-"is the meaning of my life. That is why I am here. That is why you are here. That is why here exists."
  
   Bond picked up his glass and drained it. He filled it again from the shaker. He said, "I"m not surprised. It"s the old business of thinking you"re the King of England, or the President of the United States, or God. The asylums are full of them. The only difference is that instead of being shut up, you"ve built your own asylum and shut yourself up in it. But why did you do it? Why does sitting shut up in this cell give you the illusion of power?"
  
   Irritation flickered at the corner of the thin mouth. "Mister Bond, power is sovereignty. Clausewitz"s first principle was to have a secure base. From there one proceeds to freedom of action. Together, that is sovereignty. I have secured these things and much besides. No one else in the world possesses them to the same degree. They cannot have them. The world is too public. These things can only be secured in privacy. You talk of kings and presidents. How much power do they possess? As much as their people will allow them. Who in the world has the power of life or death over his people? Now that Stalin is dead, can you name any man except myself? And how do I possess that power, that sovereignty? Through privacy. Through the fact that nobody knows. Through the fact that I have to account to no one."
  
   Bond shrugged. "That is only the illusion of power, Doctor No. Any man with a loaded revolver has the power of life and death over his neighbour. Other people beside you have murdered in secret and got away with it. In the end they generally get their deserts. A greater power than they possess is exerted upon them by the community. That will happen to you, Doctor No. I tell you, your search for power is an illusion because power itself is an illusion."
  
   Doctor No said equably, "So is beauty, Mister Bond. So is art, so is money, so is death. And so, probably, is life. These concepts are relative. Your play upon words does not shake me. I know philosophy, I know ethics, and I know logic-better than you do, I daresay. But let us move away from this sterile debate. Let us return to where I began, with my mania for power, or, if you wish it, for the illusion of power. And please, Mister Bond," again the extra crease in the fixed smile, "please do not imagine that half an hour"s conversation with you will alter the pattern of my life. Interest yourself rather in the history of my pursuit, let us put it, of an illusion."
  
   "Go ahead." Bond glanced at the girl. She caught his eyes. She put her hand up to her mouth as if to conceal a yawn. Bond grinned at her. He wondered when it would amuse Doctor No to crack her pose of indifference.
  
   Doctor No said benignly, "I shall endeavour not to bore you. Facts are so much more interesting than theories, don"t you agree?" Doctor No was not expecting a reply. He fixed his eye on the elegant tulip shell that had now wandered half way up the outside of the dark window. Some small silver fish squirted across the black void. A bluish prickle of phosphorescence meandered vaguely. Up by the ceiling, the stars shone more brightly through the glass.
  
   The artificiality of the scene inside the room-the three people sitting in the comfortable chairs, the drinks on the sideboard, the rich carpet, the shaded lights, suddenly seemed ludicrous to Bond. Even the drama of it, the danger, were fragile things compared with the progress of the tulip shell up the glass outside. Supposing the glass burst. Supposing the stresses had been badly calculated, the workmanship faulty. Supposing the sea decided to lean a little more heavily against the window.
  
   Doctor No said, "I was the only son of a German Methodist missionary and a Chinese girl of good family. I was born in Pekin, but on what is known as "the wrong side of the blanket." I was an encumbrance. An aunt of my mother was paid to bring me up." Doctor No paused. "No love, you see, Mister Bond. Lack of parental care." He went on, "The seed was sown. I went to work in Shanghai. I became involved with the Tongs, with their illicit proceedings. I enjoyed the conspiracies, the burglaries, the murders, the arson of insured properties. They represented revolt against the father figure who had betrayed me. I loved the death and destruction of people and things. I became adept in the technique of criminality-if you wish to call it that. Then there was trouble. I had to be got out of the way. The Tongs considered me too valuable to kill. I was smuggled to the United States. I settled in New York. I had been given a letter of introduction, in code, to one of the two most powerful Tongs in America-the Hip Sings. I never knew what the letter said, but they took me on at once as a confidential clerk. In due course, at the age of thirty, I was made the equivalent of treasurer. The treasury contained over a million dollars. I coveted this money. Then began the great Tong wars of the late "twenties. The two great New York Tongs, my own, the Hip Sings, and our rival, the On Lee Ongs, joined in combat. Over the weeks hundreds on both sides were killed and their houses and properties burned to the ground. It was a time of torture and murder and arson in which I joined with delight. Then the riot squads came. Almost the whole police force of New York was mobilized. The two underground armies were prised apart and the headquarters of the two Tongs were raided and the ringleaders sent to jail. I was tipped off about the raid on my own Tong, the Hip Sings. A few hours before it was due, I got to the safe and rifled the million dollars in gold and disappeared into Harlem and went to ground. I was foolish. I should have left America, gone to the farthest corner of the earth. Even from the condemned cells in Sing Sing the heads of my Tong reached out for me. They found me. The killers came in the night. They tortured me. I would not say where the gold was. They tortured me all through the night. Then, when they could not break me, they cut off my hands to show that the corpse was that of a thief, and they shot me through the heart and went away. But they did not know something about me. I am the one man in a million who has his heart on the right side of his body. Those are the odds against it, one in a million. I lived. By sheer willpower I survived the operation and the months in hospital. And all the time I planned and planned how to get away with the money-how to keep it, what to do with it."
  
   Doctor No paused. There was a slight flush at his temples. His body fidgeted inside his kimono. His memories had excited him. For a moment he closed his eyes, composing himself. Bond thought, now! Shall I leap at him and kill him? Break off my glass and do it with the jagged stem?
  
   The eyes opened. "I am not boring you? You are sure? For an instant I felt your attention wandering."
  
   "No." The moment had passed. Would there be others? Bond measured the inches of the leap: noted that the jugular vein was in full view above the neck of the kimono.
  
   The thin purple lips parted and the story went on. "It was, Mister Bond, a time for clear, firm decisions. When they let me out of the hospital I went to Silberstein, the greatest stamp dealer in New York. I bought an envelope, just one envelope, full of the rarest postage stamps in the world. I took weeks to get them together. But I didn"t mind what I paid-in New York, London, Paris, Zurich. I wanted my gold to be mobile. I invested it all in these stamps. I had foreseen the World War. I knew there would be inflation. I knew the best would appreciate, or at least hold its value. And meanwhile I was changing my appearance. I had all my hair taken out by the roots, my thick nose made thin, my mouth widened, my lips sliced. I could not get smaller, so I made myself taller. I wore built up shoes. I had weeks of traction on my spine. I held myself differently. I put away my mechanical hands and wore hands of wax inside gloves. I changed my name to Julius No-the Julius after my father and the No for my rejection of him and of all authority. I threw away my spectacles and wore contact lenses-one of the first pairs ever built. Then I went to Milwaukee, where there are no Chinamen, and enrolled myself in the faculty of medicine. I hid myself in the academic world, the world of libraries and laboratories and classrooms and campuses. And there, Mister Bond, I lost myself in the study of the human body and the human mind. Why? Because I wished to know what this clay is capable of. I had to learn what my tools were before I put them to use on my next goal-total security from physical weaknesses, from material dangers and from the hazards of living. Then, Mister Bond, from that secure base, armoured even against the casual slings and arrows of the world, I would proceed to the achievement of power-the power, Mister Bond, to do unto others what had been done unto me, the power of life and death, the power to decide, to judge, the power of absolute independence from outside authority. For that, Mister Bond, whether you like it or not, is the essence of temporal power."
  
   Bond reached for the shaker and poured himself a third drink. He looked at Honeychile. She seemed composed and indifferent-as if her mind was on other things. She smiled at him.
  
   Doctor No said benignly. "I expect you are both hungry. Pray be patient. I will be brief. So, if you recall, there I was, in Milwaukee. In due course, I completed my studies and I left America and went by easy stages round the world. I called myself "doctor" because doctors receive confidences and they can ask questions without arousing suspicion. I was looking for my headquarters. It had to be safe from the coming war, it had to be an island, it had to be entirely private, and it had to be capable of industrial development. In the end I purchased Crab Key. And here I have remained for fourteen years. They have been secure and fruitful years, without a cloud on the horizon. I was entertained by the idea of converting bird dung into gold, and I attacked the problem with passion. It seemed to me the ideal industry. There was a constant demand for the product. The birds require no care except to be left in peace. Each one is a simple factory for turning fish into dung. The digging of the guano is only a question of not spoiling the crop by digging too much. The sole problem is the cost of the labour. It was 1942. The simple Cuban and Jamaican labourer was earning ten shillings a week cutting cane. I tempted a hundred of them over to the island by paying them twelve shillings a week. With guano at fifty dollars a ton I was well placed. But on one condition-that the wages remained constant. I ensured that by isolating my community from world inflation. Harsh methods have had to be used from time to time, but the result is that my men are content with their wages because they are the highest wages they have ever known. I brought in a dozen Chinese Negroes with their families to act as overseers. They receive a pound a week per man. They are tough and reliable. On occasion I had to be ruthless with them, but they soon learned. Automatically my people increased in numbers. I added some engineers and some builders. We set to work on the mountain. Occasionally I brought in teams of specialists on high wages. They were kept apart from the others. They lived inside the mountain until their work was done and then left by ship. They put in the lighting and the ventilation and the lift. They built this room. Stores and furnishings came in from all over the world. These people built the sanatorium façade which will cover my operations in case one day there is a shipwreck or the Governor of Jamaica decides to pay me a call." The lips glazed into a smile. "You must admit that I am able, if I wish, to accord visitors a most fragrant reception-a wise precaution for the future! And gradually, methodically, my fortress was built while the birds defecated on top of it. It has been hard, Mister Bond." The black eyes did not look for sympathy or praise. "But by the end of last year the work was done. A secure, well-camouflaged base had been achieved. I was ready to proceed to the next step-an extension of my power to the outside world."
  
   Doctor No paused. He lifted his arms an inch and dropped them again resignedly in his lap. "Mister Bond, I said that there was not a cloud in the sky during all these fourteen years. But one was there, all the time, below the horizon. And do you know what it was? It was a bird, a ridiculous bird called a roseate spoonbill! I will not weary you with the details, Mister Bond. You are already aware of some of the circumstances. The two wardens, miles away in the middle of the lake, were provisioned by launch from Cuba. They sent out their reports by the launch. Occasionally, ornithologists from America came by the launch and spent some days at the camp. I did not mind. The area is out of bounds to my men. The wardens were not allowed near my compounds. There was no contact. From the first I made it clear to the Audubon Society that I would not meet their representatives. And then what happens? One day, out of a clear sky, I get a letter by the monthly boat. The roseate spoonbills have become one of the bird wonders of the world. The Society gives me formal notification that they intend to build a hotel on their leasehold, near the river up which you came. Bird lovers from all over the world will come to observe the birds. Films will be taken. Crab Key, they told me in their flattering, persuasive letter, would become famous.
  
   "Mister Bond," the arms were raised and dropped back. Irony gathered at the edges of the set smile. "Can you believe it? This privacy I had achieved! The plans I had for the future! To be swept aside because of a lot of old women and their birds! I examined the lease. I wrote offering a huge sum to buy it. They refused. So I studied these birds. I found out about their habits. And suddenly the solution was there. And it was easy. Man had always been the worst predator on these birds. Spoonbills are extremely shy. They frighten easily. I sent to Florida for a marsh buggy-the vehicle that is used for oil prospecting, that will cover any kind of terrain. I adapted it to frighten and to burn-not only birds, but humans as well, for the wardens would have to go too. And, one night in December, my marsh buggy howled off across the lake. It smashed the camp, both wardens were reported killed-though one, it turned out, escaped to die in Jamaica-it burned the nesting places, it spread terror among the birds. Complete success! Hysteria spread among the spoonbills. They died in thousands. But then I get a demand for a plane to land on my airstrip. There was to be an investigation. I decide to agree. It seemed wiser. An accident is arranged. A lorry goes out of control down the airstrip as the plane is coming in. The plane is destroyed. All signs of the lorry are removed. The bodies are reverently placed in coffins and I report the tragedy. As I expected, there is further investigation. A destroyer arrives. I receive the captain courteously. He and his officers are brought round by sea and then led inland. They are shown the remains of the camp. My men suggest that the wardens went mad with loneliness and fought each other. The survivor set fire to the camp and escaped in his fishing canoe. The airstrip is examined. My men report that the plane was coming in too fast. The tyres must have burst on impact. The bodies are handed over. It is very sad. The officers are satisfied. The ship leaves. Peace reigns again."
  
   Doctor No coughed delicately. He looked from Bond to the girl and back again, "And that, my friends, is my story-or rather the first chapter of what I am confident will be a long and interesting tale. Privacy has been re-established. There are now no roseate spoonbills, so there will be no wardens. No doubt the Audubon Society will decide to accept my offer for the rest of their lease. No matter. If they start their puny operations again, other misfortunes will befall them. This has been a warning to me. There will be no more interference."
  
   "Interesting," said Bond. "An interesting case history. So that was why Strangways had to be removed. What did you do with him and his girl?"
  
   "They are at the bottom of the Mona Reservoir. I sent three of my best men. I have a small but efficient machine in Jamaica. I need it. I have established a watch on the intelligence services in Jamaica and Cuba. It is necessary for my further operations. Your Mister Strangways became suspicious and started ferreting about. Fortunately, by this time, the routines of this man were known to me. His death and the girl"s were a simple matter of timing. I had hoped to deal with you with similar expedition. You were fortunate. But I knew what type of a man you were from the files at King"s House. I guessed that the fly would come to the spider. I was ready for you, and when the canoe showed up on the radar screen I knew you would not get away."
  
   Bond said, "Your radar is not very efficient. There were two canoes. The one you saw was the girl"s. I tell you she had nothing to do with me."
  
   "Then she is unfortunate. I happen to be needing a white woman for a small experiment. As we agreed earlier, Mister Bond, one generally gets what one wants."
  
   Bond looked thoughtfully at Doctor No. He wondered if it was worth while even trying to make a dent in this impregnable man. Was it worth wasting breath by threatening or bluffing? Bond had nothing but a miserable two of clubs up his sleeve. The thought of playing it almost bored him. Casually, indifferently he threw it down.
  
   "Then you"re out of luck, Doctor No. You are now a file in London. My thoughts on this case, the evidence of the poisoned fruit and the centipede and the crashed motor car, are on record. So are the names of Miss Chung and Miss Taro. Instructions were left with someone in Jamaica that my report should be opened and acted upon if I failed to return from Crab Key within three days."
  
   Bond paused. The face of Doctor No was impassive. Neither the eyes nor the mouth had flickered. The jugular vein throbbed evenly. Bond bent forward. He said softly, "But because of the girl, and only because of her, Doctor No, I will strike a bargain. In exchange for our safe return to Jamaica, you may have a week"s start. You may take your aeroplane and your packet of stamps and try to get away."
  
   Bond sat back. "Any interest, Doctor No?"
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 16
  
  
   Horizons of Agony
  
   A voice behind Bond said quietly, "Dinner is served."
  
   Bond swung round. It was the bodyguard. Beside him was another man who might have been his twin. They stood there, two stocky barrels of muscle, their hands buried in the sleeves of their kimonos, and looked over Bond"s head at Doctor No.
  
   "Ah, nine o"clock already." Doctor No rose slowly to his feet. "Come along. We can continue our conversation in more intimate surroundings. It is kind of you both to have listened to me with such exemplary patience. I hope the modesty of my cuisine and my cellar will not prove a further imposition."
  
   Double doors stood open in the wall behind the two white-jacketed men. Bond and the girl followed Doctor No through into a small octagonal mahogany panelled room lit by a central chandelier in silver with storm glasses round the candles. Beneath it was a round mahogany table laid for three. Silver and glass twinkled warmly. The plain dark blue carpet was luxuriously deep. Doctor No took the centre high-backed chair and bowed the girl into the chair on his right. They sat down and unfolded napkins of white silk.
  
   The hollow ceremony and the charming room maddened Bond. He longed to break it up with his own hands-to wind his silk napkin round Doctor No"s throat and squeeze until the contact lenses popped out of the black, damnable eyes.
  
   The two guards wore white cotton gloves. They served the food with a suave efficiency that was prompted by an occasional word in Chinese from Doctor No.
  
   At first, Doctor No seemed preoccupied. He slowly ate through three bowls of different soup, feeding himself with a spoon with a short handle that fitted neatly between the pincers. Bond concentrated on hiding his fears from the girl. He sat relaxed and ate and drank with a forced good appetite. He talked cheerfully to the girl about Jamaica-about the birds and the animals and the flowers which were an easy topic for her. Occasionally his feet felt for hers under the table. She became almost gay. Bond thought they were putting on an excellent imitation of an engaged couple being given dinner by a detested uncle.
  
   Bond had no idea if his thin bluff had worked. He didn"t give much for their chances. Doctor No, and Doctor No"s story, exuded impregnability. The incredible biography rang true. Not a word of it was impossible. Perhaps there were other people in the world with their private kingdoms-away from the beaten track, where there were no witnesses, where they could do what they liked. And what did Doctor No plan to do next, after he had squashed the flies that had come to annoy him? And if-when-he killed Bond and the girl, would London pick up the threads that Bond had picked up? Probably they would. There would be Pleydell-Smith. The evidence of the poisoned fruit. But where would Bond"s replacement get with Doctor No? Not far. Doctor No would shrug his shoulders over the disappearance of Bond and Quarrel. Never heard of them. And there would be no link with the girl. In Morgan"s Harbour they would think she had been drowned on one of her expeditions. It was hard to see what could interfere with Doctor No-with the second chapter of his life, whatever it was.
  
   Underneath his chatter with the girl, Bond prepared for the worst. There were plenty of weapons beside his plate. When the cutlets came, perfectly cooked, Bond fiddled indecisively with the knives and chose the bread knife to eat them with. While he ate and talked, he edged the big steel meat knife towards him. An expansive gesture of his right hand knocked over his glass of champagne and in the split second of the crash his left hand flicked the knife into the deep sleeve of his kimono. In the midst of Bond"s apologies and the confusion as he and the bodyguard mopped up the spilled champagne, Bond raised his left arm and felt the knife slip back to below his armpit and then fall inside the kimono against his ribs. When he had finished his cutlets he tightened the silk belt round his waist, shifting the knife across his stomach. The knife nestled comfortingly against his skin and gradually the steel grew warm.
  
   Coffee came and the meal was ended. The two guards came and stood close behind Bond"s chair and the girl"s. They stood with their arms crossed on their chests, impassive, motionless, like executioners.
  
   Doctor No put his cup softly down on his saucer. He laid his two steel claws down on the table in front of him. He sat a fraction more upright. He turned his body an inch in Bond"s direction. Now there was no preoccupation in his face. The eyes were hard, and direct. The thin mouth creased and opened. "You have enjoyed your dinner, Mister Bond?"
  
   Bond took a cigarette from the silver box in front of him and lit it. He played with the silver table-lighter. He smelled bad news coming. He must somehow pocket the lighter. Fire might perhaps be another weapon. He said easily, "Yes. It was excellent." He looked across at the girl. He leant forward in his chair and rested his forearms on the table. He crossed them, enveloping the lighter. He smiled at her. "I hope I ordered what you like."
  
   "Oh yes, it was lovely." For her the party was still going on.
  
   Bond smoked busily, agitating his hands and forearms to create an atmosphere of movement. He turned to Doctor No. He stubbed out his cigarette and sat back in his chair. He folded his arms across his chest. The lighter was in his left armpit. He smiled cheerfully. "And what happens now, Doctor No?"
  
   "We can proceed to our after-dinner entertainment, Mister Bond." The thin smile creased and vanished. "I have examined your proposition from every angle. I do not accept it."
  
   Bond shrugged his shoulders. "You are unwise."
  
   "No, Mister Bond. I suspect that your proposition is a gold brick. People in your trade do not behave as you suggest. They make routine reports to their headquarters. They keep their chief aware of the progress of their investigations. I know these things. Secret agents do not behave as you suggest you have done. You have been reading too many novels of suspense. Your little speech reeked of grease-paint and cardboard. No, Mister Bond, I do not accept your story. If it is true, I am prepared to face the consequences. I have too much at stake to be turned from my path. So the police come, the soldiers come. Where are a man and a girl? What man and what girl? I know nothing. Please go away. You are disturbing my guanera. Where is your evidence? Your search warrant? The English law is strict, gentlemen. Go home and leave me in peace with my beloved cormorants. You see, Mister Bond? And let us even say that the worst comes to the worst. That one of my agents talks, which is highly improbable (Bond remembered the fortitude of Miss Chung). What have I to lose? Two more deaths on the charge sheet. But, Mister Bond, a man can only be hanged once." The tall pear-shaped head shook gently from side to side. "Have you anything else to say? Any questions to ask? You both have a busy night ahead of you. Your time is getting short. And I must get my sleep. The monthly ship is putting in tomorrow and I have the loading to supervise. I shall have to spend the whole day down on the quay. Well, Mister Bond?"
  
   Bond looked across at the girl. She had gone deathly pale. She was gazing at him, waiting for the miracle he would work. He looked down at his hands. He examined his nails carefully. He said, playing for time, "And then what? After your busy day with the bird dung, what comes next on your programme? What is the next chapter you think you"re going to write?"
  
   Bond didn"t look up. The deep quiet authoritative voice came to him as if it was coming down from the night sky.
  
   "Ah, yes. You must have been wondering, Mister Bond. You have the habit of inquiry. It persists even to the last, even into the shadows. I admire such qualities in a man with only a few hours to live. So I will tell you. I will turn over the next page. It will console you. There is more to this place than bird dung. Your instincts did not betray you." Doctor No paused for emphasis. "This island, Mister Bond, is about to be developed into the most valuable technical intelligence centre in the world."
  
   "Really?" Bond kept his eyes bent on his hands.
  
   "Doubtless you know that Turks Island, about three hundred miles from here through the Windward Passage, is the most important centre for testing the guided missiles of the United States?"
  
   "It is an important centre, yes."
  
   "Perhaps you have read of the rockets that have been going astray recently? The multi-stage snark, for instance, that ended its flight in the forests of Brazil instead of the depths of the South Atlantic?"
  
   "Yes."
  
   "You recall that it refused to obey the telemetred instructions to change its course, even to destroy itself. It developed a will of its own?"
  
   "I remember."
  
   "There have been other failures, decisive failures, from the long list of prototypes-the zuni, matador, petrel, regulus, bomarc-so many names, so many changes, I can"t even remember them all. Well, Mister Bond," Doctor No could not keep a note of pride out of his voice, "it may interest you to know that the vast majority of those failures have been caused from Crab Key."
  
   "Is that so?"
  
   "You do not believe me? No matter. Others do. Others who have seen the complete abandonment of one series, the mastodon, because of its recurring navigational errors, its failure to obey the radio directions from Turks Island. Those others are the Russians. The Russians are my partners in this venture. They trained six of my men, Mister Bond. Two of those men are on watch at this moment, watching the radio frequencies, the beams on which these weapons travel. There is a million dollars" worth of equipment up above us in the rock galleries, Mister Bond, sending fingers up into the Heavyside Layer, waiting for the signals, jamming them, countering beams with other beams. And from time to time a rocket soars up on its way a hundred, five hundred miles into the Atlantic. And we track it, as accurately as they are tracking it in the Operations Room on Turks Island. Then, suddenly, our pulses go out to the rocket, its brain is confused, it goes mad, it plunges into the sea, it destroys itself, it roars off at a tangent. Another test has failed. The operators are blamed, the designers, the manufacturers. There is panic in the Pentagon. Something else must be tried, different frequencies, different metals, a different radio brain. Of course," Doctor No was fair, "we too have our difficulties. We track many practice shoots without being able to get through to the brain of the new rocket. But then we communicate urgently with Moscow. Yes, they have even given us a cipher machine with our own frequencies and routines. And the Russians get thinking. They make suggestions. We try them out. And then, one day, Mister Bond, it is like catching the attention of a man in a crowd. Up in the stratosphere the rocket acknowledges our signal. We are recognized and we can speak to it and change its mind." Doctor No paused. "Do you not find that interesting, Mister Bond, this little sideline to my business in guano? It is, I assure you, most profitable. It might be still more so. Perhaps Communist China will pay more. Who knows? I already have my feelers out."
  
   Bond lifted his eyes. He looked thoughtfully at Doctor No. So he had been right. There had been more, much more, in all this than met the eye. This was a big game, a game that explained everything, a game that was certainly, in the international espionage market, well worth the candle. Well, well! Now the pieces in the puzzle fell firmly into place. For this it was certainly worth scaring away a few birds and wiping out a few people. Privacy? Of course Doctor No would have to kill him and the girl. Power? This was it. Doctor No had really got himself into business.
  
   Bond looked into the two black holes with a new respect. He said, "You"ll have to kill a lot more people to keep this thing in your hands, Doctor No. It"s worth a lot of money. You"ve got a good property here-a better one than I thought. People are going to want to cut themselves a piece of this cake. I wonder who will get to you first and kill you. Those men up there," he gestured towards the ceiling, "who were trained in Moscow? They"re the technicians. I wonder what Moscow is telling them to do? You wouldn"t know that, would you?"
  
   Doctor No said, "You persist in underestimating me, Mister Bond. You are an obstinate man, and stupider than I had expected. I am aware of these possibilities. I have taken one of these men and made him into a private monitor. He has duplicates of the ciphers and of the cipher machine. He lives in another part of the mountain. The others think that he died. He watches on all the routine times. He gives me a second copy of all the traffic that passes. So far, the signals from Moscow have been innocent of any sign of conspiracy. I am thinking of these things constantly, Mister Bond. I take precautions and I shall take further precautions. As I said, you underestimate me."
  
   "I don"t underestimate you, Doctor No. You"re a very careful man, but you"ve got too many files open on you. In my line of business, the same thing applies to me. I know the feeling. But you"ve got some really bad ones. The Chinese one, for instance. I wouldn"t like to have that one. The FBI should be the least painful-robbery and false identity. But do you know the Russians as well as I do? You"re a "best friend" at the moment. But the Russians don"t have partners. They"ll want to take you over-buy you out with a bullet. Then there"s the file you"ve started with my Service. You really want me to make that one fatter? I shouldn"t do it if I were you, Doctor No. They"re a tenacious lot of people in my Service. If anything happens to me and the girl, you"ll find Crab Key"s a very small and naked little island."
  
   "You cannot play for high stakes without taking risks, Mister Bond. I accept the dangers and, so far as I can, I have equipped myself against them. You see, Mister Bond," the deep voice held a hint of greed, "I am on the edge of still greater things. The Chapter Two to which I referred holds the promise of prizes which no one but a fool would throw away because he was afraid. I have told you that I can bend the beams on which these rockets fly, Mister Bond. I can make them change course and ignore their radio control. What would you say, Mister Bond, if I could go further? If I could bring them down into the sea near this island and salvage the secrets of their construction. At present American destroyers, far out in the South Atlantic, salvage these missiles when they come to the end of their fuel and parachute down into the sea. Sometimes the parachutes fail to open. Sometimes the self-destruction devices fail to operate. No one on Turks Island would be surprised if every now and then the prototype of a new series broke off its flight and came down near Crab Key. To begin with, at least, it would be put down to mechanical failure. Later, perhaps, they would discover that other radio signals besides theirs were guiding their rockets. A jamming war would start. They would try and locate the origin of the false signals. Directly I found they were looking for me, I would have one last fling. Their rockets would go mad. They would land on Havana, on Kingston. They would turn round and home on Miami. Even without warheads, Mister Bond, five tons of metal arriving at a thousand miles an hour can cause plenty of damage in a crowded town. And then what? There would be panic, a public outcry. The experiments would have to cease. The Turks Island base would have to close down. And how much would Russia pay for that to happen, Mister Bond? And how much for each of the prototypes I captured for them? Shall we say ten million dollars for the whole operation? Twenty million? It would be a priceless victory in the armaments race. I could name my figure. Don"t you agree, Mister Bond? And don"t you agree that these considerations make your arguments and threats seem rather puny?"
  
   Bond said nothing. There was nothing to say. Suddenly he was back in the quiet room high up above Regent"s Park. He could hear the rain slashing softly against the window and M"s voice, impatient, sarcastic, saying, "Oh, some damned business about birds...holiday in the sun"ll do you good...routine inquiry." And he, Bond, had taken a canoe and a fisherman and a picnic lunch and had gone off-how many days, how many weeks ago?-"to have a look." Well, he had had his look into Pandora"s Box. He had found out the answers, been told the secrets-and now? Now he was going to be politely shown the way to his grave, taking the secrets with him and the waif he had picked up and dragged along with him on his lunatic adventure. The bitterness inside Bond came up into his mouth so that for a moment he thought he was going to retch. He reached for his champagne and emptied the glass. He said harshly, "All right, Doctor No. Now let"s get on with the cabaret. What"s the programme-knife, bullet, poison, rope? But make it quick, I"ve seen enough of you."
  
   Doctor No"s lips compressed into a thin purple line. The eyes were hard as onyx under the billiard-ball forehead and skull. The polite mask had gone. The Grand Inquisitor sat in the high-backed chair. The hour had struck for the peine forte et dure.
  
   Doctor No spoke a word and the two guards took a step forward and held the two victims above the elbows, forcing their arms back against the sides of their chairs. There was no resistance. Bond concentrated on holding the lighter in his armpit. The white-gloved hands on his biceps felt like steel bands. He smiled across at the girl. "I"m sorry about this, Honey. I"m afraid we"re not going to be able to play together after all."
  
   The girl"s eyes in the pale face were blue-black with fear. Her lips trembled. She said, "Will it hurt?"
  
   "Silence!" Doctor No"s voice was the crack of a whip. "Enough of this foolery. Of course it will hurt. I am interested in pain. I am also interested in finding out how much the human body can endure. From time to time I make experiments on those of my people who have to be punished. And on trespassers like yourselves. You have both put me to a great deal of trouble. In exchange I intend to put you to a great deal of pain. I shall record the length of your endurance. The facts will be noted. One day my findings will be given to the world. Your deaths will have served the purposes of science. I never waste human material. The German experiments on live humans during the war were of great benefit to science. It is a year since I put a girl to death in the fashion I have chosen for you, woman. She was a Negress. She lasted three hours. She died of terror. I have wanted a white girl for comparison. I was not surprised when your arrival was reported. I get what I want." Doctor No sat back in his chair. His eyes were now fixed on the girl, watching her reactions. She stared back at him, half hypnotized, like a bush mouse in front of a rattlesnake.
  
   Bond set his teeth.
  
   "You are a Jamaican, so you will know what I am talking about. This island is called Crab Key. It is called by that name because it is infested with crabs, land crabs-what they call in Jamaica "black crabs." You know them. They weigh about a pound each and they are as big as saucers. At this time of year they come up in thousands from their holes near the shore and climb up towards the mountain. There, in the coral uplands, they go to ground again in holes in the rock and spawn their broods. They march up in armies of hundreds at a time. They march through everything and over everything. In Jamaica they go through houses that are in their path. They are like the lemmings of Norway. It is a compulsive migration." Doctor No paused. He said softly, "But there is a difference. The crabs devour what they find in their path. And at present, woman, they are "running." They are coming up the mountainside in their tens of thousands, great red and orange and black waves of them, scuttling and hurrying and scraping against the rock above us at this moment. And tonight, in the middle of their path, they are going to find the naked body of a woman pegged out-a banquet spread for them-and they will feel the warm body with their feeding pincers, and one will make the first incision with his fighting claws and then . . . and then . . ."
  
   There was a moan from the girl. Her head fell forward slackly on to her chest. She had fainted. Bond"s body heaved in his chair. A string of obscenities hissed out between his clenched teeth. The huge hands of the guard were like fire round his arms. He couldn"t even move the chair-legs on the floor. After a moment he desisted. He waited for his voice to steady, then he said, with all the venom he could put into the words, "You bastard. You"ll fry in hell for this."
  
   Doctor No smiled thinly. "Mister Bond, I do not admit the existence of hell. Console yourself. Perhaps they will start at the throat or the heart. The movement of the pulse will attract them. Then it will not be long." He spoke a sentence in Chinese. The guard behind the girl"s chair leant forward and plucked her bodily out of the chair as if she had been a child and slung the inert body over his shoulder. Between the dangling arms the hair fell down in a golden shower. The guard went to the door and opened it and went out, closing it noiselessly behind him.
  
   For a moment there was silence in the room. Bond thought only of the knife against his skin and of the lighter under his armpit. How much damage could he do with the two pieces of metal? Could he somehow get within range of Doctor No?
  
   Doctor No said quietly, "You said that power was an illusion, Mister Bond. Do you change your mind? My power to select this particular death for the girl is surely not an illusion. However, let us proceed to the method of your departure. That also has its novel aspects. You see, Mister Bond, I am interested in the anatomy of courage-in the power of the human body to endure. But how to measure human endurance? How to plot a graph of the will to survive, the tolerance of pain, the conquest of fear? I have given much thought to the problem, and I believe I have solved it. It is, of course, only a rough and ready method, and I shall learn by experience as more and more subjects are put to the test. I have prepared you for the experiment as best I could. I gave you a sedative so that your body should be rested and I have fed you well so that you may be at full strength. Future-what shall I call them-patients, will have the same advantages. All will start equal in that respect. After that it will be a question of the individual"s courage and powers of endurance." Doctor No paused, watching Bond"s face. "You see, Mister Bond, I have just finished constructing an obstacle race, an assault course against death. I will say no more about it because the element of surprise is one of the constituents of fear. It is the unknown dangers that are the worst, that bear most heavily on the reserves of courage. And I flatter myself that the gauntlet you will run contains a rich assortment of the unexpected. It will be particularly interesting, Mister Bond, that a man of your physical qualities is to be my first competitor. It will be most interesting to observe how far you get down the course I have devised. You should put up a worthy target figure for future runners. I have high expectations of you. You should go far, but when, as is inevitable, you have finally failed at an obstacle, your body will be recovered and I shall most meticulously examine the physical state of your remains. The data will be recorded. You will be the first dot on a graph. Something of an honour, is it not, Mister Bond?"
  
   Bond said nothing. What the hell did all this mean? What could this test consist of? Would it be possible to survive it? Could he conceivably escape from it and get to the girl before it was too late, even if it was only to kill her and save her from her torture? Silently Bond gathered his reserves of courage, steeling his mind against the fear of the unknown that already had him by the throat, focusing his whole will on survival. Somehow, above all else, he must cling to his weapons.
  
   Doctor No rose and stepped away from his chair. He walked slowly to the door and turned. The menacing black holes looked back at Bond from just below the lintel of the door. The head was inclined a fraction. The purple lips creased back. "Run a good race for me, Mister Bond. My thoughts, as they say, will be with you."
  
   Doctor No turned away and the door closed softly behind the long thin gunmetal back.
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 17
  
  
   The Long Scream
  
   There was a man on the lift. The doors were open, waiting. James Bond, his arms still locked to his sides, was marched in. Now the dining-room would be empty. How soon would the guards go back, start clearing away the dinner, notice the missing things? The doors hissed shut. The liftman stood in front of the buttons so that Bond could not see which he had pressed. They were going up. Bond tried to estimate the distance. The lift sighed to a stop. The time seemed rather less than when he had come down with the girl. The doors opened on to an uncarpeted corridor with rough grey paint on the stone walls. It ran about twenty yards straight ahead.
  
   "Hold it, Joe," said Bond"s guard to the liftman. "Be right with you."
  
   Bond was marched down the corridor past doors numbered with letters of the alphabet. There was a faint hum of machinery in the air and behind one door Bond thought he could catch the crackle of radio static. It sounded as if they might be in the engine-room of the mountain. They came to the end door. It was marked with a black Q. It was ajar and the guard pushed Bond into the door so that it swung open. Through the door was a grey painted stone cell about fifteen feet square. There was nothing in it except a wooden chair on which lay, laundered and neatly folded, Bond"s black canvas jeans and his blue shirt.
  
   The guard let go of Bond"s arms. Bond turned and looked into the broad yellow face below the crinkly hair. There was a hint of curiosity and pleasure in the liquid brown eyes. The man stood holding the door handle. He said, "Well, this is it, bud. You"re at the starting gate. You can either sit here and rot or find your way out on to the course. Happy landings."
  
   Bond thought it was just worth trying. He glanced past the guard to where the liftman was standing beside his open doors, watching them. He said softly, "How would you like to earn ten thousand dollars, guaranteed, and a ticket to anywhere in the world?" He watched the man"s face. The mouth spread in a wide grin to show brownish teeth worn to uneven points by years of chewing sugar-cane.
  
   "Thanks, Mister. I"d rather stay alive." The man made to close the door. Bond whispered urgently, "We could get out of here together."
  
   The thick lips sneered. The man said, "Shove it!" The door shut with a solid click.
  
   Bond shrugged his shoulders. He gave the door a cursory glance. It was made of metal and there was no handle on the inside. Bond didn"t waste his shoulder on it. He went to the chair and sat down on the neat pile of his clothes and looked round the cell. The walls were entirely naked except for a ventilation grille of thick wire in one corner just below the ceiling. It was wider than his shoulders. It was obviously the way out into the assault course. The only other break in the walls was a thick glass porthole, no bigger than Bond"s head, just above the door. Light from the corridor filtered through it into the cell. There was nothing else. It was no good wasting any more time. It would now be about ten-thirty. Outside, somewhere on the slope of the mountain, the girl would already be lying, waiting for the rattle of claws on the grey coral. Bond clenched his teeth at the thought of the pale body spreadeagled out there under the stars. Abruptly he stood up. What the hell was he doing sitting still. Whatever lay on the other side of the wire grille, it was time to go.
  
   Bond took out his knife and the lighter and threw off the kimono. He dressed in the trousers and shirt and stowed the lighter in his hip pocket. He tried the edge of the knife with his thumb. It was very sharp. It would be better still if he could get a point on it. He knelt on the floor and began whittling the rounded end on the stone. After a precious quarter of an hour he was satisfied. It was no stiletto, but it would serve to stab as well as cut. Bond put the knife between his teeth and set the chair below the grille, and climbed on to it. The grille! Assuming he could tear it off its hinges, the frame of quarter-inch wire might straighten into a spear. That would make a third weapon. Bond reached up with crooked fingers.
  
   The next thing he knew was a searing pain up his arm and the crack of his head hitting the stone floor. He lay, stunned, with only the memory of a blue flash and the hiss and crackle of electricity to tell him what had hit him.
  
   Bond got to his knees and stayed there. He bent his head down and shook it slowly from side to side like a wounded animal. He noticed a smell of burning flesh. He lifted his right hand up to his eyes. There was the red smear of an open burn across the inside of his fingers. Seeing it brought the pain. Bond spat out a four-letter word. Slowly he got to his feet. He squinted up at the wire grille as if it might strike at him again, like a snake. Grimly he set the chair upright against the wall. He picked up his knife and cut a strip off the discarded kimono and tied it firmly across his fingers. Then he climbed up again on to the chair and looked at the grille. He was meant to get through it. The shock had been to soften him up-a taste of pain to come. Surely he had fused the blasted thing. Surely they would have switched off the current. He looked at it only for an instant, then the fingers of his left hand crooked and went straight up to the impersonal wire mesh. His fingers went through the wire rim and gripped.
  
   Nothing! Nothing at all-just wire. Bond grunted. He felt his nerves slacken. He tugged at the wire. It gave an inch. He tugged again and it came away in his hand and dangled down from two strands of copper flex that disappeared into the wall. Bond pulled the grille loose from the flex and got down from the chair. Yes, there was a join in the frame. He set to work unravelling the mesh. Then using the chair as a hammer, he straightened the heavy wire.
  
   After ten minutes, Bond had a crooked spear about four feet long. One end, where it had originally been cut by the pliers, was jagged. It would not pierce a man"s clothes, but it would be good enough for the face and neck. By using all his strength and the crack at the bottom of the metal door, Bond turned the blunt end into a clumsy crook. He measured the wire against his leg. It was too long. He bent it double and slipped the spear down a trouser leg. Now it hung from his waistband to just above the knee. He went back to the chair and climbed up again and reached, nervously, for the edge of the ventilator shaft. There was no shock. Bond heaved up and through the opening and lay on his stomach looking along the shaft.
  
   The shaft was about four inches wider than Bond"s shoulders. It was circular and of polished metal. Bond reached for his lighter, blessing the inspiration that had made him take it, and flicked it on. Yes, zinc sheeting that looked new. The shaft stretched straight ahead, featureless except for the ridges where the sections of pipe joined. Bond put the lighter back in his pocket and snaked forward.
  
   It was easy going. Cool air from the ventilating system blew strongly in Bond"s face. The air held no smell of the sea-it was the canned stuff that comes from an air-conditioning plant. Doctor No must have adapted one of the shafts to his purpose. What hazards had he built into it to test out his victims? They would be ingenious and painful-designed to reduce the resistance of the victim. At the winning post, so to speak, there would be the coup de grâce-if the victim ever got that far. It would be something conclusive, something from which there would be no escape, for there would be no prizes in this race except oblivion-an oblivion, thought Bond, he might be glad to win. Unless of course Doctor No had been just a bit too clever. Unless he had underestimated the will to survive. That, thought Bond, was his only hope-to try to survive the intervening hazards, to get through at least to the last ditch.
  
   There was a faint luminosity ahead. Bond approached it carefully, his senses questing in front of him like antennae. It grew brighter. It was the glint of light against the end of the lateral shaft. He went on until his head touched the metal. He twisted over on his back. Straight above him, at the top of fifty yards or so of vertical shaft, was a steady glimmer. It was like looking up a long gun barrel. Bond inched round the square bend and stood upright. So he was supposed to climb straight up this shining tube of metal without a foothold! Was it possible? Bond expanded his shoulders. Yes, they gripped the sides. His feet could also get a temporary purchase, though they would slip except where the ridges at the joints gave him an ounce of upward leverage. Bond shrugged his shoulders and kicked off his shoes. It was no good arguing. He would just have to try.
  
   Six inches at a time, Bond"s body began to worm up the shaft-expand shoulders to grip the sides, lift feet, lock knees, force the feet outwards against the metal and, as the feet slipped downwards with his weight, contract shoulders and raise them a few inches higher. Do it again, and again and again and again. Stop at each tiny bulge where the sections joined and use the millimetre of extra support to get some breath and measure the next lap. Otherwise don"t look up, think only of the inches of metal that have to be conquered one by one. Don"t worry about the glimmer of light that never grows brighter or nearer. Don"t worry about losing your grip and falling to smash your ankles at the bottom of the shaft. Don"t worry about cramp. Don"t worry about your screaming muscles or the swelling bruises on your shoulders and the sides of your feet. Just take the silver inches as they come, one by one, and conquer them.
  
   But then the feet began to sweat and slip. Twice Bond lost a yard before his shoulders, scalding with the friction, could put on the brake. Finally he had to stop altogether to let his sweat dry in the downward draught of air. He waited for a full ten minutes, staring at his faint reflection in the polished metal, the face split in half by the knife between the teeth. Still he refused to look up to see how much more there was. It might be too much to bear. Carefully Bond wiped each foot against a trouser-leg and began again.
  
   Now half Bond"s mind was dreaming while the other half fought the battle. He wasn"t even conscious of the strengthening breeze or the slowly brightening light. He saw himself as a wounded caterpillar crawling up a waste pipe towards the plug-hole of a bath. What would he see when he got through the plug-hole? A naked girl drying herself? A man shaving? Sunlight streaming through an open window into an empty bathroom?
  
   Bond"s head bumped against something. The plug was in the plug-hole! The shock of disappointment made him slip a yard before his shoulders got a fresh grip. Then he realized. He was at the top! Now he noticed the bright light and the strong wind. Feverishly, but with a more desperate care, he heaved up again until his head touched. The wind was coming into his left ear. Cautiously he turned his head. It was another lateral shaft. Above him light was shining through a thick porthole. All he had to do was inch himself round and grip the edge of the new shaft and somehow gather enough strength to heave himself in. Then he would be able to lie down.
  
   With an extra delicacy, born of panic that something might now go wrong, that he might make a mistake and plummet back down the shaft to land in a crackle of bone, Bond, his breath steaming against the metal, carried out the manœuvre and, with his last ounce of strength, jackknifed into the opening and crumpled full length on his face.
  
   Later-how much later?-Bond"s eyes opened and his body stirred. The cold had woken him from the fringe of total unconsciousness into which his body had plunged. Painfully he rolled over on his back, his feet and shoulders screaming at him, and lay gathering his wits and summoning more strength. He had no idea what time it was or whereabouts he was inside the mountain. He lifted his head and looked back at the porthole above the yawning tube out of which he had come. The light was yellowish and the glass looked thick. He remembered the porthole in Room Q. There had been nothing breakable about that one, nor, he guessed, would there be here.
  
   Suddenly, behind the glass, he saw movement. As he watched, a pair of eyes materialized from behind the electric light bulb. They stopped and looked at him, the bulb making a yellow glass nose between them. They gazed incuriously at him and then they were gone. Bond"s lips snarled back from his teeth. So his progress was going to be observed, reported back to Doctor No!
  
   Bond said out loud, viciously, "-- them all," and turned sullenly back on his stomach. He raised his head and looked forward. The tunnel shimmered away into blackness. Come on! No good hanging about. He picked up his knife and put it back between his teeth and winced his way forward.
  
   Soon there was no more light. Bond stopped from time to time and used the lighter, but there was nothing but blackness ahead. The air began to get warmer in the shaft, and, perhaps fifty yards further, definitely hot. There was the smell of heat in the air, metallic heat. Bond began to sweat. Soon his body was soaked and he had to pause every few minutes to wipe his eyes. There came a right-hand turn in the shaft. Round it the metal of the big tube was hot against his skin. The smell of heat was very strong. There came another right-angled turn. As soon as Bond"s head got round he quickly pulled out his lighter and lit it and then snaked back and lay panting. Bitterly he examined the new hazard, probing it, cursing it. His light had flickered on discoloured, oyster-hued zinc. The next hazard was to be heat!
  
   Bond groaned aloud. How could his bruised flesh stand up to that? How could he protect his skin from the metal? But there wasn"t anything he could do about it. He could either go back, or stay where he was, or go on. There was no other decision to make, no other shift or excuse. There was one, and only one, grain of consolation. This would not be heat that would kill, only maim. This would not be the final killing ground-only one more test of how much he could take.
  
   Bond thought of the girl and of what she was going through. Oh well. Get on with it. Now, let"s see....
  
   Bond took his knife and cut off the whole front of his shirt and sliced it into strips. The only hope was to put some wrapping round the parts of his body that would have to bear the brunt-his hands and his feet. His knees and elbows would have to get along with their single covering of cotton fabric. Wearily he set to work, cursing softly.
  
   Now he was ready. One, two, three...
  
   Bond turned the corner and forged forward into the heat stench.
  
   Keep your naked stomach off the ground! Contract your shoulders! Hands, knees, toes; hands, knees, toes. Faster, faster! Keep going fast so that each touch on the ground is quickly taken over by the next.
  
   The knees were getting it worst, taking the bulk of Bond"s weight. Now the padded hands were beginning to smoulder. There was a spark, and another one, and then a worm of red as the sparks began to run. The smoke from the stuff smarted in Bond"s sweating eyes. God, he couldn"t do any more! There was no air. His lungs were bursting. Now his two hands shed sparks as he thrust them forward. The stuff must be nearly gone. Then the flesh would burn. Bond lurched and his bruised shoulder hit the metal. He screamed. He went on screaming, regularly, with each contact of hand or knee or toes. Now he was finished. Now it was the end. Now he would fall flat and slowly fry to death. No! He must drive on, screaming, until his flesh was burned to the bone. The skin must have already gone from the knees. In a moment the balls of his hands would meet the metal. Only the sweat running down his arms could be keeping the pads of stuff damp. Scream, scream, scream! It helps the pain. It tells you you"re alive. Go on! Go on! It can"t be much longer. This isn"t where you"re supposed to die. You are still alive. Don"t give up! You can"t!
  
   Bond"s right hand hit something that gave before it. There was a stream of ice-cold air. His other hand hit, then his head. There was a tinny noise. Bond felt the lower edge of an asbestos baffle scrape down his back. He was through. He heard the baffle bang shut. His hands came up against solid wall. They quested to left and right. It was a right-angled bend. His body followed blindly round the corner. The cool air felt like daggers in his lungs. Gingerly he laid his fingers down on the metal. It was cold! With a groan Bond fell on his face and lay still.
  
   Sometime later the pain revived him. Bond turned sluggishly over on his back. Vaguely he noticed the lighted porthole above him. Vaguely he took in the eyes gazing down on him. Then he let the black waves take him away again.
  
   Slowly, in the darkness, the blisters formed across the skin and the bruised feet and shoulders stiffened. The sweat dried on the body and then on the rags of clothing, and the cool air soaked down into the overheated lungs and began its insidious work. But the heart beat on, strongly and regularly inside the tortured envelope, and the healing sorceries of oxygen and rest pumped life back into the arteries and veins and recharged the nerves.
  
   Years later, Bond awoke. He stirred. As his eyes opened and met the other pair, inches away behind the glass, pain took him and shook him like a rat. He waited for the shock to die. He tried again, and then again, until he had measured the strength of his adversary. Then Bond, to hide himself away from the witness, turned over on his stomach and took the full blast of it. Again he waited, exploring his body for its reactions, testing the strength of the resolve that was left in the batteries. How much more could he take now? Bond"s lips drew back from his teeth and he snarled into the darkness. It was an animal sound. He had come to the end of his human reactions to pain and adversity. Doctor No had got him cornered. But there were animal reserves of desperation left and, in a strong animal, those reserves are deep.
  
   Slowly, agonizingly, Bond snaked a few yards away from the eyes and then reached for his lighter and lit it. Ahead there was only the black full moon, the yawning circular mouth that led into the stomach of death. Bond put back the lighter. He took a deep breath and got to his hands and knees. The pain was no greater, only different. Slowly, stiffly, he winced forward.
  
   The cotton fabric at Bond"s knees and elbows had burned away. Numbly his mind registered the moisture as his blisters burst against the cool metal. As he moved, he flexed his fingers and toes, testing the pain. Slowly he got the measure of what he could do, what hurt most. This pain is supportable, he argued to himself. If I had been in an aeroplane crash, they would only diagnose superficial contusions and burns. I would be out of hospital in a few days. There"s nothing wrong with me. I"m a survivor from the crash. It hurts, but it"s nothing. Think of the bits and pieces of the other passengers. Be thankful. Put it out of your mind. But, nagging behind these reflections, was the knowledge that he had not yet had the crash-that he was still on his way towards it, his resistance, his effectiveness reduced. When would it come? What shape would it take? How much more was he to be softened up before he reached the killing ground?
  
   Ahead in the darkness the tiny red pinpoints might have been an hallucination, specks before the eyes as a result of exhaustion. Bond stopped and screwed up his eyes. He shook his head. No, they were still there. Slowly he snaked closer. Now they were moving. Bond stopped again. He listened. Above the quiet thumping of his heart there was a soft, delicate rustling. The pinpoints had increased in number.
  
   Now there were twenty or thirty, shifting to and fro, some quickly, some slowly, all over the circle of blackness ahead. Bond reached for his lighter. He held his breath as he lit the little yellow flame. The red pinpoints went out. Instead, a yard ahead of him, very narrow mesh wire, almost as fine as muslin, blocked the shaft.
  
   Bond inched forward, the lighter held before him. It was some sort of a cage with small things living in it. He could hear them scuttling back, away from the light. A foot away from the mesh he dowsed the light and waited for his eyes to get used to the dark. As he waited, listening, he could hear the tiny scuttling back towards him, and gradually the forest of red pinpoints gathered again, peering at him through the mesh.
  
   What was it? Bond listened to the pounding of his heart. Snakes? Scorpions? Centipedes?
  
   Carefully he brought his eyes close up to the little glowing forest. He inched the lighter up beside his face and suddenly pressed the lever. He caught a glimpse of tiny claws hooked through the mesh and of dozens of thick furry feet and of furry sacklike stomachs topped by big insect heads that seemed to be covered with eyes. The things plopped hurriedly off the wire on to the tin and scurried back and huddled in a grey-brown furry mass at the end of the cage.
  
   Bond squinted through the mesh, moving the light back and forward. Then he dowsed the light, to save fuel, and let the breath come through his teeth in a quiet sigh.
  
   They were spiders, giant tarantulas, three or four inches long. There were twenty of them in the cage. And somehow he had to get past them.
  
   Bond lay and rested and thought while the red eyes gathered again in front of his face.
  
   How deadly were these things? How much of the tales about them were myth? They could certainly kill animals, but how mortal to men were these giant spiders with the long soft friendly fur of a borzoi? Bond shuddered. He remembered the centipede. The touch of the tarantulas would be much softer. They would be like tiny teddy bears" paws against one"s skin-until they bit and emptied their poison sacs into you.
  
   But again, would this be Doctor No"s killing ground? A bite or two perhaps-to send one into a delirium of pain. The horror of having to burst through the mesh in the darkness-Doctor No would not have reckoned with Bond"s lighter-and squash through the forest of eyes, crushing some soft bodies, but feeling the jaws of the others lance home. And then more bites from the ones that had caught in the clothing. And then the creeping agony of the poison. That would have been the way Doctor No"s mind would have worked-to send one screaming on one"s way. To what? To the final fence?
  
   But Bond had the lighter and the knife and the wire spear. All he needed was the nerve, and infinite, infinite precision.
  
   Bond softly opened the jaws of the lighter and pulled the wick out an inch with his thumb and fingernail to give a bigger flame. He lit it and, as the spiders scuttled back, he pierced the thin wire mesh with his knife. He made a hole near the frame and cut down sideways and round. Then he seized the flap of wire and wrenched it out of the frame. It tore like stiff calico and came away in one piece. He put the knife back between his teeth and snaked through the opening. The spiders cowered before the flame of the lighter and crowded back on top of each other. Bond slid the wire spear out of his trousers and jabbed the blunt, doubled wire into the middle of them. He jabbed again and again, fiercely pulping the bodies. When some of the spiders tried to escape towards him he waved the light at them and smashed the fugitives one by one. Now the living spiders were attacking the dead and wounded and all Bond had to do was bash and bash into the writhing, sickening mess of blood and fur.
  
   Slowly all movement slackened and then ceased. Were they all dead? Were some shamming? The flame of the lighter was beginning to die. He would have to chance it. Bond reached forward and shovelled the dead mess to one side. Then he took his knife from between his teeth and reached out and slashed open the second curtain of wire, bending the flap down over the heap of pulped bodies. The light flickered and became a red glow. Bond gathered himself and shot his body over the bloody pile of corpses and through the jagged frame.
  
   He had no idea what bits of metal he touched or whether he had put his knee or his foot among the spiders. All he knew was that he had got through. He heaved himself yards on along the shaft and stopped to gather his breath and his nerve.
  
   Above him a dim light came on. Bond squinted sideways and upwards, knowing what he would see. The slanting yellow eyes behind the thick glass looked keenly down at him. Slowly, behind the bulb, the head moved from side to side. The eyelids dropped in mock pity. A closed fist, the thumb pointing downwards in farewell and dismissal, inserted itself between the bulb and the glass. Then it was withdrawn. The light went out. Bond turned his face back to the floor of the shaft and rested his forehead on the cool metal. The gesture said that he was coming into the last lap, that the observers had finished with him until they came for his remains. It took an extra ounce of heart out of Bond that there had been no gesture of praise, however small, that he had managed to survive so far. These Chigroes hated him. They only wanted him to die, and as miserably as possible.
  
   Bond"s teeth ground softly together. He thought of the girl and the thought gave him strength. He wasn"t dead yet. Damn it, he wouldn"t die! Not until the heart was torn from his body.
  
   Bond tensed his muscles. It was time to go. With extra care he put his weapons back in their places and painfully began to drag himself on into the blackness.
  
   The shaft was beginning to slope gently downwards. It made the going easier. Soon the slope grew steeper so that Bond could almost slide along under the momentum of his weight. It was a blessed relief not to have to make the effort with his muscles. There was a glimmer of grey light ahead, nothing more than a lessening of the darkness, but it was a change. The quality of the air seemed to be different. There was a new, fresh smell to it. What was it? The sea?
  
   Suddenly Bond realized that he was slipping down the shaft. He opened his shoulders and spread his feet to slow himself. It hurt and the braking effect was small. Now the shaft was widening. He could no longer get a grip! He was going faster and faster. A bend was just ahead. And it was a bend downwards!
  
   Bond"s body crashed into the bend and round it. Christ, he was diving head downwards! Desperately Bond spread his feet and hands. The metal flayed his skin. He was out of control, diving down a gun barrel. Far below there was a circle of grey light. The open air? The sea? The light was tearing up at him. He fought for breath. Stay alive, you fool! Stay alive!
  
   Head first, Bond"s body shot out of the shaft and fell through the air, slowly, slowly, down towards the gunmetal sea that waited for him a hundred feet below.
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 18
  
  
   Killing Ground
  
   Bond"s body shattered the mirror of the dawn sea like a bomb.
  
   As he had hurtled down the silver shaft towards the widening disc of light, instinct had told him to get his knife from between his teeth, to get his hands forward to break his fall, and to keep his head down and his body rigid. And, at the last fraction of a second when he glimpsed the up-rushing sea, he had managed to take a gulp of breath. So Bond hit the water in the semblance of a dive, his outstretched clenched fists cleaving a hole for his skull and shoulders, and though, by the time he had shot twenty feet below the surface, he had lost consciousness, the forty-mile-an-hour impact with the water failed to smash him.
  
   Slowly the body rose to the surface and lay, head down, softly rocking in the ripples of the dive. The water-choked lungs somehow contrived to send a last message to the brain. The legs and arms thrashed clumsily. The head turned up, water pouring from its open mouth. It sank. Again the legs jerked, instinctively trying to get the body upright in the water. This time, coughing horribly, the head jerked above the surface and stayed there. The arms and legs began to move feebly, paddling like a dog, and, through the red and black curtain, the bloodshot eyes saw the lifeline and told the sluggish brain to make for it.
  
   The killing ground was a narrow deep water inlet at the base of the towering cliff. The lifeline towards which Bond struggled, hampered by the clumsy spear in his trouser-leg, was a strong wire fence, stretched from the rock walls of the inlet and caging it off from the open sea. The two-feet squares of thick wire were suspended from a cable six feet above the surface and disappeared, algae encrusted, into the depths.
  
   Bond got to the wire and hung, crucified. For fifteen minutes he stayed like that, his body occasionally racked with vomiting, until he felt strong enough to turn his head and see where he was. Blearily his eyes took in the towering cliffs above him and the narrow vee of softly breathing water. The place was in deep grey shadow, cut off from the dawn by the mountain, but out at sea there was the pearly iridescence of first light that meant that for the rest of the world the day was dawning. Here it was dark and gloomy and brooding.
  
   Sluggishly Bond"s mind puzzled over the wire fence. What was its purpose, closing off this dark cleft of sea? Was it to keep things out, or keep them in? Bond gazed vaguely down into the black depths around him. The wire strands vanished into nothingness below his clinging feet. There were small fish round his legs below the waist. What were they doing? They seemed to be feeding, darting in towards him and then backing away, catching at black strands. Strands of what? Of cotton from his rags? Bond shook his head to clear it. He looked again. No, they were feeding off his blood.
  
   Bond shivered. Yes, blood was seeping off his body, off the torn shoulders, the knees, the feet, into the water. Now for the first time he felt the pain of the sea water on his sores and burns. The pain revived him, quickened his mind. If these small fish liked it, what about barracuda and shark? Was that what the wire fence was for, to keep man-eating fish from escaping to sea? Then why hadn"t they been after him already? To hell with it! The first thing was to crawl up the wire and get over to the other side. To put the fence between him and whatever lived in this black aquarium.
  
   Weakly, foothold by foothold, Bond climbed up the wire and over the top and down again to where he could rest well above the water. He hooked the thick cable under his arms and hung, a bit of washing on a line, and gazed vaguely down at the fish that still fed from the blood that dripped off his feet.
  
   Now there was nothing much left of Bond, not many reserves. The last dive down the tube, the crash of impact and the half-death from drowning had squeezed him like a sponge. He was on the verge of surrender, on the verge of giving one small sigh and then slipping back into the soft arms of the water. How beautiful it would be to give in at last and rest-to feel the sea softly take him to its bed and turn out the light.
  
   It was the explosive flight of the fish from their feeding ground that shook Bond out of his death-dreaming. Something had moved far below the surface. There was a distant shimmer. Something was coming slowly up on the landward side of the fence.
  
   Bond"s body tautened. His hanging jaw slowly shut and the slackness cleared from his eyes. With the electric shock of danger, life flooded back into him, driving out the lethargy, pumping back the will to survive.
  
   Bond uncramped the fingers that, a long time ago, his brain had ordered not to lose his knife. He flexed his fingers and took a fresh grip of the silver-plated handle. He reached down and touched the crook of the wire spear that still hung inside his trouser-leg. He shook his head sharply and focused his eyes. Now what?
  
   Below him the water quivered. Something was stirring in the depths, something huge. A great length of luminescent greyness showed, poised far down in the darkness. Something snaked up from it, a whiplash as thick as Bond"s arm. The tip of the thong was swollen to a narrow oval, with regular bud-like markings. It swirled through the water where the fish had been and was withdrawn. Now there was nothing but the huge grey shadow. What was it doing? Was it...? Was it tasting the blood?
  
   As if in answer, two eyes as big as footballs slowly swam up and into Bond"s vision. They stopped, twenty feet below his own, and stared up through the quiet water at his face.
  
   Bond"s skin-crawled on his back. Softly, wearily, his mouth uttered one bitter four-lettered word. So this was the last surprise of Doctor No, the end of the race!
  
   Bond stared down, half hypnotized, into the wavering pools of eye far below. So this was the giant squid, the mythical kraken that could pull ships beneath the waves, the fifty-foot-long monster that battled with whales, that weighed a ton or more. What else did he know about them? That they had two long seizing tentacles and ten holding ones. That they had a huge blunt beak beneath eyes that were the only fishes" eyes that worked on the camera principle, like a man"s. That their brains were efficient, that they could shoot backwards through the water at thirty knots, by jet-propulsion. That explosive harpoons burst in their jellied mantle without damaging them. That...but the bulging black and white targets of the eyes were rising up towards him. The surface of the water shivered. Now Bond could see the forest of tentacles that flowered out of the face of the thing. They were weaving in front of the eyes like a bunch of thick snakes. Bond could see the dots of the suckers on their undersides. Behind the head, the great flap of the mantle softly opened and closed, and behind that the jellied sheen of the body disappeared into the depths. God, the thing was as big as a railway engine!
  
   Softly, discreetly, Bond snaked his feet and then his arms through the squares in the wire, lacing himself into them, anchoring himself so that the tentacles would have either to tear him to bits or wrench down the wire barrier with him. He squinted to right and left. Either way it was twenty yards along the wire to the land. And movement, even if he was capable of it, would be fatal. He must stay dead quiet and pray that the thing would lose interest. If it didn"t... Softly Bond"s fingers clenched on the puny knife.
  
   The eyes watched him, coldly, patiently. Delicately, like the questing trunk of an elephant, one of the long seizing tentacles broke the surface and palped its way up the wire towards his leg. It reached his foot. Bond felt the hard kiss of the suckers. He didn"t move. He dared not reach down and lose the grip of his arms through the wire. Softly the suckers tugged, testing the amount of yield. It was not enough. Like a huge slimy caterpillar, the tentacle walked slowly on up the leg. It got to the bloody blistered kneecap and stopped there, interested. Bond"s teeth gritted with the pain. He could imagine the message going back down the thick tentacle to the brain: Yes, it"s good to eat! And the brain signalling back: then get it! Bring it to me!
  
   The suckers walked on up the thigh. The tip of the tentacle was pointed, then it splayed out so that it almost covered the width of Bond"s thigh and then tapered off to a wrist. That was Bond"s target. He would just have to take the pain and the horror and wait for the wrist to come within range.
  
   A breeze, the first soft breeze of early morning, whispered across the metal surface of the inlet. It raised small waves that slapped gently against the sheer walls of the cliff. A wedge of cormorants took off from the guanera, five hundred feet above the inlet, and, cackling softly, made out to sea. As they swept over, the noise that had disturbed them reached Bond-the triple blast of a ship"s siren that means it is ready to take on cargo. It came from Bond"s left. The jetty must be round the corner from the northern arm of the inlet. The tanker from Antwerp had come in. Antwerp! Part of the world outside-the world that was a million miles away, out of Bond"s reach-surely out of his reach for ever. Just around that corner, men would be in the galley, having breakfast. The radio would be playing. There would be the sizzle of bacon and eggs, the smell of coffee...breakfast cooking....
  
   The suckers were at his hip. Bond could see into the horny cups. A stagnant sea smell reached him as the hand slowly undulated upwards. How tough was the mottled grey-brown jelly behind the hand? Should he stab? No, it must be a quick hard slash, straight across, like cutting a rope. Never mind about cutting into his own skin.
  
   Now! Bond took a quick glance into the two football eyes, so patient, so incurious. As he did so the other seizing arm broke the surface and shot straight up at his face. Bond jerked back and the hand curled into a fist round the wire in front of his eyes. In a second it would shift to an arm or shoulder and he would be finished. Now!
  
   The first hand was on his ribs. Almost without taking aim, Bond"s knife-hand slashed down and across. He felt the blade bite into the puddingy flesh and then the knife was almost torn from his grip as the wounded tentacle whipped back into the water. For a moment the sea boiled around him. Now the other hand let go the wire and slapped across his stomach. The pointed hand stuck like a leech, all the power of the suckers furiously applied. Bond screamed as the suckers bit into his flesh. He slashed madly, again and again. God, his stomach was being torn out! The wire shook with the struggle. Below him the water boiled and foamed. He would have to give in. One more stab, this time into the back of the hand. It worked! The hand jerked free and snaked down and away leaving twenty red circles, edged with blood, across his skin.
  
   Bond had not time to worry about them. Now the head of the squid had broken the surface and the sea was being thrashed into foam by the great heaving mantle round it. The eyes were glaring up at him, redly, venomously, and the forest of feeding arms was at his feet and legs, tearing the cotton fabric away and flailing back. Bond was being pulled down, inch by inch. The wire was biting into his armpits. He could even feel his spine being stretched. If he held on he would be torn in half. Now the eyes and the great triangular beak were right out of the water and the beak was reaching up for his feet. There was one hope, only one!
  
   Bond thrust his knife between his teeth and his hand dived for the crook of the wire spear. He tore it out, got it between his two hands and wrenched the doubled wire almost straight. He would have to let go with one arm to stoop and get within range. If he missed, he would be torn to shreds on the fence.
  
   Now, before he died of the pain! Now, now!
  
   Bond let his whole body slip down the ladder of wire and lunged through and down with all his force.
  
   He caught a glimpse of the tip of his spear lancing into the centre of a black eyeball and then the whole sea erupted up at him in a fountain of blackness and he fell and hung upside down by the knees, his head an inch from the surface of the water.
  
   What had happened? Had he gone blind? He could see nothing. His eyes were stinging and there was a horrible fish taste in his mouth. But he could feel the wire cutting into the tendons behind his knees. So he must be alive! Dazedly Bond let go the spear from his trailing hand and reached up and felt for the nearest strand of wire. He got a hold and reached up his other hand and slowly, agonizingly, pulled himself up so that he was sitting in the fence. Streaks of light came into his eyes. He wiped a hand across his face. Now he could see. He gazed at his hand. It was black and sticky. He looked down at his body. It was covered with black slime, and blackness stained the sea for twenty yards around. Then Bond realized. The wounded squid had emptied its ink sac at him.
  
   But where was the squid? Would it come back? Bond searched the sea. Nothing, nothing but the spreading stain of black. Not a movement. Not a ripple. Then don"t wait! Get away from here! Get away quick! Wildly Bond looked to right and left. Left was towards the ship, but also towards Doctor No. But right was towards nothing. To build the wire fence the men must have come from the left, from the direction of the jetty. There would be some sort of a path. Bond reached for the top cable and frantically began to edge along the swaying fence towards the rocky headland twenty yards away.
  
   The stinking, bleeding, black scarecrow moved its arms and legs quite automatically. The thinking, feeling apparatus of Bond was no longer part of his body. It moved alongside his body, or floated above it, keeping enough contact to pull the strings that made the puppet work. Bond was like a cut worm, the two halves of which continue to jerk forward although life has gone and been replaced by the mock life of nervous impulses. Only, with Bond, the two halves were not yet dead. Life was only in abeyance in them. All he needed was an ounce of hope, an ounce of reassurance that it was still worth while trying to stay alive.
  
   Bond got to the rock face. Slowly he let himself down to the bottom rung of wire. He gazed vaguely at the softly heaving sheen of water. It was black, impenetrable, as deep as the rest. Should he chance it? He must! He could do nothing until he had washed off the caking slime and blood, the horrible stale fish-smell. Moodily, fatalistically, he took off the rags of his shirt and trousers and hung them on the wire. He looked down at his brown and white body, striped and pock-marked with red. On an instinct he felt his pulse. It was slow but regular. The steady thump of life revived his spirits. What the hell was he worrying about? He was alive. The wounds and bruises on his body were nothing-absolutely nothing. They looked ugly, but nothing was broken. Inside the torn envelope, the machine was quietly, solidly ticking over. Superficial cuts and abrasions, bloody memories, deathly exhaustion-these were hurts that an accident ward would sneer at. Get on, you bastard! Get moving! Clean yourself and wake up. Count your blessings. Think of the girl. Think of the man you"ve somehow got to find and kill. Hang on to life like you"ve hung on to the knife between your teeth. Stop being sorry for yourself. To hell with what happened just now. Get down into the water and wash!
  
   Ten minutes later, Bond, his wet rags clinging to his scrubbed, stinging body and his hair slicked back out of his eyes, climbed over the top of the headland.
  
   Yes, it was as he had guessed. A narrow rocky track, made by the feet of the workers, led down the other side and round the bulge of the cliff.
  
   From close by came various sounds and echoes. A crane was working. He could hear the changing beat of its engine. There were iron ship-noises and the sound of water splashing into the sea from a bilge pump.
  
   Bond looked up at the sky. It was pale blue. Clouds tinged with golden pink were trailing away towards the horizon. Far above him the cormorants were wheeling round the guanera. Soon they would be going off to feed. Perhaps even now they were watching the scout groups far out at sea locating the fish. It would be about six o"clock, the dawn of a beautiful day.
  
   Bond, leaving drops of blood behind him, picked his way carefully down the track and along the bottom of the shadowed cliff. Round the bend, the track filtered through a maze of giant, tumbled boulders. The noises grew louder. Bond crept softly forward, watching his footholds for loose stones. A voice called out, startlingly close, "Okay to go?" There was a distant answer: "Okay." The crane engine accelerated. A few more yards. One more boulder. And another. Now!
  
   Bond flattened himself against the rock and warily inched his head round the corner.
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 19
  
  
   A Shower of Death
  
   Bond took one long comprehensive look and pulled back. He leant against the cool face of rock and waited for his breathing to get back to normal. He lifted his knife close up to his eyes and carefully examined the blade. Satisfied, he slipped it behind him and down the waistband of his trousers up against his spine. There it would be handy but protected from hitting against anything. He wondered about the lighter. He took it out of his hip pocket. As a hunk of metal it might be useful, but it wouldn"t light any more and it might scrape against the rock. He put it down on the ground away from his feet.
  
   Then Bond sat down and meticulously went over the photograph that was in his brain.
  
   Round the corner, not more than ten yards away, was the crane. There was no back to the cabin. Inside it a man sat at the controls. It was the Chinese Negro boss, the driver of the marsh buggy. In front of him the jetty ran twenty yards out into the sea and ended in a T. An aged tanker of around ten thousand tons deadweight was secured alongside the top of the T. It stood well out of the water, its deck perhaps twelve feet above the quay. The tanker was called Blanche, and the Ant of Antwerp showed at her stern. There was no sign of life on board except one figure lolling at the wheel in the enclosed bridge. The rest of the crew would be below, battened away from the guano dust. From just to the right of the crane, an overhead conveyor-belt in a corrugated-iron housing ran out from the cliff-face. It was carried on high stanchions above the jetty and stopped just short of the hold of the tanker. Its mouth ended in a huge canvas sock, perhaps six feet in diameter. The purpose of the crane was to lift the wireframed mouth of the sock so that it hung directly over the hold of the tanker and to move it to right or left to give even distribution. From out of the mouth of the sock, in a solid downward jet, the scrambled-egg-coloured guano dust was pouring into the hold of the tanker at a rate of tons a minute.
  
   Below, on the jetty, to the left and to leeward of the drifting smoke of the guano dust, stood the tall, watchful figure of Doctor No.
  
   That was all. The morning breeze feathered the deep-water anchorage, still half in shadow beneath the towering cliffs, the conveyor-belt thudded quietly on its rollers, the crane"s engine chuffed rhythmically. There was no other sound, no other movement, no other life apart from the watch at the ship"s wheel, the trusty working at the crane, and Doctor No, seeing that all went well. On the other side of the mountain men would be working, feeding the guano to the conveyor-belt that rumbled away through the bowels of the rock, but on this side no one was allowed and no one was necessary. Apart from aiming the canvas mouth of the conveyor, there was nothing else for anyone to do.
  
   Bond sat and thought, measuring distances, guessing at angles, remembering exactly where the crane driver"s hands and feet were on the levers and the pedals. Slowly, a thin, hard smile broke across the haggard, sunburned face. Yes! It was on! It could be done. But softly, gently, slowly! The prize was almost intolerably sweet.
  
   Bond examined the soles of his feet and his hands. They would serve. They would have to serve. He reached back and felt the handle of the knife. Shifted it an inch. He stood up and took several slow deep breaths, ran his hands through his salt-and sweat-matted hair, rubbed them harshly up and down his face and then down the tattered sides of his black jeans. He gave a final flex to his fingers. He was ready.
  
   Bond stepped up to the rock and inched an eye round. Nothing had changed. His guess at the distances had been right. The crane driver was watchful, absorbed. The neck above the open khaki shirt was naked, offered, waiting. Twenty yards away, Doctor No, also with his back to Bond, stood sentry over the thick rich cataract of whity-yellow dust. On the bridge, the watch was lighting a cigarette.
  
   Bond looked along the ten yards of path that led past the back of the crane. He picked out the places he would put each foot. Then he came out from behind the rock and ran.
  
   Bond ran to the right of the crane, to a point he had chosen where the lateral side of the cabin would hide him from the driver and the jetty. He got there and stopped, crouching, listening. The engine hurried on, the conveyor-belt rumbled steadily out of the mountain above and behind him. There was no change.
  
   The two iron footholds at the back of the cabin, inches away from Bond"s face, looked solid. Anyway the noise of the engine would drown small sounds. But he would have to be quick to yank the man"s body out of the seat and get his own hands and feet on the controls. The single stroke of the knife would have to be mortal. Bond felt along his own collarbone, felt the soft triangle of skin beneath which the jugular pumped, remembered the angle of approach behind the man"s back, reminded himself to force the blade and hold it in.
  
   For a final second he listened, then he reached behind his back for the knife and went up the iron steps and into the cabin with the stealth and speed of a panther.
  
   At the last moment there was need to hurry. Bond stood behind the man"s back, smelling him. He had time to raise his knife-hand almost to the roof of the cabin, time to summon every ounce of strength, before he swept the blade down and into the square inch of smooth, brownish-yellow skin.
  
   The man"s hands and legs splayed away from the controls. His face strained back towards Bond. It seemed to Bond that there was a flash of recognition in the bulging eyes before the whites rolled upwards. Then a strangled noise came from the open mouth and the big body rolled sideways off its iron seat and crashed to the floor.
  
   Bond"s eyes didn"t even follow it as far as the ground. He was already in the seat and reaching for the pedals and levers. Everything was out of control. The engine was running in neutral, the wire hawser was tearing off the drum, the tip of the crane was bending slowly forwards like a giraffe"s neck, the canvas mouth of the conveyor-belt had wilted and was now pouring its column of dust between the jetty and the ship. Doctor No was staring upwards. His mouth was open. Perhaps he was shouting something.
  
   Coolly, Bond reined the machine in, slowly easing the levers and pedals back to the angles at which the driver had been holding them. The engine accelerated, the gears bit and began to work again. The hawser slowed on the spinning drum and reversed, bringing the canvas mouth up and over the ship. The tip of the crane lifted and stopped. The scene was as before. Now!
  
   Bond reached forward for the iron wheel which the driver had been handling when Bond had caught his first glimpse of him. Which way to turn it? Bond tried to the left. The tip of the crane veered slightly to the right. So be it. Bond spun the wheel to the right. Yes, by God, it was answering, moving across the sky, carrying the mouth of the conveyor with it.
  
   Bond"s eyes flashed to the jetty. Doctor No had moved. He had moved a few paces to a stanchion that Bond had missed. He had a telephone in his hand. He was getting through to the other side of the mountain. Bond could see his hand frantically jiggling the receiver arm, trying to attract attention.
  
   Bond whirled the director wheel. Christ, wouldn"t it turn any faster? In seconds Doctor No would get through and it would be too late. Slowly the tip of the crane arced across the sky. Now the mouth of the conveyor was spewing the dust column down over the side of the ship. Now the yellow mound was marching silently across the jetty. Five yards, four, three, two! Don"t look round, you bastard! Arrh, got you! Stop the wheel! Now, you take it, Doctor No!
  
   At the first brush of the stinking dust column, Doctor No had turned. Bond saw the long arms fling wide as if to embrace the thudding mass. One knee rose to run. The mouth opened and a thin scream came up to Bond above the noise of the engine. Then there was a brief glimpse of a kind of dancing snowman. And then only a mound of yellow bird dung that grew higher and higher.
  
   "God!" Bond"s voice gave back an iron echo from the walls of the cabin. He thought of the screaming lungs stuffing with the filthy dust, the body bending and then falling under the weight, the last impotent kick of the heels, the last flash of thought-rage, horror, defeat?-and then the silence of the stinking tomb.
  
   Now the yellow mountain was twenty feet high. The stuff was spilling off the sides of the jetty into the sea. Bond glanced at the ship. As he did so, there came three blasts on its siren. The noise crashed round the cliffs. There came a fourth blast which didn"t stop. Bond could see the watch holding on to the lanyard as he craned out of the bridge window, looking down. Bond took his hands off the controls and let them rip. It was time to go.
  
   He slipped off the iron seat and bent over the dead body. He took the revolver out of the holster and looked at it. He smiled grimly-Smith & Wesson .38, the regular model. He slipped it down inside his waistband. It was fine to feel the heavy cold metal against his skin. He went to the door of the cabin and dropped down to the ground.
  
   An iron ladder ran up the cliff behind the crane to where the conveyor-housing jutted out. There was a small door in the corrugated iron wall of the housing. Bond scrambled up the ladder. The door opened easily, letting out a puff of guano dust, and he clambered through.
  
   Inside, the clanking of the conveyor-belt over its rollers was deafening, but there were dim inspection lights in the stone ceiling of the tunnel and a narrow catwalk that stretched away into the mountain alongside the hurrying river of dust. Bond moved quickly along it, breathing shallowly against the fishy ammoniac smell. At all costs he must get to the end before the significance of the ship"s siren and of the unanswered telephone overcame the fear of the guards.
  
   Bond half ran and half stumbled through the echoing stinking tunnel. How far would it be? Two hundred yards? And then what? Nothing for it but to break out of the tunnel mouth and start shooting-cause a panic and hope for the best. He would get hold of one of the men and wring out of him where the girl was. Then what? When he got to the place on the mountainside, what would he find? What would be left of her?
  
   Bond ran on faster, his head down, watching the narrow breadth of planking, wondering what would happen if he missed his footing and slipped into the rushing river of guano dust. Would he be able to get off the belt again or would he be whirled away and down until he was finally spewed out on to the burial mound of Doctor No?
  
   When Bond"s head hit into the soft stomach and he felt the hands at his throat, it was too late to think of his revolver. His only reaction was to throw himself down and forward at the legs. The legs gave against his shoulder and there was a shrill scream as the body crashed down on his back.
  
   Bond had started the heave that would hurl his attacker sideways and on to the conveyor-belt when the quality of the scream and something light and soft about the impact of the body froze his muscles.
  
   It couldn"t be!
  
   As if in answer, sharp teeth bit deeply into the calf of his right leg and an elbow jabbed viciously, knowledgeably, backwards into his groin.
  
   Bond yelled with the pain. He tried to squirm sideways to protect himself, but even as he shouted "Honey!" the elbow thudded into him again.
  
   The breath whistled through Bond"s teeth with the agony. There was only one way to stop her without throwing her on to the conveyor-belt. He took a firm grip of one ankle and heaved himself to his knees. He stood upright, holding her slung over his shoulder by one leg. The other foot banged against his head, but half-heartedly, as if she too realized that something was wrong.
  
   "Stop it, Honey! It"s me!"
  
   Through the din of the conveyor-belt, Bond"s shout got through to her. He heard her cry "James!" from somewhere near the floor. He felt her hands clutch at his legs. "James, James!"
  
   Bond slowly let her down. He turned and knelt and reached for her. He put his arms round her and held her tightly to him. "Oh Honey, Honey. Are you all right?" Desperately, unbelieving, he strained her to him.
  
   "Yes, James! Oh, yes!" He felt her hands at his back and his hair. "Oh, James, my darling!" she fell against him, sobbing.
  
   "It"s all right, Honey." Bond smoothed her hair. "And Doctor No"s dead. But now we"ve got to run for it. We"ve got to get out of here. Come on! How can we get out of the tunnel? How did you get here? We"ve got to hurry!"
  
   As if in comment, the conveyor-belt stopped with a jerk.
  
   Bond pulled the girl to her feet. She was wearing a dirty suit of workmen"s blue dungarees. The sleeves and legs were rolled up. The suit was far too big for her. She looked like a girl in a man"s pyjamas. She was powdered white with the guano dust except where the tears had marked her cheeks. She said breathlessly, "Just up there! There"s a side tunnel that leads to the machine shops and the garage. Will they come after us?"
  
   There was no time to talk. Bond said urgently, "Follow me!" and started running. Behind him her feet padded softly in the hollow silence. They came to the fork where the side tunnel led off into the rock. Which way would the men come? Down the side tunnel or along the catwalk in the main tunnel? The sound of voices booming far up the side tunnel answered him. Bond drew the girl a few feet up the main tunnel. He brought her close to him and whispered, "I"m sorry, Honey. I"m afraid I"m going to have to kill them."
  
   "Of course." The answering whisper was matter of fact. She pressed his hand and stood back to give him room. She put her hands up to her ears.
  
   Bond eased the gun out of his waistband. Softly he broke the cylinder sideways and verified with his thumb that all six chambers were loaded. Bond knew he wasn"t going to like this, killing again in cold blood, but these men would be the Chinese Negro gangsters, the strong-arm guards who did the dirty work. They would certainly be murderers many times over. Perhaps they were the ones who had killed Strangways and the girl. But there was no point in trying to ease his conscience. It was kill or be killed. He must just do it efficiently.
  
   The voices were coming closer. There were three men. They were talking loudly, nervously. Perhaps it was many years since they had even thought of going through the tunnel. Bond wondered if they would look round as they came out into the main tunnel. Or would he have to shoot them in the back?
  
   Now they were very close. He could hear their shoes scuffing the ground.
  
   "That makes ten bucks you owe me, Sam."
  
   "Not after tonight it won"t be. Roll them bones, boy. Roll them bones."
  
   "No dice for me tonight, feller. I"m goin" to cut maself a slice of de white girl."
  
   "Haw, haw, haw."
  
   The first man came out, then the second, then the third. They were carrying their revolvers loosely in their right hands.
  
   Bond said sharply, "No, you won"t."
  
   The three men whirled round. White teeth glinted in open mouths. Bond shot the rear man in the head and the second man in the stomach. The front man"s gun was up. A bullet whistled past Bond and away up the main tunnel. Bond"s gun crashed. The man clutched at his neck and spun slowly round and fell across the conveyor-belt. The echoes thundered slowly up and down the tunnel. A puff of fine dust rose in the air and settled. Two of the bodies lay still. The man with the stomach shot writhed and jerked.
  
   Bond tucked his hot gun into the waistband of his trousers. He said roughly to the girl, "Come on." He reached for her hand and pulled her after him into the mouth of the side tunnel. He said, "Sorry about that, Honey," and started running, pulling her after him by the hand. She said, "Don"t be stupid." Then there was no sound but the thud of their naked feet on the stone floor.
  
   The air was clean in the side tunnel and it was easier going, but, after the tension of the shooting, pain began to crowd in again and take possession of Bond"s body. He ran automatically. He hardly thought of the girl. His whole mind was focused on taking the pain and on the problems that waited at the end of the tunnel.
  
   He couldn"t tell if the shots had been heard and he had no idea what opposition was left. His only plan was to shoot anyone who got in his way and somehow get to the garage and the marsh buggy. That was their only hope of getting away from the mountain and down to the coast.
  
   The dim yellow bulbs in the ceiling flickered by overhead. Still the tunnel stretched on. Behind him, Honey stumbled. Bond stopped, cursing himself for not having thought of her. She reached for him and for a moment she leaned against him panting. "I"m sorry, James. It"s just that..."
  
   Bond held her to him. He said anxiously, "Are you hurt, Honey?"
  
   "No, I"m all right. It"s just that I"m so terribly tired. And my feet got rather cut on the mountain. I fell a lot in the dark. If we could walk a bit. We"re nearly there. And there"s a door into the garage before we get to the machine shop. Couldn"t we go in there?"
  
   Bond hugged her to him. He said, "That"s just what I"m looking for, Honey. That"s our only hope of getting away. If you can stick it till we get there, we"ve got a real chance."
  
   Bond put his arm round her waist and took her weight. He didn"t trust himself to look at her feet. He knew they must be bad. It was no good being sorry for each other. There wasn"t time for it if they were to stay alive.
  
   They started moving again, Bond"s face grim with the extra effort, the girl"s feet leaving bloody footsteps on the ground, and almost immediately she whispered urgently and there was a wooden door in the wall of the tunnel and it was ajar and no sound came from the other side.
  
   Bond took out his gun and gently eased the door open. The long garage was empty. Under the neon lights the black and gold painted dragon on wheels looked like a float waiting for the Lord Mayor"s Show. It was pointing towards the sliding doors and the hatch of the armoured cabin stood open. Bond prayed that the tank was full and that the mechanic had carried out his orders to get the damage fixed.
  
   Suddenly, from somewhere outside, there was the sound of voices. They came nearer, several of them, jabbering urgently.
  
   Bond took the girl by the hand and ran forward. There was only one place to hide-in the marsh buggy. The girl scrambled in. Bond followed, softly pulling the door shut behind him. They crouched, waiting. Bond thought: only three rounds left in the gun. Too late he remembered the rack of weapons on the wall of the garage. Now the voices were outside. There came the clang of the door being slid back on its runners and a confusion of talk.
  
   "How d"ya know they were shootin"?"
  
   "Couldn"t been nuthin else. I should know."
  
   "Better take rifles. Here, Joe! Take that one, Lemmy! An" some pineapples. Box under da table."
  
   There was the metallic noise of bolts being slid home and safety catches clicked.
  
   "Some feller must a gone nuts. Couldn"t ha" been da Limey. You ever seen da big pus-feller in da creek? Cheessus! An" da rest of da tricks da Doc fixed up in da tube? An" dat white gal. She cain"t have been in much shape dis mornin." Any of you men bin to have a look?"
  
   "Nossir."
  
   "No."
  
   "No."
  
   "Haw, haw. I"se sho surprised at you fellers. Dat"s a fine piece of ass out dere on de crab walk."
  
   More rattling and shuffling of feet, then, "Okay let"s go! Two abreast till we gets to da main tunnel. Shoot at da legs. Whoever"s makin" trouble, da Doc"ll sure want him to play wit."
  
   "Tee-hee."
  
   Feet echoed hollowly on the concrete. Bond held his breath as they filed by. Would they notice the shut door of the buggy? But they went on down the garage and into the tunnel and the noise of them slowly faded away.
  
   Bond touched the girl"s arm and put his finger to his lips. Softly he eased open the door and listened again. Nothing. He dropped to the ground and walked round the buggy and went to the half-open entrance. Cautiously he edged his head round. There was no one in sight. There was a smell of frying food in the air that brought the saliva to Bond"s mouth. Dishes and pans clattered in the nearest building, about twenty yards away, and from one of the further Quonsets came the sound of a guitar and a man"s voice singing a calypso. Dogs started to bark half-heartedly and then were silent. The Dobermann Pinschers.
  
   Bond turned and ran back to the end of the garage. No sound came from the tunnel. Softly Bond closed the tunnel door and locked and bolted it. He went to the arms-rack on the wall and chose another Smith & Wesson and a Remington carbine. He verified that they were loaded and went to the door of the marsh buggy and handed them in to the girl. Now the entrance door. Bond put his shoulder to it and softly eased it wide open. The corrugated iron rumbled hollowly. Bond ran back and scrambled through the open hatch and into the driver"s seat. "Shut it, Honey," he whispered urgently and bent and turned the ignition key.
  
   The needle on the gauge swung to Full. Pray God the damned thing would start up quickly. Some diesels were slow. Bond stamped his foot down on the starter.
  
   The grinding rattle was deafening. It must be audible all over the compound! Bond stopped and tried again. The engine fluttered and died. And again, and this time the blessed thing fired and the strong iron pulse hammered as Bond revved it up. Now, gently into gear. Which one? Try this. Yes, it bit. Brake off, you bloody fool! Christ, it had nearly stalled. But now they were out and on the track and Bond rammed his foot down to the floor.
  
   "Anyone after us?" Bond had to shout above the noise of the diesel.
  
   "No. Wait! Yes, there"s a man come out of the huts! And another! They"re waving and shouting at us. Now some more are coming out. One of them"s run off to the right. Another"s gone back into the hut. He"s come out with a rifle. He"s lying down. He"s firing!"
  
   "Close the slot! Lie down on the floor!" Bond glanced at the speedometer. Twenty. And they were on a slope. There was nothing more to get out of the machine. Bond concentrated on keeping the huge bucking wheels on the track. The cabin bounced and swayed on the springs. It was a job to keep his hands and feet on the controls. An iron fist clanged against the cabin. And another. What was the range? Four hundred? Good shooting! But that would be the lot. He shouted, "Take a look, Honey! Open the slot an inch."
  
   "The man"s got up. He"s stopped firing. They"re all looking after us-a whole crowd of them. Wait, there"s something else. The dogs are coming! There"s no one with them. They"re just tearing down the track after us. Will they catch us?"
  
   "Doesn"t matter if they do. Come and sit by me, Honey. Hold tight. Mind your head against the roof." Bond eased up the throttle. She was beside him. He grinned sideways at her. "Hell, Honey. We"ve made it. When we get down to the lake I"ll stop and shoot up the dogs. If I know those brutes I"ve only got to kill one and the whole pack"ll stop to eat him."
  
   Bond felt her hand at his neck. She kept it there as they swayed and thundered down the track. At the lake, Bond went on fifty yards into the water and turned the machine round and put it in neutral. Through the oblong slot he could see the pack streaming round the last bend. He reached down for the rifle and pushed it through the aperture. Now the dogs were in the water and swimming. Bond kept his finger on the trigger and sprayed bullets into the middle of them. One floundered, kicking. Then another and another. He could hear their snarling screams above the clatter of the engine. There was blood in the water. A fight had started. He saw one dog leap on one of the wounded ones and sink its teeth into the back of its neck. Now they all seemed to have gone berserk. They were milling around in the frothing bloody water. Bond emptied his magazine among them and dropped the gun on the floor. He said, "That"s that, Honey," and put the machine into gear and swung it round and began rolling at an easy speed across the shallow lake towards the distant gap in the mangroves that was the mouth of the river.
  
   For five minutes they moved along in silence. Then Bond put a hand on the girl"s knee and said, "We should be all right now, Honey. When they find the boss is dead there"ll be panic. I guess some of the brighter ones will try and get away to Cuba in the plane or the launch. They"ll worry about their skins, not about us. All the same, we"ll not take the canoe out until it"s dark. I guess it"s about ten by now. We should be at the coast in an hour. Then we"ll rest up and try and get in shape for the trip. Weather looks all right and there"ll be a bit more moon tonight. Think, you can make it?"
  
   Her hand squeezed his neck. "Of course I can, James. But what about you? Your poor body! It"s nothing but burns and bruises. And what are those red marks across your stomach?"
  
   "Tell you later. I"ll be okay. But you tell me what happened to you last night. How in hell did you manage to get away from the crabs? What went wrong with that bastard"s plan? All night long I could only think of you out there being slowly eaten to death. God, what a thing to have dreamed up! What happened?"
  
   The girl was actually laughing. Bond looked sideways. The golden hair was tousled and the blue eyes were heavy with lack of sleep, but otherwise she might just be coming home from a midnight barbecue.
  
   "That man thought he knew everything. Silly old fool." She might have been talking about a stupid schoolteacher. "He"s much more impressed by the black crabs than I am. To begin with, I don"t mind any animal touching me, and anyway those crabs wouldn"t think of even nipping someone if they stay quite still and haven"t got an open sore or anything. The whole point is that they don"t really like meat. They live mostly on plants and things. If he was right and he did kill a black girl that way, either she had an open wound or she must have died of fright. He must have wanted to see if I"d stand it. Filthy old man. I only fainted down there at dinner because I knew he"d have something much worse for you."
  
   "Well, I"m damned. I wish to heaven I"d known that. I thought of you being picked to pieces."
  
   The girl snorted. "Of course it wasn"t very nice having my clothes taken off and being tied down to pegs in the ground. But those black men didn"t dare touch me. They just made jokes and then went away. It wasn"t very comfortable out there on the rock, but I was thinking of you and how I could get at Doctor No and kill him. Then I heard the crabs beginning to run-that"s what we call it in Jamaica-and soon they came scurrying and rattling along-hundreds of them. I just lay still and thought of you. They walked round me and over me. I might have been a rock for all they cared. They tickled a bit. One annoyed me by trying to pull out a bit of my hair. But they don"t smell or anything, and I just waited for the early morning when they crawl into holes and go to sleep. I got quite fond of them. They were company. Then they got fewer and fewer and finally stopped coming and I could move. I pulled at all the pegs in turn and then concentrated on my right-hand one. In the end I got it out of the crack in the rock and the rest was easy. I got back to the buildings and began scouting about. I got into the machine shop near the garage and found this filthy old suit. Then the conveyor thing started up not far away and I thought about it and I guessed it must be taking the guano through the mountain. I knew you must be dead by then," the quiet voice was matter of fact, "so I thought I"d get to the conveyor somehow and get through the mountain and kill Doctor No. I took a screwdriver to do it with." She giggled. "When we ran into each other, I"d have stuck it into you only it was in my pocket and I couldn"t get to it. I found the door in the back of the machine shop and walked through and into the main tunnel. That"s all." She caressed the back of his neck. "I ran along watching my step and the next thing I knew was your head hitting me in the stomach." She giggled again. "Darling, I hope I didn"t hurt you too much when we were fighting. My Nanny told me always to hit men there."
  
   Bond laughed. "She did, did she?" He reached out and caught her by the hair and pulled her face to him. Her mouth felt its way round his cheek and locked itself against his.
  
   The machine gave a sideways lurch. The kiss ended. They had hit the first mangrove roots at the entrance to the river.
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 20
  
  
   Slave-Time
  
   "You"re quite sure of all this?"
  
   The Acting Governor"s eyes were hunted, resentful. How could these things have been going on under his nose, in one of Jamaica"s dependencies? What would the Colonial Office have to say about it? He already saw the long, pale blue envelope marked "Personal. For Addressee Only," and the foolscap page with those very wide margins: "The Secretary of State for the Colonies has instructed me to express to you his surprise..."
  
   "Yes, sir. Quite sure." Bond had no sympathy for the man. He hadn"t liked the reception he had had on his last visit to King"s House, nor the mean comments on Strangways and the girl. He liked the memory of them even less now that he knew his friend and the girl were at the bottom of the Mona Reservoir.
  
   "Er-well we mustn"t let any of this get out to the Press. You understand that? I"ll send my report in to the Secretary of State by the next bag. I"m sure I can rely on your..."
  
   "Excuse me, sir." The Brigadier in command of the Caribbean Defence Force was a modern young soldier of thirty-five. His military record was good enough for him to be unimpressed by relics from the Edwardian era of Colonial Governors, whom he collectively referred to as "feather-hatted fuddy-duddies." "I think we can assume that Commander Bond is unlikely to communicate with anyone except his Department. And if I may say so, sir, I submit that we should take steps to clear up Crab Key without waiting for approval from London. I can provide a platoon ready to embark by this evening. HMS Narvik came in yesterday. If the programme of receptions and cocktail parties for her could possibly be deferred for forty-eight hours or so..." The Brigadier let his sarcasm hang in the air.
  
   "I agree with the Brigadier, sir." The voice of the Police Superintendent was edgy. Quick action might save him from a reprimand, but it would have to be quick. "And in any case I shall have to proceed immediately against the various Jamaicans who appear to be implicated. I"ll have to get the divers working at Mona. If this case is to be cleaned up we can"t afford to wait for London. As Mister-er-Commander Bond says, most of these Negro gangsters will probably be in Cuba by now. Have to get in touch with my opposite number in Havana and catch up with them before they take to the hills or go underground. I think we ought to move at once, sir."
  
   There was silence in the cool shadowy room where the meeting was being held. On the ceiling above the massive mahogany conference table there was an unexpected dapple of sunlight. Bond guessed that it shone up through the slats of the jalousies from a fountain or a lily pond in the garden outside the tall windows. Far away there was the sound of tennis balls being knocked about. Distantly a young girl"s voice called, "Smooth. Your serve, Gladys." The Governor"s children? Secretaries? From one end of the room King George VI, from the other end the Queen, looked down the table with grace and good humour.
  
   "What do you think, Colonial Secretary?" The Governor"s voice was hustled.
  
   Bond listened to the first few words. He gathered that Pleydell-Smith agreed with the other two. He stopped listening. His mind drifted into a world of tennis courts and lily ponds and kings and queens, of London, of people being photographed with pigeons on their heads in Trafalgar Square, of the forsythia that would soon be blazing on the bypass roundabouts, of May, the treasured housekeeper in his flat off the King"s Road, getting up to brew herself a cup of tea (here it was eleven o"clock. It would be four o"clock in London), of the first tube trains beginning to run, shaking the ground beneath his cool, dark bedroom. Of the douce weather of England: the soft airs, the heat waves, the cold spells-"The only country where you can take a walk every day of the year"-Chesterfield"s Letters? And then Bond thought of Crab Key, of the hot ugly wind beginning to blow, of the stink of the marsh gas from the mangrove swamps, the jagged grey, dead coral in whose holes the black crabs were now squatting, the black and red eyes moving swiftly on their stalks as a shadow-a cloud, a bird-broke their small horizons. Down in the bird colony the brown and white and pink birds would be stalking in the shallows, or fighting or nesting, while up on the guanera the cormorants would be streaming back from their breakfast to deposit their milligramme of rent to the landlord who would no longer be collecting. And where would the landlord be? The men from the SS Blanche would have dug him out. The body would have been examined for signs of life and then put somewhere. Would they have washed the yellow dust off him and dressed him in his kimono while the Captain radioed Antwerp for instructions? And where had Doctor No"s soul gone to? Had it been a bad soul or just a mad one? Bond thought of the burned twist down in the swamp that had been Quarrel. He remembered the soft ways of the big body, the innocence in the grey, horizon-seeking eyes, the simple lusts and desires, the reverence for superstitions and instincts, the childish faults, the loyalty and even love that Quarrel had given him-the warmth, there was only one word for it, of the man. Surely he hadn"t gone to the same place as Doctor No. Whatever happened to dead people, there was surely one place for the warm and another for the cold. And which, when the time came, would he, Bond, go to?
  
   The Colonial Secretary was mentioning Bond"s name. Bond pulled himself together.
  
   "... survived is quite extraordinary. I do think, sir, that we should show our gratitude to Commander Bond and to his Service by accepting his recommendations. It does seem, sir, that he has done at least three-quarters of the job. Surely the least we can do is look after the other quarter."
  
   The Governor grunted. He squinted down the table at Bond. The chap didn"t seem to be paying much attention. But one couldn"t be sure with these Secret Service fellows. Dangerous chaps to have around, sniffing and snooping. And their damned Chief carried a lot of guns in Whitehall. Didn"t do to get on the wrong side of him. Of course there was something to be said for sending the Narvik. News would leak, of course. All the Press of the world would be coming down on his head. But then suddenly the Governor saw the headlines: "GOVERNOR TAKES SWIFT ACTION... ISLAND"S STRONG MAN INTERVENES... THE NAVY"S THERE!" Perhaps after all it would be better to do it that way. Even go down and see the troops off himself. Yes, that was it, by jove. Cargill, of the Gleaner, was coming to lunch. He"d drop a hint or two to the chap and make sure the story got proper coverage. Yes, that was it. That was the way to play the hand.
  
   The Governor raised his hands and let them fall flat on the table in a gesture of submission. He embraced the conference with a wry smile of surrender.
  
   "So I am overruled, gentlemen. Well, then," the voice was avuncular, telling the children that just this once... "I accept your verdict. Colonial Secretary, will you please call upon the commanding officer of HMS Narvik and explain the position. In strict confidence, of course. Brigadier, I leave the military arrangements in your hands. Superintendent, you will know what to do." The Governor rose. He inclined his head regally in the direction of Bond. "And it only remains to express my appreciation to Commander-er-Bond, for his part in this affair. I shall not fail to mention your assistance, Commander, to the Secretary of State."
  
   * * * *
  
   Outside the sun blazed down on the gravel sweep. The interior of the Hillman Minx was a Turkish bath. Bond"s bruised hands cringed as they took the wheel.
  
   Pleydell-Smith leant through the window. He said, "Ever heard the Jamaican expression "rarse"?"
  
   "No."
  
   ""Rarse, man" is a vulgar expression meaning-er-"stuff it up." If I may say so, it would have been appropriate for you to have used the expression just now. However," Pleydell-Smith gave a wave of his hand which apologized for his Chief and dismissed him, "is there anything else I can do for you? You really think you ought to go back to Beau Desert? They were quite definite at the hospital that they want to have you for a week."
  
   "Thanks," said Bond shortly, "but I"ve got to get back. See the girl"s all right. Would you tell the hospital I"ll be back tomorrow? You got off that signal to my Chief?"
  
   "Urgent rates."
  
   "Well, then," Bond pressed the self-starter, "I guess that"s the lot. You"ll see the Jamaica Institute people about the girl, won"t you? She really knows the hell of a lot about the natural history side of the island. Not from books either. If they"ve got the right sort of job... Like to see her settled. I"ll take her up to New York myself and see her through the operation. She"d be ready to start in a couple of weeks after that. Incidentally," Bond looked embarrassed, "she"s really the hell of a fine girl. When she comes back...if you and your wife... You know. Just so there"s someone to keep an eye on her."
  
   Pleydell-Smith smiled. He thought he had the picture. He said, "Don"t worry about that. I"ll see to it. Betty"s rather a hand at that sort of thing. She"ll like taking the girl under her wing. Nothing else? See you later in the week, anyway. That hospital"s the hell of a place in this heat. You might care to spend a night or two with us before you go ho-I mean to New York. Glad to have you-er-both."
  
   "Thanks. And thanks for everything else." Bond put the car into gear and went off down the avenue of flaming tropical shrubbery. He went fast, scattering the gravel on the bends. He wanted to get the hell away from King"s House, and the tennis, and the kings and queens. He even wanted to get the hell away from the kindly Pleydell-Smith. Bond liked the man, but all he wanted now was to get back across the Junction Road to Beau Desert and away from the smooth world. He swung out past the sentry at the gates and on to the main road. He put his foot down.
  
   The night voyage under the stars had been without incident. No one had come after them. The girl had done most of the sailing. Bond had not argued with her. He had lain in the bottom of the boat, totally collapsed, like a dead man. He had woken once or twice and listened to the slap of the sea against the hull and watched her quiet profile under the stars. Then the cradle of the soft swell had sent him back to sleep and to the nightmares that reached out after him from Crab Key. He didn"t mind them. He didn"t think he would ever mind a nightmare now. After what had happened the night before, it would have to be strong stuff that would ever frighten him again.
  
   The crunch of a nigger-head against the hull had woken him. They were coming through the reef into Morgan"s Harbour. The first quarter moon was up, and inside the reef the sea was a silver mirror. The girl had brought the canoe through under sail. They slid across the bay to the little fringe of sand and the bows under Bond"s head sighed softly into it. She had had to help him out of the boat and across the velvet lawn and into the house. He had clung to her and cursed her softly as she had cut his clothes off him and taken him into the shower. She had said nothing when she had seen his battered body under the lights. She had turned the water full on and taken soap and washed him down as if he had been a horse. Then she led him out from under the water and dabbed him softly dry with towels that were soon streaked with blood. He had seen her reach for the bottle of Milton. He had groaned and taken hold of the washbasin and waited for it. Before she had begun to put it on him, she had come round and kissed him on the lips. She had said softly, "Hold tight, my darling. And cry. It"s going to hurt," and as she splashed the murderous stuff over his body the tears of pain had run out of his eyes and down his cheeks without shame.
  
   Then there had been a wonderful breakfast as the dawn flared up across the bay, and then the ghastly drive over to Kingston to the white table of the surgery in the emergency ward. Pleydell-Smith had been summoned. No questions had been asked. Merthiolate had been put on the wounds and tannic ointment on the burns. The efficient Negro doctor had written busily in the duty report. What? Probably just "Multiple burns and contusions." Then, with promises to come into the private ward on the next day, Bond had gone off with Pleydell-Smith to King"s House and to the first of the meetings that had ended with the full-dress conference. Bond had enciphered a short signal to M via the Colonial Office which he had coolly concluded with: "regret must again request sick leave stop surgeons report follows stop kindly inform armourer smith and wesson ineffective against flame-thrower endit."
  
   Now, as Bond swung the little car down the endless S-bends towards the North Shore, he regretted the gibe. M wouldn"t like it. It was cheap. It wasted cipher groups. Oh well! Bond swerved to avoid a thundering red bus with "Brownskin Gal" on the destination plate. He had just wanted M to know that it hadn"t quite been a holiday in the sun. He would apologize when he sent in his written report.
  
   Bond"s bedroom was cool and dark. There was a plate of sandwiches and a Thermos full of coffee beside the turned-down bed. On the pillow was a sheet of paper with big childish writing. It said, "You are staying with me tonight. I can"t leave my animals. They were fussing. And I can"t leave you. And you owe me slave-time. I will come at seven. Your H."
  
   In the dusk she came across the lawn to where Bond was sitting finishing his third glass of Bourbon-on-the-rocks. She was wearing a black and white striped cotton skirt and a tight sugar-pink blouse. The golden hair smelled of cheap shampoo. She looked incredibly fresh and beautiful. She reached out her hand and Bond took it and followed her up the drive and along a narrow well-trodden path through the sugar cane. It wound along for quite a way through the tall whispering sweet-scented jungle. Then there was a patch of tidy lawn up against thick broken stone walls and steps that led down to a heavy door whose edges glinted with light.
  
   She looked up at him from the door. "Don"t be frightened. The cane"s high and they"re most of them out."
  
   Bond didn"t know what he had expected. He had vaguely thought of a flat earthen floor and rather damp walls. There would be a few sticks of furniture, a broken bedstead covered with rags, and a strong zoo smell. He had been prepared to be careful about hurting her feelings.
  
   Instead it was rather like being inside a very large tidy cigar-box. The floor and ceiling were of highly polished cedar that gave out a cigar-box smell and the walls were panelled with wide split bamboo. The light came from a dozen candles in a fine silver chandelier that hung from the centre of the ceiling. High up in the walls there were three square windows through which Bond could see the dark blue sky and the stars. There were several pieces of good nineteenth-century furniture. Under the chandelier a table was laid for two with expensive-looking old-fashioned silver and glass.
  
   Bond said, "Honey, what a lovely room. From what you said I thought you lived in a sort of zoo."
  
   She laughed delightedly. "I got out the old silver and things. It"s all I"ve got. I had to spend the day polishing it. I"ve never had it out before. It does look rather nice, doesn"t it? You see, generally there are a lot of little cages up against the wall. I like having them with me. It"s company. But now that you"re here..." She paused. "My bedroom"s in there," she gestured at the other door. "It"s very small, but there"s room for both of us. Now come on. I"m afraid it"s cold dinner-just lobsters and fruit."
  
   Bond walked over to her. He took her in his arms and kissed her hard on the lips. He held her and looked down into the shining blue eyes. "Honey, you"re a wonderful girl. You"re one of the most wonderful girls I"ve ever known. I hope the world"s not going to change you too much. D"you really want to have that operation? I love your face-just as it is. It"s part of you. Part of all this."
  
   She frowned and freed herself. "You"re not to be serious tonight. Don"t talk about these things. I don"t want to talk about them. This is my night with you. Please talk about love. I don"t want to hear about anything else. Promise? Now come on. You sit there."
  
   Bond sat down. He smiled up at her. He said, "I promise."
  
   She said, "Here"s the mayonnaise. It"s not out of a bottle. I made it myself. And take some bread and butter." She sat down opposite him and began to eat, watching him. When she saw that he seemed satisfied she said, "Now you can start telling me about love. Everything about it. Everything you know."
  
   Bond looked across into the flushed, golden face. The eyes were bright and soft in the candlelight, but with the same imperious glint they had held when he had first seen her on the beach and she had thought he had come to steal her shells. The full red lips were open with excitement and impatience. With him she had no inhibitions. They were two loving animals. It was natural. She had no shame. She could ask him anything and would expect him to answer. It was as if they were already in bed together, lovers. Through the tight cotton bodice the points of her breasts showed, hard and roused.
  
   Bond said, "Are you a virgin?"
  
   "Not quite. I told you. That man."
  
   "Well..." Bond found he couldn"t eat any more. His mouth was dry at the thought of her. He said, "Honey, I can either eat or talk love to you. I can"t do both."
  
   "You"re going over to Kingston tomorrow. You"ll get plenty to eat there. Talk love."
  
   Bond"s eyes were fierce blue slits. He got up and went down on one knee beside her. He picked up her hand and looked into it. At the base of the thumb the Mount of Venus swelled luxuriously. Bond bent his head down into the warm soft hand and bit softly into the swelling. He felt her other hand in his hair. He bit harder. The hand he was holding curled round his mouth. She was panting. He bit still harder. She gave a little scream and wrenched his head away by the hair.
  
   "What are you doing?" Her eyes were wide and dark. She had gone pale. She dropped her eyes and looked at his mouth. Slowly she pulled his head towards her.
  
   Bond put out a hand to her left breast and held it hard. He lifted her captive, wounded hand and put it round his neck. Their mouths met and clung, exploring.
  
   Above them the candles began to dance. A big hawkmoth had come in through one of the windows. It whirred round the chandelier. The girl"s closed eyes opened, looked at the moth. Her mouth drew away. She smoothed the handful of his hair back and got up, and without saying anything took down the candles one by one and blew them out. The moth whirred away through one of the windows.
  
   The girl stood away from the table. She undid her blouse and threw it on the floor. Then her skirt. Under the glint of moonlight she was a pale figure with a central shadow. She came to Bond and took him by the hand and lifted him up. She undid his shirt and slowly, carefully took it off. Her body, close to him, smelled of new-mown hay and sweet pepper. She led him away from the table and through a door. The filtering moonlight shone down on a single bed. On the bed was a sleeping-bag, its mouth laid open.
  
   The girl let go his hand and climbed into the sleeping-bag. She looked up at him. She said, practically, "I bought this today. It"s a double one. It cost a lot of money. Take those off and come in. You promised. You owe me slave-time."
  
   "But..."
  
   "Do as you"re told."
  
  
  
  
  
   GOLDFINGER
  
  
   Originally published in 1959.
  
  
  
  
  
   Dedication
  
  
   TO MY GENTLE READER
  
   WILLIAM PLOMER
  
  
  
  
  
   PART 1
  
  
   Happenstance
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 1
  
  
   Reflections in a Double Bourbon
  
   James Bond, with two double bourbons inside him, sat in the final departure lounge of Miami Airport and thought about life and death.
  
   It was part of his profession to kill people. He had never liked doing it and when he had to kill he did it as well as he knew how and forgot about it. As a secret agent who held the rare double-O prefix - the licence to kill in the Secret Service - it was his duty to be as cool about death as a surgeon. If it happened, it happened. Regret was unprofessional - worse, it was death-watch beetle in the soul.
  
   And yet there had been something curiously impressive about the death of the Mexican. It wasn"t that he hadn"t deserved to die. He was an evil man, a man they call in Mexico a capungo. A capungo is a bandit who will kill for as little as forty pesos, which is about twenty-five shillings - though probably he had been paid more to attempt the killing of Bond - and, from the look of him, he had been an instrument of pain and misery all his life. Yes, it had certainly been time for him to die; but when Bond had killed him, less than twenty-four hours before, life had gone out of the body so quickly, so utterly, that Bond had almost seen it come out of his mouth as it does, in the shape of a bird, in Haitian primitives.
  
   What an extraordinary difference there was between a body full of person and a body that was empty! Now there is someone, now there is no one. This had been a Mexican with a name and an address, an employment card and perhaps a driving licence. Then something had gone out of him, out of the envelope of flesh and cheap clothes, and had left him an empty paper bag waiting for the dustcart. And the difference, the thing that had gone out of the stinking Mexican bandit, was greater than all Mexico.
  
   Bond looked down at the weapon that had done it. The cutting edge of his right hand was red and swollen. It would soon show a bruise. Bond flexed the hand, kneading it with his left. He had been doing the same thing at intervals through the quick plane trip that had got him away. It was a painful process, but if he kept the circulation moving the hand would heal more quickly. One couldn"t tell how soon the weapon would be needed again. Cynicism gathered at the corners of Bond"s mouth.
  
   "National Airlines, "Airline of the Stars," announces the departure of their flight NA 106 to La Guardia Field, New York. Will all passengers please proceed to gate number seven. All aboard, please."
  
   The Tannoy switched off with an echoing click. Bond glanced at his watch. At least another ten minutes before Transamerica would be called. He signalled to a waitress and ordered another double bourbon on the rocks. When the wide, chunky glass came, he swirled the liquor round for the ice to blunt it down and swallowed half of it. He stubbed out the butt of his cigarette and sat, his chin resting on his left hand, and gazed moodily across the twinkling tarmac to where the last half of the sun was slipping gloriously into the Gulf.
  
   The death of the Mexican had been the finishing touch to a bad assignment, one of the worst - squalid, dangerous and without any redeeming feature except that it had got him away from headquarters.
  
   A big man in Mexico had some poppy fields. The flowers were not for decoration. They were broken down for opium which was sold quickly and comparatively cheaply by the waiters at a small café in Mexico City called the "Madre de Cacao." The Madre de Cacao had plenty of protection. If you needed opium you walked in and ordered what you wanted with your drink. You paid for your drink at the caisse and the man at the caisse told you how many noughts to add to your bill. It was an orderly commerce of no concern to anyone outside Mexico. Then, far away in England, the Government, urged on by the United Nations" drive against drug smuggling, announced that heroin would be banned in Britain. There was alarm in Soho and also among respectable doctors who wanted to save their patients agony. Prohibition is the trigger of crime. Very soon the routine smuggling channels from China, Turkey and Italy were run almost dry by the illicit stock-piling in England. In Mexico City, a pleasant-spoken Import and Export merchant called Blackwell had a sister in England who was a heroin addict. He loved her and was sorry for her and, when she wrote that she would die if someone didn"t help, he believed that she wrote the truth and set about investigating the illicit dope traffic in Mexico. In due course, through friends and friends of friends, he got to the Madre de Cacao and on from there to the big Mexican grower. In the process, he came to know about the economics of the trade, and he decided that if he could make a fortune and at the same time help suffering humanity he had found the Secret of Life. Blackwell"s business was in fertilizers. He had a warehouse and a small plant and a staff of three for soil testing and plant research. It was easy to persuade the big Mexican that, behind this respectable front, Blackwell"s team could busy itself extracting heroin from opium. Carriage to England was swiftly arranged by the Mexican. For the equivalent of a thousand pounds a trip, every month one of the diplomatic couriers of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs carried an extra suitcase to London. The price was reasonable. The contents of the suitcase, after the Mexican had deposited it at the Victoria Station left-luggage office and had mailed the ticket to a man called Schwab, c/o Boox-an-Pix, Ltd, W.C.1, were worth twenty thousand pounds.
  
   Unfortunately Schwab was a bad man, unconcerned with suffering humanity. He had the idea that if American juvenile delinquents could consume millions of dollars" worth of heroin every year, so could their Teddy boy and girl cousins. In two rooms in Pimlico, his staff watered the heroin with stomach powder and sent it on its way to the dance halls and amusement arcades.
  
   Schwab had already made a fortune when the C.I.D. Ghost Squad got on to him. Scotland Yard decided to let him make a little more money while they investigated the source of his supply. They put a close tail on Schwab and in due course were led to Victoria Station and thence to the Mexican courier. At that stage, since a foreign country was concerned, the Secret Service had had to be called in and Bond was ordered to find out where the courier got his supplies and to destroy the channel at source.
  
   Bond did as he was told. He flew to Mexico City and quickly got to the Madre de Cacao. Thence, posing as a buyer for the London traffic, he got back to the big Mexican. The Mexican received him amiably and referred him to Blackwell. Bond had rather taken to Blackwell. He knew nothing about Blackwell"s sister, but the man was obviously an amateur and his bitterness about the heroin ban in England rang true. Bond broke into his warehouse one night and left a thermite bomb. He then went and sat in a café a mile away and watched the flames leap above the horizon of roof-tops and listened to the silver cascade of the fire-brigade bells. The next morning he telephoned Blackwell. He stretched a handkerchief across the mouthpiece and spoke through it.
  
   "Sorry you lost your business last night. I"m afraid your insurance won"t cover those stocks of soil you were researching."
  
   "Who"s that? Who"s speaking?"
  
   "I"m from England. That stuff of yours has killed quite a lot of young people over there. Damaged a lot of others. Santos won"t be coming to England any more with his diplomatic bag. Schwab will be in jail by tonight. That fellow Bond you"ve been seeing, he won"t get out of the net either. The police are after him now."
  
   Frightened words came back down the line.
  
   "All right, but just don"t do it again. Stick to fertilizers."
  
   Bond hung up.
  
   Blackwell wouldn"t have had the wits. It was obviously the big Mexican who had seen through the false trail. Bond had taken the precaution to move his hotel, but that night, as he walked home after a last drink at the Copacabana, a man suddenly stood in his way. The man wore a dirty white linen suit and a chauffeur"s white cap that was too big for his head. There were deep blue shadows under Aztec cheek-bones. In one corner of the slash of a mouth there was a toothpick and in the other a cigarette. The eyes were bright pinpricks of marihuana.
  
   "You like woman? Make jigajig?"
  
   "No."
  
   "Coloured girl? Fine jungle tail?"
  
   "No."
  
   "Mebbe pictures?"
  
   The gesture of the hand slipping into the coat was so well known to Bond, so full of old dangers, that, when the hand flashed out and the long silver finger went for his throat, Bond was on balance and ready for it.
  
   Almost automatically, Bond went into the "Parry Defence against Underhand Thrust" out of the book. His right arm cut across, his body swivelling with it. The two forearms met mid-way between the two bodies, banging the Mexican"s knife arm off target and opening his guard for a crashing short-arm chin jab with Bond"s left. Bond"s stiff, locked wrist had not travelled far, perhaps two feet, but the heel of his palm, with fingers spread for rigidity, had come up and under the man"s chin with terrific force. The blow almost lifted the man off the sidewalk. Perhaps it had been that blow that had killed the Mexican, broken his neck, but as he staggered back on his way to the ground, Bond had drawn back his right hand and slashed sideways at the taut, offered throat. It was the deadly hand-edge blow to the Adam"s apple, delivered with the fingers locked into a blade, that had been the stand-by of the Commandos. If the Mexican was still alive, he was certainly dead before he hit the ground.
  
   Bond stood for a moment, his chest heaving, and looked at the crumpled pile of cheap clothes flung down in the dust. He glanced up and down the street. There was no one. Some cars passed. Others had perhaps passed during the fight, but it had been in the shadows. Bond knelt down beside the body. There was no pulse. Already the eyes that had been so bright with marihuana were glazing. The house in which the Mexican had lived was empty. The tenant had left.
  
   Bond picked up the body and laid it against a wall in deeper shadow. He brushed his hands down his clothes, felt to see if his tie was straight and went on to his hotel.
  
   At dawn Bond had got up and shaved and driven to the airport where he took the first plane out of Mexico. It happened to be going to Caracas. Bond flew to Caracas and hung about in the transit lounge until there was a plane for Miami, a Transamerica Constellation that would take him on that same evening to New York.
  
   Again the Tannoy buzzed and echoed. "Transamerica regrets to announce a delay on their flight TR 618 to New York due to a mechanical defect. The new departure time will be at eight a.m. Will all passengers please report to the Transamerica ticket counter where arrangements for their overnight accommodation will be made. Thank you."
  
   So! That too! Should he transfer to another flight or spend the night in Miami? Bond had forgotten his drink. He picked it up and, tilting his head back, swallowed the bourbon to the last drop. The ice tinkled cheerfully against his teeth. That was it. That was an idea. He would spend the night in Miami and get drunk, stinking drunk so that he would have to be carried to bed by whatever tart he had picked up. He hadn"t been drunk for years. It was high time. This extra night, thrown at him out of the blue, was a spare night, a gone night. He would put it to good purpose. It was time he let himself go. He was too tense, too introspective. What the hell was he doing, glooming about this Mexican, this capungo who had been sent to kill him? It had been kill or get killed. Anyway, people were killing other people all the time, all over the world. People were using their motor cars to kill with. They were carrying infectious diseases around, blowing microbes in other people"s faces, leaving gas-jets turned on in kitchens, pumping out carbon monoxide in closed garages. How many people, for instance, were involved in manufacturing H-bombs, from the miners who mined the uranium to the shareholders who owned the mining shares? Was there any person in the world who wasn"t somehow, perhaps only statistically, involved in killing his neighbour?
  
   The last light of the day had gone. Below the indigo sky the flare paths twinkled green and yellow and threw tiny reflections off the oily skin of the tarmac. With a shattering roar a DC7 hurtled down the main green lane. The windows in the transit lounge rattled softly. People got up to watch. Bond tried to read their expressions. Did they hope the plane would crash - give them something to watch, something to talk about, something to fill their empty lives? Or did they wish it well? Which way were they willing the sixty passengers? To live or to die?
  
   Bond"s lips turned down. Cut it out. Stop being so damned morbid. All this is just reaction from a dirty assignment. You"re stale, tired of having to be tough. You want a change. You"ve seen too much death. You want a slice of life - easy, soft, high.
  
   Bond was conscious of steps approaching. They stopped at his side. Bond looked up. It was a clean, rich-looking, middle-aged man. His expression was embarrassed, deprecating.
  
   "Pardon me, but surely it"s Mr Bond... Mr - er - James Bond?"
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 2
  
  
   Living It Up
  
   Bond liked anonymity. His "Yes, it is" was discouraging.
  
   "Well, that"s a mighty rare coincidence." The man held out his hand. Bond rose slowly, took the hand and released it. The hand was pulpy and unarticulated - like a hand-shaped mud pack, or an inflated rubber glove. "My name is Du Pont. Junius Du Pont. I guess you won"t remember me, but we"ve met before. Mind if I sit down?"
  
   The face, the name? Yes, there was something familiar. Long ago. Not in America. Bond searched the files while he summed the man up. Mr Du Pont was about fifty - pink, clean-shaven and dressed in the conventional disguise with which Brooks Brothers cover the shame of American millionaires. He wore a single-breasted dark tan tropical suit and a white silk shirt with a shallow collar. The rolled ends of the collar were joined by a gold safety pin beneath the knot of a narrow dark red and blue striped tie that fractionally wasn"t the Brigade of Guards." The cuffs of the shirt protruded half an inch below the cuffs of the coat and showed cabochon crystal links containing miniature trout flies. The socks were charcoal-grey silk and the shoes were old and polished mahogany and hinted Peal. The man carried a dark, narrow-brimmed straw Homburg with a wide claret ribbon.
  
   Mr Du Pont sat down opposite Bond and produced cigarettes and a plain gold Zippo lighter. Bond noticed that he was sweating slightly. He decided that Mr Du Pont was what he appeared to be, a very rich American, mildly embarrassed. He knew he had seen him before, but he had no idea where or when.
  
   "Smoke?"
  
   "Thank you." It was a Parliament. Bond affected not to notice the offered lighter. He disliked held-out lighters. He picked up his own and lit the cigarette.
  
   "France, "51, Royale les Eaux." Mr Du Pont looked eagerly at Bond. "That Casino. Ethel, that"s Mrs Du Pont, and me were next to you at the table the night you had the big game with the Frenchman."
  
   Bond"s memory raced back. Yes, of course. The Du Ponts had been Nos. 4 and 5 at the baccarat table. Bond had been 6. They had seemed harmless people. He had been glad to have such a solid bulwark on his left on that fantastic night when he had broken Le Chiffre. Now Bond saw it all again - the bright pool of light on the green baize, the pink crab hands across the table scuttling out for the cards. He smelled the smoke and the harsh tang of his own sweat. That had been a night! Bond looked across at Mr Du Pont and smiled at the memory. "Yes, of course I remember. Sorry I was slow. But that was quite a night. I wasn"t thinking of much except my cards."
  
   Mr Du Pont grinned back, happy and relieved. "Why, gosh, Mr Bond. Of course I understand. And I do hope you"ll pardon me for butting in. You see..." He snapped his fingers for a waitress. "But we must have a drink to celebrate. What"ll you have?"
  
   "Thanks. Bourbon on the rocks."
  
   "And dimple Haig and water." The waitress went away.
  
   Mr Du Pont leant forward, beaming. A whiff of soap or after-shave lotion came across the table. Lentheric? "I knew it was you. As soon as I saw you sitting there. But I thought to myself, Junius, you don"t often make an error over a face, but let"s just go make sure. Well, I was flying Transamerican tonight and, when they announced the delay, I watched your expression and, if you"ll pardon me, Mr Bond, it was pretty clear from the look on your face that you had been flying Transamerican too." He waited for Bond to nod. He hurried on. "So I ran down to the ticket counter and had me a look at the passenger list. Sure enough, there it was, "J. Bond.""
  
   Mr Du Pont sat back, pleased with his cleverness. The drinks came. He raised his glass. "Your very good health, sir. This sure is my lucky day."
  
   Bond smiled non-committally and drank.
  
   Mr Du Pont leant forward again. He looked round. There was nobody at the near-by tables. Nevertheless he lowered his voice. "I guess you"ll be saying to yourself, well, it"s nice to see Junius Du Pont again, but what"s the score? Why"s he so particularly happy at seeing me on just this night?" Mr Du Pont raised his eyebrows as if acting Bond"s part for him. Bond put on a face of polite inquiry. Mr Du Pont leant still farther across the table. "Now, I hope you"ll forgive me, Mr Bond. It"s not like me to pry into other people"s secre...er - affairs. But, after that game at Royale, I did hear that you were not only a grand card player, but also that you were - er - how shall I put it? - that you were a sort of - er - investigator. You know, kind of intelligence operative." Mr Du Pont"s indiscretion had made him go very red in the face. He sat back and took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. He looked anxiously at Bond.
  
   Bond shrugged his shoulders. The grey-blue eyes that looked into Mr Du Pont"s eyes, which had turned hard and watchful despite his embarrassment, held a mixture of candour, irony and self-deprecation. "I used to dabble in that kind of thing. Hangover from the war. One still thought it was fun playing Red Indians. But there"s no future in it in peacetime."
  
   "Quite, quite." Mr Du Pont made a throwaway gesture with the hand that held the cigarette. His eyes evaded Bond"s as he put the next question, waited for the next lie. (Bond thought, there"s a wolf in this Brooks Brothers clothing. This is a shrewd man.) "And now you"ve settled down?" Mr Du Pont smiled paternally. "What did you choose, if you"ll pardon the question?"
  
   "Import and Export. I"m with Universal. Perhaps you"ve come across them."
  
   Mr Du Pont continued to play the game. "Hm. Universal. Let me see. Why, yes, sure I"ve heard of them. Can"t say I"ve ever done business with them, but I guess it"s never too late." He chuckled fatly. "I"ve got quite a heap of interests all over the place. Only stuff I can honestly say I"m not interested in is chemicals. Maybe it"s my misfortune, Mr Bond, but I"m not one of the chemical Du Ponts."
  
   Bond decided that the man was quite satisfied with the particular brand of Du Pont he happened to be. He made no comment. He glanced at his watch to hurry Mr Du Pont"s play of the hand. He made a note to handle his own cards carefully. Mr Du Pont had a nice pink kindly baby-face with a puckered, rather feminine turn-down mouth. He looked as harmless as any of the middle-aged Americans with cameras who stand outside Buckingham Palace. But Bond sensed many tough, sharp qualities behind the fuddyduddy façade.
  
   Mr Du Pont"s sensitive eye caught Bond"s glance at his watch. He consulted his own. "My, oh my! Seven o"clock and here I"ve been talking away without coming to the point. Now, see here, Mr Bond. I"ve got me a problem on which I"d greatly appreciate your guidance. If you can spare me the time and if you were counting on stopping over in Miami tonight I"d reckon it a real favour if you"d allow me to be your host." Mr Du Pont held up his hand. "Now, I think I can promise to make you comfortable. So happens I own a piece of the Floridiana. Maybe you heard we opened around Christmas time? Doing a great business I"m happy to say. Really pushing that little old Fountain Blue." Mr Du Pont laughed indulgently. "That"s what we call the Fontainebleau down here. Now, what do you say, Mr Bond? You shall have the best suite - even if it means putting some good paying customers out on the sidewalk. And you"d be doing me a real favour." Mr Du Pont looked imploring.
  
   Bond had already decided to accept - blind. Whatever Mr Du Pont"s problem - blackmail, gangsters, women - it would be some typical form of rich man"s worry. Here was a slice of the easy life he had been asking for. Take it. Bond started to say something politely deprecating. Mr Du Pont interrupted. "Please, please, Mr Bond. And believe me, I"m grateful, very grateful indeed." He snapped his fingers for the waitress. When she came, he turned away from Bond and settled the bill out of Bond"s sight. Like many very rich men he considered that showing his money, letting someone see how much he tipped, amounted to indecent exposure. He thrust his roll back into his trousers pocket (the hip pocket is not the place among the rich) and took Bond by the arm. He sensed Bond"s resistance to the contact and removed his hand. They went down the stairs to the main hall.
  
   "Now, let"s just straighten out your reservation." Mr Du Pont headed for the Transamerica ticket counter. In a few curt phrases Mr Du Pont showed his power and efficiency in his own, his American, realm.
  
   "Yes, Mr Du Pont. Surely, Mr Du Pont. I"ll take care of that, Mr Du Pont."
  
   Outside, a gleaming Chrysler Imperial sighed up to the kerb. A tough-looking chauffeur in a biscuit-coloured uniform hurried to open the door. Bond stepped in and settled down in the soft upholstery. The interior of the car was deliciously cool, almost cold. The Transamerican representative bustled out with Bond"s suitcase, handed it to the chauffeur and, with a half-bow, went back into the Terminal. "Bill"s on the Beach," said Mr Du Pont to the chauffeur and the big car slid away through the crowded parking lots and out on to the parkway.
  
   Mr Du Pont settled back. "Hope you like stone crabs, Mr Bond. Ever tried them?"
  
   Bond said he had, that he liked them very much.
  
   Mr Du Pont talked about Bill"s on the Beach and about the relative merits of stone and Alaska crab meat while the Chrysler Imperial sped through downtown Miami, along Biscayne Boulevard and across Biscayne Bay by the Douglas MacArthur Causeway. Bond made appropriate comments, letting himself be carried along on the gracious stream of speed and comfort and rich small-talk.
  
   They drew up at a white-painted, mock-Regency frontage in clapboard and stucco. A scrawl of pink neon said: BILL"S ON THE BEACH. While Bond got out, Mr Du Pont gave his instructions to the chauffeur. Bond heard the words. "The Aloha Suite," and "If there"s any trouble, tell Mr Fairlie to call me here. Right?"
  
   They went up the steps. Inside, the big room was decorated in white with pink muslin swags over the windows. There were pink lights on the tables. The restaurant was crowded with sunburned people in expensive tropical get-ups - brilliant garish shirts, jangling gold bangles, dark glasses with jewelled rims, cute native straw hats. There was a confusion of scents. The wry smell of bodies that had been all day in the sun came through.
  
   Bill, a pansified Italian, hurried towards them. "Why, Mr Du Pont. Is a pleasure, sir. Little crowded tonight. Soon fix you up. Please this way please." Holding a large leather-bound menu above his head the man weaved his way between the diners to the best table in the room, a corner table for six. He pulled out two chairs, snapped his fingers for the maître d"hôtel and the wine waiter, spread two menus in front of them, exchanged compliments with Mr Du Pont and left them.
  
   Mr Du Pont slapped his menu shut. He said to Bond, "Now, why don"t you just leave this to me? If there"s anything you don"t like, send it back." And to the head waiter, "Stone crabs. Not frozen. Fresh. Melted butter. Thick toast. Right?"
  
   "Very good, Mr Du Pont." The wine waiter, washing his hands, took the waiter"s place.
  
   "Two pints of pink champagne. The Pommery "50. Silver tankards. Right?"
  
   "Vairry good, Mr Du Pont. A cocktail to start?"
  
   Mr Du Pont turned to Bond. He smiled and raised his eyebrows.
  
   Bond said, "Vodka martini, please. With a slice of lemon peel."
  
   "Make it two," said Mr Du Pont. "Doubles." The wine waiter hurried off. Mr Du Pont sat back and produced his cigarettes and lighter. He looked round the room, answered one or two waves with a smile and a lift of the hand and glanced at the neighbouring tables. He edged his chair nearer to Bond"s. "Can"t help the noise, I"m afraid," he said apologetically. "Only come here for the crabs. They"re out of this world. Hope you"re not allergic to them. Once brought a girl here and fed her crabs and her lips swelled up like cycle tyres."
  
   Bond was amused at the change in Mr Du Pont - this racy talk, the authority of manner once Mr Du Pont thought he had got Bond on the hook, on his payroll. He was a different man from the shy embarrassed suitor who had solicited Bond at the airport. What did Mr Du Pont want from Bond? It would be coming any minute now, the proposition. Bond said, "I haven"t got any allergies."
  
   "Good, good."
  
   There was a pause. Mr Du Pont snapped the lid of his lighter up and down several times. He realized he was making an irritating noise and pushed it away from him. He made up his mind. He said, speaking at his hands on the table in front of him, "You ever play Canasta, Mr Bond?"
  
   "Yes, it"s a good game. I like it."
  
   "Two-handed Canasta?"
  
   "I have done. It"s not so much fun. If you don"t make a fool of yourself - if neither of you do - it tends to even out. Law of averages in the cards. No chance of making much difference in the play."
  
   Mr Du Pont nodded emphatically. "Just so. That"s what I"ve said to myself. Over a hundred games or so, two equal players will end up equal. Not such a good game as Gin or Oklahoma, but in a way that"s just what I like about it. You pass the time, you handle plenty of cards, you have your ups and downs, no one gets hurt. Right?"
  
   Bond nodded. The martinis came. Mr Du Pont said to the wine waiter, "Bring two more in ten minutes." They drank. Mr Du Pont turned and faced Bond. His face was petulant, crumpled. He said, "What would you say, Mr Bond, if I told you I"d lost twenty-five thousand dollars in a week playing two-handed Canasta?" Bond was about to reply. Mr Du Pont held up his hand. "And mark you, I"m a good card player. Member of the Regency Club. Play a lot with people like Charlie Goren, Johnny Crawford - at bridge that is. But what I mean, I know my way around at the card table." Mr Du Pont probed Bond"s eyes.
  
   "If you"ve been playing with the same man all the time, you"ve been cheated."
  
   "Ex-actly." Mr Du Pont slapped the table-cloth. He sat back. "Ex-actly. That"s what I said to myself after I"d lost - lost for four whole days. So I said to myself, this bastard is cheating me and by golly I"ll find out how he does it and have him hounded out of Miami. So I doubled the stakes and then doubled them again. He was quite happy about it. And I watched every card he played, every movement. Nothing! Not a hint or a sign. Cards not marked. New pack whenever I wanted one. My own cards. Never looked at my hand - couldn"t, as I always sat dead opposite him. No kibitzer to tip him off. And he just went on winning and winning. Won again this morning. And again this afternoon. Finally I got so mad at the game - I didn"t show it, mind you-" Bond might think he had not been a sport- "I paid up politely. But, without telling this guy, I just packed my bag and got me to the airport and booked on the first plane to New York. Think of that!" Mr Du Pont threw up his hands. "Running away. But twenty-five grand is twenty-five grand. I could see it getting to fifty, a hundred. And I just couldn"t stand another of these damned games and I couldn"t stand not being able to catch this guy out. So I took off. What do you think of that? Me, Junius Du Pont, throwing in the towel because I couldn"t take the licking any more!"
  
   Bond grunted sympathetically. The second round of drinks came. Bond was mildly interested, he was always interested in anything to do with cards. He could see the scene, the two men playing and playing and the one man quietly shuffling and dealing away and marking up his score while the other was always throwing his cards into the middle of the table with a gesture of controlled disgust. Mr Du Pont was obviously being cheated. How? Bond said, "Twenty-five thousand"s a lot of money. What stakes were you playing?"
  
   Mr Du Pont looked sheepish. "Quarter a point, then fifty cents, then a dollar. Pretty high I guess with the games averaging around two thousand points. Even at a quarter, that makes five hundred dollars a game. At a dollar a point, if you go on losing, it"s murder."
  
   "You must have won sometimes."
  
   "Oh sure, but somehow, just as I"d got the s.o.b. all set for a killing, he"d put down as many of his cards as he could meld. Got out of the bag. Sure, I won some small change, but only when he needed a hundred and twenty to go down and I"d got all the wild cards. But you know how it is with Canasta, you have to discard right. You lay traps to make the other guy hand you the pack. Well, darn it, he seemed to be psychic! Whenever I laid a trap, he"d dodge it, and almost every time he laid one for me I"d fall into it. As for giving me the pack - why, he"d choose the damndest cards when he was pushed - discard singletons, aces, God knows what, and always get away with it. It was just as if he knew every card in my hand."
  
   "Any mirrors in the room?"
  
   "Heck, no! We always played outdoors. He said he wanted to get himself a sunburn. Certainly did that. Red as lobster. He"d only play in the mornings and afternoons. Said if he played in the evening he couldn"t get to sleep."
  
   "Who is this man, anyway? What"s his name?"
  
   "Goldfinger."
  
   "First name?"
  
   "Auric. That means golden, doesn"t it? He certainly is that. Got flaming red hair."
  
   "Nationality?"
  
   "You won"t believe it, but he"s a Britisher. Domiciled in Nassau. You"d think he"d be a Jew from the name, but he doesn"t look it. We"re restricted at the Floridiana. Wouldn"t have got in if he had been. Nassavian passport. Age forty-two. Unmarried. Profession, broker. Got all this from his passport. Had me a peek via the house detective when I started to play with him."
  
   "What sort of broker?"
  
   Du Pont smiled grimly. "I asked him. He said, "Oh, anything that comes along." Evasive sort of fellow. Clams up if you ask him a direct question. Talks away quite pleasantly about nothing at all."
  
   "What"s he worth?"
  
   "Ha!" said Mr Du Pont explosively. "That"s the damnedest thing. He"s loaded. But loaded! I got my bank to check with Nassau. He"s lousy with it. Millionaires are a dime a dozen in Nassau, but he"s rated either first or second among them. Seems he keeps his money in gold bars. Shifts them around the world a lot to get the benefit of changes in the gold price. Acts like a damn federal bank. Doesn"t trust currencies. Can"t say he"s wrong in that, and seeing how he"s one of the richest men in the world there must be something to his system. But the point is, if he"s as rich as that, what the hell does he want to take a lousy twenty-five grand off me for?"
  
   A bustle of waiters round their table saved Bond having to think up a reply. With ceremony, a wide silver dish of crabs, big ones, their shells and claws broken, was placed in the middle of the table. A silver sauceboat brimming with melted butter and a long rack of toast was put beside each of their plates. The tankards of champagne frothed pink. Finally, with an oily smirk, the head waiter came behind their chairs and, in turn, tied round their necks long white silken bibs that reached down to the lap.
  
   Bond was reminded of Charles Laughton playing Henry VIII, but neither Mr Du Pont nor the neighbouring diners seemed surprised at the hoggish display. Mr Du Pont, with a gleeful "Every man for himself," raked several hunks of crab on to his plate, doused them liberally in melted butter and dug in. Bond followed suit and proceeded to eat, or rather devour, the most delicious meal he had had in his life.
  
   The meat of the stone crabs was the tenderest, sweetest shellfish he had ever tasted. It was perfectly set off by the dry toast and slightly burned taste of the melted butter. The champagne seemed to have the faintest scent of strawberries. It was ice cold. After each helping of crab, the champagne cleaned the palate for the next. They ate steadily and with absorption and hardly exchanged a word until the dish was cleared.
  
   With a slight belch, Mr Du Pont for the last time wiped butter off his chin with his silken bib and sat back. His face was flushed. He looked proudly at Bond. He said reverently, "Mr Bond, I doubt if anywhere in the world a man has eaten as good a dinner as that tonight. What do you say?"
  
   Bond thought, I asked for the easy life, the rich life. How do I like it? How do I like eating like a pig and hearing remarks like that? Suddenly the idea of ever having another meal like this, or indeed any other meal with Mr Du Pont, revolted him. He felt momentarily ashamed of his disgust. He had asked and it had been given. It was the puritan in him that couldn"t take it. He had made his wish and the wish had not only been granted, it had been stuffed down his throat. Bond said, "I don"t know about that, but it was certainly very good."
  
   Mr Du Pont was satisfied. He called for coffee. Bond refused the offer of cigars or liqueurs. He lit a cigarette and waited with interest for the catch to be presented. He knew there would be one. It was obvious that all this was part of the come-on. Well, let it come.
  
   Mr Du Pont cleared his throat. "And now, Mr Bond, I have a proposition to put to you." He stared at Bond, trying to gauge his reaction in advance.
  
   "Yes?"
  
   "It surely was providential to meet you like that at the airport." Mr Du Pont"s voice was grave, sincere. "I"ve never forgotten our first meeting at Royale. I recall every detail of it - your coolness, your daring, your handling of the cards." Bond looked down at the table-cloth. But Mr Du Pont had got tired of his peroration. He said hurriedly, "Mr Bond, I will pay you ten thousand dollars to stay here as my guest until you have discovered how this man Goldfinger beats me at cards."
  
   Bond looked Mr Du Pont in the eye. He said, "That"s a handsome offer, Mr Du Pont. But I have to get back to London. I must be in New York to catch my plane within forty-eight hours. If you will play your usual sessions tomorrow morning and afternoon I should have plenty of time to find out the answer. But I must leave tomorrow night, whether I can help you or not. Done?"
  
   "Done," said Mr Du Pont.
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 3
  
  
   The Man with Agoraphobia
  
   The flapping of the curtains wakened Bond. He threw off the single sheet and walked across the thick pile carpet to the picture window that filled the whole of one wall. He drew back the curtains and went out on to the sun-filled balcony.
  
   The black and white chequer-board tiles were warm, almost hot to the feet although it could not yet be eight o"clock. A brisk inshore breeze was blowing off the sea, straining the flags of all nations that flew along the pier of the private yacht basin. The breeze was humid and smelt strongly of the sea. Bond guessed it was the breeze that the visitors like, but the residents hate. It would rust the metal fittings in their homes, fox the pages of their books, rot their wallpaper and pictures, breed damp-rot in their clothes.
  
   Twelve storeys down the formal gardens, dotted with palm trees and beds of bright croton and traced with neat gravel walks between avenues of bougainvillaea, were rich and dull. Gardeners were working, raking the paths and picking up leaves with the lethargic slow motion of coloured help. Two mowers were at work on the lawns and, where they had already been, sprinklers were gracefully flinging handfuls of spray.
  
   Directly below Bond, the elegant curve of the Cabana Club swept down to the beach - two storeys of changing-rooms below a flat roof dotted with chairs and tables and an occasional red and white striped umbrella. Within the curve was the brilliant green oblong of the Olympic-length swimming-pool fringed on all sides by row upon row of mattressed steamer chairs on which the customers would soon be getting their fifty-dollar-a-day sunburn. White-jacketed men were working among them, straightening the lines of chairs, turning the mattresses and sweeping up yesterday"s cigarette butts. Beyond was the long, golden beach and the sea, and more men - raking the tideline, putting up the umbrellas, laying out mattresses. No wonder the neat card inside Bond"s wardrobe had said that the cost of the Aloha Suite was two hundred dollars a day. Bond made a rough calculation. If he was paying the bill, it would take him just three weeks to spend his whole salary for the year. Bond smiled cheerfully to himself. He went back into the bedroom, picked up the telephone and ordered himself a delicious, wasteful breakfast, a carton of king-size Chesterfields and the newspapers.
  
   By the time he had shaved and had an ice-cold shower and dressed it was eight o"clock. He walked through into the elegant sitting-room and found a waiter in a uniform of plum and gold laying out his breakfast beside the window. Bond glanced at the Miami Herald. The front page was devoted to yesterday"s failure of an American ICBM at the near-by Cape Canaveral and a bad upset in a big race at Hialeah.
  
   Bond dropped the paper on the floor and sat down and slowly ate his breakfast and thought about Mr Du Pont and Mr Goldfinger.
  
   His thoughts were inconclusive. Mr Du Pont was either a much worse player than he thought, which seemed unlikely on Bond"s reading of his tough, shrewd character, or else Goldfinger was a cheat. If Goldfinger cheated at cards, although he didn"t need the money, it was certain that he had also made himself rich by cheating or sharp practice on a much bigger scale. Bond was interested in big crooks. He looked forward to his first sight of Goldfinger. He also looked forward to penetrating Goldfinger"s highly successful and, on the face of it, highly mysterious method of fleecing Mr Du Pont. It was going to be a most entertaining day. Idly Bond waited for it to get underway. The plan was that he would meet Mr Du Pont in the garden at ten o"clock. The story would be that Bond had flown down from New York to try and sell Mr Du Pont a block of shares from an English holding in a Canadian Natural Gas property. The matter was clearly confidential and Goldfinger would not think of questioning Bond about details. Shares, Natural Gas, Canada. That was all Bond needed to remember. They would go along together to the roof of the Cabana Club where the game was played and Bond would read his paper and watch. After luncheon, during which Bond and Mr Du Pont would discuss their "business," there would be the same routine. Mr Du Pont had inquired if there was anything else he could arrange. Bond had asked for the number of Mr Goldfinger"s suite and a pass-key. He had explained that if Goldfinger was any kind of a professional card-sharp, or even an expert amateur, he would travel with the usual tools of the trade - marked and shaved cards, the apparatus for the Short Arm Delivery, and so forth. Mr Du Pont had said he would give Bond the key when they met in the garden. He would have no difficulty getting one from the manager.
  
   After breakfast, Bond relaxed and gazed into the middle distance of the sea. He was not keyed up by the job on hand, only interested and amused. It was just the kind of job he had needed to clear his palate after Mexico.
  
   At half past nine Bond left his suite and wandered along the corridors of his floor, getting lost on his way to the elevator in order to reconnoitre the lay-out of the hotel. Then, having met the same maid twice, he asked his way and went down in the elevator and moved among the scattering of early risers through the Pineapple Shopping Arcade. He glanced into the Bamboo Coffee Shoppe, the Rendezvous Bar, the La Tropicala dining-room, the Kittekat Klub for children and the Boom-Boom Nighterie. He then went purposefully out into the garden. Mr Du Pont, now dressed "for the beach" by Abercrombie & Fitch, gave him the pass-key to Goldfinger"s suite. They sauntered over to the Cabana Club and climbed the two short flights of stairs to the top deck.
  
   Bond"s first view of Mr Goldfinger was startling. At the far corner of the roof, just below the cliff of the hotel, a man was lying back with his legs up on a steamer chair. He was wearing nothing but a yellow satin bikini slip, dark glasses and a pair of wide tin wings under his chin. The wings, which appeared to fit round his neck, stretched out across his shoulders and beyond them and then curved up slightly to rounded tips.
  
   Bond said, "What the hell"s he wearing round his neck?"
  
   "You never seen one of those?" Mr Du Pont was surprised. "That"s a gadget to help your tan. Polished tin. Reflects the sun up under your chin and behind the ears - the bits that wouldn"t normally catch the sun."
  
   "Well, well," said Bond.
  
   When they were a few yards from the reclining figure Mr Du Pont called out cheerfully, in what seemed to Bond an overloud voice, "Hi there!"
  
   Mr Goldfinger did not stir.
  
   Mr Du Pont said in his normal voice. "He"s very deaf." They were now at Mr Goldfinger"s feet. Mr Du Pont repeated his hail.
  
   Mr Goldfinger sat up sharply. He removed his dark glasses. "Why, hullo there." He unhitched the wings from round his neck, put them carefully on the ground beside him and got heavily to his feet. He looked at Bond with slow, inquiring eyes.
  
   "Like you to meet Mr Bond, James Bond. Friend of mine from New York. Countryman of yours. Come down to try and talk me into a bit of business."
  
   Mr Goldfinger held out a hand. "Pleased to meet you, Mr Bomb."
  
   Bond took the hand. It was hard and dry. There was the briefest pressure and it was withdrawn. For an instant Mr Goldfinger"s pale, china-blue eyes opened wide and stared hard at Bond. They stared right through his face to the back of his skull. Then the lids drooped, the shutter closed over the X-ray, and Mr Goldfinger took the exposed plate and slipped it away in his filing system.
  
   "So no game today." The voice was flat, colourless. The words were more of a statement than a question.
  
   "Whaddya mean, no game?" shouted Mr Du Pont boisterously. "You weren"t thinking I"d let you hang on to my money? Got to get it back or I shan"t be able to leave this darned hotel," Mr Du Pont chuckled richly. "I"ll tell Sam to fix the table. James here says he doesn"t know much about cards and he"d like to learn the game. That right, James?" He turned to Bond. "Sure you"ll be all right with your paper and the sunshine?"
  
   "I"d be glad of the rest," said Bond. "Been travelling too much."
  
   Again the eyes bored into Bond and then drooped. "I"ll get some clothes on. I had intended to have a golf lesson this afternoon from Mr Armour at the Boca Raton. But cards have priority among my hobbies. My tendency to un-cock the wrists too early with the mid-irons will have to wait." The eyes rested incuriously on Bond. "You play golf, Mr Bomb?"
  
   Bond raised his voice. "Occasionally, when I"m in England."
  
   "And where do you play?"
  
   "Huntercombe."
  
   "Ah - a pleasant little course. I have recently joined the Royal St Marks. Sandwich is close to one of my business interests. You know it?"
  
   "I have played there."
  
   "What is your handicap?"
  
   "Nine."
  
   "That is a coincidence. So is mine. We must have a game one day." Mr Goldfinger bent down and picked up his tin wings. He said to Mr Du Pont, "I will be with you in five minutes." He walked slowly off towards the stairs.
  
   Bond was amused. This social sniffing at him had been done with just the right casual touch of the tycoon who didn"t really care if Bond was alive or dead but, since he was there and alive, might as well place him in an approximate category.
  
   Mr Du Pont gave instructions to a steward in a white coat. Two others were already setting up a card table. Bond walked to the rail that surrounded the roof and looked down into the garden, reflecting on Mr Goldfinger.
  
   He was impressed. Mr Goldfinger was one of the most relaxed men Bond had ever met. It showed in the economy of his movement, of his speech, of his expressions. Mr Goldfinger wasted no effort, yet there was something coiled, compressed, in the immobility of the man.
  
   When Goldfinger had stood up, the first thing that had struck Bond was that everything was out of proportion. Goldfinger was short, not more than five feet tall, and on top of the thick body and blunt, peasant legs was set, almost directly into the shoulders, a huge and it seemed exactly round head. It was as if Goldfinger had been put together with bits of other people"s bodies. Nothing seemed to belong. Perhaps, Bond thought, it was to conceal his ugliness that Goldfinger made such a fetish of sunburn. Without the red-brown camouflage the pale body would be grotesque. The face, under the cliff of crew-cut carroty hair, was as startling, without being as ugly, as the body. It was moon-shaped without being moonlike. The forehead was fine and high and the thin sandy brows were level above the large light blue eyes fringed with pale lashes. The nose was fleshily aquiline between high cheekbones and cheeks that were more muscular than fat. The mouth was thin and dead straight, but beautifully drawn. The chin and jaws were firm and glinted with health. To sum up, thought Bond, it was the face of a thinker, perhaps a scientist, who was ruthless, sensual, stoical and tough. An odd combination.
  
   What else could he guess? Bond always mistrusted short men. They grew up from childhood with an inferiority complex. All their lives they would strive to be big - bigger than the others who had teased them as a child. Napoleon had been short, and Hitler. It was the short men that caused all the trouble in the world. And what about a misshapen short man with red hair and a bizarre face? That might add up to a really formidable misfit. One could certainly feel the repressions. There was a powerhouse of vitality humming in the man that suggested that if one stuck an electric bulb into Goldfinger"s mouth it would light up. Bond smiled at the thought. Into what channels did Goldfinger release his vital force? Into getting rich? Into sex? Into power? Probably into all three. What could his history be? Today he might be an Englishman. What had he been born? Not a Jew - though there might be Jewish blood in him. Not a Latin or anything farther south. Not a Slav. Perhaps a German - no, a Balt! That"s where he would have come from. One of the old Baltic provinces. Probably got away to escape the Russians. Goldfinger would have been warned - or his parents had smelled trouble and they had got him out in time. And what had happened then? How had he worked his way up to being one of the richest men in the world? One day it might be interesting to find out. For the time being it would be enough to find out how he won at cards.
  
   "All set?" Mr Du Pont called to Goldfinger who was coming across the roof towards the card table. With his clothes on - a comfortably fitting dark blue suit, a white shirt open at the neck - Goldfinger cut an almost passable figure. But there was no disguise for the great brown and red football of a head and the flesh-coloured hearing aid plugged into the left ear was not an improvement.
  
   Mr Du Pont sat with his back to the hotel. Goldfinger took the seat opposite and cut the cards. Du Pont won the cut, pushed the other pack over to Goldfinger, tapped them to show they were already shuffled and he couldn"t bother to cut, and Goldfinger began the deal.
  
   Bond sauntered over and took a chair at Mr Du Pont"s elbow. He sat back, relaxed. He made a show of folding his paper to the sports page and watched the deal.
  
   Somehow Bond had expected it, but this was no cardsharp. Goldfinger dealt quickly and efficiently, but with no hint of the Mechanic"s Grip, those vital three fingers curled round the long edge of the cards and the index finger at the outside short upper edge - the grip that means you are armed for dealing Bottoms or Seconds. And he wore no signet ring for pricking the cards, no surgical tape round a finger for marking them.
  
   Mr Du Pont turned to Bond. "Deal of fifteen cards," he commented. "You draw two and discard one. Otherwise straight Regency rules. No monkey business with the red treys counting one, three, five, eight, or any of that European stuff."
  
   Mr Du Pont picked up his cards. Bond noticed that he sorted them expertly, not grading them according to value from left to right, or holding his wild cards, of which he had two, at the left - a pattern that might help a watchful opponent. Mr Du Pont concentrated his good cards in the centre of his hand with the singletons and broken melds on either side.
  
   The game began. Mr Du Pont drew first, a miraculous pair of wild cards. His face betrayed nothing. He discarded casually. He only needed two more good draws to go out unseen. But he would have to be lucky. Drawing two cards doubles the chance of picking up what you want, but it also doubles the chance of picking up useless cards that will only clutter up your hand.
  
   Goldfinger played a more deliberate game, almost irritatingly slow. After drawing, he shuffled through his cards again and again before deciding on his discard.
  
   On the third draw, Du Pont had improved his hand to the extent that he now needed only one of five cards to go down and out and catch his opponent with a handful of cards which would all count against him. As if Goldfinger knew the danger he was in, he went down for fifty and proceeded to make a canasta with three wild cards and four fives. He also got rid of some more melds and ended with only four cards in his hand. In any other circumstances it would have been ridiculously bad play. As it was, he had made some four hundred points instead of losing over a hundred, for, on the next draw Mr Du Pont filled his hand and, with most of the edge taken off his triumph by Goldfinger"s escape, went down unseen with the necessary two canastas.
  
   "By golly, I nearly screwed you that time." Mr Du Pont"s voice had an edge of exasperation. "What in hell told you to cut an" run?"
  
   Goldfinger said indifferently, "I smelled trouble." He added up his points, announced them and jotted them down, waiting for Mr Du Pont to do the same. Then he cut the cards and sat back and regarded Bond with polite interest.
  
   "Will you be staying long, Mr Bomb?"
  
   Bond smiled. "It"s Bond, B-O-N-D. No, I have to go back to New York tonight."
  
   "How sad." Goldfinger"s mouth pursed in polite regret. He turned back to the cards and the game went on. Bond picked up his paper and gazed, unseeing, at the baseball scores, while he listened to the quiet routine of the game. Goldfinger won that hand and the next and the next. He won the game. There was a difference of one thousand five hundred points - one thousand five hundred dollars to Goldfinger.
  
   "There it goes again!" It was the plaintive voice of Mr Du Pont.
  
   Bond put down his paper. "Does he usually win?"
  
   "Usually!" The word was a snort. "He always wins."
  
   They cut again and Goldfinger began to deal.
  
   Bond said, "Don"t you cut for seats? I often find a change of seat helps the luck. Hostage to fortune and so on."
  
   Goldfinger paused in his deal. He bent his gaze gravely on Bond. "Unfortunately, Mr Bond, that is not possible or I could not play. As I explained to Mr Du Pont at our first game, I suffer from an obscure complaint - agoraphobia - the fear of open spaces. I cannot bear the open horizon. I must sit and face the hotel." The deal continued.
  
   "Oh, I"m so sorry." Bond"s voice was grave, interested. "That"s a very rare disability. I"ve always been able to understand claustrophobia, but not the other way round. How did it come about?"
  
   Goldfinger picked up his cards and began to arrange his hand. "I have no idea," he said equably.
  
   Bond got up. "Well, I think I"ll stretch my legs for a bit. See what"s going on in the pool."
  
   "You do just that," said Mr Du Pont jovially. "Just take it easy, James. Plenty of time to discuss business over lunch. I"ll see if I can"t dish it out to my friend Goldfinger this time instead of taking it. Be seeing you."
  
   Goldfinger didn"t look up from his cards. Bond strolled down the roof, past the occasional splayed-out body, to the rail at the far end that overlooked the pool. For a time he stood and contemplated the ranks of pink and brown and white flesh laid out below him on the steamer chairs. The heavy scent of suntan oil came up to him. There were a few children and young people in the pool. A man, obviously a professional diver, perhaps the swimming instructor, stood on the high-dive. He balanced on the balls of his feet, a muscled Greek god with golden hair. He bounced once, casually, and flew off and down, his arms held out like wings. Lazily they arrowed out to cleave the water for the body to pass through. The impact left only a brief turbulence. The diver jack-knifed up again, shaking his head boyishly. There was a smattering of applause. The man trudged slowly down the pool, his head submerged, his shoulders moving with casual power. Bond thought, good luck to you! You won"t be able to keep this up for more than another five or six years. High-divers couldn"t take it for long - the repeated shock to the skull. With ski-jumping, which had the same shattering effect on the frame, high-diving was the shortest-lived sport. Bond radioed to the diver, "Cash in quick! Get into films while the hair"s still gold."
  
   Bond turned and looked back down the roof towards the two Canasta players beneath the cliff of the hotel. So Goldfinger liked to face the hotel. Or was it that he liked Mr Du Pont to have his back to it? And why? Now, what was the number of Goldfinger"s suite? No. 200, the Hawaii Suite. Bond"s on the top floor was 1200. So, all things being equal, Goldfinger"s would be directly below Bond"s, on the second floor, twenty yards or so above the roof of the Cabana Club - twenty yards from the card table. Bond counted down. He closely examined the frontage that should be Goldfinger"s. Nothing. An empty sun balcony. An open door into the dark interior of the suite. Bond measured distances, angles. Yes, that"s how it might be. That"s how it must be! Clever Mr Goldfinger!
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 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 K.2 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 f11, 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 view-finder. 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 brassiere.
  
   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 countersigned 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."
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 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 Hongkong. 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 Hongkong. 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 Hongkong, 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 Hongkong 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 halfway 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."
  
   Bond"s answering smile was taut. He felt the quickening of the pulse he had so often experienced in this room. M had got something for him. He said, "I was just getting into it, sir."
  
   "Quite. Have plenty of opportunity later on. Something"s come up. Odd business. Not really your line of country, except for one particular angle which" - M jerked his pipe sideways in a throwaway gesture- "may not be an angle at all."
  
   Bond sat back. He said nothing, waiting.
  
   "Had dinner with the Governor of the Bank last night. One"s always hearing something new. At least, all this was new to me. Gold - the seamy side of the stuff. Smuggling, counterfeiting, all that. Hadn"t occurred to me that the Bank of England knew so much about crooks. Suppose it"s part of the Bank"s job to protect our currency." M jerked his eyebrows up. "Know anything about gold?"
  
   "No, sir."
  
   "Well, you will by this afternoon. You"ve got an appointment with a man called Colonel Smithers at the Bank at four o"clock. That give you enough time to get some sleep?"
  
   "Yes, sir."
  
   "Good. Seems that this man Smithers is head of the Bank"s research department. From what the Governor told me, that"s nothing more or less than a spy system. First time I knew they had one. Just shows what water-tight compartments we all work in. Anyway, Smithers and his chaps keep an eye out for anything fishy in the banking world - particularly any monkeying about with our currency and bullion reserves and what not. There was that business the other day of the Italians who were counterfeiting sovereigns. Making them out of real gold. Right carats and all that. But apparently a sovereign or a French napoleon is worth much more than its melted-down value in gold. Don"t ask me why. Smithers can tell you that if you"re interested. Anyway, the Bank went after these people with a whole battery of lawyers - it wasn"t technically a criminal offence - and, after losing in the Italian courts, they finally nailed them in Switzerland. You probably read about it. Then there was that business of dollar balances in Beirut. Made quite a stir in the papers. Couldn"t understand it myself. Some crack in the fence we put round our currency. The wide City boys had found it. Well, it"s Smithers"s job to smell out that kind of racket. The reason the Governor told me all this is because for years, almost since the war apparently, Smithers has had a bee in his bonnet about some big gold leak out of England. Mostly deduction, plus some kind of instinct. Smithers admits he"s got damned little to go on, but he"s impressed the Governor enough for him to get permission from the P.M. to call us in." M broke off. He looked quizzically at Bond. "Ever wondered who are the richest men in England?"
  
   "No, sir."
  
   "Well, have a guess. Or rather, put it like this: Who are the richest Englishmen?"
  
   Bond searched his mind. There were a lot of men who sounded rich or who were made to sound rich by the newspapers. But who really had it, liquid, in the bank? He had to say something. He said hesitatingly, "Well, sir, there"s Sassoon. Then that shipping man who keeps to himself - er - Ellerman. They say Lord Cowdray is very rich. There are the bankers - Rothschilds, Barings, Hambros. There was Williamson, the diamond man. Oppenheimer in South Africa. Some of the dukes may still have a lot of money." Bond"s voice trailed away.
  
   "Not bad. Not bad at all. But you"ve missed out the joker in the pack. Man I"d never thought of until the Governor brought up his name. He"s the richest of the lot. Man called Goldfinger, Auric Goldfinger."
  
   Bond couldn"t help himself. He laughed sharply.
  
   "What"s the matter?" M"s voice was testy. "What the hell is there to laugh about?"
  
   "I"m sorry, sir." Bond got hold of himself. "The truth is, only last night I was building his face up on the Identicast." He glanced at his watch. In a strangled voice he said, "Be on its way to C.I.D. Records. Asked for a Trace on him."
  
   M was getting angry. "What the hell"s all this about? Stop behaving like a bloody schoolboy."
  
   Bond said soberly, "Well, sir, it"s like this..." Bond told the story, leaving nothing out.
  
   M"s face cleared. He listened with all his attention, leaning forward across the desk. When Bond had finished, M sat back in his chair. He said "Well, well...well" on a diminishing scale. He put his hands behind his head and gazed for minutes at the ceiling.
  
   Bond could feel the laughter coming on again. How would the C.I.D. word the resounding snub he would get in the course of the day? He was brought sharply back to earth by M"s next words. "By the way, what happened to that ten thousand dollars?"
  
   "Gave it to the girl, sir."
  
   "Really! Why not to the White Cross?"
  
   The White Cross Fund was for the families of Secret Service men and women who were killed on duty.
  
   "Sorry, sir." Bond was not prepared to argue that one.
  
   "Humpf." M had never approved of Bond"s womanizing. It was anathema to his Victorian soul. He decided to let it pass. He said, "Well, that"s all for now, 007. You"ll be hearing all about it this afternoon. Funny about Goldfinger. Odd chap. Seen him once or twice at Blades. He plays bridge there when he"s in England. He"s the chap the Bank of England"s after." M paused. He looked mildly across the table at Bond. "As from this moment, so are you."
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 6
  
  
   Talk of Gold
  
   Bond walked up the steps and through the fine bronze portals and into the spacious, softly echoing entrance hall of the Bank of England and looked around him. Under his feet glittered the brilliant golden patterns of the Boris Anrep mosaics; beyond, through twenty-foot-high arched windows, green grass and geraniums blazed in the central courtyard. To right and left were spacious vistas of polished Hopton Wood stone. Over all hung the neutral smell of air-conditioned air and the heavy, grave atmosphere of immense riches.
  
   One of the athletic-looking, pink frock-coated commissionaires came up to him. "Yes, sir?"
  
   "Colonel Smithers?"
  
   "Commander Bond, sir? This way please." The commissionaire moved off to the right between the pillars. The bronze doors of a discreetly hidden lift stood open. The lift rose a few feet to the first floor. Now there was a long panelled corridor ending in a tall Adams window. The floor was close-carpeted in beige Wilton. The commissionaire knocked at the last of several finely carved oak doors that were just so much taller and more elegant than ordinary doors. A grey-haired woman was sitting at a desk. She looked as if she had once taken a double first. The walls of the room were lined with grey metal filing cabinets. The woman had been writing on a quarto pad of yellow memorandum paper. She smiled with a hint of conspiracy, picked up a telephone and dialled a number. "Commander Bond is here." She put the telephone back and stood up. "Will you come this way?" She crossed the room to a door covered with green baize and held it open for Bond to go through.
  
   Colonel Smithers had risen from his desk. He said gravely, "Nice of you to have come. Won"t you sit down?" Bond took the chair. "Smoke?" Colonel Smithers pushed forward a silver box of Senior Service and himself sat down and began to fill a pipe. Bond took a cigarette and lit it.
  
   Colonel Smithers looked exactly like someone who would be called Colonel Smithers. He had obviously been a colonel, probably on the staff, and he had the smooth, polished, basically serious mien that fitted his name. But for his horn-rimmed glasses, he might have been an efficient, not very well-fed courtier in a royal household.
  
   Bond felt boredom gathering in the corners of the room. He said encouragingly, "It seems that you are to tell me all about gold."
  
   "So I understand. I had a note from the Governor. I gather I need keep nothing from you. Of course you understand" - Colonel Smithers looked over Bond"s right shoulder- "that most of what I shall have to say will be confidential." The eyes swept quickly across Bond"s face.
  
   Bond"s face was stony.
  
   Colonel Smithers felt the silence that Bond had intended he should feel. He looked up, saw that he had put his foot in it, and tried to make amends. "Obviously I needn"t have mentioned the point. A man with your training..."
  
   Bond said, "We all think our own secrets are the only ones that matter. You"re probably right to remind me. Other people"s secrets are never quite as important as one"s own. But you needn"t worry. I shall discuss things with my chief but with no one else."
  
   "Quite, quite. Nice of you to take it that way. In the Bank one gets into the habit of being over-discreet. Now then," Colonel Smithers scurried for cover into his subject. "This business of gold. I take it it"s not a matter you"ve thought about a great deal?"
  
   "I know it when I see it."
  
   "Aha, yes - well now, the great thing to remember about gold is that it"s the most valuable and most easily marketable commodity in the world. You can go to any town in the world, almost to any village, and hand over a piece of gold and get goods or services in exchange. Right?" Colonel Smithers"s voice had taken on a new briskness. His eyes were alight. He had his lecture pat. Bond sat back. He was prepared to listen to anyone who was master of his subject, any subject. "And the next thing to remember," Colonel Smithers held up his pipe in warning, "is that gold is virtually untraceable. Sovereigns have no serial numbers. If gold bars have Mint marks stamped on them the marks can be shaved off or the bar can be melted down and made into a new bar. That makes it almost impossible to check on the whereabouts of gold, or its origins, or its movements round the world. In England, for instance, we at the Bank can only count the gold in our own vaults, in the vaults of other banks and at the Mint, and make a rough guess at the amounts held by the jewellery trade and the pawnbroking fraternity."
  
   "Why are you so anxious to know how much gold there is in England?"
  
   "Because gold and currencies backed by gold are the foundation of our international credit. We can only tell what the true strength of the pound is, and other countries can only tell it, by knowing the amount of valuta we have behind our currency. And my main job, Mr Bond" - Colonel Smithers"s bland eyes had become unexpectedly sharp- "is to watch for any leakage of gold out of England - out of anywhere in the sterling area. And when I spot a leakage, an escape of gold towards some country where it can be exchanged more profitably than at our official buying price, it is my job to put the C.I.D. Gold Squad on to the fugitive gold and try to get it back into our vaults, plug the leak and arrest the people responsible. And the trouble is, Mr Bond" - Colonel Smithers gave a forlorn shrug of the shoulders- "that gold attracts the biggest, the most ingenious criminals. They are very hard, very hard indeed, to catch."
  
   "Isn"t all this only a temporary phase? Why should this shortage of gold go on? They seem to be digging it out of Africa fast enough. Isn"t there enough to go round? Isn"t it just like any other black market that disappears when the supplies are stepped up, like the penicillin traffic after the war?"
  
   "I"m afraid not, Mr Bond. It isn"t quite as easy as that. The population of the world is increasing at the rate of five thousand four hundred every hour of the day. A small percentage of those people become gold hoarders, people who are frightened of currencies, who like to bury some sovereigns in the garden or under the bed. Another percentage needs gold fillings for their teeth. Others need gold-rimmed spectacles, jewellery, engagement rings. All these new people will be taking tons of gold off the market every year. New industries need gold wire, gold plating, amalgams of gold. Gold has extraordinary properties which are being put to new uses every day. It is brilliant, malleable, ductile, almost unalterable and more dense than any of the common metals except platinum. There"s no end to its uses. But it has two defects. It isn"t hard enough. It wears out quickly, leaves itself on the linings of our pockets and in the sweat of our skins. Every year, the world"s stock is invisibly reduced by friction. I said that gold has two defects." Colonel Smithers looked sad. "The other and by far the major defect is that it is the talisman of fear. Fear, Mr Bond, takes gold out of circulation and hoards it against the evil day. In a period of history when every tomorrow may be the evil day, it is fair enough to say that a fat proportion of the gold that is dug out of one corner of the earth is at once buried again in another corner."
  
   Bond smiled at Colonel Smithers"s eloquence. This man lived gold, thought gold, dreamed gold. Well, it was an interesting subject. He might just as well wallow in the stuff. In the days when Bond had been after the diamond smugglers he had had first to educate himself in the fascination, the myth of the stones. He said, "What else ought I to know before we get down to your immediate problem?"
  
   "You"re not bored? Well, you were suggesting that gold production was so vast nowadays that it ought to take care of all these various consumers. Unfortunately that is not so. In fact the gold content of the world is being worked out. You may think that large areas of the world have still to be explored for gold. You would be mistaken. Broadly speaking, there only remains the land under the sea and the sea itself, which has a notable gold content. People have been scratching the surface of the world for gold for thousands of years. There were the great gold treasures of Egypt and Mycenae, Montezuma and the Incas. Croesus and Midas emptied the Middle Eastern territories of gold. Europe was worked for it - the valleys of the Rhine and the Po, Malaga and the plains of Granada. Cyprus was emptied, and the Balkans. India got the fever. Ants coming up from under the earth carrying grains of gold led the Indians to their alluvial fields. The Romans worked Wales and Devon and Cornwall. In the Middle Ages there were the finds in Mexico and Peru. These were followed by the opening up of the Gold Coast, then called Negro-land, and after that came the Americas. The famous gold rushes of the Yukon and Eldorado, and the rich strikes at Eureka sounded off the first modern Gold Age. Meanwhile, in Australia, Bendigo and Ballarat had come into production, and the Russian deposits at Lena and in the Urals were making Russia the largest gold producer in the world in the middle of the nineteenth century. Then came the second modern Gold Age - the discoveries on the Witwatersrand. These were helped by the new method of cyaniding instead of separation of the gold from the rock by mercury. Today we are in the third Gold Age with the opening up of the Orange Free State deposits." Colonel Smithers threw up his hands. "Now, gold is pouring out of the earth. Why, the whole production of the Klondike and the Homestake and Eldorado, which were once the wonder of the world, would only add up to two or three years of today"s production from Africa! Just to show you, from 1500 to 1900, when approximate figures were kept, the whole world produced about eighteen thousand tons of gold. From 1900 to today we have dug up forty-one thousand tons! At this rate, Mr Bond," Colonel Smithers leaned forward earnestly," - and please don"t quote me - but I wouldn"t be surprised if in fifty years" time we have not totally exhausted the gold content of the earth!"
  
   Bond, smothered by this cataract of gold history, found no difficulty in looking as grave as Colonel Smithers. He said, "You certainly make a fascinating story of it. Perhaps the position isn"t as bad as you think. They"re already mining oil under the sea. Perhaps they"ll find a way of mining gold. Now, about this smuggling."
  
   The telephone rang. Colonel Smithers impatiently snatched up the receiver. "Smithers speaking." He listened, irritation growing on his face. "I"m sure I sent you a note about the summer fixtures, Miss Philby. The next match is on Saturday against the Discount Houses." He listened again. "Well, if Mrs Flake won"t play goals, I"m afraid she"ll have to stand down. It"s the only position on the field we"ve got for her. Everybody can"t play centre forward. Yes, please do. Say I"ll be greatly obliged if just this once. I"m sure she"ll be very good - right figure and all that. Thank you, Miss Philby."
  
   Colonel Smithers took out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. "Sorry about that. Sports and welfare are becoming almost too much of a fetish at the Bank. I"ve just had the women"s hockey team thrown into my lap. As if I hadn"t got enough to do with the annual gymkhana coming on. However-" Colonel Smithers waved these minor irritations aside- "as you say, time to get on to the smuggling. Well, to begin with, and taking only England and the sterling area, it"s a very big business indeed. We employ three thousand staff at the Bank, Mr Bond, and of those no less than one thousand work in the exchange control department. Of those at least five hundred, including my little outfit, are engaged in controlling the illicit movements of valuta, the attempts to smuggle or to evade the Exchange Control Regulations."
  
   "That"s a lot." Bond measured it against the Secret Service which had a total force of two thousand. "Can you give me an example of smuggling? In gold. I can"t understand these dollar swindles."
  
   "All right." Colonel Smithers now talked in the soft, tired voice of an overworked man in the service of his Government. It was the voice of the specialist in a particular line of law enforcement. It said that he knew most things connected with that line and that he could make a good guess at all the rest. Bond knew the voice well, the voice of the first-class Civil Servant. Despite his prosiness, Bond was beginning to take to Colonel Smithers. "All right. Supposing you have a bar of gold in your pocket about the size of a couple of packets of Players. Weight about five and a quarter pounds. Never mind for the moment where you got it from - stole it or inherited it or something. That"ll be twenty-four carat - what we call a thousand fine. Now, the law says you have to sell that to the Bank of England at the controlled price of twelve pounds ten per ounce. That would make it worth around a thousand pounds. But you"re greedy. You"ve got a friend going to India or perhaps you"re on good terms with an airline pilot or a steward on the Far East run. All you have to do is cut your bar into thin sheets or plates - you"d soon find someone to do this for you - and sew the plates - they"d be smaller than playing cards - into a cotton belt, and pay your friend a commission to wear it. You could easily afford a hundred pounds for the job. Your friend flies off to Bombay and goes to the first bullion dealer in the bazaar. He will be given one thousand seven hundred pounds for your five-pound bar and you"re a richer man than you might have been. Mark you," Colonel Smithers waved his pipe airily, "that"s only seventy per cent profit. Just after the war you could have got three hundred per cent. If you"d done only half a dozen little operations like that every year you"d be able to retire by now."
  
   "Why the high price in India?" Bond didn"t really want to know. He thought M might ask him.
  
   "It"s a long story. Briefly, India is shorter of gold, particularly for her jewellery trade, than any other country."
  
   "What"s the size of this traffic?"
  
   "Huge. To give you an idea, the Indian Intelligence Bureau and their Customs captured forty-three thousand ounces in 1955. I doubt if that"s one per cent of the traffic. Gold"s been coming into India from all points of the compass. Latest dodge is to fly it in from Macao and drop it by parachute to a reception committee - a ton at a time - like we used to drop supplies to the Resistance during the war."
  
   "I see. Is there anywhere else I can get a good premium for my gold bar?"
  
   "You could get a small premium in most countries - Switzerland, for instance - but it wouldn"t be worth your while. India"s still the place."
  
   "All right," said Bond. "I think I"ve got the picture. Now what"s your particular problem?" He sat back and lit a cigarette. He was greatly looking forward to hearing about Mr Auric Goldfinger.
  
   Colonel Smithers"s eyes took on their hard, foxy look. He said, "There"s a man who came over to England in 1937. He was a refugee from Riga. Name of Auric Goldfinger. He was only twenty when he arrived, but he must have been a bright lad because he smelled that the Russians would be swallowing his country pretty soon. He was a jeweller and goldsmith by trade, like his father and grandfather who had refined gold for Fabergé. He had a little money and probably one of those belts of gold I was telling you about. Stole it from his father, I daresay. Well, soon after he"d been naturalized - he was a harmless sort of chap and in a useful trade and he had no difficulty in getting his papers - he started buying up small pawnbrokers all over the country. He put in his own men, paid them well and changed the name of the shops to "Goldfinger." Then he turned the shops over to selling cheap jewellery and buying old gold - you know the sort of place: "Best Prices for Old Gold. Nothing too Large, Nothing too Small," and he had his own particular slogan: "Buy Her Engagement Ring With Grannie"s Locket." Goldfinger did very well. Always chose good sites, just on the dividing line between the well-to-do streets and the lower-middle. Never touched stolen goods and got a good name everywhere with the police. He lived in London and toured his shops once a month and collected all the old gold. He wasn"t interested in the jewellery side. He let his managers run that as they liked." Colonel Smithers looked quizzically at Bond. "You may think these lockets and gold crosses and things are pretty small beer. So they are, but they mount up if you"ve got twenty little shops, each one buying perhaps half a dozen bits and pieces every week. Well, the war came and Goldfinger, like all other jewellers, had to declare his stock of gold. I looked up his figure in our old records. It was fifty ounces for the whole chain! - just enough of a working stock to keep his shops supplied with ring settings and so forth, what they call jewellers" findings in the trade. Of course, he was allowed to keep it. He tucked himself away in a machine-tool firm in Wales during the war - well out of the firing line - but kept as many of his shops operating as he could. Must have done well out of the G.I.s who generally travel with a Gold Eagle or a Mexican fifty-dollar piece as a last reserve. Then, when peace broke out, Goldfinger got moving. He bought himself a house, pretentious sort of place, at Reculver, at the mouth of the Thames. He also invested in a well-found Brixham trawler and an old Silver Ghost Rolls Royce - armoured car, built for some South American president who was killed before he could take delivery. He set up a little factory called "Thanet Alloy Research" in the grounds of his house and staffed it with a German metallurgist, a prisoner of war who didn"t want to go back to Germany, and half a dozen Korean stevedores he picked up in Liverpool. They didn"t know a word of any civilized language so they weren"t any security risk. Then, for ten years, all we know is that he made one trip a year to India in his trawler and a few trips in his car every year to Switzerland. Set up a subsidiary of his alloy company near Geneva. He kept his shops going. Gave up collecting the old gold himself - used one of his Koreans whom he had taught to drive a car. All right, perhaps Mr Goldfinger is not a very honest man, but he behaves himself and keeps in well with the police, and with much more blatant fiddling going on all over the country nobody paid him any attention."
  
   Colonel Smithers broke off. He looked apologetically at Bond. "I"m not boring you? I do want you to get the picture of the sort of man this is - quiet, careful, law-abiding and with the sort of drive and single-mindedness we all admire. We didn"t even hear of him until he suffered a slight misfortune. In the summer of 1954, his trawler, homeward bound from India, went ashore on the Goodwins and he sold the wreck for a song to the Dover Salvage Company. When this company started breaking the ship up and got as far as the hold they found the timbers impregnated with a sort of brown powder which they couldn"t put a name to. They sent a specimen to a local chemist. They were surprised when he said the stuff was gold. I won"t bother you with the formula, but you see gold can be made to dissolve in a mixture of hydrochloric and nitric acids, and reducing agents - sulphur dioxide or oxalic acid - precipitate the metal as a brown powder. This powder can be reconstituted into gold ingots by melting at around a thousand degrees Centrigade. Have to watch the chlorine gas, but otherwise it"s a simple process.
  
   "The usual nosey parker in the salvage firm gossiped to one of the Dover Customs men and in due course a report filtered up through the police and the C.I.D. to me, together with a copy of the cargo clearance papers for each of Goldfinger"s trips to India. These gave all the cargoes as mineral dust base for crop fertilizers - all perfectly credible because these modern fertilizers do use traces of various minerals in their make-up. The whole picture was clear as crystal. Goldfinger had been refining down his old gold, precipitating it into this brown powder and shipping it to India as fertilizer. But could we pin it on him? We could not. Had a quiet look at his bank balance and tax returns. Twenty thousand pounds at Barclays in Ramsgate. Income tax and super tax paid promptly each year. Figures showed the natural progress of a well-run jewellery business. We dressed a couple of the Gold Squad up and sent them down to knock on the door of Mr Goldfinger"s factory at Reculver. "Sorry, sir, routine inspection for the Small Engineering Section of the Ministry of Labour. We have to make sure the Factory Acts are being observed for safety and health." "Come in. Come in." Mr Goldfinger positively welcomed them. Mark you, he may have been tipped off by his bank manager or someone, but that factory was entirely devoted to designing a cheap alloy for jewellers" findings - trying out unusual metals like aluminium and tin instead of the usual copper and nickel and palladium that are used in gold alloys. There were traces of gold about, of course, and furnaces to heat up to two thousand degrees and so forth, but after all Goldfinger was a jeweller and a smelter in a small way, and all this was perfectly above-board. The Gold Squad retired discomfited, our legal department decided the brown dust in the trawler"s timbers was not enough to prosecute on without supporting evidence, and that was more or less that, except" - Colonel Smithers slowly wagged the stem of his pipe- "that I kept the file open and started sniffing around the banks of the world."
  
   Colonel Smithers paused. The rumble of the City came through the half-open window high up in the wall behind his chair. Bond glanced surreptitiously at his watch. Five o"clock. Colonel Smithers got up from his chair. He placed both hands palm downwards on the desk and leant forward. "It took me five years, Mr Bond, to find out that Mr Goldfinger, in ready money, is the richest man in England. In Zürich, in Nassau, in Panama, in New York, he has twenty million pounds" worth of gold bars on safe deposit. And those bars, Mr Bond, are not Mint bars. They don"t carry any official marks of origin whatsoever. They"re bars that Mr Goldfinger has melted himself. I flew to Nassau and had a look at the five million pounds" worth or so he holds there in the vaults of the Royal Bank of Canada. Oddly enough, like all artists, he couldn"t refrain from signing his handiwork. It needs a microscope to see it, but somewhere, on each Goldfinger bar, a minute letter Z has been scratched in the metal. And that gold, or most of it, belongs to England. The Bank can do nothing about it, so we are asking you to bring Mr Goldfinger to book, Mr Bond, and get that gold back. You know about the currency crisis and the high bank rate? Of course. Well, England needs that gold, badly - and the quicker the better."
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 7
  
  
   Thoughts in a D.B. III
  
   Bond followed Colonel Smithers to the lift. While they waited for it, Bond glanced out of the tall window at the end of the passage. He was looking down into the deep well of the back courtyard of the Bank. A trim chocolate-brown lorry with no owner"s name had come into the courtyard through the triple steel gates. Square cardboard boxes were being unloaded from it and put on to a short conveyor belt that disappeared into the bowels of the Bank.
  
   Colonel Smithers came over. "Fivers," he commented. "Just come up from our printing works at Loughton."
  
   The lift came and they got in. Bond said, "I"m not very impressed by the new ones. They look like any other country"s money. The old ones were the most beautiful money in the world."
  
   They walked across the entrance hall, now dimly lit and deserted. Colonel Smithers said, "As a matter of fact I agree with you. Trouble was that those Reichsbank forgeries during the war were a darn sight too good. When the Russians captured Berlin, amongst the loot they got hold of the plates. We asked the Narodni Bank for them, but they refused to give them up. We and the Treasury decided it was just too dangerous. At any moment, if Moscow had been inclined, they could have started a major raid on our currency. We had to withdraw the old fivers. The new ones aren"t much to look at, but at least they"d be hell to forge."
  
   The night guard let them out on to the steps. Threadneedle Street was almost deserted. The long City night was beginning. Bond said goodbye to Colonel Smithers and walked along to the Tube. He had never thought very much about the Bank of England, but now that he had been inside the place he decided that the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street might be old but she still had some teeth left in her head.
  
   Bond had been told to report back to M at six. He did so. M"s face was no longer pink and shining. The long day had knocked it about, stressed it, shrunken it. When Bond went in and took the chair across the desk, he noticed the conscious effort M made to clear his mind, cope with the new problem the day was to fling at him. M straightened himself in his chair and reached for his pipe. "Well?" Bond knew the false belligerence of that particular bark. He told the gist of the story in less than five minutes. When he had finished, M said thoughtfully, "Suppose we"ve got to take it on. Don"t understand a thing about the pound and bank rate and all that but everyone seems to be taking it damned seriously. Personally I should have thought the strength of the pound depended on how hard we all worked rather than how much gold we"d got. Germans didn"t have much gold after the war. Look where they"ve got in ten years. However, that"s probably too easy an answer for the politicians - or more likely too difficult. Got any ideas how to tackle this chap Goldfinger? Any way of getting closer to him, offering to do some dirty work for him or something like that?"
  
   Bond said thoughtfully, "I wouldn"t get anywhere sucking up to him, asking him for a job or something of that sort, sir. I should say he"s the sort of man who only respects people who are tougher or smarter than he is. I"ve given him one beating and the only message I got from him was that he"d like me to play golf with him. Perhaps I"d better do just that."
  
   "Fine way for one of my top men to spend his time." The sarcasm in M"s voice was weary, resigned. "All right. Go ahead. But if what you say is right, you"d better see that you beat him. What"s your cover story?"
  
   Bond shrugged. "I hadn"t thought, sir. Perhaps I"d better be thinking of leaving Universal Export. No future in it. Having a holiday while I look round. Thinking of emigrating to Canada. Fed up here. Something like that. But perhaps I"d better play it the way the cards fall. I wouldn"t think he"s an easy man to fool."
  
   "All right. Report progress. And don"t think I"m not interested in this case." M"s voice had changed. So had his expression. His eyes had become urgent, commanding. "Now I"ll give you one piece of information the Bank didn"t give you. It just happens that I also know what Mr Goldfinger"s gold bars look like. As a matter of fact I was handling one today - scratched Z and all. It had come in with that haul we made last week when the Redland Resident Director"s office "caught fire" in Tangier. You"ll have seen the signals. Well, that"s the twentieth of these particular gold bars that have come our way since the war."
  
   Bond interrupted, "But that Tangier bar was out of the Smersh safe."
  
   "Exactly. I"ve checked. All the other nineteen bars with the scratched Z have been taken from Smersh operatives." M paused. He said mildly, "D"you know, 007, I wouldn"t be at all surprised if Goldfinger doesn"t turn out to be the foreign banker, the treasurer so to speak, of Smersh."
  
   James Bond flung the D.B.III through the last mile of straight and did a racing change down into third and then into second for the short hill before the inevitable traffic crawl through Rochester. Leashed in by the velvet claw of the front discs, the engine muttered its protest with a mild back-popple from the twin exhausts. Bond went up into third again, beat the lights at the bottom of the hill and slid resignedly up to the back of the queue that would crawl on for a quarter of an hour - if he was lucky - through the sprawl of Rochester and Chatham.
  
   Bond settled back into second and let the car idle. He reached for the wide gunmetal case of Morland cigarettes on the neighbouring bucket seat, fumbled for one and lit it from the dashboard.
  
   He had chosen the A2 in preference to the A20 to Sandwich because he wanted to take a quick look at Goldfinger-land - Reculver and those melancholy forsaken reaches of the Thames which Goldfinger had chosen for his parish. He would then cross the Isle of Thanet to Ramsgate and leave his bag at the Channel Packet, have an early lunch and be off to Sandwich.
  
   The car was from the pool. Bond had been offered the Aston Martin or a Jaguar 3.4. He had taken the D.B.III. Either of the cars would have suited his cover - a well-to-do, rather adventurous young man with a taste for the good, the fast things of life. But the D.B.III had the advantage of an up-to-date triptyque, an inconspicuous colour - battleship grey - and certain extras which might or might not come in handy. These included switches to alter the type and colour of Bond"s front and rear lights if he was following or being followed at night, reinforced steel bumpers, fore and aft, in case he needed to ram, a long-barrelled Colt .45 in a trick compartment under the driver"s seat, a radio pick-up tuned to receive an apparatus called the Homer, and plenty of concealed space that would fox most Customs men.
  
   Bond saw a chance and picked up fifty yards, sliding into a ten-yard gap left by a family saloon of slow reactions. The man at the wheel, who wore that infallible badge of the bad driver, a hat clamped firmly on the exact centre of his head, hooted angrily. Bond reached out of the window and raised an enigmatically clenched fist. The hooting stopped.
  
   And now what about this theory of M"s? It made sense. The Russians were notoriously incompetent payers of their men. Their centres were always running out of funds - their men complaining to Moscow that they couldn"t afford a square meal. Perhaps Smersh couldn"t get the valuta out of the Ministry of Home Security. Or perhaps the Ministry of Home Security couldn"t get the money out of the Ministry of Finance. But it had always been the same - endless money troubles that resulted in missed chances, broken promises and waste of dangerous radio time. It would make sense to have a clever financial brain somewhere outside Russia who could not only transmit funds to the centres but also, in this case, make profits large enough to run the Smersh centres abroad without any financial assistance from Moscow. Not only that. On the side, Goldfinger was appreciably damaging the currency base of an enemy country. If all this was correct, it was typical of Smersh - a brilliant scheme, faultlessly operated by an outstanding man. And that, reflected Bond as he roared up the hill into Chatham, putting half a dozen cars behind him, would partly explain Goldfinger"s greed for more and still more money. Devotion to the cause, to Smersh, and perhaps the dangled prize of an Order of Lenin, would be the spur to pick up even ten or twenty thousand dollars when the odds were right or could be favourably adjusted. The funds for Red Revolution, for the discipline by fear that was the particular speciality of Smersh, could never be big enough. Goldfinger was not making the money for himself. He was making it for the conquest of the world! The minor risk of being found out, as he had been by Bond, was nothing. Why? What could the Bank of England get him if every single one of his past operations could be exposed? Two years? Three?
  
   The traffic was thinning through the outskirts of Gillingham. Bond started motoring again, but easily now, not hurrying, following his thoughts as the hands and feet went through their automatic responses.
  
   So, in "thirty-seven, Smersh must have sent Goldfinger out with the belt of gold round his young waist. He had shown his special aptitudes, his acquisitive bent, during his training in the spy school in Leningrad. He would have been told there would be a war, that he must dig himself in and start quietly accumulating. Goldfinger must never dirty his hands, never meet an agent, never receive or pass a message. Some routine would have been arranged. "Second-hand "39 Vauxhall. First offer of £1000 secures," "Immaculate Rover, £2000," "Bentley, £5000." Always an advertisement that would not attract attention or correspondence. The prices would be just too high, the description inadequate. In the Agony column of The Times, perhaps. And, obediently, Goldfinger would leave the two thousand pounds or the five thousand pounds gold bar at one of a long, a very long series of post-boxes that had been arranged in Moscow before he left. A particular bridge, a hollow tree, under a rock in a stream somewhere, anywhere in England. And he would never, on any account, visit that post-box again. It was up to Moscow to see that the agent got to the hidden treasure. Later, after the war, when Goldfinger was blossoming out, when he had become a big man, the post-boxes would no longer be bridges and trees. Now he would be given dates and safety deposit box numbers, left-luggage lockers at stations. But still there would be the rule that Goldfinger must never revisit the scene, never endanger himself. Perhaps he would only get his instructions once a year, at a casual meeting in some park, in a letter slipped into his pocket on a train journey. But always it would be bars of gold, anonymous, untraceable if captured - except for the tiny Z that his vanity had scratched on his handiwork and that a dull dog at the Bank of England called Colonel Smithers had happened upon in the course of his duties.
  
   Now Bond was running through the endless orchards of the Faversham growers. The sun had come out from behind the smog of London. There was the distant gleam of the Thames on his left. There was traffic on the river - long, glistening tankers, stubby merchantmen, antediluvian Dutch Schuyts. Bond left the Canterbury road and switched on to the incongruously rich highway that runs through the cheap bungaloid world of the holiday lands - Whitstable, Herne Bay, Birchington, Margate. He still idled along at fifty, holding the racing wheel on a light rein, listening to the relaxed purr of the exhausts, fitting the bits of his thoughts into the jigsaw as he had done two nights before with Goldfinger"s face on the Identicast.
  
   And, Bond reflected, while Goldfinger was pumping a million, two million pounds a year into the bloody maw of Smersh, he was pyramiding his reserves, working on them, making them work for him whenever the odds were right, piling up the surplus for the day when the trumpets would sound in the Kremlin and every golden sinew would be mobilized. And no one outside Moscow had been watching the process, no one suspected that Goldfinger - the jeweller, the metallurgist, the resident of Reculver and Nassau, the respected member of Blades, of the Royal St Marks at Sandwich - was one of the greatest conspirators of all time, that he had financed the murder of hundreds, perhaps thousands of victims of Smersh all over the world. Smersh, "Smiert Spionam," Death to Spies - the murder Apparat of the High Praesidium! And only M suspected it, only Bond knew it. And here was Bond, launched against this man by a series of flukes, a train of coincidence that had been started by a plane breaking down on the other side of the world. Bond smiled grimly to himself. How often in his profession had it been the same - the tiny acorn of coincidence that soared into the mighty oak whose branches darkened the sky. And now, once again, he was setting out to bring the dreadful growth down. With what? A bag of golf clubs?
  
   A repainted sky-blue Ford Popular with large yellow ears was scurrying along the crown of the road ahead. Mechanically Bond gave the horn ring a couple of short, polite jabs. There was no reaction. The Ford Popular was doing its forty. Why should anyone want to go more than that respectable speed? The Ford obstinately hunched its shoulders and kept on its course. Bond gave it a sharp blast, expecting it to swerve. He had to touch his brakes when it didn"t. Damn the man! Of course! The usual tense figure, hands held too high up on the wheel, and the inevitable hat, this time a particularly hideous black bowler, square on a large bullet head. Oh well, thought Bond, they weren"t his stomach ulcers. He changed down and contemptuously slammed the D.B.III past on the inside. Silly bastard!
  
   Another five miles and Bond was through the dainty teleworld of Herne Bay. The howl of Manston sounded away on his right. A flight of three Super Sabres came in to land. They skimmed below his right-hand horizon as if they were diving into the earth. With half his mind, Bond heard the roar of their jets catch up with them as they landed and taxied in to the hangars. He came up with a crossroads. To the left the signpost said RECULVER. Underneath was the ancient monument sign for Reculver church. Bond slowed, but didn"t stop. No hanging about. He motored slowly on, keeping his eyes open. The shoreline was too exposed for a trawler to do anything but beach or anchor. Probably Goldfinger had used Ramsgate. Quiet little port. Customs and police who were probably only on the look-out for brandy coming over from France. There was a thick clump of trees between the road and the shore, a glimpse of roofs and of a medium-sized factory chimney with a thin plume of light smoke or steam. That would be it. Soon there was the gate of a long drive. A discreetly authoritative sign said THANET ALLOYS, and underneath: NO ADMITTANCE EXCEPT ON BUSINESS. All very respectable. Bond drove slowly on. There was nothing more to be seen. He took the next right-hand turn across the Manston plateau to Ramsgate.
  
   It was twelve o"clock. Bond inspected his room, a double with bathroom, on the top floor of the Channel Packet, unpacked his few belongings and went down to the snack bar where he had one vodka and tonic and two rounds of excellent ham sandwiches with plenty of mustard. Then he got back into his car and drove slowly over to the Royal St Marks at Sandwich.
  
   Bond carried his clubs to the professional"s shop and through to the workroom. Alfred Blacking was winding a new grip on to a driver.
  
   "Hullo, Alfred."
  
   The professional looked up sharply. His sunburned, leathery face broke into a wide smile. "Why, if it isn"t Mr James!" They shook hands. "Must be fifteen, twenty years. What brings you down here, sir? Someone was telling me only the other day that you"re in the diplomatic or something. Always abroad. Well, I never! Still the same flat swing, sir?" Alfred Blacking joined his hands and gave a low, flat sweep.
  
   "Afraid so, Alfred. Never had time to get myself out of it. How"s Mrs Blacking and Cecil?"
  
   "Can"t complain, sir. Cecil was runner-up in the Kent Championship last year. Should win it this year if he can only get out of the shop and on to the course a bit more."
  
   Bond propped his clubs up against the wall. It was good to be back. Everything was just the same. There had been a time in his teens when he had played two rounds a day every day of the week at St Marks. Blacking had always wanted to take him in hand. "A bit of practice, Mr James, and you"d be scratch. No fooling. You really would. What do you want to hang around at six for? It"s all there except for that flat swing and wanting to hit the ball out of sight when there"s no point in it. And you"ve got the temperament. A couple of years, perhaps only one, and I"d have you in the Amateur." But something had told Bond that there wasn"t going to be a great deal of golf in his life and if he liked the game he"d better forget about lessons and just play as much of it as he could. Yes, it would be about twenty years since he had played his last round on St Marks. He"d never been back - even when there had been that bloody affair of the Moonraker at Kingsdown, ten miles down the coast. Perhaps it had been sentimentality. Since St Marks, Bond had got in a good deal of weekend golf when he was at headquarters. But always on the courses round London - Huntercombe, Swinley, Sunningdale, the Berkshire. Bond"s handicap had gone up to nine. But he was a real nine - had to be with the games he chose to play, the ten-pound Nassaus with the tough cheery men who were always so anxious to stand you a couple of double kümmels after lunch.
  
   "Any chance of a game, Alfred?"
  
   The professional glanced through his back window at the parking space round the tall flag-pole. He shook his head. "Doesn"t look too good, sir. Don"t get many players in the middle of the week at this time of year."
  
   "What about you?"
  
   "Sorry, sir. I"m booked. Playing with a member. It"s a regular thing. Every day at two o"clock. And the trouble is that Cecil"s gone over to Princes to get in some practice for the championship. What a dashed nuisance!" (Alfred never used a stronger oath.) "It would happen like that. How long are you staying, sir?"
  
   "Not long. Never mind. I"ll knock a ball round with a caddie. Who"s this chap you"re playing with?"
  
   "A Mr Goldfinger, sir." Alfred looked discouraging.
  
   "Oh, Goldfinger. I know the chap. Met him the other day in America."
  
   "You did, sir?" Alfred obviously found it difficult to believe that anyone knew Mr Goldfinger. He watched Bond"s face carefully for any further reaction.
  
   "Any good?"
  
   "So-so, sir. Pretty useful off nine."
  
   "Must take his game damned seriously if he plays with you every day."
  
   "Well, yes, sir." The professional"s face had the expression Bond remembered so well. It meant that Blacking had an unfavourable view of a particular member but that he was too good a servant of the club to pass it on.
  
   Bond smiled. He said, "You haven"t changed, Alfred. What you mean is that no one else will play with him. Remember Farquharson? Slowest player in England. I remember you going round and round with him twenty years ago. Come on. What"s the matter with Goldfinger?"
  
   The professional laughed. He said, "It"s you that hasn"t changed, Mr James. You always were dashed inquisitive." He came a step closer and lowered his voice. "The truth is, sir, some members think Mr Goldfinger is just a little bit hot. You know, sir. Improves his lie and so forth." The professional took the driver he was holding, took up a stance, gazed towards an imaginary hole and banged the head of the club up and down on the floor as if addressing an imaginary ball. "Let me see now, is this a brassie lie? What d"you think, caddie?" Alfred Blacking chuckled. "Well, of course, by the time he"s finished hammering the ground behind the ball, the ball"s been raised an inch and it is a brassie lie." Alfred Blacking"s face closed up again. He said non-committally, "But that"s only gossip, sir. I"ve never seen anything. Quiet-spoken gentleman. He"s got a place at Reculver. Used to come here a lot. But for the last few years he"s only been coming to England for a few weeks at a time. Rings up and asks if anyone"s wanting a game and when there isn"t anyone he books Cecil or me. Rang up this morning and asked if there was anyone about. There"s sometimes a stranger drops in." Alfred Blacking looked quizzically at Bond. "I suppose you wouldn"t care to take him on this afternoon? It"ll look odd you being here and short of a game. And you knowing him and all. He might think I"d been trying to keep him to myself or something. That wouldn"t do."
  
   "Nonsense, Alfred. And you"ve got your living to make. Why don"t we play a three-ball?"
  
   "He won"t play them, sir. Says they"re too slow. And I agree with him. And don"t you worry about my fee. There"s a lot of work to do in the shop and I"ll be glad of an afternoon to get down to it." Alfred Blacking glanced at his watch. "He"ll be along any minute now. I"ve got a caddie for you. Remember Hawker?" Alfred Blacking laughed indulgently. "Still the same old Hawker. He"ll be another that"ll be glad to see you down here again."
  
   Bond said, "Well thanks, Alfred. I"d be interested to see how this chap plays. But why not leave it like this? Say I"ve dropped in to get a club made up. Old member. Used to play here before the war. And I need a new number four wood anyway. Your old one has started to give at the seams a bit. Just be casual. Don"t say you"ve told me he"s about. I"ll stay in the shop so it"ll give him a chance to take his choice without offending me. Perhaps he won"t like my face or something. Right?"
  
   "Very good, Mr James. Leave it to me. That"s his car coming now, sir." Blacking pointed through the window. Half a mile away, a bright yellow car was turning off the road and coming up the private drive. "Funny looking contraption. Sort of motor car we used to see here when I was a boy."
  
   Bond watched the old Silver Ghost sweep majestically up the drive towards the club. She was a beauty! The sun glittered off the silver radiator and off the engine-turned aluminium shield below the high perpendicular glass cliff of the windscreen. The luggage rail on the roof of the heavy coach-built limousine body - so ugly twenty years ago, so strangely beautiful today - was polished brass, as were the two Lucas "King of the Road" headlamps that stared so haughtily down the road ahead, and the wide mouth of the old boa-constrictor bulb horn. The whole car, except for a black roof and black carrosserie lines and curved panels below the windows, was primrose yellow. It crossed Bond"s mind that the South American president might have had it copied from the famous yellow fleet in which Lord Lonsdale had driven to the Derby and Ascot.
  
   And now? In the driver"s seat sat a figure in a café-au-lait dust coat and cap, his big round face obscured by black-rimmed driving goggles. Beside him was a squat figure in black with a bowler hat placed firmly on the middle of his head. The two figures stared straight in front of them with a curious immobility. It was almost as if they were driving a hearse.
  
   The car was coming closer. The six pairs of eyes - the eyes of the two men and the great twin orbs of the car - seemed to be looking straight through the little window and into Bond"s eyes.
  
   Instinctively, Bond took a few paces back into the dark recesses of the workroom. He noticed the movement and smiled to himself. He picked up somebody"s putter and bent down and thoughtfully addressed a knot in the wooden floor.
  
  
  
  
  
   PART 2
  
  
   Coincidence
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 8
  
  
   All to Play For
  
   "Good afternoon, Blacking. All set?" The voice was casual, authoritative. "I see there"s a car outside. Not somebody looking for a game, I suppose?"
  
   "I"m not sure, sir. It"s an old member come back to have a club made up. Would you like me to ask him, sir?"
  
   "Who is it? What"s his name?"
  
   Bond smiled grimly. He pricked his ears. He wanted to catch every inflection.
  
   "A Mr Bond, sir."
  
   There was a pause. "Bond?" The voice had not changed. It was politely interested. "Met a fellow called Bond the other day. What"s his first name?"
  
   "James, sir."
  
   "Oh yes." Now the pause was longer. "Does he know I"m here?" Bond could sense Goldfinger"s antennae probing the situation.
  
   "He"s in the workshop, sir. May have seen your car drive up." Bond thought: Alfred"s never told a lie in his life. He"s not going to start now.
  
   "Might be an idea." Now Goldfinger"s voice unbent. He wanted something from Alfred Blacking, some information. "What sort of a game does this chap play? What"s his handicap?"
  
   "Used to be quite useful when he was a boy, sir. Haven"t seen his game since then."
  
   "Hm."
  
   Bond could feel the man weighing it all up. Bond smelled that the bait was going to be taken. He reached into his bag and pulled out his driver and started rubbing down the grip with a block of shellac. Might as well look busy. A board in the shop creaked. Bond honed away industriously, his back to the open door.
  
   "I think we"ve met before." The voice from the doorway was low, neutral.
  
   Bond looked quickly over his shoulder. "My God, you made me jump. Why-" recognition dawned- "it"s Gold, Goldman...er - Goldfinger." He hoped he wasn"t overplaying it. He said with a hint of dislike, or mistrust, "Where have you sprung from?"
  
   "I told you I played down here. Remember?" Goldfinger was looking at him shrewdly. Now the eyes opened wide. The X-ray gaze pierced through to the back of Bond"s skull.
  
   "No."
  
   "Did not Miss Masterton give you my message?"
  
   "No. What was it?"
  
   "I said I would be over here and that I would like a game of golf with you."
  
   "Oh, well," Bond"s voice was coldly polite, "we must do that some day."
  
   "I was playing with the professional. I will play with you instead." Goldfinger was stating a fact.
  
   There was no doubt that Goldfinger was hooked. Now Bond must play hard to get.
  
   "Why not some other time? I"ve come to order a club. Anyway I"m not in practice. There probably isn"t a caddie." Bond was being as rude as he could. Obviously the last thing he wanted to do was play with Goldfinger.
  
   "I also haven"t played for some time." (Bloody liar, thought Bond.) "Ordering a club will not take a moment." Goldfinger turned back into the shop. "Blacking, have you got a caddie for Mr Bond?"
  
   "Yes, sir."
  
   "Then that is arranged."
  
   Bond wearily thrust his driver back into his bag. "Well, all right then." He thought of a final way of putting Goldfinger off. He said roughly, "But I warn you I like playing for money. I can"t be bothered to knock a ball round just for the fun of it." Bond felt pleased with the character he was building up for himself.
  
   Was there a glint of triumph, quickly concealed, in Goldfinger"s pale eyes? He said indifferently, "That suits me. Anything you like. Off handicap, of course. I think you said you"re nine."
  
   "Yes."
  
   Goldfinger said carefully, "Where, may I ask?"
  
   "Huntercombe." Bond was also nine at Sunningdale. Huntercombe was an easier course. Nine at Huntercombe wouldn"t frighten Goldfinger.
  
   "And I also am nine. Here. Up on the board. So it"s a level game. Right?"
  
   Bond shrugged. "You"ll be too good for me."
  
   "I doubt it. However," Goldfinger was offhand, "tell you what I"ll do. That bit of money you removed from me in Miami. Remember? The big figure was ten. I like a gamble. It will be good for me to have to try. I will play you double or quits for that."
  
   Bond said indifferently, "That"s too much." Then, as if he thought better of it, thought he might win, he said - with just the right amount of craft mixed with reluctance- "Of course you can say that was "found money." I won"t miss it if it goes again. Oh, well, all right. Easy come easy go. Level match. Ten thousand dollars it is."
  
   Goldfinger turned away. He said, and there was a sudden sweetness in the flat voice, "That"s all arranged then, Mr Blacking. Many thanks. Put your fee down on my account. Very sorry we shall be missing our game. Now, let me pay the caddie fees."
  
   Alfred Blacking came into the workroom and picked up Bond"s clubs. He looked very directly at Bond. He said, "Remember what I told you, sir." One eye closed and opened again. "I mean about that flat swing of yours. It needs watching - all the time."
  
   Bond smiled at him. Alfred had long ears. He might not have caught the figure, but he knew that somehow this was to be a key game. "Thanks, Alfred. I won"t forget. Four Penfolds - with hearts on them. And a dozen tees. I won"t be a minute."
  
   Bond walked through the shop and out to his car. The bowler-hatted man was polishing the metal work of the Rolls with a cloth. Bond felt rather than saw him stop and watch Bond take out his zip bag and go into the club house. The man had a square flat yellow face. One of the Koreans?
  
   Bond paid his green-fee to Hampton, the steward, and went into the changing-room. It was just the same - the same tacky smell of old shoes and socks and last summer"s sweat. Why was it a tradition of the most famous golf clubs that their standard of hygiene should be that of a Victorian private school? Bond changed his socks and put on the battered old pair of nailed Saxones. He took off the coat of his yellowing black and white hound"s-tooth suit and pulled on a faded black wind-cheater. Cigarettes? Lighter? He was ready to go.
  
   Bond walked slowly out, preparing his mind for the game. On purpose he had needled this man into a high, tough match so that Goldfinger"s respect for him should be increased and Goldfinger"s view of Bond - that he was the type of ruthless, hard adventurer who might be very useful to Goldfinger - would be confirmed. Bond had thought that perhaps a hundred-pound Nassau would be the form. But ten thousand dollars! There had probably never been such a high singles game in history - except in the finals of American Championships or in the big amateur Calcutta Sweeps where it was the backers rather than the players who had the money on. Goldfinger"s private accounting must have taken a nasty dent. He wouldn"t have liked that. He would be aching to get some of his money back. When Bond had talked about playing high, Goldfinger had seen his chance. So be it. But one thing was certain, for a hundred reasons Bond could not afford to lose.
  
   He turned into the shop and picked up the balls and tees from Alfred Blacking.
  
   "Hawker"s got the clubs, sir."
  
   Bond strolled out across the five hundred yards of shaven seaside turf that led to the first tee. Goldfinger was practising on the putting green. His caddie stood near by, rolling balls to him. Goldfinger putted in the new fashion - between his legs with a mallet putter. Bond felt encouraged. He didn"t believe in the system. He knew it was no good practising himself. His old hickory Calamity Jane had its good days and its bad. There was nothing to do about it. He knew also that the St Marks practice green bore no resemblance, in speed or texture, to the greens on the course.
  
   Bond caught up with the limping, insouciant figure of his caddie who was sauntering along chipping at an imaginary ball with Bond"s blaster. "Afternoon, Hawker."
  
   "Afternoon, sir." Hawker handed Bond the blaster and threw down three used balls. His keen sardonic poacher"s face split in a wry grin of welcome. "How"ve you been keepin," sir? Played any golf in the last twenty years? Can you still put them on the roof of the starter"s hut?" This referred to the day when Bond, trying to do just that before a match, had put two balls through the starter"s window.
  
   "Let"s see." Bond took the blaster and hefted it in his hand, gauging the distance. The tap of the balls on the practice green had ceased. Bond addressed the ball, swung quickly, lifted his head and shanked the ball almost at right angles. He tried again. This time it was a dunch. A foot of turf flew up. The ball went ten yards. Bond turned to Hawker, who was looking his most sardonic. "It"s all right, Hawker. Those were for show. Now then, one for you." He stepped up to the third ball, took his club back slowly and whipped the club head through. The ball soared a hundred feet, paused elegantly, dropped eighty feet on to the thatched roof of the starter"s hut and bounced down.
  
   Bond handed back the club. Hawker"s eyes were thoughtful, amused. He said nothing. He pulled out the driver and handed it to Bond. They walked together to the first tee, talking about Hawker"s family.
  
   Goldfinger joined them, relaxed, impassive. Bond greeted Goldfinger"s caddie, an obsequious, talkative man called Foulks whom Bond had never liked. Bond glanced at Goldfinger"s clubs. They were a brand new set of American Ben Hogans with smart St Marks leather covers for the woods. The bag was one of the stitched black leather holdalls favoured by American pros. The clubs were in individual cardboard tubes for easy extraction. It was a pretentious outfit, but the best.
  
   "Toss for honour?" Goldfinger flicked a coin.
  
   "Tails."
  
   It was heads. Goldfinger took out his driver and unpeeled a new ball. He said, "Dunlop 65. Number One. Always use the same ball. What"s yours?"
  
   "Penfold. Hearts."
  
   Goldfinger looked keenly at Bond. "Strict Rules of Golf?"
  
   "Naturally."
  
   "Right." Goldfinger walked on to the tee and teed up. He took one or two careful, concentrated practice swings. It was a type of swing Bond knew well - the grooved, mechanical, repeating swing of someone who had studied the game with great care, read all the books and spent five thousand pounds on the finest pro teachers. It would be a good, scoring swing which might not collapse under pressure. Bond envied it.
  
   Goldfinger took up his stance, waggled gracefully, took his club head back in a wide slow arc and, with his eyes glued to the ball, broke his wrists correctly. He brought the club head mechanically, effortlessly, down and through the ball and into a rather artificial, copybook finish. The ball went straight and true about two hundred yards down the fairway.
  
   It was an excellent, uninspiring shot. Bond knew that Goldfinger would be capable of repeating the same swing with different clubs again and again round the eighteen holes.
  
   Bond took his place, gave himself a lowish tee, addressed the ball with careful enmity and, with a flat, racket-player"s swing in which there was just too much wrist for safety, lashed the ball away. It was a fine, attacking drive that landed past Goldfinger"s ball and rolled on fifty yards. But it had had a shade of draw and ended on the edge of the left-hand rough.
  
   They were two good drives. As Bond handed his club to Hawker and strolled off in the wake of the more impatient Goldfinger, he smelled the sweet smell of the beginning of a knock-down-and-drag-out game of golf on a beautiful day in May with the larks singing over the greatest seaside course in the world.
  
   The first hole of the Royal St Marks is four hundred and fifty yards long - four hundred and fifty yards of undulating fairway with one central bunker to trap a mis-hit second shot and a chain of bunkers guarding three-quarters of the green to trap a well-hit one. You can slip through the unguarded quarter, but the fairway slopes to the right there and you are more likely to end up with a nasty first-chip-of-the-day out of the rough. Goldfinger was well placed to try for this opening. Bond watched him take what was probably a spoon, make his two practice swings and address the ball.
  
   Many unlikely people play golf, including people who are blind, who have only one arm, or even no legs, and people often wear bizarre clothes to the game. Other golfers don"t think them odd, for there are no rules of appearance or dress at golf. That is one of its minor pleasures. But Goldfinger had made an attempt to look smart at golf and that is the only way of dressing that is incongruous on a links. Everything matched in a blaze of rust-coloured tweed from the buttoned "golfer"s cap" centred on the huge, flaming red hair, to the brilliantly polished, almost orange shoes. The plus-four suit was too well cut and the plus-fours themselves had been pressed down the sides. The stockings were of a matching heather mixture and had green garter tabs. It was as if Goldfinger had gone to his tailor and said, "Dress me for golf - you know, like they wear in Scotland." Social errors made no impression on Bond, and for the matter of that he rarely noticed them. With Goldfinger it was different. Everything about the man had grated on Bond"s teeth from the first moment he had seen him. The assertive blatancy of his clothes was just part of the malevolent animal magnetism that had affected Bond from the beginning.
  
   Goldfinger executed his mechanical, faultless swing. The ball flew true but just failed to make the slope and curled off to the right to finish pin high off the green in the short rough. Easy five. A good chip could turn it into a four, but it would have to be a good one.
  
   Bond walked over to his ball. It was lying cocked up, just off the fairway. Bond took his number four wood. Now for the "all air route" - a soaring shot that would carry the cross-bunkers and give him two putts for a four. Bond remembered the dictum of the pros: "It"s never too early to start winning." He took it easy, determined not to press for the long but comfortable carry.
  
   As soon as Bond had hit the shot he knew it wouldn"t do. The difference between a good golf shot and a bad one is the same as the difference between a beautiful and a plain woman - a matter of millimetres. In this case, the club face had gone through just that one millimetre too low under the ball. The arc of flight was high and soft - no legs. Why the hell hadn"t he taken a spoon or a two iron off that lie? The ball hit the lip of the far bunker and fell back. Now it was the blaster, and fighting for a half.
  
   Bond never worried too long about his bad or stupid shots. He put them behind him and thought of the next. He came up with the bunker, took his blaster and measured the distance to the pin. Twenty yards. The ball was lying well back. Should he splash it out with a wide stance and an outside-in swing, or should he blast it and take plenty of sand? For safety"s sake he would blast it out. Bond went down into the bunker. Head down and follow well through. The easiest shot in golf. Try and put it dead. The wish, half way down his back swing, hurried the hands in front of the club head. The loft was killed and there was the ball rolling back off the face. Get it out, you bloody fool, and hole a long putt! Now Bond took too much sand. He was out, but barely on the green. Goldfinger bent to his chip and kept his head down until the ball was half way to the hole. The ball stopped three inches from the pin. Without waiting to be given the putt, Goldfinger turned his back on Bond and walked off towards the second tee. Bond picked up his ball and took his driver from Hawker.
  
   "What does he say his handicap is, sir?"
  
   "Nine. It"s a level match. Have to do better than that though. Ought to have taken my spoon for the second."
  
   Hawker said encouragingly, "It"s early days yet, sir."
  
   Bond knew it wasn"t. It was always too early to start losing.
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 9
  
  
   The Cup and the Lip
  
   Goldfinger had already teed up. Bond walked slowly behind him, followed by Hawker. Bond stood and leant on his driver. He said, "I thought you said we would be playing the strict rules of golf. But I"ll give you that putt. That makes you one up."
  
   Goldfinger nodded curtly. He went through his practice routine and hit his usual excellent, safe drive.
  
   The second hole is a three hundred and seventy yard dog-leg to the left with deep cross-bunkers daring you to take the tiger"s line. But there was a light helping breeze. For Goldfinger it would now be a five iron for his second. Bond decided to try and make it easier for himself and only have a wedge for the green. He laid his ears back and hit the ball hard and straight for the bunkers. The breeze got under the slight draw and winged the ball on and over. The ball pitched and disappeared down into the gully just short of the green. A four. Chance of a three.
  
   Goldfinger strode off without comment. Bond lengthened his stride and caught up. "How"s the agoraphobia? Doesn"t all this wide open space bother it?"
  
   "No."
  
   Goldfinger deviated to the right. He glanced at the distant, half-hidden flag, planning his second shot. He took his five iron and hit a good, careful shot which took a bad kick short of the green and ran down into the thick grass to the left. Bond knew that territory. Goldfinger would be lucky to get down in two.
  
   Bond walked up to his ball, took the wedge and flicked the ball on to the green with plenty of stop. The ball pulled up and lay a yard past the hole. Goldfinger executed a creditable pitch but missed the twelve-foot putt. Bond had two for the hole from a yard. He didn"t wait to be given the hole but walked up and putted. The ball stopped an inch short. Goldfinger walked off the green. Bond knocked the ball in. All square.
  
   The third is a blind two hundred and forty yards, all carry, a difficult three. Bond chose his brassie and hit a good one. It would be on or near the green. Goldfinger"s routine drive was well hit but would probably not have enough steam to carry the last of the rough and trickle down into the saucer of the green. Sure enough, Goldfinger"s ball was on top of the protecting mound of rough. He had a nasty, cuppy lie, with a tuft just behind the ball. Goldfinger stood and looked at the lie. He seemed to make up his mind. He stepped past his ball to take a club from the caddie. His left foot came down just behind the ball, flattening the tuft. Goldfinger could now take his putter. He did so and trickled the ball down the bank towards the hole. It stopped three feet short.
  
   Bond frowned. The only remedy against a cheat at golf is not to play with him again. But that was no good in this match. Bond had no intention of playing with the man again. And it was no good starting a you-did-I-didn"t argument unless he caught Goldfinger doing something even more outrageous. Bond would just have to try and beat him, cheating and all.
  
   Now Bond"s twenty-foot putt was no joke. There was no question of going for the hole. He would have to concentrate on laying it dead. As usual, when one plays to go dead, the ball stopped short - a good yard short. Bond took a lot of trouble about the putt and holed it, sweating. He knocked Goldfinger"s ball away. He would go on giving Goldfinger missable putts until suddenly Bond would ask him to hole one. Then that one might look just a bit more difficult.
  
   Still all square. The fourth is four hundred and sixty yards. You drive over one of the tallest and deepest bunkers in the United Kingdom and then have a long second shot across an undulating hilly fairway to a plateau green guarded by a final steep slope which makes it easier to take three putts than two.
  
   Bond picked up his usual fifty yards on the drive and Goldfinger hit two of his respectable shots to the gully below the green. Bond, determined to get up, took a brassie instead of a spoon and went over the green and almost up against the boundary fence. From there he was glad to get down in three for a half.
  
   The fifth was again a long carry, followed by Bond"s favourite second shot on the course - over bunkers and through a valley between high sand-dunes to a distant, taunting flag. It is a testing hole for which the first essential is a well-placed drive. Bond stood on the tee, perched high up in the sand-hills, and paused before the shot while he gazed at the glittering distant sea and at the faraway crescent of white cliffs beyond Pegwell Bay. Then he took up his stance and visualized the tennis court of turf that was his target. He took the club back as slowly as he knew how and started down for the last terrific acceleration before the club head met the ball. There was a dull clang on his right. It was too late to stop. Desperately Bond focused the ball and tried to keep his swing all in one piece. There came the ugly clonk of a mis-hit ball. Bond"s head shot up. It was a lofted hook. Would it have the legs? Get on! Get on! The ball hit the top of a mountain of rough and bounced over. Would it reach the beginning of the fairway?
  
   Bond turned towards Goldfinger and the caddies, his eyes fierce. Goldfinger was straightening up. He met Bond"s eyes indifferently. "Sorry. Dropped my driver."
  
   "Don"t do it again," said Bond curtly. He stood down off the tee and handed his driver to Hawker. Hawker shook his head sympathetically. Bond took out a cigarette and lit it. Goldfinger hit his drive the dead straight regulation two hundred yards.
  
   They walked down the hill in a silence which Goldfinger unexpectedly broke. "What is the firm you work for?"
  
   "Universal Export."
  
   "And where do they hang out?"
  
   "London. Regent"s Park."
  
   "What do they export?"
  
   Bond woke up from his angry ruminations. Here, pay attention! This is work, not a game. All right, he put you off your drive, but you"ve got your cover to think about. Don"t let him needle you into making mistakes about it. Build up your story. Bond said casually, "Oh everything from sewing-machines to tanks."
  
   "What"s your speciality?"
  
   Bond could feel Goldfinger"s eyes on him. He said, "I look after the small arms side. Spend most of my time selling miscellaneous ironmongery to sheiks and rajahs - anyone the Foreign Office decides doesn"t want the stuff to shoot at us with."
  
   "Interesting work." Goldfinger"s voice was flat, bored.
  
   "Not very. I"m thinking of quitting. Came down here for a week"s holiday to think it out. Not much future in England. Rather like the idea of Canada."
  
   "Indeed?"
  
   They were past the rough and Bond was relieved to find that his ball had got a forward kick off the hill on to the fairway. The fairway curved slightly to the left and Bond had even managed to pick up a few feet on Goldfinger. It was Goldfinger to play. Goldfinger took out his spoon. He wasn"t going for the green but only to get over the bunkers and through the valley.
  
   Bond waited for the usual safe shot. He looked at his own lie. Yes, he could take his brassie. There came the wooden thud of a mis-hit. Goldfinger"s ball, hit off the heel, sped along the ground and into the stony wastes of Hell Bunker - the widest bunker and the only unkempt one, because of the pebbles, on the course.
  
   For once Homer had nodded - or rather, lifted his head. Perhaps his mind had been half on what Bond had told him. Good show! But Goldfinger might still get down in three more. Bond took out his brassie. He couldn"t afford to play safe. He addressed the ball, seeing in his mind"s eye its eighty-eight-millimetre trajectory through the valley and then the two or three bounces that would take it on to the green. He laid off a bit to the right to allow for his draw. Now!
  
   There came a soft clinking away to his right. Bond stood away from his ball. Goldfinger had his back to Bond. He was gazing out to sea, rapt in its contemplation, while his right hand played "unconsciously" with the money in his pocket.
  
   Bond smiled grimly. He said, "Could you stop shifting bullion till after my shot?"
  
   Goldfinger didn"t turn round or answer. The noise stopped.
  
   Bond turned back to his shot, desperately trying to clear his mind again. Now the brassie was too much of a risk. It needed too good a shot. He handed it to Hawker and took his spoon and banged the ball safely through the valley. It ran on well and stopped on the apron. A five, perhaps a four.
  
   Goldfinger got well out of the bunker and put his chip dead. Bond putted too hard and missed the one back. Still all square.
  
   The sixth, appropriately called "The Virgin," is a famous short hole in the world of golf. A narrow green, almost ringed with bunkers, it can need anything from an eight to a two iron according to the wind. Today, for Bond, it was a seven. He played a soaring shot, laid off to the right for the wind to bring it in. It ended twenty feet beyond the pin with a difficult putt over and down a shoulder. Should be a three. Goldfinger took his five and played it straight. The breeze took it and it rolled into the deep bunker on the left. Good news! That would be the hell of a difficult three.
  
   They walked in silence to the green. Bond glanced into the bunker. Goldfinger"s ball was in a deep heel-mark. Bond walked over to his ball and listened to the larks. This was going to put him one up. He looked for Hawker to take his putter, but Hawker was the other side of the green, watching with intent concentration Goldfinger play his shot. Goldfinger got down into the bunker with his blaster. He jumped up to get a view of the hole and then settled himself for the shot. As his club went up Bond"s heart lifted. He was going to try and flick it out - a hopeless technique from that buried lie. The only hope would have been to explode it. Down came the club, smoothly, without hurry. With hardly a handful of sand the ball curved up out of the deep bunker, bounced once and lay dead!
  
   Bond swallowed. Blast his eyes! How the hell had Goldfinger managed that? Now, out of sour grapes, Bond must try for his two. He went for it, missed the hole by an inch and rolled a good yard past. Hell and damnation! Bond walked slowly up to the putt, knocking Goldfinger"s ball away. Come on, you bloody fool! But the spectre of the big swing - from an almost certain one up to a possible one down - made Bond wish the ball into the hole instead of tapping it in. The coaxed ball, lacking decision, slid past the lip. One down!
  
   Now Bond was angry with himself. He, and he alone, had lost that hole. He had taken three putts from twenty feet. He really must pull himself together and get going.
  
   At the seventh, five hundred yards, they both hit good drives and Goldfinger"s immaculate second lay fifty yards short of the green. Bond took his brassie. Now for the equalizer! But he hit from the top, his club head came down too far ahead of the hands and the smothered ball shot into one of the right-hand bunkers. Not a good lie, but he must put it on the green. Bond took a dangerous seven and failed to get it out. Goldfinger got his five. Two down. They halved the short eighth in three. At the ninth, Bond, determined to turn only one down, again tried to do too much off a poor lie. Goldfinger got his four to Bond"s five. Three down at the turn! Not too good. Bond asked Hawker for a new ball. Hawker unwrapped it slowly, waiting for Goldfinger to walk over the hillock to the next tee. Hawker said softly, "You saw what he did at The Virgin, sir?"
  
   "Yes, damn him. It was an amazing shot."
  
   Hawker was surprised. "Oh, you didn"t see what he did in the bunker, sir?"
  
   "No, what? I was too far away."
  
   The other two were out of sight over the rise. Hawker silently walked down into one of the bunkers guarding the ninth green, kicked a hole with his toe and dropped the ball in the hole. He then stood just behind the half-buried ball with his feet close together. He looked up at Bond. "Remember he jumped up to look at the line to the hole, sir?"
  
   "Yes."
  
   "Just watch this, sir." Hawker looked towards the ninth pin and jumped, just as Goldfinger had done, as if to get the line. Then he looked up at Bond again and pointed to the ball at his feet. The heavy impact of the two feet just behind the ball had levelled the hole in which it had lain and had squeezed the ball out so that it was now perfectly teed for an easy shot - for just the easy cut-up shot which had seemed utterly impossible from Goldfinger"s lie at The Virgin.
  
   Bond looked at his caddie for a moment in silence. Then he said, "Thanks, Hawker. Give me the bat and the ball. Somebody"s going to be second in this match, and I"m damned if it"s going to be me."
  
   "Yes, sir," said Hawker stolidly. He limped off on the short cut that would take him half way down the tenth fairway.
  
   Bond sauntered slowly over the rise and down to the tenth tee. He hardly looked at Goldfinger who was standing on the tee swishing his driver impatiently. Bond was clearing his mind of everything but cold, offensive resolve. For the first time since the first tee, he felt supremely confident. All he needed was a sign from heaven and his game would catch fire.
  
   The tenth at the Royal St Marks is the most dangerous hole on the course. The second shot, to the skiddy plateau green with cavernous bunkers to right and left and a steep hill beyond, has broken many hearts. Bond remembered that Philip Scrutton, out in four under fours in the Gold Bowl, had taken a fourteen at this hole, seven of them ping-pong shots from one bunker to another, to and fro across the green. Bond knew that Goldfinger would play his second to the apron, or short of it, and be glad to get a five. Bond must go for it and get his four.
  
   Two good drives and, sure enough, Goldfinger well up on the apron with his second. A possible four. Bond took his seven, laid off plenty for the breeze and fired the ball off into the sky. At first he thought he had laid off too much, but then the ball began to float to the left. It pitched and stopped dead in the soft sand blown on to the green from the right-hand bunker. A nasty fifteen-foot putt. Bond would now be glad to get a half. Sure enough, Goldfinger putted up to within a yard. That, thought Bond as he squared up to his putt, he will have to hole. He hit his own putt fairly smartly to get it through the powdering of sand and was horrified to see it going like lightning across the skiddy green. God, he was going to have not a yard, but a two-yard putt back! But suddenly, as if drawn by a magnet, the ball swerved straight for the hole, hit the back of the tin, bounced up and fell into the cup with an audible rattle. The sign from heaven! Bond went up to Hawker, winked at him and took his driver.
  
   They left the caddies and walked down the slope and back to the next tee. Goldfinger said coldly, "That putt ought to have run off the green."
  
   Bond said off-handedly, "Always give the hole a chance!" He teed up his ball and hit his best drive of the day down the breeze. Wedge and one putt? Goldfinger hit his regulation shot and they walked off again. Bond said, "By the way, what happened to that nice Miss Masterton?"
  
   Goldfinger looked straight in front of him. "She left my employ."
  
   Bond thought, good for her! He said, "Oh, I must get in touch with her again. Where did she go to?"
  
   "I couldn"t say." Goldfinger walked away from Bond towards his ball. Bond"s drive was out of sight, over the ridge that bisected the fairway. It wouldn"t be more than fifty yards from the pin. Bond thought he knew what would be in Goldfinger"s mind, what is in most golfers" minds when they smell the first scent of a good lead melting away. Bond wouldn"t be surprised to see that grooved swing quicken a trifle. It did. Goldfinger hooked into a bunker on the left of the green.
  
   Now was the moment when it would be the end of the game if Bond made a mistake, let his man off the hook. He had a slightly downhill lie, otherwise an easy chip - but to the trickiest green on the course. Bond played it like a man. The ball ended six feet from the pin. Goldfinger played well out of his bunker, but missed the longish putt. Now Bond was only one down.
  
   They halved the dog-leg twelfth in inglorious fives and the longish thirteenth also in fives, Goldfinger having to hole a good putt to do so.
  
   Now a tiny cleft of concentration had appeared on Goldfinger"s massive, unlined forehead. He took a drink of water from the tap beside the fourteenth tee. Bond waited for him. He didn"t want a sharp clang from that tin cup when it was out-of-bounds over the fence to the right and the drive into the breeze favouring a slice! Bond brought his left hand over to increase his draw and slowed down his swing. The drive, well to the left, was only just adequate, but at least it had stayed in bounds. Goldfinger, apparently unmoved by the out-of-bounds hazard, hit his standard shot. They both negotiated the transverse canal without damage and it was another half in five. Still one down and now only four to play.
  
   The four hundred and sixty yards fifteenth is perhaps the only hole where the long hitter may hope to gain one clear shot. Two smashing woods will just get you over the line of bunkers that lie right up against the green. Goldfinger had to play short of them with his second. He could hardly improve on a five and it was up to Bond to hit a really godlike second shot from a barely adequate drive.
  
   The sun was on its way down and the shadows of the four men were beginning to lengthen. Bond had taken up his stance. It was a good lie. He had kept his driver. There was dead silence as he gave his two incisive waggles. This was going to be a vital stroke. Remember to pause at the top of the swing, come down slow and whip the club head through at the last second. Bond began to take the club back. Something moved at the corner of his right eye. From nowhere the shadow of Goldfinger"s huge head approached the ball on the ground, engulfed it and moved on. Bond let his swing take itself to pieces in sections. Then he stood away from his ball and looked up. Goldfinger"s feet were still moving. He was looking carefully up at the sky.
  
   "Shades please, Goldfinger." Bond"s voice was furiously controlled.
  
   Goldfinger stopped and looked slowly at Bond. The eyebrows were raised a fraction in inquiry. He moved back and stood still, saying nothing.
  
   Bond went back to his ball. Now then, relax! To hell with Goldfinger. Slam that ball on to the green. Just stand still and hit it. There was a moment when the world stood still, then...then somehow Bond did hit it - on a low trajectory that mounted gracefully to carry the distant surf of the bunkers. The ball hit the bank below the green, bounced high with the impact and rolled out of sight into the saucer round the pin.
  
   Hawker came up and took the driver out of Bond"s hand. They walked on together. Hawker said seriously, "That"s one of the finest shots I"ve seen in thirty years." He lowered his voice. "I thought he"d fixed you then, sir."
  
   "He damned nearly did, Hawker. It was Alfred Blacking that hit that ball, not me." Bond took out his cigarettes, gave one to Hawker and lit his own. He said quietly, "All square and three to play. We"ve got to watch those next three holes. Know what I mean?"
  
   "Don"t you worry, sir. I"ll keep my eye on him."
  
   They came up with the green. Goldfinger had pitched on and had a long putt for a four, but Bond"s ball was only two inches away from the hole. Goldfinger picked up his ball and walked off the green. They halved the short sixteenth in good threes. Now there were the two long holes home. Fours would win them. Bond hit a fine drive down the centre. Goldfinger pushed his far out to the right into deep rough. Bond walked along trying not to be too jubilant, trying not to count his chickens. A win for him at this hole and he would only need a half at the eighteenth for the match. He prayed that Goldfinger"s ball would be unplayable or, better still, lost.
  
   Hawker had gone on ahead. He had already laid down his bag and was busily - far too busily to Bond"s way of thinking - searching for Goldfinger"s ball when they came up.
  
   It was bad stuff - jungle country, deep thick luxuriant grass whose roots still held last night"s dew. Unless they were very lucky, they couldn"t hope to find the ball. After a few minutes" search Goldfinger and his caddie drifted away still wider to where the rough thinned out into isolated tufts. That"s good, thought Bond. That wasn"t anything like the line. Suddenly he trod on something. Hell and damnation. Should he stamp it in? He shrugged his shoulders, bent down and gently uncovered the ball so as not to improve the lie. Yes it was a Dunlop 65. "Here you are," he called grudgingly. "Oh no, sorry. You play with a Number One, don"t you?"
  
   "Yes," came back Goldfinger"s voice impatiently.
  
   "Well, this is a Number Seven." Bond picked it up and walked over to Goldfinger.
  
   Goldfinger gave the ball a cursory glance. He said, "Not mine," and went on poking among the tufts with the head of his driver.
  
   It was a good ball, unmarked and almost new. Bond put it in his pocket and went back to his search. He glanced at his watch. The statutory five minutes was almost up. Another half-minute and by God he was going to claim the hole. Strict rules of golf, Goldfinger had stipulated. All right my friend, you shall have them!
  
   Goldfinger was casting back towards Bond, diligently prodding and shuffling through the grass.
  
   Bond said, "Nearly time, I"m afraid."
  
   Goldfinger grunted. He started to say something when there came a cry from his caddie, "Here you are, sir. Number One Dunlop."
  
   Bond followed Goldfinger over to where the caddie stood on a small plateau of higher ground. He was pointing down. Bond bent and inspected the ball. Yes, an almost new Dunlop One and in an astonishingly good lie. It was miraculous - more than miraculous. Bond stared hard from Goldfinger to his caddie. "Must have had the hell of a lucky kick," he said mildly.
  
   The caddie shrugged his shoulders. Goldfinger"s eyes were calm, untroubled. "So it would seem." He turned to his caddie. "I think we can get a spoon to that one, Foulks."
  
   Bond walked thoughtfully away and then turned to watch the shot. It was one of Goldfinger"s best. It soared over a far shoulder of rough towards the green. Might just have caught the bunker on the right.
  
   Bond walked on to where Hawker, a long blade of grass dangling from his wry lips, was standing on the fairway watching the shot finish. Bond smiled bitterly at him. He said in a controlled voice, "Is my good friend in the bunker, or is the bastard on the green?"
  
   "Green, sir," said Hawker unemotionally.
  
   Bond went up to his ball. Now things had got tough again. Once more he was fighting for a half after having a certain win in his pocket. He glanced towards the pin, gauging the distance. This was a tricky one. He said, "Five or six?"
  
   "The six should do it, sir. Nice firm shot." Hawker handed him the club.
  
   Now then, clear your mind. Keep it slow and deliberate. It"s an easy shot. Just punch it so that it"s got plenty of zip to get up the bank and on to the green. Stand still and head down. Click! The ball, hit with a slightly closed face, went off on just the medium trajectory Bond had wanted. It pitched below the bank. It was perfect! No, damn it. It had hit the bank with its second bounce, stopped dead, hesitated and then rolled back and down again. Hell"s bells! Was it Hagen who had said, "You drive for show, but you putt for dough"? Getting dead from below that bank was one of the most difficult putts on the course. Bond reached for his cigarettes and lit one, already preparing his mind for the next crucial shot to save the hole - so long as that bastard Goldfinger didn"t hole his from thirty feet!
  
   Hawker walked along by his side. Bond said, "Miracle finding that ball."
  
   "It wasn"t his ball, sir." Hawker was stating a fact.
  
   "What do you mean?" Bond"s voice was tense.
  
   "Money passed, sir. White, probably a fiver. Foulks must have dropped that ball down his trouser leg."
  
   "Hawker!" Bond stopped in his tracks. He looked round. Goldfinger and his caddie were fifty yards away, walking slowly towards the green. Bond said fiercely, "Do you swear to that? How can you be sure?"
  
   Hawker gave a half-ashamed, lop-sided grin. But there was a crafty belligerence in his eye. "Because his ball was lying under my bag of clubs, sir." When he saw Bond"s open-mouthed expression he added apologetically, "Sorry, sir. Had to do it after what he"s been doing to you. Wouldn"t have mentioned it, but I had to let you know he"s fixed you again."
  
   Bond had to laugh. He said admiringly, "Well, you are a card, Hawker. So you were going to win the match for me all on your own!" He added bitterly, "But, by God, that man"s the flaming limit. I"ve got to get him. I"ve simply got to. Now let"s think!" They walked slowly on.
  
   Bond"s left hand was in his trousers pocket, absent-mindedly fingering the ball he had picked up in the rough. Suddenly the message went to his brain. Got it! He came close to Hawker. He glanced across at the others. Goldfinger had stopped. His back was to Bond and he was taking the putter out of his bag. Bond nudged Hawker. "Here, take this." He slipped the ball into the gnarled hand. Bond said softly, urgently, "Be certain you take the flag. When you pick up the balls from the green, whichever way the hole has gone, give Goldfinger this one. Right?"
  
   Hawker walked stolidly forward. His face was expressionless. "Got it, sir," he said in his normal voice. "Will you take the putter for this one?"
  
   "Yes." Bond walked up to his ball. "Give me a line, would you?"
  
   Hawker walked up on to the green. He stood sideways to the line of the putt and then stalked round to behind the flag and crouched. He got up. "Inch outside the right lip, sir. Firm putt. Flag, sir?"
  
   "No. Leave it in, would you."
  
   Hawker stood away. Goldfinger was standing by his ball on the right of the green. His caddie had stopped at the bottom of the slope. Bond bent to the putt. Come on, Calamity Jane! This one has got to go dead or I"ll put you across my knee. Stand still. Club head straight back on the line and follow through towards the hole. Give it a chance. Now! The ball, hit firmly in the middle of the club, had run up the bank and was on its way to the hole. But too hard, damn it! Hit the stick! Obediently the ball curved in, rapped the stick hard and bounced back three inches - dead as a doornail!
  
   Bond let out a deep sigh and picked up his discarded cigarette. He looked over at Goldfinger. Now then, you bastard. Sweat that one out. And by God if you hole it! But Goldfinger couldn"t afford to try. He stopped two feet short. "All right, all right," said Bond generously. "All square and one to go." It was vital that Hawker should pick up the balls. If he had made Goldfinger hole the short putt it would have been Goldfinger who would have picked the ball out of the hole. Anyway, Bond didn"t want Goldfinger to miss that putt. That wasn"t part of the plan.
  
   Hawker bent down and picked up the balls. He rolled one towards Bond and handed the other to Goldfinger. They walked off the green, Goldfinger leading as usual. Bond noticed Hawker"s hand go to his pocket. Now, so long as Goldfinger didn"t notice anything on the tee!
  
   But, with all square and one to go, you don"t scrutinize your ball. Your motions are more or less automatic. You are thinking of how to place your drive, of whether to go for the green with the second or play to the apron, of the strength of the wind - of the vital figure four that must somehow be achieved to win or at least to halve.
  
   Considering that Bond could hardly wait for Goldfinger to follow him and hit, just once, that treacherous Dunlop Number Seven that looked so very like a Number One, Bond"s own drive down the four hundred and fifty yard eighteenth was praiseworthy. If he wanted to, he could now reach the green - if he wanted to!
  
   Now Goldfinger was on the tee. Now he had bent down. The ball was on the peg, its lying face turned up at him. But Goldfinger had straightened, had stood back, was taking his two deliberate practice swings. He stepped up to the ball, cautiously, deliberately. Stood over it, waggled, focusing the ball minutely. Surely he would see! Surely he would stop and bend down at the last minute to inspect the ball! Would the waggle never end? But now the club head was going back, coming down, the left knee bent correctly in towards the ball, the left arm straight as a ramrod. Crack! The ball sailed off, a beautiful drive, as good as Goldfinger had hit, straight down the fairway.
  
   Bond"s heart sang. Got you, you bastard! Got you! Blithely Bond stepped down from the tee and strolled off down the fairway planning the next steps which could now be as eccentric, as fiendish as he wished. Goldfinger was beaten already - hoist with his own petard! Now to roast him, slowly, exquisitely.
  
   Bond had no compunction. Goldfinger had cheated him twice and got away with it. But for his cheats at the Virgin and the seventeenth, not to mention his improved lie at the third and the various times he had tried to put Bond off, Goldfinger would have been beaten by now. If it needed one cheat by Bond to rectify the score-sheet that was only poetic justice. And besides, there was more to this than a game of golf. It was Bond"s duty to win. By his reading of Goldfinger he had to win. If he was beaten, the score between the two men would have been equalized. If he won the match, as he now had, he would be two up on Goldfinger - an intolerable state of affairs, Bond guessed, to a man who saw himself as all powerful. This man Bond, Goldfinger would say to himself, has something. He has qualities I can use. He is a tough adventurer with plenty of tricks up his sleeve. This is the sort of man I need for - for what? Bond didn"t know. Perhaps there would be nothing for him. Perhaps his reading of Goldfinger was wrong, but there was certainly no other way of creeping up on the man.
  
   Goldfinger cautiously took out his spoon for the longish second over cross-bunkers to the narrow entrance to the green. He made one more practice swing than usual and then hit exactly the right, controlled shot up to the apron. A certain five, probably a four. Much good would it do him!
  
   Bond, after a great show of taking pains, brought his hands down well ahead of the club and smothered his number three iron so that the topped ball barely scrambled over the cross-bunkers. He then wedged the ball on to the green twenty feet past the pin. He was where he wanted to be - enough of a threat to make Goldfinger savour the sweet smell of victory, enough to make Goldfinger really sweat to get his four.
  
   And now Goldfinger really was sweating. There was a savage grin of concentration and greed as he bent to the long putt up the bank and down to the hole. Not too hard, not too soft. Bond could read every anxious thought that would be running through the man"s mind. Goldfinger straightened up again, walked deliberately across the green to behind the flag to verify his line. He walked slowly back beside his line, brushing away - carefully, with the back of his hand - a wisp or two of grass, a speck of top-dressing. He bent again and made one or two practice swings and then stood to the putt, the veins standing out on his temples, the cleft of concentration deep between his eyes.
  
   Goldfinger hit the putt and followed through on the line. It was a beautiful putt that stopped six inches past the pin. Now Goldfinger would be sure that unless Bond sank his difficult twenty-footer, the match was his!
  
   Bond went through a long rigmarole of sizing up his putt. He took his time, letting the suspense gather like a thunder cloud round the long shadows on the livid, fateful green.
  
   "Flag out, please. I"m going to sink this one." Bond charged the words with a deadly certitude, while debating whether to miss the hole to the right or the left or leave it short. He bent to the putt and missed the hole well on the right.
  
   "Missed it, by God!" Bond put bitterness and rage into his voice. He walked over to the hole and picked up the two balls, keeping them in full view.
  
   Goldfinger came up. His face was glistening with triumph. "Well, thanks for the game. Seems I was just too good for you after all."
  
   "You"re a good nine handicap," said Bond with just sufficient sourness. He glanced at the balls in his hand to pick out Goldfinger"s and hand it to him. He gave a start of surprise. "Hullo!" He looked sharply at Goldfinger. "You play a Number One Dunlop, don"t you?"
  
   "Yes, of course." A sixth sense of disaster wiped the triumph off Goldfinger"s face. "What is it? What"s the matter?"
  
   "Well," said Bond apologetically. ""Fraid you"ve been playing with the wrong ball. Here"s my Penfold Hearts and this is a Number Seven Dunlop." He handed both balls to Goldfinger. Goldfinger tore them off his palm and examined them feverishly.
  
   Slowly the colour flooded over Goldfinger"s face. He stood, his mouth working, looking from the balls to Bond and back to the balls.
  
   Bond said softly, "Too bad we were playing to the rules. Afraid that means you lose the hole. And, of course, the match." Bond"s eyes observed Goldfinger impassively.
  
   "But, but..."
  
   This was what Bond had been looking forward to - the cup dashed from the lips. He stood and waited, saying nothing.
  
   Rage suddenly burst Goldfinger"s usually relaxed face like a bomb. "It was a Dunlop Seven you found in the rough. It was your caddie that gave me this ball. On the seventeenth green. He gave me the wrong ball on purpose, the damned che-"
  
   "Here, steady on," said Bond mildly. "You"ll get a slander action on your hands if you aren"t careful. Hawker, did you give Mr Goldfinger the wrong ball by mistake or anything?"
  
   "No, sir." Hawker"s face was stolid. He said indifferently, "If you want my opinion, sir, the mistake may have been made at the seventeenth when the gentleman found his ball pretty far off the line we"d all marked it on. A Seven looks very much like a One. I"d say that"s what happened, sir. It would have been a miracle for the gentleman"s ball to have ended up as wide as where it was found."
  
   "Tommy rot!" Goldfinger gave a snort of disgust. He turned angrily on Bond. "You saw that was a Number One my caddie found."
  
   Bond shook his head doubtfully. "I didn"t really look closely, I"m afraid. However," Bond"s voice became brisk, businesslike, "it"s really the job of the player to make certain he"s using the right ball, isn"t it? I can"t see that anyone else can be blamed if you tee the wrong ball up and play three shots with it. Anyway," he started walking off the green, "many thanks for the match. We must have it again one day."
  
   Goldfinger, lit with glory by the setting sun, but with a long black shadow tied to his heels, followed Bond slowly, his eyes fixed thoughtfully on Bond"s back.
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 10
  
  
   Up at the Grange
  
   There are some rich men who use their riches like a club. Bond, luxuriating in his bath, thought that Goldfinger was one of them. He was the kind of man who thought he could flatten the world with his money, bludgeoning aside annoyances and opposition with his heavy wad. He had thought to break Bond"s nerve by playing him for ten thousand dollars - a flea-bite to him but obviously a small fortune to Bond. In most circumstances he might have succeeded. It needs an iron nerve to "wait for it" on your swing, to keep your head down on the short putts, when big money hangs on every shot, over eighteen long holes. The pros, playing for their own bread and butter and for their families," know the cold breath of the poor-house on the back of their necks as they come to the eighteenth tee all square. That is why they lead careful lives, not smoking or drinking, and why the one that wins is usually the one with the least imagination.
  
   But, in Bond"s case, Goldfinger could not have known that high tension was Bond"s natural way of life and that pressure and danger relaxed him. And he could not have known that Bond wanted to play Goldfinger for the highest possible stakes and that he would have the funds of the Secret Service behind him if he lost. Goldfinger, so used to manipulating others, had been blind to the manipulation for once being practised upon himself.
  
   Or had he been? Thoughtfully Bond got out of the bath and dried himself. That powerful dynamo inside the big round head would be humming at this very moment, wondering about Bond, knowing he had been out-cheated, asking itself how it came about that twice Bond had appeared out of the blue and twice queered his pitch. Had Bond played his cards right? Had he made himself appear an interesting challenge, or would Goldfinger"s sensitive nose smell a threat? In the latter case there would be no follow-up by Goldfinger and Bond would have to bow out of the case and leave it to M to devise a new approach. How soon would he know if the big fish was hooked? This one would take plenty of time sniffing the bait. It would be good to have just one small bite to tell him he had chosen the right lure.
  
   There was a knock on the door of his bedroom. Bond wrapped the towel round him and walked through. He opened the door. It was the hall porter. "Yes?"
  
   "Telephone message from a Mr Goldfinger, sir. His compliments and would you care to come to his house for dinner tonight. It"s The Grange over at Reculver, sir. Six-thirty for drinks beforehand and not to bother to dress."
  
   "Please thank Mr Goldfinger and say I shall be delighted." Bond shut the door and walked across to the open window and stood looking out across the quiet evening sea. "Well, well! Talk of the devil!" Bond smiled to himself, "And then go and sup with him! What was that about a long spoon?"
  
   At six o"clock Bond went down to the bar and had a large vodka and tonic with a slice of lemon peel. The bar was empty save for a group of American Air Force officers from Manston. They were drinking whisky and water and talking baseball. Bond wondered if they had spent the day toting a hydrogen bomb round the skies over Kent, over the four little dots in the dunes that had been his match with Goldfinger. He thought wryly, Not too much of that whisky, cousins, paid for his drink, and left.
  
   He motored slowly over to Reculver, savouring the evening and the drink inside him and the quiet bubble of the twin exhausts. This was going to be an interesting dinner-party. Now was the moment to sell himself to Goldfinger. If he put a foot wrong he was out, and the pitch would have been badly queered for his successor. He was unarmed - it would be fatal for Goldfinger to smell that kind of rat. He felt a moment"s qualm. But that was going too fast. No state of war had been declared - the opposite if anything. When they had parted at the golf club, Goldfinger had been cordial in a rather forced, oily fashion. He had inquired where he should send Bond"s winnings and Bond had given him the address of Universal Export. He had asked where Bond was staying and Bond had told him and added that he would only be at Ramsgate a few days while he made up his mind about his future. Goldfinger hoped that they would one day have a return match but, alas, he was leaving for France tomorrow and wasn"t certain when he would be back. Flying? Yes, taking the Air Ferry from Lydd. Well, thanks for the match. And thank you, Mr Bond. The eyes had given Bond one last X-ray treatment, as if fixing him for a last time in Goldfinger"s filing system, and then the big yellow car had sighed away.
  
   Bond had had a good look at the chauffeur. He was a chunky flat-faced Japanese, or more probably Korean, with a wild, almost mad glare in dramatically slanting eyes that belonged in a Japanese film rather than in a Rolls Royce on a sunny afternoon in Kent. He had the snout-like upper lip that sometimes goes with a cleft palate, but he said nothing and Bond had no opportunity of knowing whether his guess was right. In his tight, almost bursting black suit and farcical bowler hat he looked rather like a Japanese wrestler on his day off. But he was not a figure to make one smile. If one had been inclined to smile, a touch of the sinister, the unexplained, in the tight shining patent-leather black shoes that were almost dancing pumps, and in the heavy black leather driving gloves, would have changed one"s mind. There was something vaguely familiar to Bond in the man"s silhouette. It was when the car drove away and Bond had a glimpse of the head from the rear that he remembered. Those were the head and shoulders and bowler hat of the driver of the sky-blue Ford Popular that had so obstinately hugged the crown of the Herne Bay road at about twelve o"clock that morning. Where had he been coming from? What errand had he been on? Bond remembered something Colonel Smithers had said. Could this have been the Korean who now travelled the country collecting the old gold from the chain of Goldfinger jewellery shops? Had the boot of the innocent, scurrying little saloon been stuffed with the week"s takings of presentation watches, signet rings, lockets, gold crosses? As he watched the high, primrose-yellow silhouette of the Silver Ghost disappearing towards Sandwich, Bond thought the answer was yes.
  
   Bond turned off the main road into the drive and followed it down between high Victorian evergreens to the gravel sweep in front of just the sort of house that would be called The Grange - a heavy, ugly, turn-of-the-century mansion with a glass-enclosed portico and sun parlour whose smell of trapped sunshine, rubber plants and dead flies came to Bond in his imagination before he had switched off the engine. Bond got slowly out of the car and stood looking at the house. Its blank, well-washed eyes stared back at him. The house had a background noise, a heavy rhythmic pant like a huge animal with a rather quick pulse. Bond assumed it came from the factory whose plumed chimney reared up like a giant cautionary finger from the high conifers to the right where the stabling and garages would normally be. The quiet watchful façade of the house seemed to be waiting for Bond to do something, make some offensive move to which there would be a quick reply. Bond shrugged his shoulders to lighten his thoughts and went up the steps to the opaque glass-panelled door and pressed the bell. There was no noise of it ringing, but the door slowly opened. The Korean chauffeur still had his bowler hat on. He looked without interest at Bond. He stood motionless, his left hand on the inside doorknob and his outstretched right pointing like a signpost into the dark hall of the house.
  
   Bond walked past him, vanquishing a desire either to stamp on his neat black feet or hit him very hard indeed in the centre of his tightly buttoned black stomach. This Korean matched up with what he had always heard about Koreans, and anyway Bond wanted to do something violent to the heavy, electric atmosphere of the house.
  
   The gloomy hall was also the main living-room. A meagre fire flickered behind the fire-irons in the wide hearth and two club chairs and a Knole sofa stood impassively watching the flames. Between them on a low settee was a well-stocked drink tray. The wide spaces surrounding this spark of life were crowded with massive Rothschildian pieces of furniture of the Second Empire, and ormolu, tortoiseshell, brass and mother-of-pearl winked back richly at the small fire. Behind this orderly museum, dark panelling ran up to a first-floor gallery which was reached by a heavy curved stairway to the left of the hall. The ceiling was laced with the sombre wood-carving of the period.
  
   Bond was standing taking all this in when the Korean came silently up. He flung out his signpost of an arm towards the drink tray and the chairs. Bond nodded and stayed where he was. The Korean walked past him and disappeared through a door into what Bond assumed were the servants" quarters. The silence, helped by the slow iron tick of a massively decorated grandfather clock, gathered and crept nearer.
  
   Bond walked over and stood with his back to the poor fire. He stared offensively back at the room. What a dump! What a bloody awful deathly place to live in. How did one, could one, live in this rich heavy morgue amongst the conifers and evergreens when a hundred yards away there was light and air and wide horizons? Bond took out a cigarette and lit it. What did Goldfinger do for enjoyment, for fun, for sex? Perhaps he didn"t need these things. Perhaps the pursuit of gold slaked all his thirsts.
  
   Somewhere in the distance a telephone rang. The bell shrilled twice and stopped. There was the murmur of a voice, then steps echoed down a passage and a door under the stairway opened. Goldfinger came through and quietly closed the door behind him. He was wearing a plum-coloured velvet dinner jacket. He came slowly across the polished wood floor. He didn"t hold out his hand. He said, smiling with his mouth, "It was kind of you to come at such short notice, Mr Bond. You were alone and so was I and it occurred to me that we might discuss the price of corn."
  
   It was the sort of remark that rich men make to each other. Bond was amused at being made a temporary member of the club. He said, "I was delighted to get the invitation. I was already bored with worrying over my problems. Ramsgate hasn"t much to offer."
  
   "No. And now I have an apology to make. I have had a telephone call. One of my staff - I employ Koreans, by the way - has had some minor trouble with the Margate police and I must go over and straighten it out. Some incident at the fun fair, I understand. These people get easily over-excited. My chauffeur will drive me and we should not be more than half an hour. Meanwhile I fear I must leave you to your own devices. Please help yourself to drinks. There are magazines to read. Will you forgive me? Not more than half an hour I assure you."
  
   "That"s quite all right." Bond felt there was something fishy in this. He couldn"t put his finger on what it was.
  
   "Well then, au revoir." Goldfinger went to the front door. "But I must give you some light. It"s really very dark in here." Goldfinger brushed his hand down a wall-plate of switches and suddenly lights blazed all over the hall - from standard lamps, wall brackets, and four clusters in the ceiling. Now the room was as bright as a film studio. It was an extraordinary transformation. Bond, half dazzled, watched Goldfinger open the front door and stride out. In a minute he heard the sound of a car, but not the Rolls, rev up noisily, change gear and go off fast down the drive.
  
   On an instinct, Bond walked over to the front door and opened it. The drive was empty. In the distance he saw the lights of the car turn left-handed on the main road and make off in the direction of Margate. He turned back into the house and closed the door. He stood still, listening. The silence, except for the heavy clock-tick, was complete. He walked across to the service door and opened it. A long dark passage disappeared towards the back of the house. Bond bent forward, all his senses alert. Silence, dead silence. Bond shut the door and looked thoughtfully round the brilliantly lit hall. He had been left alone in Goldfinger"s house, alone with its secrets. Why?
  
   Bond walked over to the drink tray and poured himself a strong gin and tonic. There certainly had been a telephone call, but it could easily have been an arranged call from the factory. The story of the servant was plausible and it was reasonable that Goldfinger should go himself to bail the man out and take his chauffeur with him. Goldfinger had twice mentioned that Bond would be alone for half an hour during which he "would be left to his own devices." This could be innocent, or it could be an invitation for Bond to show his hand, commit some indiscretion. Was somebody watching him? How many of these Koreans were there and what were they doing? Bond glanced at his watch. Five minutes had gone. He made up his mind. Trap or no trap, this was too good a chance to miss. He would have a quick look round - but an innocent one, with some sort of a cover story to explain why he had left the hall. Where should he begin? A look at the factory. His story? That his car had given trouble on the way over - choked petrol feed probably - and that he had gone to see if there was a mechanic who could give him a hand. Flimsy, but it would do. Bond downed his drink and went purposefully to the service door and walked through.
  
   There was a light switch. He turned on the light and walked swiftly down a long passage. It ended with a blank wall and two doors to right and left. He listened for an instant at the left-hand one and heard muffled kitchen noises. He opened the right-hand door and found himself in the paved garage yard he might have expected. The only odd thing about it was that it was brilliantly lit by arc lights. The long wall of the factory occupied the far side and now the rhythmic engine thump was very loud. There was a plain wooden door low down in the wall opposite. Bond walked across the yard to it, looking around him with casual interest. The door was unlocked. He opened it with discretion and walked through, leaving the door ajar. He found himself in a small empty office lit by one naked bulb hanging from the ceiling. There was a desk with papers on it, a time-clock, a couple of filing cabinets and a telephone. Another door led from the office into the main factory space and there was a window beside the door for keeping an eye on the workmen. It would be the foreman"s office. Bond walked to the window and looked through.
  
   Bond didn"t know what he had expected, but there seemed to be the usual accoutrements of a small metal-working business. Facing him were the open mouths of two blast furnaces, their fires now drawn. Beside these stood a row of kilns for the molten metal, of which sheets of different sizes and colours stood against the wall near by. There was the polished steel table of a circular saw, a diamond saw presumably, for cutting the sheets, and to the left in the shadows a big oil engine connected to a generator pounded away making power. To the right, under arc lights, a group of five men in overalls, four of them Koreans, were at work on - of all things - Goldfinger"s Rolls Royce. It stood there gleaming under the lights, immaculate save for the right-hand door which had been taken off its hinges and now lay across two near-by benches minus its door panel. As Bond watched, two men picked up the new door panel, a heavy, discoloured sheet of aluminium-coloured metal, and placed it on the door frame. There were two hand riveters on the floor and soon, Bond thought, the men would rivet the panel into place and paint it to match the rest of the car. All perfectly innocent and above-board. Goldfinger had dented the panel that afternoon and had had a quick repair job done in preparation for his trip tomorrow. Bond gave a quick, sour look round, withdrew from the window and went out by the factory door and closed it softly behind him. Nothing there, damn it. And now what was his story? That he had not wanted to disturb the men at their work - perhaps after dinner, if one of them had a moment.
  
   Bond walked unhurriedly back the way he had come and regained the hall without misadventure.
  
   Bond looked at his watch. Ten minutes to go. Now for the first floor. The secrets of a house are in the bedrooms and bathrooms. Those are the private places where the medicine cabinets, the dressing-table, the bedside drawers, reveal the intimate things, the frailties. Bond had a bad headache. He had gone to look for an aspirin. He acted the part for an invisible audience, massaged his temples, glanced up at the gallery, walked decisively across the floor and climbed the stairs. The gallery gave on to a brightly lit passage. Bond walked down it opening the doors and glancing in. But they were spare bedrooms, the beds not made up. They held a smell of must and shut windows. A large ginger cat appeared from nowhere and followed him, mewing and rubbing itself against his trouser legs. The end room was the one. Bond went in and closed the door to a crack.
  
   All the lights were on. Perhaps one of the servants was in the bathroom. Bond walked boldly across to the communicating door and opened it. More lights, but no one. It was a big bathroom, probably a spare room converted into a bathroom and, in addition to the bath and lavatory, it held various fitness machines - a rowing machine, a fixed bicycle wheel, Indian clubs and a Ralli Health Belt. The medicine cabinet contained nothing except a great variety of purges - senna pods, cascara, Calsalettes, Enos and various apparatus for the same purpose. There were no other drugs and no aspirin. Bond went back into the bedroom and again drew a blank. It was a typical man"s room, comfortable, lived in, with plenty of fitted cupboards. It even smelled neutral. There was a small bookcase beside the bed in which all the books were history or biography, all in English. The drawer of the bedside table yielded a solitary indiscretion, a yellow-backed copy of The Hidden Sight of Love, Palladium Publications, Paris.
  
   Bond glanced at his watch. Five more minutes. It was time to go. He took a last look round the room and moved to the door. Suddenly he stopped. What was it he had noticed almost subconsciously ever since he had come into the room? He sharpened his senses. There was an incongruity somewhere. What was it? A colour? An object? A smell? A sound? That was it! From where he stood he could hear the faintest, mosquito-shrill whine. It was almost extra-sensory in its pitch. Where did it come from? What was making it? Now there was something else in the room, something that Bond knew all too well, the smell of danger.
  
   Tensely Bond stepped closer to the fitted cupboard beside the door, softly opened it. Yes, it came from inside the cupboard, from behind a range of sports coats that reached down to the top of three banks of drawers. Sharply Bond swept the coats aside. His jaws clenched at what was behind them.
  
   From three slots near the top of the cupboard, sixteen-millimetre film was inching down in three separate strips into a deep bin behind the false front of the drawers. The bin was almost half full of the slimy snakes of the stuff. Bond"s eyes narrowed tensely as he watched the damning evidence coil slowly down on to the pile. So that was it - cine-cameras, three of them, their lenses concealed God knows where - in the hall, in the garage courtyard, in this room - had been watching his every move from the moment Goldfinger had left the house, switching on the cameras, and, of course, the dazzling lights, as he went out of the door. Why hadn"t Bond seen the significance of those lights? Why hadn"t he had the elementary imagination to see the trap as well as smell it? Cover stories, indeed! What use were they now when he had spent half an hour snooping round and finding nothing for his pains? That too! He had discovered nothing - unearthed no secret. It had all been an idiotic waste of time. And now Goldfinger had him. Now he was finished, hopelessly blown. Was there any way of saving something from the wreckage? Bond stood riveted, staring at the slow cataracts of film. Let"s see now! Bond"s mind raced, thinking of ways out, excuses, discarding them all. Well, at least by opening the cupboard door he had exposed some of the film. Then why not expose it all? Why not, but how? How could the open cupboard door be explained except by his doing? There came a miaow from the open slit of the bedroom door. The cat! Why shouldn"t the cat have done it? Pretty thin, but at least it was the shadow of an alibi. Bond opened the door. He picked the cat up in his arms. He went back with it to the cupboard, stroking it brusquely. It purred. Bond leant over the bin of film, picking it up in handfuls so that it would all get the light. Then, when he was satisfied that it must be ruined, he tossed it back and dropped the cat in on top of it. The cat would not be able to get out easily. With any luck it would settle down and go to sleep. Bond left the cupboard door three inches ajar to spoil the continuing film and the bedroom door the same amount and ran down the passage. At the top of the stairs he slowed and sauntered down. The empty hall yawned at his play-acting. He walked across to the fireplace, dashed more drink into his glass and picked up The Field. He turned to the golf commentary by Bernard Darwin, ran his eye down it to see what it was about, and then settled into one of the club chairs and lit a cigarette.
  
   What had he found out? What was there on the plus side? Precious little except that Goldfinger suffered from constipation and a dirty mind and that he had wanted to put Bond through an elementary test. He had certainly done it expertly. This was no amateur. The technique was fully up to Smersh standards, and it was surely the technique of somebody with a very great deal to hide. And now what would happen? For the cat alibi to stand up, Goldfinger would have to have left two doors, one of them vital, ajar, and the cat had got into the room and been intrigued by the whine of the cameras. Most unlikely, almost incredible. Goldfinger would be ninety per cent certain it was Bond - but only ninety. There would still be that ten per cent of uncertainty. Would Goldfinger have learnt much more than he knew before - that Bond was a tricky, resourceful customer and that Bond had been inquisitive, might be a thief? He would guess Bond had been to the bedroom, but Bond"s other movements, for whatever they were worth, would remain a secret on the exposed film.
  
   Bond got up and took a handful of other magazines and threw them down beside his chair. The only thing for him to do was brazen it out and make a note for the future, if there was to be a future, that he had better wake his ideas up and not make any more mistakes. There wouldn"t be enough ginger cats in the world to help him out of one more tight spot like the one he was in.
  
   There had been no noise of a car coming down the drive, not a sound from the door, but Bond felt the evening breeze on his neck and he knew that Goldfinger had come back into the room.
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 11
  
  
   The Odd-Job Man
  
   Bond threw down The Field and stood up. The front door closed noisily. Bond turned. "Hullo." His face registered polite surprise. "Didn"t hear you arrive. How did it go?"
  
   Goldfinger"s expression was equally bland. They might have been old friends, neighbours in the country who were accustomed to drop in on each other for a drink. "Oh, it sorted itself out. My chap had had a row in a pub with some American Air Force men who had called him a bloody Jap. I explained to the police that Koreans don"t like being called Japs. They let him off with a caution. Terribly sorry to have been so long. Hope you weren"t bored. Do have another drink."
  
   "Thanks. But it"s hardly seemed five minutes since you left. Been reading what Darwin has to say about the fourteen club rule. Interesting point of view..." Bond launched into a detailed review of the article, adding his own comments on the rule.
  
   Goldfinger stood patiently until it was over. He said, "Yes, it"s a complicated business. Of course you play rather a different game from me, more workmanlike. With my kind of swing, I find I need all the clubs I"m allowed. Well, I"ll just go up and wash and then we"ll have dinner. Shan"t be a moment."
  
   Bond busied himself noisily with pouring another drink, sat down and picked up Country Life. He watched Goldfinger climb the stairs and disappear down the corridor. He could visualize every step. He found he was reading the periodical upside down. He turned it round and stared blindly at a fine photograph of Blenheim Palace.
  
   There was dead silence upstairs. Then a distant lavatory chain was pulled and a door clicked shut. Bond reached for his drink, took a deep swallow and put the glass down beside his chair. Goldfinger was coming down the stairs. Bond turned the pages of Country Life and flicked ash off his cigarette into the grate.
  
   Now Goldfinger was crossing the floor towards him. Bond lowered his paper and looked up. Goldfinger was carrying the ginger cat tucked carelessly under one arm. He reached the fireplace, bent forward and pressed the bell.
  
   He turned towards Bond. "Do you like cats?" His gaze was flat, incurious.
  
   "Sufficiently."
  
   The service door opened. The chauffeur stood in the frame. He still wore his bowler hat and his shiny black gloves. He gazed impassively at Goldfinger. Goldfinger crooked a finger. The chauffeur approached and stood within the circle by the fire.
  
   Goldfinger turned to Bond. He said conversationally, "This is my handy man." He smiled thinly. "That is something of a joke. Oddjob, show Mr Bond your hands." He smiled again at Bond. "I call him Oddjob because that describes his functions on my staff."
  
   The Korean slowly pulled off his gloves and came and stood at arm"s length from Bond and held out his hands palm upwards. Bond got up and looked at them. They were big and fat with muscle. The fingers all seemed to be the same length. They were very blunt at the tips and the tips glinted as if they were made of yellow bone.
  
   "Turn them over and show Mr Bond the sides."
  
   There were no finger-nails. Instead there was this same, yellowish carapace. The man turned the hands sideways. Down each edge of the hands was a hard ridge of the same bony substance.
  
   Bond raised his eyebrows at Goldfinger.
  
   Goldfinger said, "We will have a demonstration." He pointed at the thick oak banisters that ran up the stairs. The rail was a massive six inches by four thick. The Korean obediently walked over to the stairs and climbed a few steps. He stood with his hands at his sides, gazing across at Goldfinger like a good retriever. Goldfinger gave a quick nod. Impassively the Korean lifted his right hand high and straight above his head and brought the side of it down like an axe across the heavy polished rail. There was a splintering crash and the rail sagged, broken through the centre. Again the hand went up and flashed down. This time it swept right through the rail leaving a jagged gap. Splinters clattered down on to the floor of the hall. The Korean straightened himself and stood to attention, waiting for further orders. There was no flush of effort in his face and no hint of pride in his achievement.
  
   Goldfinger beckoned. The man came back across the floor. Goldfinger said, "His feet are the same, the outside edges of them. Oddjob, the mantelpiece." Goldfinger pointed at the heavy shelf of carved wood above the fireplace. It was about seven feet off the ground - six inches higher than the top of the Korean"s bowler hat.
  
   "Garch a har?"
  
   "Yes, take off your coat and hat." Goldfinger turned to Bond. "Poor chap"s got a cleft palate. I shouldn"t think there are many people who understand him beside me."
  
   Bond reflected how useful that would be, a slave who could only communicate with the world through his interpreter - better even than the deaf mutes of the harems, more tightly bound to his master, more secure.
  
   Oddjob had taken off his coat and hat and placed them neatly on the floor. Now he rolled his trouser legs up to the knee and stood back in the wide well-planted stance of the judo expert. He looked as if a charging elephant wouldn"t put him off balance.
  
   "Better stand back, Mr Bond." The teeth glittered in the wide mouth. "This blow snaps a man"s neck like a daffodil." Goldfinger drew aside the low settee with the drink tray. Now the Korean had a clear run. But he was only three long steps away. How could he possibly reach the high mantelpiece?
  
   Bond watched, fascinated. Now the slanting eyes in the flat yellow mask were glinting with a fierce intentness. Faced by such a man, thought Bond, one could only go down on one"s knees and wait for death.
  
   Goldfinger lifted his hand. The bunched toes in the polished soft leather shoes seemed to grip the ground. The Korean took one long crouching stride with knees well bent and then whirled off the ground. In mid-air his feet slapped together like a ballet dancer"s, but higher than a ballet dancer"s have ever reached, and then the body bent sideways and downwards and the right foot shot out like a piston. There came a crashing thud. Gracefully the body settled back down on the hands, now splayed on the floor, the elbows bent to take the weight and then straightened sharply to throw the man up and back on his feet.
  
   Oddjob stood to attention. This time there was a gleam of triumph in his flat eyes as he looked at the three-inch jagged bite the edge of his foot had taken out of the mantelpiece.
  
   Bond looked at the man in deep awe. And only two nights ago he, Bond, had been working on his manual of unarmed combat! There was nothing, absolutely nothing, in all his reading, all his experience, to approach what he had just witnessed. This was not a man of flesh and blood. This was a living club, perhaps the most dangerous animal on the face of the earth. Bond had to do it, had to give homage to this uniquely dreadful person. He held out his hand.
  
   "Softly, Oddjob." Goldfinger"s voice was the crack of a whip.
  
   The Korean bowed his head and took Bond"s hand in his. He kept his fingers straight and merely bent his thumb in a light clasp. It was like holding a piece of board. He released Bond"s hand and went to his neat pile of clothes.
  
   "Forgive me, Mr Bond, and I appreciate your gesture." Goldfinger"s face showed his approval. "But Oddjob doesn"t know his own strength - particularly when he is keyed up. And those hands are like machine-tools. He could have crushed your hand to pulp without meaning to. Now then," Oddjob had dressed and was standing respectfully at attention, "you did well, Oddjob. I"m glad to see you are in training. Here-" Goldfinger took the cat from under his arm and tossed it to the Korean who caught it eagerly- "I am tired of seeing this animal around. You may have it for dinner." The Korean"s eyes gleamed. "And tell them in the kitchen that we will have our own dinner at once."
  
   The Korean inclined his head sharply and turned away.
  
   Bond hid his disgust. He realized that all this exhibition was simply a message to him, a warning, a light rap on the knuckles. It said, "You see my power, Mr Bond. I could easily have killed you or maimed you. Oddjob was giving an exhibition and you got in the way. I would certainly be innocent, and Oddjob would get off with a light sentence. Instead, the cat will be punished in your place. Bad luck on the cat, of course."
  
   Bond said casually, "Why does the man always wear that bowler hat?"
  
   "Oddjob!" The Korean had reached the service door. "The hat." Goldfinger pointed at a panel in the woodwork near the fireplace.
  
   Still holding the cat under his left arm, Oddjob turned and walked stolidly back towards them. When he was half way across the floor, and without pausing or taking aim, he reached up to his hat, took it by the rim and flung it sideways with all his force. There was a loud clang. For an instant the rim of the bowler hat stuck an inch deep in the panel Goldfinger had indicated, then it fell and clattered on the floor.
  
   Goldfinger smiled politely at Bond. "A light but very strong alloy, Mr Bond. I fear that will have damaged the felt covering, but Oddjob will put on another. He"s surprisingly quick with a needle and thread. As you can imagine, that blow would have smashed a man"s skull or half severed his neck. A homely and a most ingeniously concealed weapon, I"m sure you"ll agree."
  
   "Yes, indeed." Bond smiled with equal politeness. "Useful chap to have around."
  
   Oddjob had picked up his hat and disappeared. There came the boom of a gong. "Ah, dinner! Shall we go in?" Goldfinger led the way to a door concealed in the panelling to the right of the fireplace. He pressed a hidden latch and they walked through.
  
   The small dining-room matched the heavy wealth of the hall. It was brilliantly lit from a central chandelier and by candles on a round table that glittered with silver and glass. They sat down opposite each other. Two yellow-faced servants in white mess-jackets brought dishes from a loaded serving-table. The first course was some curried mess with rice. Goldfinger noticed Bond"s hesitation. He gave a dry chuckle. "It"s all right, Mr Bond. Shrimp, not the cat."
  
   "Ah." Bond"s expression was non-committal.
  
   "Please try the Hock. I hope it will be to your taste. It is a Piesporter Goldtröpfchen "53. Help yourself. These people are as likely to pour it into your plate as your glass."
  
   There was a slim bottle in an ice bucket in front of Bond. He poured some of the wine and tasted it. It was nectar and ice cold. Bond congratulated his host. Goldfinger gave a curt nod.
  
   "I don"t myself drink or smoke, Mr Bond. Smoking I find the most ridiculous of all the varieties of human behaviour and practically the only one that is entirely against nature. Can you imagine a cow or any animal taking a mouthful of smouldering straw then breathing in the smoke and blowing it out through its nostrils? Pah!" Goldfinger showed a rare trace of emotion. "It is a vile practice. As for drinking, I am something of a chemist and I have yet to find a liquor that is free from traces of a number of poisons, some of them deadly, such as fusel oil, acetic acid, ethylacetate, acetaldehyde and furfurol. A quantity of some of these poisons taken neat would kill you. In the small amounts you find in a bottle of liquor they produce various ill effects most of which are lightly written off as "a hangover."" Goldfinger paused with a forkful of curried shrimp half way to his mouth. "Since you are a drinker, Mr Bond, I will give you one word of good advice. Never drink so-called Napoleon brandy, particularly when it is described as "aged in the wood." That particular potion contains more of the poisons I have mentioned than any other liquor I have analysed. Old bourbon comes next." Goldfinger closed his animadversions with a mouthful of shrimp.
  
   "Thank you. I"ll remember. Perhaps for those reasons I have recently taken to vodka. They tell me its filtration through activated charcoal is a help." Bond, dredging this piece of expertise out of dim recollections of something he had read, was rather proud of having been able to return Goldfinger"s powerful serve.
  
   Goldfinger glanced at him sharply. "You seem to understand something of these matters. Have you studied chemistry?"
  
   "Only dabbled in it." It was time to move on. "I was very impressed by that chauffeur of yours. Where did he learn that fantastic combat stuff? Where did it come from? Is that what the Koreans use?"
  
   Goldfinger patted his mouth with his napkin. He snapped his fingers. The two men cleared away the plates and brought roast duckling and a bottle of Mouton Rothschild 1947 for Bond. When they had withdrawn into immobility at each end of the serving-table, Goldfinger said, "Have you ever heard of Karate? No? Well that man is one of the three in the world who have achieved the Black Belt in Karate. Karate is a branch of judo, but it is to judo what a Spandau is to a catapult."
  
   "I could see that."
  
   "The demonstration was an elementary one. Mr Bond-" Goldfinger held up the drumstick he had been gnawing- "I can tell you that if Oddjob had used the appropriate single blow on any one of seven spots on your body, you would now be dead." Goldfinger bit at the side of the drumstick with relish.
  
   Bond said seriously, "That"s interesting. I only know five ways of killing Oddjob with one blow."
  
   Goldfinger seemed not to hear the comment. He put down his drumstick and took a deep draught of water. He sat back and spoke while Bond went on eating the excellent food. "Karate, Mr Bond, is based on the theory that the human body possesses five striking surfaces and thirty-seven vulnerable spots - vulnerable, that is, to an expert in Karate whose finger-tips, the side of the hands and the feet are hardened into layers of corn, which is far stronger and more flexible than bone. Every day of his life, Mr Bond, Oddjob spends one hour hitting either sacks of unpolished rice or a strong post whose top is wound many times round with thick rope. He then spends another hour at physical training which is more that of a ballet school than of a gymnasium."
  
   "When does he practise tossing the bowler hat?" Bond had no intention of succumbing to this psychological warfare.
  
   Goldfinger frowned at the interruption. "I have never inquired," he said without humour. "But I think you can take it that Oddjob keeps his eye in at all his skills. However, you were asking where Karate originated. It originated in China where wandering Buddhist priests became an easy prey for footpads and bandits. Their religion did not allow them to carry weapons, so they developed their own form of unarmed combat. The inhabitants of Okinawa refined the art to its present form when the Japanese forbade them to carry weapons. They developed the five striking surfaces of the human body - the fist, the edge of the hand, the finger-tips, the ball of the foot and the elbows - and toughened them until they were enveloped in layers of corn. There is no follow-through in a Karate blow. The entire body is stiffened at the moment of impact, with the emphasis on the hips, and then instantly relaxed so that balance is never lost. It is astonishing what Oddjob can do. I have seen him hit a brick wall with his entire force and not hurt his hand. He can split three half-inch thick boards, piled one upon the other, with one blow of his hand. You have seen what he can do with his foot."
  
   Bond took a deep draught of the delicious claret. "All this must be rather hard on your furniture."
  
   Goldfinger shrugged. "I have no more use for this house. I thought a demonstration would amuse you. I hope you agree that Oddjob earned his cat." The X-ray eyes blazed briefly across the table.
  
   "Does he train on cats?"
  
   "He regards them as a great delicacy. He acquired the taste during a famine in his country when he was young."
  
   Bond thought it was time to delve rather more deeply. "Why do you need such a man? He can"t be very good company."
  
   "Mr Bond-" Goldfinger snapped his fingers for the two servants- "it happens that I am a rich man, a very rich man, and the richer the man the more he needs protection. The ordinary bodyguard or detective is usually a retired policeman. Such men are valueless. Their reactions are slow, their methods old-fashioned, and they are open to bribery. Moreover, they have a respect for human life. That is no good if I wish to stay alive. The Koreans have no such feelings. That is why the Japanese employed them as guards for their prison camps during the war. They are the cruellest, most ruthless people in the world. My own staff are hand picked for these qualities. They have served me well. I have no complaints. Nor have they. They are well paid and well fed and housed. When they want women, street women are brought down from London, well remunerated for their services and sent back. The women are not much to look at, but they are white and that is all the Koreans ask - to submit the white race to the grossest indignities. There are sometimes accidents but-" the pale eyes gazed blankly down the table- "money is an effective winding-sheet."
  
   Bond smiled.
  
   "You like the aphorism? It is my own."
  
   An excellent cheese soufflé came and was followed by coffee. They ate in silence, both apparently comfortable and relaxed by these confidences. Bond certainly was. Goldfinger, obviously by design, was letting his hair down - not far, not farther than his shoulders, but he was showing Bond one of his private faces, presumably the one to which he thought Bond would respond - the ruthlessly efficient, cold-blooded tycoon. Perhaps, after all, Bond"s spying in the house, which Goldfinger must at least presume, had revealed something about Bond that Goldfinger was pleased to know - that Bond had a crooked side to him, that he wasn"t "a gentleman" in more than appearance. Now there should be more probing and then, with luck, the proposition would follow.
  
   Bond sat back and lit a cigarette. He said, "That"s a beautiful car you"ve got. Must be about the last of the series. About 1925, wasn"t it - two blocks of three cylinders with two plugs for each cylinder, one set fired from the mag. and the other from the coil?"
  
   "You are correct. But in other respects I have had to introduce some modifications. I have added five leaves to the springs and fitted disc brakes to the rear wheels to increase the braking power. The Servo-operated front-wheel brakes were not sufficient."
  
   "Oh. Why not? The top speed wouldn"t be more than fifty. The body can"t be all that heavy."
  
   Goldfinger raised his eyebrows. "You think not? One ton of armour plating and armour-plated glass make a big difference."
  
   Bond smiled. "Ah! I see. You certainly do take good care of yourself. But how does that work flying the Channel? Doesn"t the car go through the floor of the plane?"
  
   "I take a plane to myself. The Silver City company knows the car. It is a regular routine, twice a year."
  
   "Just touring round Europe?"
  
   "A golfing holiday."
  
   "Great fun. Always wanted to do it myself."
  
   Goldfinger didn"t take the bait. "You can afford to now."
  
   Bond smiled. "Oh, that extra ten thousand dollars. But I may need that if I decide to move to Canada."
  
   "You think you could make money there? Do you want to make a lot of money?"
  
   Bond"s voice was eager. "Very much. There"s no other point in working."
  
   "Unfortunately most ways of making big money take a long time. By the time one has made the money one is too old to enjoy it."
  
   "That"s the trouble. I"m always on the look-out for short-cuts. You won"t find them here. Taxation"s too heavy."
  
   "Quite. And the laws are strict."
  
   "Yes. I found that out."
  
   "Indeed?"
  
   "Got on the fringe of the heroin racket. Only just got out without burning my fingers. Of course this"ll go no further?"
  
   Goldfinger shrugged his shoulders. "Mr Bond, someone said that "law is the crystallized prejudices of the community." I agree with that definition. It happens to apply most strongly to the traffic in drugs. Even if it didn"t, I am not concerned with assisting the police."
  
   "Well, it was like this..." Bond launched into the story of the Mexican traffic, swapping roles with Blackwell. He ended up, "I was lucky to get away with it, but it didn"t make me particularly popular with Universal Export."
  
   "I daresay not. An interesting story. You seem to have shown resource. You are not tempted to continue in the same line of business?"
  
   Bond shrugged his shoulders. "A bit too tricky. To judge by this Mexican, the big men in the business aren"t quite big enough when it comes to the pinch. When things got tough he didn"t fight back - except with his mouth."
  
   "Well, Mr Bond," Goldfinger got up from the table and Bond followed suit. "It"s been an interesting evening. I don"t know that I would go back into heroin. There are safer ways of making big money. You want to be certain that the odds are right and then you should hazard everything. Doubling one"s money isn"t easy and the chances don"t occur frequently. You would like to hear another of my aphorisms?"
  
   "Yes."
  
   "Well, Mr Bond," Goldfinger gave the rich man"s thin smile. "The safest way to double your money is fold it twice and put it in your pocket."
  
   Bond, the bank clerk harkening to the bank manager, smiled dutifully but made no comment. This just wasn"t good enough. He was getting nowhere. But instinct told him not to put his foot down on the accelerator.
  
   They went back into the hall. Bond held out his hand. "Well, many thanks for the excellent dinner. Time I went and got some sleep. Perhaps we shall run into each other again some day."
  
   Goldfinger pressed Bond"s hand briefly and pushed it away from him. It was another mannerism of the millionaire subconsciously afraid of "the touch." He looked hard at Bond. He said enigmatically, "I shouldn"t be at all surprised, Mr Bond."
  
   On his way across the Isle of Thanet in the moonlight, Bond turned the phrase over and over in his mind. He undressed and got into bed thinking of it, unable to guess its significance. It could mean that Goldfinger intended to get in touch with Bond, or it could mean that Bond must try and keep in touch with Goldfinger. Heads the former, tails the latter. Bond got out of bed and took a coin from the dressing-table and tossed it. It came down tails. So it was up to him to keep close to Goldfinger!
  
   So be it. But his cover would have to be pretty darn good the next time they "ran into" each other. Bond got back into bed and was instantly asleep.
  
  
  
  
  
   Chapter 12
  
  
   Long Tail on a Ghost
  
   Punctually at nine the next morning Bond got on to the Chief of Staff: "James here. I"ve had a look at the property. Been all over it. Had dinner last night with the owner. I can say pretty well for certain that the managing director"s view is right. Something definitely wrong about the property. Not enough facts to send you a surveyor"s report. Owner"s going abroad tomorrow, flying from Ferryfield. Wish I knew his departure time. Like to have another sight of his Rolls. Thought I"d make him a present of a portable wireless set. I"ll be going over a bit later in the day. Could you get Miss Ponsonby to book me? Destination unknown for the present. I"ll be keeping in touch. Anything your end?"
  
   "How did the game of golf go?"
  
   "I won."
  
   There was a chuckle at the other end. "Thought you had. Pretty big stakes, weren"t they?"
  
   "How did you know?"
  
   "Had Mr Scotland on last night. Said he"d had a tip on the telephone that someone of your name was in possession of a large amount of undeclared dollars. Had we got such a person and was it true? Chap wasn"t very senior and didn"t know about Universal. Told him to have a word with the Commissioner and we got an apology this morning about the same time as your secretary found an envelope containing ten thousand dollars in your mail! Pretty sly of your man, wasn"t it?"
  
   Bond smiled. Typical of Goldfinger to have thought of a way of getting him into trouble over the dollars. Probably made the call to Scotland Yard directly after the game. He had wanted to show Bond that if you gave Goldfinger a knock you"d get at least a thorn in your hand. But the Universal Export cover seemed to have stuck. Bond said, "That"s pretty hot! The twister! You might tell the managing director that this time it goes to the White Cross. Can you fix the other things?"
  
   "Of course. Call you back in a few minutes. But watch your step abroad and call us at once if you get bored and need company. So long."
  
   ""Bye." Bond put down the receiver. He got up and set about packing his bag. He could see the scene in the Chief of Staff"s office as the conversation was played back off the tape while the Chief of Staff translated the call to Miss Moneypenny. "Says he agrees that Goldfinger is up to something big but he can"t make out what. G. is flying this morning with his Rolls from Ferryfield. 007 wants to follow. (Let"s say two hours later to let G. get well away on the other side. Fix the reservation, would you?) He wants us to have a word with Customs so that he can take a good look at the Rolls and plant a Homer in the boot. (Fix that too, please.) He"ll keep in touch through stations in case he needs help..."
  
   And so forth. It was an efficient machine. Bond finished packing and, when the London call came giving him his various clearances, he went downstairs, paid his bill and got quickly out of Ramsgate on to the Canterbury road.
  
   London had said that Goldfinger was booked on a special flight leaving at twelve. Bond got to Ferryfield by eleven, made himself known to the Chief Passport Control and the Customs officers who were expecting him, had his car taken out of sight into an empty hangar and sat and smoked and talked minor shop with the passport men. They thought he was from Scotland Yard. He let them go on thinking it. No, he said, Goldfinger was all right. It was possible that one of his servants was trying to smuggle something out of the country. Rather confidential. If Bond could just be left alone with the car for ten minutes? He wanted to have a look at the tool kit. Would the Customs give the rest of the Rolls their Grade A going over for hidden compartments? They"d be glad to do so.
  
   At eleven-forty-five one of the Customs men put his head round the door. He winked at Bond. "Coming in now. Chauffeur on board. Going to ask both to board the plane before the car. Tell them it"s something to do with the weight distribution. Not so phoney as it sounds. We know this old crate. She"s armour-plated. Weighs about three tons. Call you when we"re ready."
  
   "Thanks." The room emptied. Bond took the fragile little parcel out of his pocket. It contained a dry-cell battery wired to a small vacuum tube. He ran his eye over the wiring and put the apparatus back in his coat pocket and waited.
  
   At eleven-fifty-five the door opened. The officer beckoned. "No trouble. They"re on the plane."
  
   The huge gleaming Silver Ghost stood in the Customs bay out of sight of the plane. The only other car was a dove-grey Triumph TR3 convertible with its hood down. Bond went to the back of the Rolls. The Customs men had unscrewed the plate of the spare tool compartment. Bond pulled out the tray of tools and made a show of minutely examining them and the tray. He knelt down. Under cover of rummaging at the sides of the compartment, he slipped the battery and tube into the back of it. He replaced the tool tray. It fitted all right. He stood up and brushed his hands together. "Negative," he said to the Customs officer.
  
   The officer fitted the plate on and screwed it down with the square key. He stood up. "Nothing funny about the chassis or the bodywork. Plenty of room in the frame and upholstery but we couldn"t get at them without doing a major job. All right to go?"
  
   "Yes, and thanks." Bond walked back into the office. He heard the quick solid whine of the old self-starter. A minute later, the car came out of the bay and idled superbly over to the loading ramp. Bond stood at the back of the office and watched it being eased up the ramp. The big jaws of the Bristol Freighter clanged shut. The chocks were jerked away and the dispatcher raised a thumb. The two engines coughed heavily and fired and the great silver dragonfly trundled off towards the runway.
  
   When the plane was on the runway, Bond walked round to his car and climbed into the driver"s seat. He pressed a switch under the dash. There was a moment"s silence, then a loud harsh howl came from the hidden loud-speaker. Bond turned a knob. The howl diminished to a deep drone. Bond waited until he heard the Bristol take off. As the plane rose and made for the coast the drone diminished. In five minutes it had gone. Bond tuned the set and picked it up again. He followed it for five minutes as the plane made off across the Channel and then switched the set off. He motored round to the Customs bay, told the A.A. that he would be back at one-thirty for the two o"clock flight, and drove slowly off towards a pub he knew in Rye. From now on, so long as he kept within about a hundred miles of the Rolls, the Homer, the rough radio transmitter he had slipped into its tool compartment, would keep contact with Bond"s receiver. All he had to do was watch the decibels and not allow the noise to fade. It was a simple form of direction finding which allowed one car to put a "long tail" on another and keep in touch without any danger of being spotted. On the other side of the Channel, Bond would have to discover the road Goldfinger had taken out of Le Touquet, get well within range and close up near big towns or wherever there was a major fork or crossroads. Sometimes Bond would make a wrong decision and have to do some fast motoring to catch up again. The D.B.III would look after that. It was going to be fun playing hare and hounds across Europe. The sun was shining out of a clear sky. Bond felt a moment"s sharp thrill down his spine. He smiled to himself, a hard, cold, cruel smile. Goldfinger, he thought, for the first time in your life you"re in trouble - bad trouble.
  
   There is always an agent cycliste at the dangerous crossroads where Le Touquet"s quiet N38 meets the oily turbulence of the major N1. Yes, certainly he had seen the Rolls. One could not fail to remark it. A real aristocrat of a car. To the right, monsieur, towards Abbeville. He will be an hour ahead, but with that bolide of yours...!
  
   As soon as Bond had cleared his papers at the airport, the Homer had picked up the drone of the Rolls. But it was impossible to tell if Goldfinger was heading north - for the Low Countries or Austria or Germany - or if he was off to the south. For that sort of fix you needed two radio cars to get a bearing. Bond raised a hand to the agent and gave his engine the gun. He would have to close up fast. Goldfinger would be through Abbeville and would already have taken the major fork on to N1 for Paris or N28 for Rouen. A lot of time and distance would be wasted if Bond made the wrong guess.
  
   Bond swept along the badly cambered road. He took no chances but covered the forty-three kilometres to Abbeville in a quarter of an hour. The drone of the Homer was loud. Goldfinger couldn"t be more than twenty miles ahead. But which way at the fork? On a guess Bond took the Paris road. He beat the car along. For a time there was little change in the voice of the Homer. Bond could be right or wrong. Then, imperceptibly, the drone began to fade. Blast! Turn back or press on fast and take one of the secondary roads across to Rouen and catch up with him there? Bond hated turning back. Ten kilometres short of Beauvais he turned right. For a time it was bad going but then he was on to the fast N30 and could afford to drift into Rouen, led on by the beckoning voice of his pick-up. He stopped on the outskirts of the town and listened with one ear while consulting his Michelin. By the waxing drone he could tell that he had got ahead of Goldfinger. But now there was another vital fork, not quite so easy to retrieve if Bond guessed wrong again. Either Goldfinger would take the Alençon-Le Mans-Tours route to the south, or he meant to move south-east, missing Paris, by way of Evreux, Chartres and Orleans. Bond couldn"t afford to get closer to the centre of Rouen and perhaps catch a glimpse of the Rolls and of the way it would take. He would have to wait until the Homer went on the wane and then make his own guess.
  
   It was a quarter of an hour later before Bond could be sure that the Rolls was well past. This time he again took the left leg of the fork. He thrust the pedal into the floor and hurried. Yes. This time the drone was merging into a howl. Bond was on the track. He slowed to forty, tuned down his receiver to a whisper and idled along, wondering where Goldfinger was heading for.
  
   Five o"clock, six, seven. The sun set in Bond"s driving mirror and still the Rolls sped on. They were through Dreux and Chartres and on to the long straight fifty-mile stretch into Orleans. If that was to be the night stop the Rolls wouldn"t have done badly at all - over two hundred and fifty miles in something over six hours. Goldfinger was certainly no slouch when it came to motoring. He must be keeping the old Silver Ghost at maximum outside the towns. Bond began to close up.
  
   There were rear-lights ahead - dim ones. Bond had his fog lights on. He switched on the Marchals. It was some little sports car. Bond closed up. M.G.? Triumph? Austin Healey? It was a pale grey Triumph two-seater with the hood up. Bond blinked his lights and swept past. Now there was the glare of another car ahead. Bond dowsed his headlamps and drove on the fogs. The other car was a mile down the road. Bond crept up on it. At a quarter of a mile, he flashed the Marchals on and off for a quick look. Yes, it was the Rolls. Bond dropped back to a mile and stayed there, vaguely noticing the dim lights of the TR3 in his mirror. On the outskirts of Orleans, Bond pulled into the side of the road. The Triumph growled casually past.
  
   Bond had never cared for Orleans. It was a priest and myth ridden town without charm or gaiety. It was content to live off Joan of Arc and give the visitor a hard, holy glare while it took his money. Bond consulted his Michelin. Goldfinger would stop at five-star hotels and eat fillets of sole and roast chicken. It would be the Arcades for him - perhaps the Moderne. Bond would have liked to stay outside the town and sleep on the banks of the Loire in the excellent Auberge de la Montespan, his belly full of quenelles de brochet. He would have to stick closer to his fox. He decided on the Hôtel de la Gare and dinner at the station buffet.
  
   When in doubt, Bond always chose the station hotels. They were adequate, there was plenty of room to park the car and it was better than even chances that the Buffet de la Gare would be excellent. And at the station one could hear the heart-beat of the town. The night-sounds of the trains were full of its tragedy and romance.
  
   The drone on the receiver had stayed constant for ten minutes. Bond noted his way to the three hotels and cautiously crept into the town. He went down to the river and along the lighted quais. He had been right. The Rolls was outside the Arcades. Bond turned back into the town and made for the station.
  
   The Hôtel de la Gare was all he had expected - cheap, old-fashioned, solidly comfortable. Bond had a hot bath, went back to his car to make sure the Rolls hadn"t moved, and walked into the station restaurant and ate one of his favourite meals - two oeufs cocotte à la crème, a large sole meunière (Orleans was close enough to the sea. The fish of the Loire are inclined to be muddy) and an adequate Camembert. He drank a well-iced pint of Rose d"Anjou and had a Hennessy"s Three Star with his coffee. At ten-thirty he left the restaurant, checked on the Rolls and walked the virtuous streets for an hour. One more check on the Rolls and bed.
  
   At six o"clock the next morning the Rolls hadn"t moved. Bond paid his bill, had a café complet - with a double ration of coffee - at the station, motored down to the quais and backed his car up a side street. This time he could not afford to make a mistake. Goldfinger would either cross the river and head south to join N7 for the Riviera, or he would follow the north bank of the Loire, also perhaps for the Riviera, but also on the route for Switzerland and Italy. Bond got out of the car and lounged against the parapet of the river wall, watching between the trunks of the plane trees. At eight-thirty, two small figures came out of the Arcades. The Rolls moved off. Bond watched it follow the quais until it was out of sight, then he got behind the wheel of the Aston Martin and set off in pursuit.
  
   Bond motored comfortably along the Loire in the early summer sunshine. This was one of his favourite corners of the world. In May, with the fruit trees burning white and the soft wide river still big with the winter rains, the valley was green and young and dressed for love. He was thinking this when, before Châteauneuf, there was a shrill scream from twin Bosch horns and the little Triumph tore past. The hood was down. There was the blur of a pretty face hidden by white motoring goggles with dark blue lenses. Although Bond only saw the edge of a profile - a slash of red mouth and the fluttering edge of black hair under a pink handkerchief with white spots, he knew she was pretty from the way she held her head. There was the authority of someone who is used to being admired, combined with the self-consciousness of a girl driving alone and passing a man in a smart car.
  
   Bond thought: That would happen today! The Loire is dressed for just that - chasing that girl until you run her to ground at lunch-time, the contact at the empty restaurant by the river, out in the garden under the vine trellis. The friture and the ice-cold Vouvray, the cautious sniffing at each other and then the two cars motoring on in convoy until that evening, well down to the south, there would be the place they had agreed on at lunch - olive trees, crickets singing in the indigo dusk, the discovery that they liked each other and that their destinations could wait. Then, next day ("No, not tonight. I don"t know you well enough, and besid
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