Fleming, Ian - Bond 03 - (1955) Moonraker

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PART ONE: MONDAY
CHAPTER I
SECRET PAPER-WORK
THE TWO thirty-eights roared simultaneously.
The walls of the underground room took the crash of sound and batted it to and fro between them until there was silence.
James Bond watched the smoke being sucked from each end of the room towards the central Ventaxia fan. The memory in his
right hand of how he had drawn and fired with one sweep from the left made him confident. He broke the chamber sideways
out of the Colt Detective Special and waited, his gun pointing at the floor, while the Instructor walked the twenty yards
towards him through the half-light of the gallery.
Bond saw that the Instructor was grinning. "I don't believe it," he said. "I got you that time."
The Instructor came up with him. "I'm in hospital, but you're dead, sir," he said. In one hand he held the silhouette target of
the upper body of a man. In the other a polaroid film, postcard size. He handed this to Bond and they turned to a table behind
them on which there was a green-shaded desk-light and a large magnifying glass.
Bond picked up the glass and bent over the photograph. It was a flash-light photograph of him. Around his right hand there
was a blurred burst of white flame. He focused the glass carefully on the left side of his dark jacket. In the centre of his heart
there was a tiny pinpoint of light.
Without speaking, the Instructor laid the big white man-shaped target under the lamp. Its heart was a black bullseye, about
three inches across. Just below and half an inch to the right was the rent made by Bond's bullet.
"Through the left wall of the stomach and out at the back," said the Instructor, with satisfaction. He took out a pencil and
scribbled an addition on the side of the target. "Twenty rounds and I make it you owe me seven-and-six, sir," he said
impassively.
Bond laughed. He counted out some silver. "Double the stakes next Monday," he said.
"That's all right with me," said the Instructor. "But you can't beat the machine, sir. And if you want to get into the team for
the Dewar Trophy we ought to give the thirty-eights a rest and spend some time on the Remington. That new long twenty-two
cartridge they've just brought out is going to mean at least 7900 out of a possible 8000 to win. Most of your bullets have got to
be in the X-ring and that's only as big as a shilling when it's under your nose. At a hundred yards it isn't there at all."
"To hell with the Dewar Trophy," said Bond. "It's your money I'm after." He shook the unfired bullets in the chamber of his
gun into his cupped hand and laid them and the gun on the table. "See you Monday. Same time?"
"Ten o'clock'll be fine, sir," said the Instructor, jerking down the two handles on the iron door. He smiled at Bond's back as it
disappeared up the steep concrete stairs leading to the ground floor. He was pleased with Bond's shooting, but he wouldn't have
thought of telling him that he was the best shot in the Service. Only M. was allowed to know that, and his Chief of Staff, who
would be told to enter the scores of that day's shoot on Bond's Confidential Record.
Bond pushed through the green baize door at the top of the basement steps and walked over to the lift that would take him up
to the eighth floor of the tall, grey building near Regent's Park that is the headquarters of the Secret Service. He was satisfied
with his score but not proud of it. His trigger finger twitched in his pocket as he wondered how to conjure up that little extra
flash of speed that would beat the machine, the complicated box of tricks that sprung the target for just three seconds, fired
back at him with a blank .38, and shot a pencil of light aimed at him and photographed it as he stood and fired from the circle
of chalk on the floor.
The lift doors sighed open and Bond got in. The liftman could smell the cordite on him. They always smelled like that when
they came up from the shooting gallery. He liked it. It reminded him of the Army. He pressed the button for the eighth and
rested the stump of his left arm against the control handle.
If only the light was better, thought Bond. But M. insisted that all shooting should be done in averagely bad conditions.
A dim light and a target that shot back at you was as close as he could get to copying the real thing. 'Shooting hell out of a
piece of cardboard doesn't prove anything' was his single-line introduction to the Small-arms Defence Manual.
The lift eased to a stop and as Bond stepped out into the drab Ministry-of-Works-green corridor and into the bustling world
of girls carrying files, doors opening and shutting, and muted telephone bells, he emptied his mind of all thoughts of his shoot
and prepared himself for the normal business of a routine day at Headquarters.
He walked along to the end door on the right. It was as anonymous as all the others he had passed. No numbers. If you had
any business on the eighth floor, and your office was not on that floor, someone would come and fetch you to the room you
needed and see you back into the lift when you were through.
Bond knocked and waited. He looked at his watch. Eleven o'clock. Mondays were hell. Two days of dockets and files to
plough through. And week-ends were generally busy times abroad. Empty flats got burgled. People were photographed in
compromising positions. Motor-car 'accidents' looked better, got a more cursory handling, amidst the week-end slaughter on
the roads. The weekly bags from Washington, Istanbul, and Tokyo would have come in and been sorted. They might hold
something for him.
The door opened and he had his daily moment of pleasure at having a beautiful secretary. "Morning, Lil," he said.
The careful warmth of her smile of welcome dropped about ten degrees.
"Give me that coat," she said. "It stinks of cordite. And don't call me Lil. You know I hate, it."
Bond took off his coat and handed it to her. "Anyone who gets christened Loelia Ponsonby ought to get used to pet names."
He stood beside her desk in the little anteroom which she had somehow made to seem a little more human than an office and
watched her hang his coat on the iron frame of the open window.
She was tall and dark with a reserved, unbroken beauty to which the war and five years in the Service had lent a touch of
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sternness. Unless she married soon, Bond thought for the hundredth time, or had a lover, her cool air of authority might easily
become spinsterish and she would join the army of women who had married a career.
Bond had told her as much, often, and he and the two other members of the OO Section had at various times made
determined assaults on her virtue. She had handled them all with the same cool motherliness (which, to salve their egos, they
privately defined as frigidity) and, the day after, she treated them with small attentions and kindnesses to show that it was
really her fault and that she forgave them.
What they didn't know was that she worried herself almost to death when they were in danger and that she loved them
equally; but that she had no intention of becoming emotionally involved with any man who might be dead next week. And it
was true that an appointment in the Secret Service was a form of peonage. If you were a woman there wasn't much of you left
for other relationships. It was easier for the men. They had an excuse for fragmentary affairs. For them marriage and children
and a home were out of the question if they were to be of any use 'in the field' as it was cosily termed. But, for the women, an
affair outside the Service automatically made you a 'security risk' and in the last analysis you had a choice of resignation from
the Service and a normal life, or of perpetual concubinage to your King and Country.
Loelia Ponsonby knew that she had almost reached the time for decision and all her instincts told her to get out. But every
day the drama and romance of her Gavell-Nightingale world locked her more securely into the company of the other girls at
Headquarters and every day it seemed more difficult to betray by resignation the father-figure which The Service had become.
Meanwhile she was one of the most envied girls in the building, and a member of the small company of Principal Secretaries
who had access to the innermost secrets of the Service—'The Pearls and Twin-set' as they were called behind their backs by
the other girls, with ironical reference to their supposedly 'County' and 'Kensington' backgrounds—and, so far as the Personnel
Branch was concerned, her destiny in twenty years' time would be that single golden line right at the end of a New Year's
Honours List, among the medals for officials of the Fishery Board, of the Post Office, of the Women's Institute, towards the
bottom of the OBEs:
'Miss Loelia Ponsonby, Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Defence.'
She turned away from the window. She was dressed in a sugar-pink and white striped shirt and a plain dark blue skirt.
Bond smiled into her grey eyes. "I only call you Lil on Mondays," he said. "Miss Ponsonby the rest of the week. But I'll
never call you Loelia. It sounds like somebody in an indecent limerick. Any messages?"
"No," she said shortly. She relented. "But there's piles of stuff on your desk. Nothing urgent. But there's an awful lot of it.
Oh, and the powder-vine says that 008's got out. He's in Berlin, resting. Isn't it wonderful!"
Bond looked quickly at her. "When did you hear that?"
"About half an hour ago," she said.
Bond opened the inner door to the big office with the three desks and shut it behind him. He went and stood by the window,
looking out at the late spring green of the trees in Regent's Park. So Bill had made it after all. Peenemunde and back. Resting in
Berlin sounded bad. Must be in pretty poor shape. Well, he'd just have to wait for news from the only leak in the building—the
girls' rest-room, known to the impotent fury of the Security staff as 'The powder-vine'.
Bond sighed and sat down at his desk, pulling towards him the tray of brown folders bearing the top-secret red star. And
what about 0011? It was two months since he had vanished into the 'Dirty Half-mile' in Singapore. Not a word since. While he,
Bond, No. 007, the senior of the three men in the Service who had earned the double o number, sat at his comfortable desk
doing paper-work and flirting with their secretary.
He shrugged his shoulders and resolutely opened the top folder. Inside there was a detailed map of southern Poland and
north-eastern Germany. Its feature was a straggling red line connecting Warsaw and Berlin. There was also a long typewritten
memorandum headed Mainline: A well-established Escape Route from East to West.
Bond took out his, black gunmetal cigarette-box and his black-oxidized Ronson lighter and put them on the desk beside him.
He lit a cigarette, one of the Macedonian blend with the three gold rings round the butt that Morlands of Grosvenor Street
made for him, then he settled himself forward in the padded swivel chair and began to read.
It was the beginning of a typical routine day for Bond. It was only two or three times a year that an assignment came along
requiring his particular abilities. For the rest of the year he had the duties of an easy-going senior civil servant—elastic office
hours from around ten to six; lunch, generally in the canteen; evenings spent playing cards in the company of a few close
friends, or at Crockford's; or making love, with rather cold passion, to one of three similarly disposed married women; week-
ends playing golf for high stakes at one of the clubs near London.
He took no holidays, but was generally given a fortnight's leave at the end of each assignment—in addition to any sick-leave
that might be necessary. He earned £1500 a year, the salary of a Principal Officer in the Civil Service, and he had a thousand a
year free of tax of his own. When he was on a job he could spend as much as he liked, so for the other months of the year he
could live very well on his £2000 a year net.
He had a small but comfortable flat off the Kings Road, an elderly Scottish housekeeper—a treasure called May—and a
1930 4 1/2-litre Bentley coupé, supercharged, which he kept expertly tuned so that he could do a hundred when he wanted to.
On these things he spent all his money and it was his ambition to have as little as possible in his banking account when he
was killed, as, when he was depressed, he knew he would be, before the statutory age of forty-five.
Eight years to go before he was automatically taken off the 00 list and given a staff job at Headquarters. At least eight tough
assignments. Probably sixteen. Perhaps twenty-four. Too many.
There were five cigarette-ends in the big glass ashtray by the time Bond had finished memorizing the details of 'Mainline'.
He picked up a red pencil and ran his eye down the distribution list on the cover. The list started with 'M.', then 'CoS.', then a
dozen or so letters and numbers and then, at the end 'oo'. Against this he put a neat tick, signed it with the figure 7, and tossed
the file into his OUT tray.
It was twelve o'clock. Bond took the next folder off the pile and opened it. It was from the Radio Intelligence Division of
NATO, 'For Information Only' and it was headed 'Radio Signatures'.
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Bond pulled the rest of the pile towards him and glanced at the first page of each. These were their titles:
The Inspectoscope—a machine for the detection of contraband.
Philopon—A Japanese murder-drug.
Possible points of concealment on trains. No. II. Germany.
The methods of Smersh. No. 6. Kidnapping.
Route five to Pekin.
Vladivostock. A photographic Reconnaissance by U.S. Thunderjet.
Bond was not surprised by the curious mixture he was supposed to digest. The OO Section of the Secret Service was not
concerned with the current operations of other sections and stations, only with background information which might be useful
or instructive to the only three men in the Service whose duties included assassination—who might be ordered to kill. There
was no urgency about these files. No action was required by him or his two colleagues except that each of them jotted down
the numbers of dockets which he considered the other two should also read when they were next attached to Headquarters.
When the OO Section had finished with this lot they would go down to their final destination in 'Records'.
Bond turned back to the NATO paper.
'The almost inevitable manner', he read, 'in which individuality is revealed by minute patterns of behaviour, is demonstrated
by the indelible characteristics of the "fist" of each radio operator. This "fist", or manner of tapping out messages, is distinctive
and recognizable by those who are practised in receiving messages. It can also be measured by very sensitive mechanisms. To
illustrate, in 1943 the United States Radio Intelligence Bureau made use of this fact in tracing an enemy station in Chile
operated by "Pedro", a young German. When the Chilean police closed in on the station, "Pedro" escaped. A year later, expert
listeners spotted a new illegal transmitter and were able to recognize "Pedro" as the operator. In order to disguise his "fist" he
was transmitting left-handed, but the disguise was not effective and he was captured.
'NATO Radio Research has recently been experimenting with a form of "scrambler" which can be attached to the wrist of
operators with the object of interfering minutely with the nerve centres which control the muscles of the hand. However…'
There were three telephones on Bond's desk. A black one for outside calls, a green office telephone, and a red one which
went only to M. and his Chief of Staff. It was the familiar burr of the red one that broke the silence of the room.
It was M's Chief of Staff.
"Can you come up?" asked the pleasant voice.
"M.?" asked Bond.
"Yes."
"Any clue?"
"Simply said if you were about he'd like to see you."
"Right," said Bond, and put down the receiver.
He collected his coat, told his secretary he would be with M. and not to wait for him, left his office and walked along the
corridor to the lift.
While he waited for it, he thought of those other times, when, in the middle of an empty day, the red telephone had suddenly
broken the silence and taken him out of one world and set him down in another. He shrugged his shoulders—Monday! He
might have expected trouble.
The lift came. "Ninth," said Bond, and stepped in.
CHAPTER II
THE COLUMBITE KING
THE NINTH was the top floor of the building. Most of it was occupied by Communications, the hand-picked inter-services
team of operators whose only interest was the world of microwaves, sunspots, and the 'heaviside layer'. Above them, on the flat
roof, were the three squat masts of one of the most powerful transmitters in England, explained on the bold bronze list of
occupants in the entrance hall of the building by the words 'Radio Tests Ltd.' The other tenants were declared to be 'Universal
Export Co.', 'Delaney Bros. (1940) Ltd.', 'The Omnium Corporation', and 'Enquiries (Miss E. Twining, OBE)'.
Miss Twining was a real person. Forty years earlier she had been a Loelia Ponsonby. Now, in retirement, she sat in a small
office on the ground floor and spent her days tearing up circulars, paying the rates and taxes of her ghostly tenants, and politely
brushing off salesmen and people who wanted to export something-or have their radios mended.
It was always very quiet on the ninth floor. As Bond turned to the left outside the lift and walked along the softly carpeted
corridor to the green baize door that led to the offices of M. and his personal staff, the only sound he heard was a thin high-
pitched whine that was so faint that you almost had to listen for it.
Without knocking he pushed through the green door and walked into the last room but one along the passage.
Miss Moneypenny, M.'s private secretary, looked up from her typewriter and smiled at him. They liked each other and she
knew that Bond admired her looks. She was wearing the same model shirt as his own secretary, but with blue stripes. "New
uniform, Penny?" said Bond. She laughed. "Loelia and I share the same little woman," she said. "We tossed and I got blue."
A snort came through the open door of the adjoining room. The Chief of Staff, a man of about Bond's age, came out, a
sardonic grin on his pale, overworked face.
"Break it up," he said, "M.'s waiting. Lunch afterwards?"
"Fine," said Bond. He turned to the door beside Miss Moneypenny, walked through and shut it after him. Above it, a green
light went on. Miss Moneypenny raised her eyebrows at the Chief of Staff. He shook his head.
"I don't think it's business, Penny," he said. "Just sent for him out of the blue." He went back into his own room and got on
with the day's work.
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When Bond came through the door, M. was sitting at his broad desk, lighting a pipe. He made a vague gesture with the
lighted match towards the chair on the other side of the desk and Bond walked over and sat down. M. glanced at him sharply
through the smoke and then threw the box of matches on to the empty expanse of red leather in front of him.
"Have a good leave?" he asked abruptly. "Yes, thank you, sir," said Bond.
"Still sunburned, I see." M. looked his disapproval. He didn't really begrudge Bond a holiday which had been partly
convalescence. The hint of criticism came from the Puritan and the Jesuit who live in all leaders of men.
"Yes, sir," said Bond noncommittally. "It's very hot near the equator."
"Quite," said M. "Well-deserved rest." He screwed up his eyes without humour. "Hope the colour won't last too long.
Always suspicious of sunburned men in England. Either they've not got a job of work to do or they put it on with a sun-lamp."
He dismissed the subject with a short sideways jerk of his pipe.
He put the pipe back in his mouth and pulled at it absent-mindedly. It had gone out. He reached for the matches and wasted
some time getting it going again.
"Looks as if we'll get that gold after all," he said finally. "There's been some talk of the Hague Court, but Ashenheim's a fine
lawyer."* (* This refers to Bond's previous assignment, described in Live and Let Die, by the same author.)
"Good," said Bond.
There was silence for a moment. M. gazed into the bowl of his pipe. Through the open windows came the distant roar of
London's traffic. A pigeon landed on one of the window-sills with a clatter of wings and quickly took off again.
Bond tried to read something in the weatherbeaten face he knew so well and which held so much of his loyalty. But the grey
eyes were quiet and the little pulse that always beat high up on the right temple when M. was tense showed no sign of life.
Suddenly Bond suspected that M. was embarrassed. He had the feeling that M. didn't know where to begin. Bond wanted to
help. He shifted in his chair and took his eyes off M. He looked down at his hands and idly picked at a rough nail.
M. lifted his eyes from his pipe and cleared his throat.
"Got anything particular on at the moment, James?" he asked in a neutral voice.
'James.' That was unusual. It was rare for M. to use a Christian name in this room.
"Only paper-work and the usual courses," said Bond. "Anything you want me for, sir?"
"As a matter of fact there is," said M. He frowned at
Bond. "But it's really got nothing to do with the Service. Almost a personal matter. Thought you might give me a hand."
"Of course, sir," said Bond. He was relieved for M.'s sake that the ice had been broken. Probably one of the old man's
relations had got into trouble and M. didn't want to ask a favour of Scotland Yard. Blackmail, perhaps. Or drugs. He was
pleased that M. should have chosen him. Of course he would take care of it. M. was such a desperate stickler about
Government property and personnel. Using Bond on a personal matter must have seemed to. him like stealing the
Government's money.
"Thought you'd say so," said M., gruffly. "Won't take up much of your time. An evening ought to be enough." He paused.
"Well now, you've heard of this man Sir Hugo Drax?"
"Of course, sir," said Bond, surprised at the name. "You can't open, a paper without reading something about him. Sunday
Express is running his life. Extraordinary story."
"I know," said M. shortly. "Just give me the facts as you see them. I'd like to know if your version tallies with mine." Bond
gazed out of the window for a moment to marshal his thoughts. M. didn't like haphazard talk. He liked a fully detailed story
with no um-ing and er-ing. No afterthoughts or hedging.
"Well, sir," said Bond finally. "For one thing the man's a national hero. The public have taken to him. I suppose he's in much
the same class as Jack Hobbs or Gordon Richards. They've got a real feeling for him. They consider he's one of them, but a
glorified version. A sort of superman. He's not much to look at, with all those scars from his war injuries, and he's a bit loud-
mouthed and ostentatious. But they rather like that. Makes him a sort of Lonsdale figure, but more in their class. They like his
friends calling him 'Hugger' Drax. It makes him a bit of a card and I expect it gives the women a thrill. And then when you
think what he's doing for the country, out of his own pocket and far beyond what any government seems to be able to do, it's
really extraordinary that they don't insist on making him Prime Minister."
Bond saw the cold eyes getting chillier, but he was determined not to let his admiration for Drax's achievements be
dampened by the older man. "After all, sir," he continued reasonably, "it looks as if he's made this country safe from war for
years. And he can't be much over forty. I feel the same as most people about him. And then there's all this mystery about his
real identity. I'm not surprised people feel rather sorry for him, although he is a multi-millionaire. He seems to be a lonely sort
of man in spite of his gay life."
M. smiled drily. "All that sounds rather like a trailer for the Express story. He's certainly an extrordinary man. But what's
your version of the facts? I don't expect I know much more than you do. Probably less. Don't read the papers very carefully,
and there are no files on him except at the War Office and they're not very illuminating. Now then. What's the gist of the
Express story?"
"Sorry, sir," said Bond. "But the facts are pretty slim. Well," he looked out of the window again and concentrated, "in the
German break-through in the Ardennes in the winter of '44, the Germans made a lot of use of guerrillas and saboteurs. Gave
them the rather spooky name of Werewolves. They did quite a lot of damage of one sort or another. Very good at camouflage
and stay-behind tricks of all sorts and some of them went on operating long after Ardennes had failed and we had crossed the
Rhine. They were supposed to carry on even when we had overrun the country. But they packed up pretty quickly when things
got really bad.
"One of their best coups was to blow up one of the rear liaison HQs between the American and British armies.
Reinforcement Holding Units I think they're called. It was a mixed affair, all kinds of Allied personnel—American signals,
British ambulance drivers—a rather shifting group from every sort of unit. The Werewolves somehow managed to mine the
mess-hall and, when it blew, it took with it quite a lot of the field hospital as well. Killed or wounded over a hundred. Sorting
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out all the bodies was the hell of a business. One of the English bodies was Drax. Half his face was blown away. Total
amnesia that lasted a year and at the end of that time they didn't know who he was and nor did he. There were about twenty-
five other unidentified bodies that neither we nor the Americans could sort out. Either not enough bits, or perhaps people in
transit, or there without authorization. It was that sort of a unit. Two commanding officers, of course. Sloppy staff work. Lousy
records. So after a year in various hospitals they took Drax through the War Office file of Missing Men. When they came to
the papers of a no-next-of-kin called Hugo Drax, an orphan who had been working in the Liverpool docks before the war, he
showed signs of interest, and the photograph and physical description seemed to tally more or less with what our man must
have looked like before he was blown up. From that time he began to mend. He started to talk a bit about simple things he
remembered, and the doctors got very proud of him. The War Office found a man who had served in the same Pioneer unit as
this Hugo Drax and he came along to the hospital and said he was sure the man was Drax. That settled it. Advertising didn't
produce another Hugo Drax and he was finally discharged late in 1945 in that name with back pay and a full disability
pension."
"But he still says he doesn't really know who he is," interrupted M. "He's a member of Blades. I've often played cards with
him and talked to him afterwards at dinner. He says he sometimes gets a strong feeling of 'having been there before'. Often
goes to Liverpool to try and hunt up his past. Anyway, what else?"
Bond's eyes were turned inwards, remembering. "He seems to have disappeared for about three years after the war," he said.
"Then the City started to hear about him from all over the world. The Metal Market heard about him first. Seems he'd cornered
a very valuable ore called Columbite. Everybody was wanting the stuff. It's got an extraordinarily high melting point. Jet
engines can't be made without it. There's very little of it in the world, only a few thousand tons are produced every year, mostly
as a by-product of the Nigerian tin mines. Drax must have looked at the Jet Age and somehow put his finger on its main
scarcity. He must have got hold of about £10,000 from somewhere because the Express says that in 1946 he'd bought three
tons of Columbite, which cost him around £3000 a ton. He got a £5000 premium on this lot from an American aircraft firm
who wanted it in a hurry. Then he started buying futures in the stuff, six months, nine months, a year forward. In three years
he'd made a corner. Anyone who wanted Columbite went to Drax Metals for it. All this time he'd been playing about with
futures in other small commodities—Shellac, Sisal, Black Pepper—anything where you could build up a big position on
margin. Of course he gambled on a rising commodity market but he had the guts to keep his foot right down on the pedal even
when the pace got hot as hell. And whenever he took a profit he ploughed the money back again. For instance, he was one of
the first men to buy up used ore-dumps in South Africa. Now they're being re-mined for their uranium content. Another fortune
there."
M's quiet eyes were fixed on Bond. He puffed at his pipe, listening.
"Of course," continued Bond, lost in his story, "all this made the City wonder what the hell was going on. The commodity
brokers kept on coming across the name of Drax. Whatever they wanted Drax had got it and was holding out for a much higher
price than they were prepared to pay. He operated from Tangier—free port, no taxes, no currency restrictions. By 1950 he was
a multi-millionaire. Then he came back to England and started spending it. He simply threw it about. Best houses, best cars,
best women. Boxes at the Opera, at Goodwood. Prize-winning Jersey herds. Prize-winning carnations. Prize-winning-two-
year-olds. Two yachts; money for the Walker Cup team; £100,000 for the Flood Disaster Fund; Coronation Ball for Nurses at
the Albert Hall—there wasn't a week when he wasn't hitting the headlines with some splash or other. And all the time he went
on getting richer and the people simply loved it. It was the Arabian Nights. It lit up their lives. If a wounded soldier from
Liverpool could get there in five years, why shouldn't they or their sons? It sounded almost as easy as winning a gigantic
football pool.
"And then came his astonishing letter to the Queen: "Your Majesty, may I have the temerity…' and the typical genius of the
single banner-line across the Express next day : TEMERITY DRAX, and the story of how he had given to Britain his entire
holding in Columbite to build a super atomic rocket with a range that would cover nearly every capital in Europe—the
immediate answer to anyone who tried to atom-bomb London. £ 10,000,000 he was going to put up out of his own pocket, and
he had the design of the thing and was prepared to find the staff to build it.
"And then there were months of delay and everyone got impatient. Questions in the House. The Opposition nearly forced a
vote of Confidence. And then the announcement by the Prime Minister that the design had been approved by the Woomera
Range experts of the Ministry of Supply, and that the Queen had been graciously pleased to accept the gift on behalf of the
people of Britain and had conferred a knighthood on the donor."
Bond paused, almost carried away by the story of this extraordinary man.
"Yes," said M. "Peace in Our Time—This Time. I remember the headline. A year ago. And now the rocket's nearly ready.
'The Moonraker". And from all I hear it really should do what he says. It's very odd." He relapsed into silence, gazing out of
the window.
He turned back and faced Bond across the desk.
"That's about it," he said slowly. "I don't know much more than you do. A wonderful story. Extraordinary man." He paused,
reflecting. "There's only one thing…" M. tapped the stem of his pipe against his teeth.
"What's that, sir?" asked Bond.
M. seemed to make up his mind. He looked mildly across at Bond.
"Sir Hugo Drax cheats at cards."
CHAPTER III
'BELLY STRIPPERS', ETC.
"CHEATS AT cards?"
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M. frowned. "That's what I said," he commented drily. "It doesn't seem to you odd that a multi-millionaire should cheat at
cards?"
Bond grinned apologetically. "Not as odd as all that, sir," he said. "I've known very rich people cheat themselves at Patience.
But it just didn't fit in with my picture of Drax. Bit of an anti-climax."
"That's the point," said M. "Why does he do it? And don't forget that cheating at cards can still smash a man. In so-called
Society, it's about the only crime that can still finish you, whoever you are. Drax does it so well that nobody's caught him yet.
As a matter of fact I doubt if anyone has begun to suspect him except Basildon. He's the Chairman of Blades. He came to me.
He's got a vague idea I've got some thing to do with Intelligence and I've given him a hand over one or two little troubles in the
past. Asked my advice. Said he didn't want a fuss at the club, of course, but above all he wants to save Drax from making a
fool of himself. He admires him as much as we all do and he's terrified of an incident. You couldn't stop a scandal like that
getting out. A lot of MPs are members and it would soon get talked about in the Lobby. Then the gossip-writers would get hold
of it. Drax would have to resign from Blades and the next thing there'd be a libel action brought in his defence by one of his
friends. Tranby Croft all over again. At least, that's how Basildon's mind is working and I must say I can see it that way too.
Anyway," said M. with finality, "I've agreed to help and", he looked levelly at Bond, "that's where you come in. You're the best
card-player in the Service, or," he smiled ironically, "you should be after the casino jobs you've been on, and I remembered
that we'd spent quite a lot of money putting you through a course in card-sharping before you went after those Roumanians in
Monte Carlo before the war."
Bond smiled grimly. "Steffi Esposito," he said softly. "That was the chap. American. Made me work ten hours a day for a
week learning a thing called the Riffle Stack and how to deal Seconds and Bottoms and Middles. I wrote a long report about it
at the time. Must be buried in Records. He knew every trick in the game. How to wax the aces so that the pack will break at
them; Edge Work and Line Work with a razor on the backs of the high cards; Trimming; Arm Pressure Holdouts—mechanical
gadgets up your sleeve that feed you cards. Belly Strippers—trimming a whole pack less than a millimetre down both sides,
but leaving a slight belly on the cards you're interested in—the aces, for instance. Shiners, tiny mirrors built into rings, or fitted
into the bottom of a pipe-bowl. Actually," Bond admitted, "it was his tip about Luminous Readers that helped me on that
Monte Carlo job. A croupier was using an invisible ink the team could pick out with special glasses. But Steffi was a
wonderful chap. Scotland Yard found him for us. He could shuffle the pack once and then cut the four aces out of it. Absolute
magic."
"Sounds a bit too professional for our man," commented M. "That sort of work needs hours of practice every day, or an
accomplice, and I can't believe he'd find that at Blades. No, there's nothing sensational about his cheating and for all
I know it might be a fantastic run of luck. It's odd. He's not a particularly good player—he only plays bridge by the way—
but quite often he brings off bids or doubles or finesses that are absolutely phenomenal—quite against the odds. Or the
conventions. But they come off. He's always a big winner and they play high at Blades. He hasn't lost on a weekly settlement
since he joined a year ago. We've got two or three of the finest players in the world in the Club and none of them has ever had
a record like that over twelve months. It's getting talked about in a sort of joking way and I think Basil-don's right to do
something about it. What system do you suppose Drax has got?"
Bond was longing for his lunch. The Chief of Staff must have given him up half an hour ago. He could have talked to M.
about cheating for hours, and M., who never seemed to be interested in food or sleep, would have listened to everything and
remembered it afterwards. But Bond was hungry.
"Assuming he's not a professional, sir, and can't doctor the cards in any way, there are only two answers. He's either looking,
or else he's got a system of signals with his partner. Does he often play with the same man?"
"We always cut for partners after each rubber," said M. "Unless there's a challenge. And on guest nights, Mondays and
Thursdays, you stick to your guest. Drax nearly always brings a man called Meyer, his metal broker. Nice chap. Jew. Very fine
player."
"I might be able to tell if I watched," said Bond.
"That's what I was going to say," said M. "How about coming along tonight? At any rate you'll get a good dinner. Meet you
there about six. I'll take some money off you at piquet and we'll watch the bridge for a little. After dinner we'll have a rubber or
two with Drax and his friend. They're always there on Monday. All right? Sure I'm not taking you away from your work?"
"No, sir," said Bond with a grin. "And I'd like to come very much. Bit of a busman's holiday. And if Drax is cheating, I'll
show him I've spotted it and that should be enough to warn him off. I wouldn't like to see him get into a mess. That all, sir?"
"Yes, James," said M. "And thank you for your help. Drax must be a bloody fool. Obviously a bit of a crank. But it isn't the
man I'm worried about. I wouldn't like to chance anything going wrong with this rocket of his. And Drax more or less is the
Moonraker. Well, see you at six. Don't bother about dressing. Some of us do for dinner and some of us don't. Tonight we
won't. Better go along now and sandpaper your fingertips or whatever you sharpers do."
Bond smiled back at M. and got to his feet. It sounded a promising evening. As he walked over to the door and let himself
out he reflected that here at last was an interview with M. that didn't cast a shadow.
M's secretary was still at her desk. There was a plate of sandwiches and a glass of milk beside her typewriter. She looked
sharply at Bond, but there was nothing to be read in his expression.
"I suppose he gave up," said Bond.
"Nearly an hour ago," said Miss Moneypenny reproachfully. "It's half-past two. He'll be back any minute now."
"I'll go down to the canteen before it closes," he said. "Tell him I'll pay for his lunch next time." He smiled at her and walked
out into the corridor and along to the lift.
There were only a few people left in the officers' canteen. Bond sat by himself and ate a grilled sole, a large mixed salad with
his own dressing laced with mustard, some Brie cheese and toast, and half a carafe of white Bordeaux. He had two cups of
black coffee and was back in his office by three. With half his mind preoccupied with M.'s problem, he hurried through the rest
of the NATO file, said goodbye to his secretary after telling her where he would be that evening, and at four-thirty was
7
collecting his car from the staff garage at the back of the building.
"Supercharger's whining a bit, sir," said the ex-RAF mechanic who regarded Bond's Bentley as his own property. "Take it
down tomorrow if you won't be needing her at lunch-time."
"Thanks," said Bond, "that'll be fine." He took the car quietly out into the park and over to Baker Street, the two-inch
exhaust bubbling fatly in his wake.
He was home in fifteen minutes. He left the car under the plane trees in the little square and let himself into the ground floor
of the converted Regency house, went into the book-lined sitting-room and, after a moment's search, pulled Scarne on Cards
out of its shelf and dropped it on the ornate Empire desk near the broad window.
He walked through into the smallish bedroom with the white and gold Cole wallpaper and the deep red curtains, undressed
and threw his clothes, more or less tidily, on the dark blue counterpane of the double bed. Then he went into the bathroom and
had a quick shower. Before leaving the bathroom he examined his face in the glass and decided that he had no intention of
sacrificing a lifetime prejudice by shaving twice in one day.
In the glass, the grey-blue eyes looked back at him with the extra light they held when his mind was focused on a problem
that interested him. The lean, hard face had a hungry, competitive edge to it. There was something swift and intent in the way
he ran his fingers along his jaw and in the impatient stroke of the hairbrush to put back the comma of black hair that fell down
an inch above his right eyebrow. It crossed his mind that, with the fading of his sunburn, the scar down the right cheek that had
shown so white was beginning to be less prominent, and automatically he glanced down his naked body and registered that the
almost indecent white area left by his bathing trunks was less sharply defined. He smiled at some memory and went through
into the bedroom.
Ten minutes later, in a heavy white silk shirt, dark blue trousers of Navy serge, dark blue socks, and well-polished black
moccasin shoes, he was sitting at his desk with a pack of cards in one hand and Scarne's wonderful guide to cheating open in
front of him.
For half an hour, as he ran quickly through the section on Methods, he practised the vital Mechanic's Grip (three fingers
curled round the long edge of the cards, and the index finger at the short upper edge away from him), Palming and Nullifying
the Cut. His hands worked automatically at these basic manoeuvres, while his eyes read, and he was glad to find that his
fingers were supple and assured and that there was no noise from the cards even with the very difficult single-handed
Annulment.
At five-thirty he slapped the cards on the table and shut the book.
He went into his bedroom, filled the wide black case with cigarettes and slipped it into his hip pocket, put on a black knitted
silk tie and his coat and verified that his cheque book was in his notecase.
He stood for a moment, thinking. Then he selected two white silk handkerchiefs, carefully rumpled them, and put one into
each side-pocket of his coat.
He lit a cigarette and walked back into the sitting-room and sat down at his desk again and relaxed for ten minutes, gazing
out of the window at the empty square and thinking about the evening that was just going to begin and about Blades, probably
the most famous private card club in the world.
The exact date of the foundation of Blades in uncertain. The second half of the eighteenth century saw the opening of many
coffee houses and gaming rooms, and premises and proprietors shifted often with changing fashions and fortunes. White's was
founded in 1755, Almack's in 1764, and Brooks's in 1774, and it was in that year that the Scavoir Vivre, which was to be the
cradle of Blades, opened its doors on to Park Street, a quiet backwater off St James's.
The Scavoir Vivre was too exclusive to live and it blackballed itself to death within a year. Then, in 1776, Horace Walpole
wrote: 'A new club is opened off St James's Street that piques itself in surpassing all its predecessors' and in 1778 'Blades' first
occurs in a letter from Gibbon, the historian, who coupled it with the name of its founder, a German called Longchamp at that
time conducting the Jockey Club at Newmarket.
From the outset Blades seems to have been a success, and in 1782 we find the Duke of Wirtemberg writing excitedly home
to his younger brother: 'This is indeed the "Ace of Clubs"! There have been four or five quinze tables going in the room at the
same time, with whist and piquet, after which a full Hazard table. I have known two at the same time. Two chests each
containing 4000 guinea rouleaus were scarce sufficient for the night's circulation.'
Mention of Hazard perhaps provides a clue to the club's prosperity. Permission to play this dangerous but popular game must
have been given by the Committee in contravention of its own rules which laid down that 'No game is to be admitted to the
House of the Society but Chess, Whist, Picket, Cribbage, Quadrille, Ombre and Tredville'.
In any event the club continued to flourish, and remains to this day the home of some of the highest 'polite' gambling in the
world. It is not as aristocratic as it was, the redistribution of wealth has seen to that, but it is still the most exclusive club in
London. The membership is restricted to two hundred and each candidate must have two qualifications for election; he must
behave like a gentleman and he must be able to'show' £ 100,000 in cash or gilt-edged securities.
The amenities of Blades, apart from the gambling, are so' desirable that the Committee has had to rule that every member is
required to win or lose £500 a year on the club premises, or pay an annual fine of £250. The food and wine are the best in
London and no bills are presented, the cost of all meals being deducted at the end of each week pro rata from the profits of the
winners. Seeing that about £5,000 changes hands each week at the tables the impost is not too painful and the losers have the
satisfaction of saving something from the wreck; and the custom explains the fairness of the levy on infrequent gamblers.
Club servants are the making or breaking of any club and the servants of Blades have no equal. The half-dozen waitresses in
the dining-room are of such a high standard of beauty that some of the younger members have been known to smuggle them
undetected into debutante balls, and if, at night, one or other of the girls is persuaded to stray into one of the twelve members'
bedrooms at the back of the club, that is regarded as the members' private concern.
There are one or two other small refinements which contribute to the luxury of the place. Only brand-new currency notes and
silver are paid out on the premises and, if a member is staying overnight, his notes and small change are taken away by the
8
valet who brings the early morning tea and The Times and are replaced with new money. No newspaper comes to the reading
room before it has been ironed. Floris provides the soaps and lotions in the lavatories and bedrooms; there is a direct wire to
Ladbroke's from the porter's lodge; the club has the finest tents and boxes at the principal race-meetings, at Lords, Henley, and
Wimbledon, and members travelling abroad have automatic membership of the leading club in every foreign capital.
In short, membership of Blades, in return for the £106 entrance fee and the £50 a year subscription, provides the standard of
luxury of the Victorian age together with the opportunity to win or lose, in great comfort, anything up to £20,000 a year.
Bond, reflecting on all this, decided that he was going to enjoy his evening. He had only played at Blades a dozen times in
his life, and on the last occasion he had burnt his fingers badly in a high poker game, but the prospect of some expensive
bridge and of the swing of a few, to him, not unimportant hundred pounds made his muscles taut with anticipation.
And then, of course, there was the little business of Sir Hugo Drax, which might bring an additional touch of drama to the
evening.
He was not even disturbed by a curious portent he encountered while he was driving along King's Road into Sloane Square
with half his mind on the traffic and the other half exploring the evening ahead.
It was a few minutes to six and there was thunder about. The sky threatened rain and it had become suddenly dark. Across
the square from him, high up in the air, a bold electric sign started to flash on and off. The fading light-waves had caused the
cathode tube to start the mechanism which would keep the sign flashing through the dark hours until, around six in the
morning, the early light of day would again sensitize the tube and cause the circuit to close.
Startled at the great crimson words, Bond pulled in to the curb, got out of the car and crossed to the other side of the street to
get a better view of the big skysign.
Ah! That was it. Some of the letters had been hidden by a neighbouring building. It was only one of those Shell
advertisements. 'SUMMER SHELL is HERE' was what it said.
Bond smiled to himself and walked back to his car and drove on.
When he had first seen the sign, half-hidden by the building, great crimson letters across the evening sky had flashed a
different message.
They had said: 'HELL is HERE… HELL is HERE… HELL is HERE.'
CHAPTER IV
THE 'SHINER'
BOND LEFT the Bentley outside Brooks's and walked round the corner into Park Street.
The Adam frontage of Blades, recessed a yard or so back from its neighbours, was elegant in the soft dusk. The dark red
curtains had been drawn across the ground floor bow-windows on either side of the entrance and a uniformed servant showed
for a moment as he drew them across the three windows of the floor above. In the centre of the three, Bond could see the' heads
and shoulders of two men bent over a game, probably backgammon he thought, and he caught a glimpse of the spangled fire of
one of the three great chandeliers that illuminate the famous gambling room.
Bond pushed through the swing doors and walked up to the old-fashioned porter's lodge ruled over by Brevett, the guardian
of Blades and the counsellor and family friend of half the members.
"Evening, Brevett. Is the Admiral in?"
"Good evening, sir," said Brevett, who knew Bond as an occasional guest at the club. "The Admiral's waiting for you in the
card room. Page, take Commander Bond up to the Admiral. Lively now!"
As Bond followed the uniformed page boy across the worn black and white marble floor of the hall and up the wide staircase
with its fine mahogany balustrade, he remembered the story of how, at one election, nine blackballs had been found in the box
when there were only eight members of the committee present. Brevett, who had handed the box from member to member, was
said to have confessed to the Chairman that he was so afraid the candidate would be elected that he had put in a blackball
himself. No one had objected. The committee would rather have lost its chairman than the porter whose family had held the
same post at Blades for a hundred years.
The page pushed open one wing of the tall doors at the top of the stairs and held it for Bond to go through. The long room
was not crowded and Bond saw M. sitting by himself playing patience in the alcove formed by the left hand of the three bow
windows. He dismissed the page and walked across the heavy carpet, noticing the rich background smell of cigar-smoke, the
quiet voices that came from the three tables of bridge, and the sharp rattle of dice across an unseen backgammon board.
"There you are," said M. as Bond came up. He waved to the chair that faced him across the card table. "Just let me finish
this. I haven't cracked this man Ganfield for months. Drink?"
"No, thanks," said Bond. He sat down and lit a cigarette and watched with amusement the concentration M. was putting into
his game.
'Admiral Sir M—M—: something at the Ministry of Defence.' M. looked like any member of any of the clubs in St James's
Street. Dark grey suit, stiff white collar, the favourite dark blue bow-tie with spots, rather loosely tied, the thin black cord of
the rimless eyeglass that M. seemed only to use to read menus, the keen sailor's face, with the clear, sharp sailor's eyes. It was
difficult to believe that an hour before he had been playing with a thousand live chessmen against the enemies of England; that
there might be, this evening, fresh blood on his hands, or a successful burglary, or the hideous knowledge of a disgusting
blackmail case.
And what could the casual observer think of him, 'Commander James Bond, GMG, RNVSR', also'something at the Ministry
of Defence', the rather saturnine young man in his middle thirties sitting opposite the Admiral? Something a bit cold and
dangerous in that face. Looks pretty fit. May have been attached to Templer in Malaya. Or Nairobi. Mau Mau work. Tough-
looking customer. Doesn't look the sort of chap one usually sees in Blades.
9
Bond knew that there was something alien and un-English about himself. He knew that he was a difficult man to cover up.
Particularly in England. He shrugged his shoulders. Abroad was what mattered. He would never have a job to do in England.
Outside the jurisdiction of the Service. Anyway, he didn't need a cover this evening. This was recreation.
M. snorted and threw his cards down. Bond automatically gathered in the pack and as automatically gave it the Scarne
shuffle, marrying the two halves with the quick downward riffle that never brings the cards off the table. He squared off the
pack and pushed it away.
M. beckoned to a passing waiter. "Piquet cards, please, Tanner," he said.
The waiter went away and came back a moment later with the two thin packs. He stripped off the wrapping and placed them,
with two markers, on the table. He stood waiting.
"Bring me a whisky and soda," said M. "Sure you won't have anything?"
Bond looked at his watch. It was half-past six. "Could I have a dry Martini?" he said. "Made with Vodka. Large slice of
lemon peel."
"Rot-gut," commented M. briefly as the waiter went away. "Now I'll just take a pound or two off you and then we'll go and
have a look at the bridge. Our friend hasn't turned up yet."
For half an hour they played the game at which the expert player can nearly always win even with the cards running slightly
against him. At the end of the game Bond laughed and counted out three pound-notes.
"One of these days I'm going to take some trouble and really learn piquet," he said. "I've never won against you yet."
"It's all memory and knowing the odds," said M. with satisfaction. He finished his whisky and soda. "Let's go over and see
what's going on at the bridge. Our man's playing at Basildon's table. Came in about ten minutes ago. If you nbtice anything,
just give me a nod and we'll go downstairs and talk about it."
He stood up and Bond followed suit.
The far end of the room had begun to fill up and half a dozen tables of bridge were going. At the round poker table under the
centre chandelier three players were counting out chips into five stacks, waiting for two more players to come in. The kidney-
shaped baccarat table was still shrouded and would probably remain so until after dinner, when it would be used for chemin-
de-fer.
Bond followed M. out of their alcove, relishing the scene down the long room, the oases of green, the tinkle of glasses as the
waiters moved amongst the tables, the hum of talk punctuated by sudden exclamations and warm laughter, the haze of blue
smoke rising up through the dark red lamp shades that hung over the centre of each table. His pulses quickened with the smell
of it all and his nostrils flared slightly as the two men came down the long room and joined the company.'
M., with Bond beside him, wandered casually from table to table, exchanging greetings with the players until they reached
the last table beneath the fine Lawrence of Beau Brummel over the wide Adam fireplace.
"Double, damn you," said the loud, cheerful voice of the player with his back to Bond. Bond thoughtfully noted the head of
tight reddish hair that was all he could see of the speaker, then he looked to the left at the rather studious profile of Lord
Basildon. The Chairman of Blades was leaning back, looking critically down his nose at the hand of cards which he held out
and away from him as if it were a rare object.
"My hand is so exquisite that I am forced to redouble, my dear Drax," he said. He looked across at his partner. "Tommy," he
said. "Charge this to me if it goes wrong."
"Rot," said his partner. "Meyer? Better take Drax out."
"Too frightened," said the middle-aged florid man who was playing with Drax. "No bid." He picked up his cigar from the
brass ashtray and put it carefully into the middle of his mouth.
"No bid here," said Basildon's partner.
"And nothing here," came Drax's voice.
"Five clubs redoubled," said Basildon. "Your lead, Meyer."
Bond looked over Drax's shoulder. Drax had the ace of spades and the ace of hearts. He promptly made them both and led
another heart which Basildon took on the table with the king.
"Well," said Basildon. "There are four trumps against me including the queen. I shall play Drax to have her." He finessed
against Drax. Meyer took the trick with the queen.
"Hell and damnation," said Basildon. "What's the queen doing in Meyer's hand? Well, I'm damned. Anyway the rest are
mine." He fanned his cards down on the table. He looked defensively at his partner. "Can you beat it, Tommy? Drax doubles
and Meyer has the queen." There was not more than a natural exasperation in his voice.
Drax chuckled. "Didn't expect my partner to have a Yar borough did you?" he said cheerfully to Basildon. "Well, that's just
the four hundred above the line. Your deal." He cut the cards to Basildon and the game went on.
So it had been Drax's deal the hand before. That might be important. Bond lit a cigarette and reflectively examined the back
of Drax's head.
M.'s voice cut in on Bond's thoughts. "You remember my friend Commander Bond, Basil? Thought we'd come along and
play some bridge this evening."
Basildon smiled up at Bond. "Evening," he said. He waved a hand round the table from the left to right. "Meyer,
Dangerfield, Drax." The three men looked up briefly and Bond nodded a greeting to the table in general. "You all know the
Admiral," added the Chairman, starting to deal.
Drax half turned in his chair. "Ah, the Admiral," he said boisterously. "Glad to have you aboard, Admiral. Drink?"
"No, thanks," said M. with a thin smile. "Just had one."
Drax turned and glanced up at Bond, who caught a glimpse of a tuft of reddish moustache and a rather chilly blue eye.
"What about you?" asked Drax perfunctorily.
"No, thanks," said Bond.
Drax swivelled back to the table and picked up his cards. Bond watched the big blunt hands sort them.
10
Then he moved round the table with a second clue to ponder.
Drax didn't sort his cards into suits as most players do, but only into reds and blacks, ungraded, making his hand very
difficult to kibitz and almost impossible for one of his neighbours, if they were so inclined to decipher.
Bond knew it for the way people hold their hands who are very careful card-players indeed.
Bond went and stood beside the chimneypiece. He took out a cigarette and lit it at the flame from a small gas-jet enclosed in
a silver grille—a relic of the days before the use of matches—that protruded from the wall beside him.
From where he stood he could see the hand of Meyer, and by moving a pace to the right, of Basildon. His view of Sir Hugo
Drax was uninterrupted and he inspected him carefully while appearing to interest himself only in the game.
Drax gave the impression of being a little larger than life. He was physically big—about six foot tall, Bond guessed—and his
shoulders were exceptionally broad. He had a big square head and the tight reddish hair was parted in the middle. On either
side of the parting the hair dipped down in a curve towards the temples with the object, Bond assumed, of hiding as much as
possible of the tissue of shining puckered skin that covered most of the right half of his face. Other relics of plastic surgery
could be detected in the man's right ear, which was not a perfect match with its companion on the left, and the right eye, which
had been a surgical failure. It was considerably larger than the left eye, because of a contraction of the borrowed skin used to
rebuild the upper and lower eyelids, and it looked painfully bloodshot. Bond doubted if it was capable of closing completely
and he guessed that Drax covered it with a patch at night.
To conceal as much as possible of the unsightly taut skin that covered half his face, Drax had grown a bushy reddish
moustache and had allowed his whiskers to grow down to the level of the lobes of his ears. He also had patches of hair 'on his
cheek-bones.
The heavy moustache served another purpose. It helped to hide a naturally prognathous upper jaw and a marked protrusion
of the upper row of teeth. Bond reflected that this was probably due to sucking his thumb as a child, and it had resulted in an
ugly splaying, or diastema, of what Bond had heard his dentist call 'the centrals'. The moustache helped to hide these 'ogre's
teeth' and it was only when Drax uttered, as he frequently did, his short braying laugh that the splay could be seen.
The general effect of the face—the riot of red-brown hair, the powerful nose and jaw, the florid skin—was flamboyant. It put
Bond in mind of a ring-master at a circus. The contrasting sharpness and coldness of the left eye supported the likeness.
A bullying, boorish, loud-mouthed vulgarian. That would have been Bond's verdict if he had not known something of Drax's
abilities. As it was, it crossed his mind that much of the effect might be Drax's idea of a latter-day Regency buck—the
harmless disguise of a man with a smashed face who was also a snob.
Looking for further clues, Bond noticed that Drax was sweating rather freely. Despite the occasional growl of thunder
outside it was a cool evening, and yet Drax was constantly mopping his face and neck with a huge bandana handkerchief. He
smoked incessantly, stubbing out the cork-tipped Virginia cigarettes after a dozen lungfuls of smoke and almost immediately
lighting another from a box of fifty in his coat pocket. His big hands, their backs thickly covered with reddish hair, were
always on the move, fiddling with his cards, handling the cigarette lighter that stood beside a plain flat silver cigarette-case in
front of him, twisting a lock of hair on the side of his head, using the handkerchief on his face and neck. Occasionally he put a
finger greedily to his mouth and worried a nail. Even at a distance Bond could see that every finger-nail was bitten down to the
quick.
The hands themselves were strong and capable but the thumbs had something ungainly about them which it took Bond a
moment or two to define. He finally detected that they were unnaturally long and reached level with the top joint of the index
finger.
Bond concluded his inspection with Drax's clothes which were expensive and in excellent taste—a dark blue pinstripe in
lightweight flannel, double-breasted with turnback cuffs, a heavy white silk shirt with a stiff collar, an unobtrusive tie with a
small grey and white check, modest cuff-links, which looked like Cartier, and a plain gold Patek Philippe watch with a black
leather strap.
Bond lit another cigarette arid concentrated on the game, leaving his subconscious to digest the details of Drax's appearance
and manner that had seemed to him significant and that might help to explain the riddle of his cheating, the nature of which
had still to be discovered.
Half an hour later the cards had completed the circle.
"My deal," said Drax with authority. "Game all and we have a satisfactory inflation above the line. Now then, Max, see if
you can't pick up a few aces. I'm tired of doing all the work." He dealt smoothly and slowly round the table, keeping up a
running fire of rather heavy-handed banter with the company. "Long rubber," he said to M. who was sitting smoking his pipe
between Drax and Basildon. "Sorry to have kept you out so long. How about a challenge after dinner? Max and I'll take on you
and Commander Thingummy. What did you say his name was? Good player?"
"Bond," said M. "James Bond. Yes, I think we'd like that very much. What do you say, James?"
Bond's eyes were glued to the bent head and slowly moving hands of the dealer. Yes, that was it! Got you, you bastard. A
Shiner. A simple, bloody Shiner that wouldn't have lasted five minutes in a pro's game. M. saw the glint of assurance in Bond's
eyes as they met across the table.
"Fine," said Bond cheerfully. "Couldn't be better." He made an imperceptible movement of the head. "How about showing
me the Betting Book before dinner? You always say it'll amuse me."
M. nodded. "Yes, Come along. It's in the Secretary's office. Then Basildon can come down and give us a cocktail and tell us
the result of this death-struggle." He got up.
"Order what you want," said Basildon with a sharp glance at M. "I'll be down directly we've polished them off."
"Around nine then," said Drax, glancing from M. to Bond. "Show him the bet about the girl in the balloon." He picked up his
hand. "Looks Eke I shall have the Casino's money to play with," he said after a rapid glance at his cards. "Three No Trumps."
He shot a triumphant glance at Basildon. "Put that in your pipe and smoke it."
Bond, following M. out of the room, missed Basildon's reply.
摘要：

1PARTONE:MONDAYCHAPTERISECRETPAPER-WORKTHETWOthirty-eightsroaredsimultaneously.Thewallsoftheundergroundroomtookthecrashofsoundandbattedittoandfrobetweenthemuntiltherewassilence.JamesBondwatchedthesmokebeingsuckedfromeachendoftheroomtowardsthecentralVentaxiafan.Thememoryinhisrighthandofhowhehaddrawna...

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