James Bond’s interview with M. had been short.
‘What about it, Bond?’ asked M. when Bond came back into his room after reading Head of S.’s memorandum and after gazing for ten minutes out of the waiting-room window at the distant trees in the park.
Bond looked across the desk into the shrewd, clear eyes.
‘It’s very kind of you, sir, I’d like to do it. But I can’t promise to win. The odds at baccarat are the best after ‘trente-et-quarante’ – evens except for the tiny ‘cagnotte’ – but I might get a bad run against me and get cleaned out. Play’s going to be pretty high – opening’ll go up to half a million, I should think.’
Bond was stopped by the cold eyes. M. knew all this already, knew the odds at baccarat as well as Bond. That was his job – knowing the odds at everything, and knowing men, his own and the opposition’s. Bond wished he had kept quiet about his misgivings.
‘He can have a bad run too,’ said M. ‘You’ll have plenty of capital. Up to twenty-five million, the same as him. We’ll start you on ten and send you another ten when you’ve had a look round. You can make the extra five yourself.’ He smiled. ‘Go over a few days before the big game starts and get your hand in. Have a talk to Q. about rooms and trains, and any equipment you want. The Paymaster will fix the funds. I’m going to ask the Deuxième to stand by. It’s their territory and as it is we shall be lucky if they don’t kick up rough. I’ll try and persuade them to send Mathis. You seemed to get on well with him in Monte Carlo on that other Casino job. And I’m going to tell Washington because of the N.A.T.O. angle. C.I.A. have got one or two good men at Fontainebleau with the joint intelligence chaps there. Anything else?’
Bond shook his head. ‘I’d certainly like to have Mathis, sir.’
‘Well, we’ll see. Try and bring it off. We’re going to look pretty foolish if you don’t. And watch out. This sounds an amusing job, but I don’t think it’s going to be. Le Chiffre is a good man. Well, best of luck.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Bond and went to the door.
‘Just a minute.’
Bond turned. ‘I think I’ll keep you covered, Bond. Two heads are better than one and you’ll need someone to run your communications. I’ll think it over. They’ll get in touch with you at Royale. You needn’t worry. It’ll be someone good.’
Bond would have preferred to work alone, but one didn’t argue with M. He left the room hoping that the man they sent would be loyal to him and neither stupid, nor, worse still, ambitious.
4 | ‘L’ENNEMI ÉCOUTE’
As, two weeks later, James Bond awoke in his room at the Hotel Splendide, some of this history passed through his mind.
He had arrived at Royale-les-Eaux in time for luncheon two days before. There had been no attempt to contact him and there had been no flicker of curiosity when he had signed the register ‘James Bond, Port Maria, Jamaica’.
M. had expressed no interest in his cover.
‘Once you start to make a set at Le Chiffre at the tables, you’ll have had it,’ he said. ‘But wear a cover that will stick with the general public.’
Bond knew Jamaica well, so he asked to be controlled from there and to pass as a Jamaican plantocrat whose father had made his pile in tobacco and sugar and whose son chose to play it away on the stock markets and in casinos. If inquiries were made, he would quote Charles DaSilva of Caffery’s, Kingston, as his attorney. Charles would make the story stick.
Bond had spent the last two afternoons and most of the nights at the Casino, playing complicated progression systems on the even chances at roulette. He made a high banco at chemin-de-fer whenever he heard one offered. If he lost, he would ‘suivi’ once and not chase it further if he lost the second time.
In this way he had made some three million francs and had given his nerves and card-sense a thorough work-out. He had got the geography of the Casino clear in his mind. Above all, he had been able to observe Le Chiffre at the tables and to note ruefully that he was a faultless and lucky gambler.
Bond liked to make a good breakfast. After a cold shower, he sat at the writing-table in front of the window. He looked out at the beautiful day and consumed half a pint of iced orange juice, three scrambled eggs and bacon and a double portion of coffee without sugar. He lit his first cigarette, a Balkan and Turkish mixture made for him by Morlands of Grosvenor Street, and watched the small waves lick the long seashore and the fishing fleet from Dieppe string out towards the June heat-haze followed by a paper-chase of herring-gulls.
He was lost in his thoughts when the telephone rang. It was the concierge announcing that a Director of Radio Stentor was waiting below with the wireless set he had ordered from Paris.
‘Of course,’ said Bond. ‘Send him up.’
This was the cover fixed by the Deuxième Bureau for their liaison man with Bond. Bond watched the door, hoping that it would be Mathis.
When Mathis came in, a respectable business man carrying a large square parcel by its leather handle, Bond smiled broadly and would have greeted him with warmth if Mathis had not frowned and held up his free hand after carefully closing the door.
‘I have just arrived from Paris, monsieur, and here is the set you asked to have on approval – five valves, superhet, I think you call it in England, and you should be able to get most of the capitals of Europe from Royale. There are no mountains for forty miles in any direction.’
‘It sounds all right,’ said Bond, lifting his eyebrows at this mystery-making.
Mathis paid no attention. He placed the set, which he had unwrapped, on the floor beside the unlit panel electric fire below the mantelpiece.
‘It is just past eleven,’ he said, ‘and I see that the “Compagnons de la Chanson” should now be on the medium wave from Rome. They are touring Europe. Let us see what the reception is like. It should be a fair test.’
He winked. Bond noticed that he had turned the volume on to full and that the red light indicating the long wave-band was illuminated, though the set was still silent.
Mathis fiddled at the back of the set. Suddenly an appalling roar of static filled the small room. Mathis gazed at the set for a few seconds with benevolence and then turned it off and his voice was full of dismay.
‘My dear monsieur – forgive me please – badly tuned,’ and he again bent to the dials. After a few adjustments the close harmony of the French came over the air and Mathis walked up and clapped Bond very hard on the back and wrung his hand until Bond’s fingers ached.
Bond smiled back at him. ‘Now what the hell?’ he asked.
‘My dear friend,’ Mathis was delighted, ‘you are blown, blown, blown. Up there,’ he pointed at the ceiling, ‘at this moment, either Monsieur Muntz or his alleged wife, allegedly bedridden with the “grippe”, is deafened, absolutely deafened, and I hope in agony.’ He grinned with pleasure at Bond’s frown of disbelief.
Mathis sat down on the bed and ripped open a packet of Caporal with his thumbnail. Bond waited.
Mathis was satisfied with the sensation his words had caused. He became serious.
‘How it has happened I don’t know. They must have been on to you for several days before you arrived. The opposition is here in real strength. Above you is the Muntz family. He is German. She is from somewhere in Central Europe, perhaps a Czech. This is an old-fashioned hotel. There are disused chimneys behind these electric fires. Just here,’ he pointed a few inches above the panel fire, ‘is suspended a very powerful radio pick-up. The wires run up the chimney to behind the Muntzes’ electric fire where there is an amplifier. In their room is a wire-recorder and a pair of earphones on which the Muntzes listen in turn. That is why Madame Muntz has the grippe and takes all her meals in bed and why Monsieur Muntz has to be constantly at her side instead of enjoying the sunshine and the gambling of this delightful resort.