The James Bond Anthology

‘Forgive me, my friend,’ he said. ‘It is all over now and you are in safe hands. All is well and the whole plan has gone splendidly. We have announced that Le Chiffre shot his two accomplices and then committed suicide because he could not face an inquiry into the union funds. Strasbourg and the north are in an uproar. He was considered a great hero there and a pillar of the Communist Party in France. This story of brothels and casinos has absolutely knocked the bottom out of his organization and they’re all running around like scalded cats. At the moment the Communist Party is giving out that he was off his head. But that hasn’t helped much after Thorez’s breakdown not long ago. They’re just making it look as if all their big-shots were gaga. God knows how they’re going to unscramble the whole business.’

Mathis saw that his enthusiasm had had the desired effect. Bond’s eyes were brighter.

‘One last mystery,’ Mathis said, ‘and then I promise I will go.’ He looked at his watch. ‘The doctor will be after my skin in a moment. Now, what about the money? Where is it? Where did you hide it? We too have been over your room with a toothcomb. It isn’t there.’

Bond grinned.

‘It is,’ he said, ‘more or less. On the door of each room there is a small square of black plastic with the number of the room on it. On the corridor side, of course. When Leiter left me that night, I simply opened the door and unscrewed my number plate and put the folded cheque underneath it and screwed the plate back. It’ll still be there.’ He smiled. ‘I’m glad there’s something the stupid English can teach the clever French.’

Mathis laughed delightedly.

‘I suppose you think that’s paid me back for knowing what the Muntzes were up to. Well, I’ll call it quits. Incidentally, we’ve got them in the bag. They were just some minor fry hired for the occasion. We’ll see they get a few years.’

He rose hastily as the doctor stormed into the room and took one look at Bond.

‘Out,’ he said to Mathis. ‘Out and don’t come back.’

Mathis just had time to wave cheerfully to Bond and call some hasty words of farewell before he was hustled through the door. Bond heard a torrent of heated French diminishing down the corridor. He lay back exhausted, but heartened by all he had heard. He found himself thinking of Vesper as he quickly drifted off into a troubled sleep.

There were still questions to be answered, but they could wait.

20 | THE NATURE OF EVIL

Bond made good progress. When Mathis came to see him three days later he was propped up in bed and his arms were free. The lower half of his body was still shrouded in the oblong tent, but he looked cheerful and it was only occasionally that a twinge of pain narrowed his eyes.

Mathis looked crestfallen.

‘Here’s your cheque,’ he said to Bond. ‘I’ve rather enjoyed walking around with forty million francs in my pocket, but I suppose you’d better sign it and I’ll put it to your account with the Crédit Lyonnais. There’s no sign of our friend from SMERSH. Not a damn trace. He must have got to the villa on foot or on a bicycle because you heard nothing of his arrival and the two gunmen obviously didn’t. It’s pretty exasperating. We’ve got precious little on this SMERSH organization and neither has London. Washington said they had, but it turned out to be the usual waffle from refugee interrogation, and you know that’s about as much good as interrogating an English man-in-the-street about his own Secret Service, or a Frenchman about the Deuxième.’

‘He probably came from Leningrad to Berlin via Warsaw,’ said Bond. ‘From Berlin they’ve got plenty of routes open to the rest of Europe. He’s back home by now being told off for not shooting me too. I fancy they’ve got quite a file on me in view of one or two of the jobs M.’s given me since the war. He obviously thought he was being smart enough cutting his initial in my hand.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Mathis. ‘The doctor said the cuts looked like a square M with a tail to the top. He said they didn’t mean anything.’

‘Well, I only got a glimpse before I passed out, but I’ve seen the cuts several times while they were being dressed and I’m pretty certain they are the Russian letter for SH. It’s rather like an inverted M with a tail. That would make sense; SMERSH is short for smyert shpionam – Death to Spies – and he thinks he’s labelled me as a shpion. It’s a nuisance because M. will probably say I’ve got to go to hospital again when I get back to London and have new skin grafted over the whole of the back of my hand. It doesn’t matter much. I’ve decided to resign.’

Mathis looked at him with his mouth open.

‘Resign?’ he asked incredulously. ‘What the hell for?’

Bond looked away from Mathis. He studied his bandaged hands.

‘When I was being beaten up,’ he said, ‘I suddenly liked the idea of being alive. Before Le Chiffre began, he used a phrase which stuck in my mind … “playing Red Indians”. He said that’s what I had been doing. Well, I suddenly thought he might be right.