The maŒtre d’h“tel supervised the serving of the second course and then as they ate the delicious food, Bond continued.
She listened to him coldly, but with attentive obedience. She felt thoroughly deflated by his harshness, while admitting to herself that she should have paid more heed to the warning of Head of S.
‘He’s a dedicated man,’ her chief had said when he gave her the assignment. ‘Don’t imagine this is going to be any fun. He thinks of nothing but the job on hand and, while it’s on, he’s absolute hell to work for. But he’s an expert and there aren’t many about, so you won’t be wasting your time. He’s a good-looking chap, but don’t fall for him. I don’t think he’s got much heart. Anyway, good luck and don’t get hurt.’
All this had been something of a challenge and she was pleased when she felt she attracted and interested him, as she knew intuitively that she did. Then at a hint that they were finding pleasure together, a hint that was only the first words of a conventional phrase, he had suddenly turned to ice and had brutally veered away as if warmth were poison to him. She felt hurt and foolish. Then she gave a mental shrug and concentrated with all her attention on what he was saying. She would not make the same mistake again.
‘. . . and the main hope is to pray for a run of luck for me, or against him.’
Bond was explaining just how baccarat is played.
‘It’s much the same as any other gambling game. The odds against the banker and the player are more or less even. Only a run against either can be decisive and ‘break the bank’, or break the players.
‘Tonight, Le Chiffre, we know, has bought the baccarat bank from the Egyptian syndicate which is running the high tables here. He paid a million francs for it and his capital has been reduced to twenty-four million. I have about the same. There will be ten players, I expect, and we sit round the banker at a kidney-shaped table.
‘Generally, this table is divided into two tableaux. The banker plays two games, one against each of the tableaux to left and right of him. In the game that banker should be able to win by playing off one tableaux against the other and by first-class accountancy. But there aren’t enough baccarat players yet at Royale and Le Chiffre is just going to pit his luck against the other players at the single tableau. It’s unusual because the odds in favour of the banker aren’t so good, but they’re a shade in his favour and, of course, he has control of the size of the stakes.
‘Well, the banker sits there in the middle with a croupier to rake in the cards and call the amount of each bank and a chef de partie to umpire the game generally. I shall be sitting as near dead opposite Le Chiffre as I can get. In front of him he has a shoe containing six packs of cards, well shuffled. There’s absolutely no chance of tampering with the shoe. The cards are shuffled by the croupier and cut by one of the players and put into the shoe in full view of the table. We’ve checked on the staff and they’re all okay. It would be useful, but almost impossible, to mark all the cards, and it would mean the connivance at least of the croupier. Anyway, we shall be watching for that too.’
Bond drank some champagne and continued.
‘Now what happens at the game is this. The banker announces an opening bank of five hundred thousand francs, of five hundred pounds as it is now. Each seat is numbered from the right of the banker and the player next to the banker, or Number 1, can accept this bet and push his money out on to the table, or pass it, if it is too much for him or he doesn’t want to take it. Then Number 2 has the right to take it, and if he refuses, then Number 3, and so on round the table. If no single player takes it all, the bet is offered to the table as a whole and everyone chips in, including sometimes the spectators round the table, until the five hundred thousand is made up.