‘Trois.’
Bond looked over at Vesper and Felix Leiter. They were smiling and talking to each other. The fools. Where was Mathis? Where were those famous men of his?
‘Quatre.’
And the other spectators. This crowd of jabbering idiots. Couldn’t someone see what was happening? The chef de partie, the croupier, the huissier?
‘Cinq.’
The croupier was tidying up the pile of notes. The chef de partie bowed smilingly towards Bond. Directly the stake was in order he would announce: ‘Le jeux est fait.’ and the gun would fire whether the gunman had reached ten or not.
‘Six.’
Bond decided. It was a chance. He carefully moved his hands to the edge of the table, gripped it, edged his buttocks right back, feeling the sharp gun-sight grind into his coccyx.
‘Sept.’
The chef de partie turned to Le Chiffre with his eyebrows lifted, waiting for the banker’s nod that he was ready to play.
Suddenly Bond heaved backwards with all his strength. His momentum tipped the cross-bar of the chair-back down so quickly that it cracked across the malacca tube and wrenched it from the gunman’s hand before he could pull the trigger.
Bond went head-over-heels on to the ground amongst the spectators’ feet, his legs in the air. The back of the chair splintered with a sharp crack. There were cries of dismay. The spectators cringed away and then, reassured, clustered back. Hands helped him to his feet and brushed him down. The huissier bustled up with the chef de partie. At all costs a scandal must be avoided.
Bond held on to the brass rail. He looked confused and embarrassed. He brushed his hands across his forehead.
‘A momentary faintness.’ he said. ‘It is nothing – the excitement, the heat.’
There were expressions of sympathy. Naturally, with this tremendous game. Would Monsieur prefer to withdraw, to lie down, to go home? Should a doctor be fetched?
Bond shook his head. He was perfectly all right now. His excuses to the table. To the banker also.
A new chair was brought and he sat down. He looked across at Le Chiffre. Through his relief at being alive, he felt a moment of triumph at what he saw – some fear in the fat, pale face.
There was a buzz of speculation round the table. Bond’s neighbours on both sides of him bent forward and spoke solicitously about the heat and the lateness of the hour and the smoke and the lack of air.
Bond replied politely. He turned to examine the crowd behind him. There was no trace of the gunman, but the huissier was looking for someone to claim the malacca stick. It seemed undamaged. But it no longer carried a rubber tip. Bond beckoned to him.
‘If you will give it to that gentleman over there,’ he indicated Felix Leiter, ‘he will return it. It belongs to an acquaintance of his.’
The hussier bowed.
Bond grimly reflected that a short examination would reveal to Leiter why he had made such an embarrassing public display of himself
He turned back to the table and tapped the green cloth in front of him to show that he was ready.
CHAPTER 13 – ‘A WHISPER OF LOVE, A WHISPER OF HATE’
‘La partie continue,’ announced the chef impressively. ‘Un banco de trente-deux millions.’
The spectators craned forward. Le Chiffre hit the shoe with a flat-handed slap that made it rattle. As an afterthought he took out his benzedrine inhaler and sucked the vapour up his nose.
‘Filthy brute,’ said Mrs Du Pont on Bond’s left.
Bond’s mind was clear again. By a miracle he had survived a devastating wound. He could feel his armpits still wet with the fear of it. But the success of his gambit with the chair had wiped out all memories of the dreadful valley of defeat through which he had just passed.
He had made a fool of himself. The game had been interrupted for at least ten minutes, a delay unheard of in a respectable casino, but now the cards were waiting for him in the shoe. They must not fail him. He felt his heart lift at the prospect of what was to come.