Like lightning the Corsican slammed himself back against the wall of the passage and, as Bond’s foot whistled past his hip, he very quickly, but somehow delicately, shot out his left hand, caught Bond’s shoe at the top of its arch and twisted it sharply.
Completely off balance, Bond’s other foot left the ground. In the air his whole body turned and with the momentum of his rush behind it crashed sideways and down on to the floor.
For a moment he lay there, all the breath knocked out of him. Then the thin man came and hauled him up against the wall by his collar. He had a gun in his hand. He looked Bond inquisitively in the eyes. Then unhurriedly he bent down and swiped the barrel viciously across Bond’s shins. Bond grunted and caved at the knees.
‘If there is a next time, it will be across your teeth,’ said the thin man in bad French.
A door slammed. Vesper and the Corsican had disappeared. Bond turned his head to the right. Le Chiffre had moved a few feet out into the passage. He lifted his finger and crooked it again. Then for the first time he spoke.
‘Come, my dear friend. We are wasting our time.’
He spoke in English with no accent. His voice was low and soft and unhurried. He showed no emotion. He might have been a doctor summoning the next patient from the waiting-room, a hysterical patient who had been expostulating feebly with a nurse.
Bond again felt puny and impotent. Nobody but an expert in ju-jitsu could have handled him with the Corsican’s economy and lack of fuss. The cold precision with which the thin man had paid him back in his own coin had been equally unhurried, even artistic.
Almost docilely Bond walked back down the passage.
He had nothing but a few more bruises to show for his clumsy gesture of resistance to these people.
As he preceded the thin man over the threshold he knew that was utterly and absolutely in their power.
CHAPTER 17 – ‘MY DEAR BOY’
It was a large bare room, sparsely furnished in cheap French art nouveau style. It was difficult to say whether it was intended as a living- or dining-room for a flimsy-looking mirrored sideboard, sporting an orange crackle-ware fruit dish and two painted wooden candlesticks, took up most of the wall opposite the door and contradicted the faded pink sofa ranged against the other side of the room.
There was no table in the centre under the alabasterine ceiling light, only a small square of stained carpet with a futurist design in contrasting browns.
Over by the window was an incongruous-looking throne-like chair in carved oak with a red velvet seat, a low table on which stood an empty water carafe and two glasses, and a light arm-chair with a round cane seat and no cushion.
Half-closed Venetian blinds obscured the view from the window, but cast bars of early sunlight over the few pieces of furniture and over part of the brightly papered wall and the brown stained floorboards.
Le Chiffre pointed at the cane chair.
‘That will do excellently,’ he said to the thin man. ‘Prepare him quickly. If he resists, damage him only a little.’
He turned to Bond. There was no expression on his large face and his round eyes were uninterested. ‘Take off your clothes. For every effort to resist, Basil will break one of your fingers. We are serious people and your good health is of no interest to us. Whether you live or die depends on the outcome of the talk we are about to have.’
He made a gesture towards the thin man and left the room.
The thin man’s first action was a curious one. He opened the clasp-knife he had used on the hood of Bond’s car, took the small arm-chair and with a swift motion he cut out its cane seat.
Then he came back to Bond, sticking the still open knife, like a fountain-pen, in the vest pocket of his coat. He turned Bond round to the light and unwound the flex from his wrists. Then he stood quickly aside and the knife was back in his right hand.