‘We know that the money is somewhere in your room,’ he said. ‘You drew a cheque to cash for forty million francs and I know that you went back to the hotel to hide it.’
For a moment Bond wondered how he had been so certain.
‘Directly you left for the night club,’ continued Le Chiffre, ‘your room was searched by four of my people.’
The Muntzes must have helped, reflected Bond.
‘We found a good deal in childish hiding-places. The ball-cock in the lavatory yielded an interesting little code-book and we found some more of your papers taped to the back of a drawer. All the furniture has been taken to pieces and your clothes and the curtains and bedclothes have been cut up. Every inch of the room has been searched and all the fittings removed. It is most unfortunate for you that we didn’t find the cheque. If we had, you would now be comfortably in bed, perhaps with the beautiful Miss Lynd, instead of this.’ He lashed upwards.
Through the red mist of pain, Bond thought of Vesper. He could imagine how she was being used by the two gunmen. They would be making the most of her before she was sent for by Le Chiffre. He thought of the fat wet lips of the Corsican and the slow cruelty of the thin man. Poor wretch to have been dragged into this. Poor little beast.
Le Chiffre was talking again.
‘Torture is a terrible thing,’ he was saying as he puffed at a fresh cigarette, ‘but it is a simple matter for the torturer, particularly when the patient,’ he smiled at the word, ‘is a man. You see, my dear Bond, with a man it is quite unnecessary to indulge in refinements. With this simple instrument, or with almost any other object, one can cause a man as much pain as is possible or necessary. Do not believe what you read in novels or books about the war. There is nothing worse. It is not only the immediate agony, but also the thought that your manhood is being gradually destroyed and that at the end, if you will not yield, you will no longer be a man.
‘That, my dear Bond, is a sad and terrible thought – a long chain of agony for the body and also for the mind, and then the final screaming moment when you will beg me to kill you. All that is inevitable unless you tell me where you hid the money.’
He poured some more coffee into the glass and drank it down leaving brown corners to his mouth.
Bond’s lips were writhing. He was trying to say something. At last he got the word out in a harsh croak: ‘Drink,’ he said and his tongue came out and swilled across his dry lips.
‘Of course, my dear boy, how thoughtless of me.’ Le Chiffre poured some coffee into the other glass. There was a ring of sweat drops on the floor round Bond’s chair.
‘We must certainly keep your tongue lubricated.’
He laid the handle of the carpet-beater down on the floor between his thick legs and rose from his chair. He went behind Bond and taking a handful of his soaking hair in one hand, he wrenched Bond’s head sharply back. He poured the coffee down Bond’s throat in small mouthfuls so that he would not choke. Then he released his head so that it fell forward again on his chest. He went back to his chair and picked up the carpet-beater.
Bond raised his head and spoke thickly.
‘Money no good to you.’ His voice was a laborious croak. ‘Police trace it to you.’
Exhausted by the effort, his head sank forward again. He was a little, but only a little, exaggerating the extent of his physical collapse. Anything to gain time and anything to defer the next searing pain.
‘Ah, my dear fellow, I had forgotten to tell you.’ Le Chiffre smiled wolfishly. ‘We met after our little game at the Casino and you were such a sportsman that you agreed we would have one more run through the pack between the two of us. It was a gallant gesture. Typical of an English gentleman.