“I’d like to have a word with the Colonial Secretary, sir.”
“Really? And why, pray?”
“There’s been some trouble on Crab Key. Something about a bird sanctuary. The case was passed to us by the Colonial Office. My Chief asked me to look into it while I’m here.”
The Governor looked relieved. “Certainly, certainly. I’ll see that Mr Pleydell-Smith receives you straight away. So you feel we can leave the Strangways case to sort itself out? They’ll turn up before long, never fear.” He reached over and rang a bell. The ADC came in. “This gentleman would like to see the Colonial Secretary, ADC. Take him along, would you? I’ll call Mr Pleydell-Smith myself and ask him to make himself available.” He got up and came round the desk. He held out his hand. “Goodbye, then Mr Bond. And I’m so glad we see eye to eye. Crab Key, eh? Never been there myself, but I’m sure it would repay a visit.”
Bond shook hands. “That was what I was thinking. Goodbye, sir.”
“Goodbye, goodbye.” The Governor watched Bond’s back retreating out of the door and himself returned well satisfied to his desk. “Young whippersnapper,” he said to the empty room. He sat down and said a few peremptory words down the telephone to the Colonial Secretary. Then he picked up the Times Weekly and turned to the Stock Exchange prices.
The Colonial Secretary was a youngish shaggy-haired man with bright, boyish eyes. He was one of those nervous pipe smokers who are constantly patting their pockets for matches, shaking the box to see how many are left in it, or knocking the dottle out of their pipes. After he had gone through this routine two or three times in his first ten minutes with Bond, Bond wondered if he ever got any smoke into his lungs at all.
After pumping energetically at Bond’s hand and waving vaguely at a chair, Pleydell-Smith walked up and down the room scratching his temple with the stem of his pipe. “Bond. Bond. Bond! Rings a bell. Now let me see. Yes, by jove! You werejthe chap who was mixed up in that treasure business here. By jove, yes! Four, five years ago. Found the file lying around only the other day. Splendid show. What a lark! I say, wish you’d start another bonfire like that here. Stir the place up a bit. All they think of nowadays is Federation and their bloody self-importance. Self-determination indeed! They can’t even run a bus service. And the colour problem! My dear chap, there’s far more colour problem between the straight-haired and the crinkly-haired Jamaicans than there is between me and my black cook. However-“Pleydell-Smith came to rest beside his desk. He sat down opposite Bond and draped one leg over the arm of his chair. Reaching for a tobacco jar with the arms of King’s College, Cambridge, on it, he dug into it and started filling his pipe-“I mean to say I don’t want to bore you with all that. You go ahead and bore me. What’s your problem? Glad to help. I bet it’s more interesting than this muck,” he waved at the pile of papers in his In tray.
Bond grinned at him. This was more like it. He had found an ally, and an intelligent one at that. “Well,” he said seriously, “I’m here on the Strangways case. But first of all I want to ask you a question that may sound odd. Exactly how did you come to be looking at that other case of mine? You say you found the file lying about. How was that? Had someone asked for it? I don’t want to be indiscreet, so don’t answer if you don’t want to. I’m just inquisitive.”
Pleydell-Smith cocked an eye at him. “I suppose that’s yoUr job.” He reflected, gazing at the ceiling. “Well, now I come to think of it I saw it on my secretary’s desk. She’s a new girl. Said she was trying to get up to date with the files. Mark you,” the Colonial Secretary hastened to exonerate his girl, “there were plenty of other files on her desk. It was just this one that caught my eye.”