“Ah.”
“Yes,” said Pleydell-Smith, patting his pockets for the matches, finding them on the desk, shaking them against his ear, and starting his pipe-filling routine, “at the beginning of the war, this Chinaman, who must be a wily devil, by the way, got the idea that he could make a good thing out of the old guanera on Crab Key. The price was about fifty dollars a ton on this side of the Atlantic and he bought the island from us, for about ten thousand pounds as I recall it, brought in labour and got to work. Been working it ever since. Must have made a fortune. He ships direct to Europe, to Antwerp. They send him a ship once a month. He’s installed the latest crushers and separators. Sweats his labour, I daresay. To make a decent profit, he’d have to. Particularly now. Last year I heard he was only getting about thirty-eight to forty dollars a ton c.i.f. Antwerp. God knows what he must pay his labour to make a profit at that price. I’ve never been able to find out. He runs that place like a fortress-sort of forced labour camp. No one ever gets off it. I’ve heard some funny rumours, but no one’s ever complained. It’s his island, of course, and he can do what he likes on it.”
Bond hunted for clues. “Would it really be so valuable to him, this place? What do you suppose it’s worth?”
‘Pleydell-Smith said, “The guanay is the most valuable bird in the world. Each pair produces about two dollars’ worth of guano in a year without any expense to the owner. Each female lays an-average of three eggs and raises two young. Two broods a year. Say they’re worth fifteen dollars a pair, and say there are one hundred thousand birds on Crab Key, which is a reasonable guess on the old figures we have. That makes his birds worth a million and a half dollars. Pretty valuable property. Add the value of the installations, say another million, and you’ve got a small fortune on that hideous little place. Which reminds me,” Pleydell-Smith pressed the bell, “what the hell has happened to those files? You’ll find all the dope you want in them.”
The door opened behind Bond.
Pleydell-Smith said irritably, “Really, Miss Taro. What about those files?”
“Very sorry, sir,” said the soft voice. “But we can’t find them anywhere.”
“What do you mean ‘can’t find them’? Who had them last?”
“Commander Strangways, sir.”
“Well, I remember distinctly him bringing them back to this room. What happened to them then?”
“Can’t say, sir,” the voice was unemotional. “The covers are there but there’s nothing inside them.”
Bond turned in his chair. He glanced at the girl and turned back. He smiled grimly to himself. He knew where the files had gone. He also knew why the old file on himself had been out on the Secretary’s desk. He also guessed how the particular significance of ‘James Bond, Import and Export Merchant’ seemed to have leaked out of King’s House, the only place where the significance was known.
Like Doctor No, like Miss Annabel Chung, the demure, efficient-looking little secretary in the horn-rimmed glasses was a Chinese.
VI
THE FINGER ON THE TRIGGER
The Colonial Secretary gave Bond lunch at Queen’s Club, They sat in a corner of the elegant mahogany-panelled dining-room with its four big ceiling fans and gossiped about Jamaica. By the time coffee came, Pleydell-Smith was delving well below the surface of the prosperous, peaceful island the world knows.
“It’s like this.” He began his antics with the pipe. “The Jamaican is a kindly lazy man with the virtues and vices of a child. He lives on a very rich island but he doesn’t get rich from it. He doesn’t know how to and he’s too lazy. The British come and go and take the easy pickings, but for about two hundred years no Englishman has made a fortune out here. He doesn’t stay long enough. He takes a fat cut and leaves. It’s the Portuguese Jews who make the most. They came here with the British and they’ve stayed. But they’re snobs and they spend too much of their fortunes on building fine houses and giving dances. They’re the names that fill the social column in the Gleaner when the tourists have gone. They’re in rum and tobacco and they represent the big British firms over here-motor cars, insurance and so forth. Then come the Syrians, very rich too, but not such good businessmen. They have most of the stores and some of the best hotels. They’re not a very good risk. Get overstocked and have to have an occasional fire to get liquid again. Then there are the Indians with their usual flashy trade in soft goods and the like. They’re not much of a lot. Finally there are the Chinese, solid, compact, discreet-the most powerful clique in Jamaica. They’ve got the bakeries and the laundries and the best food stores. They keep to themselves and keep their strain pure.” Pleydell-Smith laughed. “Not that they don’t take the black girls when they want them. You can see the result all over Kingston-Chigroes-Chinese Negroes and Negresses. The Chigroes are a tough, forgotten race. They look down on the Negroes and the Chinese look down on them. One day they may become a nuisance. They’ve got some of the intelligence of the Chinese and most of the vices of the black man. The police have a lot of trouble with them.”