`Persistent chaps these salesmen.’ Bond put down his paper and reached for the coffee pot.
`I gave him a right piece of my mind last night. Disturbing folk at their supper. Asked him if he’d got any papers–anything to show who he was.’
`I expect that fixed him.’ Bond filled his large coffee cup to the brim with black coffee.
`Not a bit of it. Flourished his union card. Said he had every right to earn his living. Electricians Union it was too. They’re the Communist one, aren’t they-s?’
`Yes, that’s right,’ said Bond vaguely. His mind sharpened. Was it possible They could be keeping an eye on him? He took a sip of the coffee and put the cup down. `Exactly what did this man say, May?’ he asked, keeping his voice indifferent, but looking at her.
`He said he’s selling Televeesion sets on commission in his spare time. And are we sure we don’t want one. He says we’re one of the only folk in the square that haven’t got one. Sees there isn’t one of those aerial things on the house, I dare say. He’s always asking if you’re at home so that he can have a word with you about it. Fancy his cheek! I’m surprised he hasn’t thought to catch you coming in or going out. He’s always asking if I’m expecting you home. Naturally I don’t tell him anything about your movements. Respectable, quiet-spoken body, if he wasn’t so persistent.’
Could be, thought Bond. There are many ways of checking up whether the owner’s at home or away. A servant’s appearance and reactions–a glance through the open door. `Well, you’re wasting your time because he’s away,’ would be the obvious reception if the flat was empty. Should he tell the Security Section? Bond shrugged his shoulders irritably. What the hell. There was probably nothing in it. Why should They be interested in him? And, if there was something in it, Security was quite capable of making him change his flat.
`I expect you’ve frightened him away this time.’ Bond smiled up at May. `I should think you’ve heard the last of him.’
`Yes-s,’ said May doubtfully. At any rate she had carried out her orders to tell him if she saw anyone `hanging about the place’. She bustled off with a whisper of the old-fashioned black uniform she persisted in wearing even in the heat of August.
Bond went back to his breakfast. Normally it was little straws in the wind like this that would start a persistent intuitive ticking in his mind, and, on other days, he would not have been happy until he had solved the problem of the man from the Communist Union who kept on coming to the house. Now, from months of idleness and disuse, the sword was rusty in the scabbard and Bond’s mental guard was down.
Breakfast was Bond’s favourite meal of the day. When he was stationed in London it was always the same. It consisted of very strong coffee, from De Bry in New Oxford Street, brewed in an American Chemex, of which he drank two large cups, black and without sugar. The single egg, in the dark blue egg cup with a gold ring round the top, was boiled for three and a third minutes.
It was a very fresh, speckled brown egg from French Marans hens owned by some friend of May in the country. (Bond disliked white eggs and, faddish as he was in many small things, it amused him to maintain that there was such a thing as the perfect boiled egg.) Then there were two thick slices of wholewheat toast, a large pat of deep yellow Jersey butter and three squat glass jars containing Tiptree `Little Scarlet’ strawberry jam; Cooper’s Vintage Oxford marmalade and Norwegian Heather Honey from Fortnum’s. The coffee pot and the silver on the tray were Queen Anne, and the china was Minton, of the same dark blue and gold and white as the egg-cup.
That morning, while Bond finished his breakfast with honey, he pinpointed the immediate cause of his lethargy and of his low spirits. To begin with, Tiffany Case, his love for so many happy months, had left him and, after final painful weeks during which she had withdrawn to an hotel, had sailed for America at the end of July. He missed her badly and his mind still sheered away from the thought of her. And it was August, and London was hot and stale. He was due for leave, but he had not the energy or the desire to go off alone, or to try and find some temporary replacement for Tiffany to go with him. So he had stayed on in the half-empty headquarters of the Secret Service grinding away at the old routines, snapping at his secretary and rasping his colleagues.