`All intellectuals aren’t homosexual. And many of them are bald. I’m just saying that …,’ and so the argument had gone on intermittently through the hearings of the past three days, and the other committee members had ranged themselves more or less with Troop. Now, today, they had to draw up their recommendations and Bond was wondering whether to take the unpopular step of entering a minority report.
How seriously did he feel about the whole question, Bond wondered as, at nine o’clock, he walked out of his flat and down the steps to his car? Was he just being petty and obstinate? Had he constituted himself into a one-man opposition only to give his teeth something to bite into? Was he so bored that he could find nothing better to do than make a nuisance of himself inside his own organization? Bond couldn’t make up his mind. He felt restless and indecisive, and, behind it all, there was a nagging disquiet he couldn’t put his finger on.
As he pressed the self-starter and the twin exhausts of the Bentley woke to their fluttering growl, a curious bastard quotation slipped from nowhere into Bond’s mind.
`Those whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first make bored.’
Chapter Twelve
A Piece of Cake
As it turned out, Bond never had to make a decision on the Committee’s final report.
He had complimented his secretary on a new summer frock, and was half way through the file of signals that had come in during the night, when the red telephone that could only mean M or his Chief-of-Staff gave its soft, peremptory burr.
Bond picked up the receiver. `007.’
`Can you come up?’ It was the Chief-of-Staff.
`M?’
`Yes. And it looks like a long session. I’ve told Troop you won’t be able to make the Committee.’
`Any idea what it’s about?’
The Chief-of-Staff chuckled. `Well, I have as a matter of fact. But you’d better hear about it from him. It’ll make you sit up. There’s quite a swerve on this one.’
As Bond put on his coat and went out into the corridor, banging the door behind him he had a feeling of certainty that the starter’s gun had fired and that the dog days had come to an end. Even the ride up to the top floor in the lift and the walk down the long quiet corridor to the door of M’s small office seemed to be charged with the significance of all those other occasions when the bell of the red telephone had been the signal that had fired him, like a loaded projectile, across the world towards some distant target of M’s choosing. And the eyes of Miss Moneypenny, M’s private secretary, had that old look of excitement and secret knowledge as she smiled up at him and pressed the switch on the intercom.
`007’s here, sir.’
`Send him in,’ said the metallic voice, and the red light of privacy went on above the door.
Bond went through the door and closed it softly behind him. The room was cool, or perhaps it was the Venetian blinds that gave an impression of coolness. They threw bars of light and shadow across the dark green carpet up to the edge of the big central desk. There the sunshine stopped so that the quiet figure behind the desk sat in a pool of suffused greenish shade. In the ceiling directly above the desk, a big twin-bladed tropical fan, a recent addition to M’s room, slowly revolved, shifting the thundery August air that, even high up above the Regent’s Park, was heavy and stale after a week of heat-wave.
M gestured to the chair opposite him across the red leather desk. Bond sat down and looked across into the tranquil, lined sailor’s face that he loved, honoured and obeyed.
`Do you mind if I ask you a personal question, James?’ M never asked his staff personal questions and Bond couldn’t imagine what was coming.
`No, sir.’
M picked his pipe out of the big copper ash-tray and began to fill it, thoughtfully watching his fingers at work with the tobacco. He said harshly: `You needn’t answer, but it’s to do with your, er, friend, Miss Case. As you know, I don’t generally interest myself in these matters, but I did hear that you had been, er, seeing a lot of each other since that diamond business. Even some idea you might be going to get married.’ M glanced up at Bond and then down again. He put the loaded pipe into his mouth and set a match to it. Out of the corner of his mouth, as he drew at the jigging flame, he said: `Care to tell me anything about it?’