Bond said softly: “Where have they gone to?”
“America. Right up in the North of Vermont. Up against the Canadian border. Those sort of men like being close to frontiers. Place called Echo Lake. It’s some kind of a millionaire’s ranch he’s rented. Looks pretty from the photographs. Tucked away in the mountains with this little lake in the grounds. He’s certainly chosen himself somewhere where he won’t be troubled with visitors.”
“How did you get on to this, sir?”
“I sent a report of the whole case to Edgar Hoover. He knew of the man. I guessed he would. He’s had a lot of trouble with this gun-running from Miami to Castro. And he’s been interested in Havana ever since the big American gangster money started following the casinos there. He said that Hammerstein and his party had come into the States on six months visitors’ visas. He was very helpful. Wanted to know if I’d got enough to build up a case on. Did I want these men extradited for trial in Jamaica? I talked it over here with the Attorney General and he said there wasn’t a hope unless we could get the witnesses from Havana. There’s no chance of that. It was only through Castro’s Intelligence that we even know as much as we do. Officially the Cubans won’t raise a finger. Next, Hoover offered to have their visas revoked and get them on the move again. I thanked him and said no, and we left it at that.”
M sat for a moment in silence. His pipe had died and he relit it. He went on: “I decided to have a talk with our friends the Mounties. I got on to the Commissioner on the scrambler. He’s never let me down yet. He strayed one of his frontier patrol planes over the border and took a full aerial survey of this Echo Lake place. Said that if I wanted any other co-operation he’d provide it. And now,” M slowly swivelled his chair back square with the desk, “I’ve got to decide what to do next.”
Now Bond realised why M was troubled, why he wanted someone else to make the decision. Because these had been friends of M. Because a personal element was involved, M had worked on the case by himself. And now it had come to the point when justice ought to be done and these people brought to book. But M was thinking: is this justice, or is it revenge? No judge would take a murder case in which he had personally known the murdered person. M wanted someone else, Bond, to deliver judgement. There were no doubts in Bond’s mind. He didn’t know the Havelocks or care who they were. Hammerstein had operated the law of the jungle on two defenceless old people. Since no other law was available, the law of the jungle should be visited upon Hammerstein. In no other way could justice be done. If it was revenge, it was the revenge of the community.
Bond said: “I wouldn’t hesitate for a minute, sir. If foreign gangsters find they can get away with this kind of thing they’ll decide the English are as soft as some other people seem to think we are. This is a case for rough justice – an eye for an eye.”
M went on looking at Bond. He gave no encouragement, made no comment.
Bond said: “These people can’t be hung, sir. But they ought to be killed.”
M’s eyes ceased to focus on Bond. For a moment they were blank, looking inward. Then he slowly reached for the top drawer of his desk on the left-hand side, pulled it open and extracted a thin file without the usual title across it and without the top-secret red star. He placed the file squarely in front of him and his hand rummaged again in the open drawer. The hand brought out a rubber stamp and a red-ink pad. M opened the pad, tamped the rubber stamp on it and then carefully, so that it was properly aligned with the top right-hand corner of the docket, pressed it down on the grey cover.
M replaced the stamp and the ink pad in the drawer and closed the drawer. He turned the docket round and pushed it gently across the desk to Bond.