CHAPTER SEVEN
THOUGHTS IN A DB III
BOND FOLLOWED Colonel Smithers to the lift. While they waited for it, Bond glanced out of the tall window at the end of the passage. He was looking down into the deep well of the back courtyard of the Bank. A trim chocolate-brown lorry with no owner’s name had come into the courtyard through the triple steel gates. Square cardboard boxes were being unloaded from it and put on to a short conveyor belt that disappeared into the bowels of the Bank.
Colonel Smithers came over. ‘Fivers,’ he commented. ‘Just come up from our printing works at Loughton.’
The lift came and they got in. Bond said, ‘I’m not very impressed by the new ones. They look like any other country’s money. The old ones were the most beautiful money in the world.’
They walked across the entrance hall, now dimly lit and deserted. Colonel Smithers said, ‘As a matter of fact I agree with you. Trouble was that those Reichsbank forgeries during the war were a darn sight too good. When the Russians captured Berlin, among the loot they got hold of the plates. We asked the Narodni Bank for them, but they refused to give them up. We and the Treasury decided it was just too dangerous. At any moment, if Moscow had been inclined, they could have started a major raid on our currency. We had to withdraw the old fivers. The new ones aren’t much to look at, but at least they’d be hell to forge.’
The night guard let them out on to the steps. Thread-needle Street was almost deserted. The long City night was beginning. Bond said goodbye to Colonel Smithers and walked along to the Tube. He had never thought very much about the Bank of England, but now that he had been inside the place he decided that the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street might be old but she still had some teeth left in her head.
Bond had been told to report back to M at six. He did so. M’s face was no longer pink and shining. The long day had knocked it about, stressed it, shrunken it. When Bond went in and took the chair across the desk, he noticed the conscious effort M made to clear his mind, cope with the new problem the day was to fling at him. M straightened himself in his chair and reached for his pipe. ‘Well?’
Bond knew the false belligerence of that particular bark. He told the gist of the story in less than five minutes.
When he had finished, M said thoughtfully, ‘Suppose we’ve got to take it on. Don’t understand a thing about the pound and bank rate and all that but everyone seems to be taking it damned seriously. Personally I should have thought the strength of the pound depended on how hard we all worked rather than how much gold we’d got. Germans didn’t have much gold after the war. Look where they’ve got in ten years. However, that’s probably too easy an answer for the politicians – or more likely too difficult. Got any ideas how to tackle this chap Goldfinger? Any way of getting closer to him, offering to do some dirty work for him or something like that?’
Bond said thoughtfully, ‘I wouldn’t get anywhere sucking up to him, asking him for a job or something of that sort, sir. I should say he’s the sort of man who only respects people who are tougher or smarter than he is. I’ve given him one beating and the only message I got from him was that he’d like me to play golf with him. Perhaps I’d better do just that.’
‘Fine way for one of my top men to spend his time.’ The sarcasm in Ad’s voice was weary, resigned. ‘All right. Go ahead. But if what you say is right, you’d better see that you beat him. What’s your cover story?’
Bond shrugged. ‘I hadn’t thought, sir. Perhaps I’d better be thinking of leaving Universal Export. No future in it. Having a holiday while I look round. Thinking of emigrating to Canada. Fed up here. Something like that. But perhaps I’d better play it the way the cards fall. I wouldn’t think he’s an easy man to fool.’