M. shrugged his shoulders. “You’ve got a head like a rock, James,” he said. “Drink as much as you like if it’s going to help. Ah, here’s the vodka.”
When M. poured him three fingers from the frosted carafe Bond took a pinch of black pepper and dropped it on the surface of the vodka. The pepper slowly settled to the bottom of the glass leaving a few grains on the surface which Bond dabbed up with the tip of a finger. Then he tossed the cold liquor well to the back of his throat and put his glass, with the dregs of the pepper at the bottom, back on the table.
M. gave him a glance of rather ironical inquiry.
“It’s a trick the Russians taught me that time you attached me to the Embassy in Moscow,” apologized Bond. “There’s often quite a lot of fusel oil on the surface of this stuff-at least there used to be when it was badly distilled. Poisonous. In Russia, where you get a lot of bath-tub liquor, it’s an understood thing to sprinkle a little pepper in your glass. It takes the fusel oil to the bottom. I got to like the taste and now it’s a habit. But I shouldn’t have insulted the club Wolf-schmidt,” he added with a grin.
M. grunted. “So long as you don’t put pepper in Basildon’s favourite champagne,” he said drily.
A harsh bray of laughter came from a table at the far end of the room. M. looked over his shoulder and then turned back to his caviar.
“What do you think of this man Drax?” he said through a mouthful of buttered toast.
Bond helped himself to another slice of smoked salmon from the silver dish beside him. It had the delicate glutinous texture only achieved by Highland curers-very different from the dessicated products of Scandinavia. He rolled a wafer-thin slice of brown bread-and-butter into a cylinder and contemplated it thoughtfully.
“One can’t like his manner much. At first I was rather surprised that you tolerate him here.” He glanced at M., who shrugged his shoulders. “But that’s none of my business and anyway clubs would be very dull without a sprinkling of eccentrics. And in any case he’s a national hero and a millionaire and obviously an adequate card-player. Even when he isn’t helping himself to the odds,” he added. “But I can see he’s the sort of man I always imagined. Full-blooded, ruthless, shrewd. Plenty of guts. I’m not surprised he’s managed to get where he is. What I don’t understand is why he should be quite happy to throw it all away. This cheating of, his. It’s really beyond belief. What’s he trying to prove with it? That he can beat everyone at everything? He seems to put so much passion into his cards-as if it wasn’t a game at all, but some sort of trial of strength. You’ve only got to look at his fingernails. Bitten to the quick. And he sweats too much. There’s a lot of tension there somewhere. It comes out in those ghastly jokes of his. They’re harsh. There’s no light touch about them. He seemed to want to squash Basildon like a fly. Hope I shall be able to keep my temper. That manner of his is pretty riling. He even treats his partner as if he was muck. He hasn’t quite got under my skin, but I shan’t at all mind sticking a very sharp pin in him tonight.” He smiled at M. “If it comes off, that is.”
“I know what you mean,” said M. “But you may be being a bit hard on the man. After all, it’s a big step from the Liverpool docks, or wherever he came from, to where he is now. And he’s one of those people who was born with naturally hairy heels. Nothing to do with snobbery. I expect his mates in Liverpool found him just as loud-mouthed as Blades does. As for his cheating, there’s probably a crooked streak in him somewhere. I dare say he took plenty of short cuts on his way up. Somebody said that to become very rich you have to be helped by a combination of remarkable circumstances and an unbroken run of luck. It certainly isn’t only the qualities of people that make them rich. At least that’s my experience. At the beginning, getting together the first ten thousand, or the first hundred thousand, things have got to go damn right.