M. paused and looked up at the ceiling.
“He was one of the two who got killed last night. Shot by one of the Germans, who then shot himself.”
M. lowered his eyes and looked at Bond. Bond said nothing, waiting for the rest of the story.
“It happened in a public house near the site. Plenty of witnesses. Apparently it’s an inn on the edge of the site that is in bounds to the men. Must have somewhere to go to, I suppose.” M. paused. He kept his eyes on Bond. “Now you asked where we come in on all this. We come in because we cleared this particular German, and all the others, before they were allowed to come over here. We’ve got the dossiers of all of them. So when this happened the first thing RAF Security and Scotland Yard wanted was the dossier of the dead man. They got on to the Duty Officer last night and he dug the papers out of Records and sent them over to the Yard. Routine job. He noted it in the log. When I got here this morning and saw the entry in the log I suddenly got interested.” M. spoke quietly. “After spending the evening with Drax, it was, as you remarked, a curious coincidence.”
“Very curious, sir,” said Bond, still waiting.
“And there’s one more thing,” concluded M. “And this is the real reason why I’ve let myself get involved instead of keeping clear of the whole business. This has got to take priority over everything.” M.’s voice was very quiet. “They’re going to fire the Moonraker on Friday. Less than four days’ time. Practice shoot.”
M. paused and reached for his pipe and busied himself lighting it.
Bond said nothing. He still couldn’t see what all this had to do with the Secret Service whose jurisdiction runs only outside the United Kingdom. It seemed a job for the Special Branch of Scotland Yard, or conceivably for MI5. He waited. He looked at his watch. It was noon.
M. got his pipe going and continued.
“But quite apart from that,” said M., “I got interested because last night I got interested in Drax.”
“So did I, sir,” said Bond.
“So when I read the log,” said M., ignoring Bond’s comment, “I telephoned Vallance at the Yard and asked him what it was all about. He was rather worried and asked me to come over. I said I didn’t want to tread on Five’s corns but he said he had already spoken to them. They maintained it was a matter between my department and the police since it was we who had cleared the German who did the killing. So I went along.”
M. paused and looked down at his notes.
“The place is on the coast about three miles north of Dover,” he said. “There’s this inn nearby on the main coast road, the ‘World without Want’, and the men from the site go there in the evening. Last night, about seven-thirty, the Security man from the Ministry, this man Tallon, went along there and was having a whisky and soda and chatting away with some of the Germans when the murderer, if you like to call him that, came in and walked straight up to Tallon. He pulled out a Luger-no serial numbers by the way-out of his shirt and said,” M. looked up, ‘”I love Gala Brand. You shall not have her.’ Then he shot Tallon through the heart and put the smoking gun in his own mouth and pulled the trigger.”
“What a ghastly business,” said Bond. He could see every detail of the shambles in the crowded taproom of a typical English public house. “Who’s the girl?”
“That’s another complication,” said M. “She’s an agent of the Special Branch. Bilingual in German. One of Val-lance’s best girls. She and Tallon were the only two non-Germans Drax had with him on the site. Vallance is a suspicious chap. Has to be. This Moonraker plan is obviously the most important thing happening in England. Without telling anyone and acting more or less on instinct, he planted this Brand girl on Drax and somehow fixed for her to be taken on as his private secretary. Been on the site since the beginning. She’s had absolutely nothing to report. Says that Drax is an excellent chief, except for his manners, and drives his men like hell. Apparently he started by making passes at her, even after she’d spun the usual yarn about being engaged, but after she’d shown she could defend herself, which of course she can, he gave up and she says they’re perfectly good friends. Naturally she knew Tallon, but he was old enough to be her father, besides being happily married with four children, and she told Vallance’s man who got a word with her this morning that he’s taken her to the cinema in a paternal sort of way twice in eighteen months. As for the killer, man called Egon Bartsch, he was an electronics expert whom she barely knew by sight.”