Ex-Leading Stoker Smith grinned gratefully. ‘Aye-aye, sir. And thanks.’ He watched the elderly erect figure walk round the bonnet of the Rolls and across the pavement and into the building. Just like the old boy. He’d always see the men right first. Smith clicked the gear lever into first and moved off, peering forward through the streaming windscreen. They didn’t come like that any more.
M. went up in the lift to the eighth floor and along the thick-carpeted corridor to his office. He shut the door behind him, took off his overcoat and scarf and hung them behind the door. He took out a large blue silk bandanna handkerchief and brusquely wiped it over his face. It was odd, but he wouldn’t have done this in front of the porters or the liftman. He went over to his desk and sat down and bent towards the intercom. He pressed a switch. ‘I’m in, Miss Moneypenny. The signals, please, and anything else you’ve got. Then get me Sir James Molony. He’ll be doing his rounds at St Mary’s about now. Tell the Chief of Staff I’ll see 007 in half an hour. And let me have the Strangways file.’ M. waited for the metallic ‘Yes, sir’ and released the switch.
He sat back and reached for his pipe and began filling it thoughtfully. He didn’t look up when his secretary came in with the stack of papers and he even ignored the half dozen pink Most Immediates on top of the signal file. If they had been vital he would have been called during the night.
A yellow light winked on the intercom. M. picked up the black telephone from the row of four. ‘That you, Sir James? Have you got five minutes?’
‘Six, for you.’ At the other end of the line the famous neurologist chuckled. ‘Want me to certify one of Her Majesty’s Ministers?’
‘Not today.’ M. frowned irritably. The old Navy had respected governments. ‘It’s about that man of mine you’ve been handling. We won’t bother about the name. This is an open line. I gather you let him out yesterday. Is he fit for duty?’
There was a pause on the other end. Now the voice was professional, judicious. ‘Physically he’s as fit as a fiddle. Leg’s healed up. Shouldn’t be any after-effects. Yes, he’s all right.’ There was another pause. ‘Just one thing, M. There’s a lot of tension there, you know. You work these men of yours pretty hard. Can you give him something easy to start with? From what you’ve told me he’s been having a tough time for some years now.’
M. said gruffly, ‘That’s what he’s paid for. It’ll soon show if he’s not up to the work. Won’t be the first one that’s cracked. From what you say, he sounds in perfectly good shape. It isn’t as if he’d really been damaged like some of the patients I’ve sent you – men who’ve been properly put through the mangle.’
‘Of course, if you put it like that. But pain’s an odd thing. We know very little about it. You can’t measure it – the difference in suffering between a woman having a baby and a man having a renal colic. And, thank God, the body seems to forget fairly quickly. But this man of yours has been in real pain, M. Don’t think that just because nothing’s been broken …’
‘Quite, quite.’ Bond had made a mistake and he had suffered for it. In any case M. didn’t like being lectured, even by one of the most famous doctors in the world, on how he should handle his agents. There had been a note of criticism in Sir James Molony’s voice. M. said abruptly, ‘Ever hear of a man called Steincrohn – Dr Peter Steincrohn?’
‘No, who’s he?’
‘American doctor. Written a book my Washington people sent over for our library. This man talks about how much punishment the human body can put up with. Gives a list of the bits of the body an average man can do without. Matter of fact, I copied it out for future reference. Care to hear the list?’ M. dug into his coat pocket and put some letters and scraps of paper on the desk in front of him. With his left hand he selected a piece of paper and unfolded it. He wasn’t put out by the silence on the other end of the line, ‘Hullo, Sir James! Well, here they are: “Gall bladder, spleen, tonsils, appendix, one of his two kidneys, one of his two lungs, two of his four or five quarts of blood, two-fifths of his liver, most of his stomach, four of his twenty-three feet of intestines and half of his brain.” ’ M. paused. When the silence continued at the other end, he said, ‘Any comments, Sir James?’
There was a reluctant grunt at the other end of the telephone. ‘I wonder he didn’t add an arm and a leg, or all of them. I don’t see quite what you’re trying to prove.’
M. gave a curt laugh. ‘I’m not trying to prove anything, Sir James. It just struck me as an interesting list. All I’m trying to say is that my man seems to have got off pretty lightly compared with that sort of punishment. But,’ M. relented, ‘don’t let’s argue about it.’ He said in a milder voice, ‘As a matter of fact I did have it in mind to let him have a bit of a breather. Something’s come up in Jamaica.’ M. glanced at the streaming windows. ‘It’ll be more of a rest cure than anything. Two of my people, a man and a girl, have gone off together. Or that’s what it looks like. Our friend can have a spell at being an inquiry agent – in the sunshine too. How’s that?’
‘Just the ticket. I wouldn’t mind the job myself on a day like this.’ But Sir James Molony was determined to get his message through. He persisted mildly. ‘Don’t think I wanted to interfere, M., but there are limits to a man’s courage. I know you have to treat these men as if they were expendable, but presumably you don’t want them to crack at the wrong moment. This one I’ve had here is tough. I’d say you’ll get plenty more work out of him. But you know what Moran has to say about courage in that book of his.’
‘Don’t recall.’
‘He says that courage is a capital sum reduced by expenditure. I agree with him. All I’m trying to say is that this particular man seems to have been spending pretty hard since before the war. I wouldn’t say he’s overdrawn – not yet, but there are limits.’
‘Just so.’ M. decided that was quite enough of that. Nowadays, softness was everywhere. ‘That’s why I’m sending him abroad. Holiday in Jamaica. Don’t worry, Sir James. I’ll take care of him. By the way, did you ever discover what the stuff was that Russian woman put into him?’
‘Got the answer yesterday.’ Sir James Molony also was glad the subject had been changed. The old man was as raw as the weather. Was there any chance that he had got his message across into what he described to himself as M.’s thick skull? ‘Taken us three months. It was a bright chap at the School of Tropical Medicine who came up with it. The drug was fugu poison. The Japanese use it for committing suicide. It comes from the sex organs of the Japanese globe-fish. Trust the Russians to use something no one’s ever heard of. They might just as well have used curare. It has much the same effect – paralysis of the central nervous system. Fugu’s scientific name is Tetrodotoxin. It’s terrible stuff and very quick. One shot of it like your man got and in a matter of seconds the motor and respiratory muscles are paralysed. At first the chap sees double and then he can’t keep his eyes open. Next he can’t swallow. His head falls and he can’t raise it. Dies of respiratory paralysis.’
‘Lucky he got away with it.’
‘Miracle. Thanks entirely to that Frenchman who was with him. Got your man on the floor and gave him artificial respiration as if he was drowning. Somehow kept his lungs going until the doctor came. Luckily the doctor had worked in South America. Diagnosed curare and treated him accordingly. But it was a chance in a million. By the same token, what happened to the Russian woman?’
M. said shortly, ‘Oh, she died. Well, many thanks, Sir James. And don’t worry about your patient. I’ll see he has an easy time of it. Goodbye.’
M. hung up. His face was cold and blank. He pulled over the signal file and went quickly through it. On some of the signals he scribbled a comment. Occasionally he made a brief telephone call to one of the Sections. When he had finished he tossed the pile into his Out basket and reached for his pipe and the tobacco jar made out of the base of a fourteen-pounder