[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

and walked through. He opened the door. It was the hall porter. 'Yes?'
'Telephone message from a Mr Goldfinger, sir. His compliments and would you care
to come to his house for dinner tonight. It's the Grange over at Reculver, sir. Six-thirty
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for drinks beforehand and not to bother to dress.'
'Please thank Mr Goldfinger and say I shall be delighted.' Bond shut the door and
walked across to the open window and stood looking out across the quiet evening sea.
'Well, well! Talk of the devil!' Bond smiled to himself, 'And then go and sup with him!
What was that about a long spoon?'
At six o'clock Bond went down to the bar and had a large vodka and tonic with a slice
of lemon peel. The bar was empty save for a group of American Air Force officers from
Mansion. They were drinking whisky and water and talking baseball. Bond wondered if
they had spent the day toting a hydrogen bomb round the skies over Kent, over the four
little dots in the dunes that had been his match with Goldfinger. He thought wryly, Not
too much of that whisky, cousins, paid for his drink, and left.
He motored slowly over to Reculver, savouring the evening and the drink inside him
and the quiet bubble of the twin exhausts. This was going to be an interesting dinner-
party. Now was the moment to sell himself to Goldfinger. If he put a foot wrong he was
out, and the pitch would have been badly queered for his successor. He was unarmed -
it would be fatal for Goldfinger to smell that kind of rat. He felt a moment's qualm. But
that was going too fast. No state of war had been declared - the opposite if anything.
When they had parted at the golf club, Goldfinger had been cordial in a rather forced,
oily fashion. He had inquired where he should send Bond's winnings and Bond had
given him the address of Universal Export. He had asked where Bond was staying and
Bond had told him and added that he would only be at Ramsgate a few days while he
made up his mind about his future. Goldfinger hoped that they would one day have a
return match but, alas, he was leaving for France tomorrow and wasn't certain when he
would be back. Flying? Yes, taking the Air Ferry from Lydd. Well, thanks for the match.
And thank you, Mr Bond. The eyes had given Bond one last X-ray treatment, as if fixing
him for a last time in Gold-finger's filing system, and then the big yellow car had sighed
away.
Bond had had a good look at the chauffeur. He was a chunky flat-faced Japanese, or
more probably Korean, with a wild, almost mad glare in dramatically slanting eyes that
belonged in a Japanese film rather than in a Rolls Royce on a sunny afternoon in Kent.
He had the snout-like upper lip that sometimes goes with a cleft palate, but he said
nothing and Bond had no opportunity of knowing whether his guess was right. In his
tight, almost bursting black suit and farcical bowler hat he looked rather like a Japanese
wrestler on his day off. But he was not a figure to make one smile. If one had been
inclined to smile, a touch of the sinister, the unexplained, in the tight shining patent-
leather black shoes that were almost dancing pumps, and in the heavy black leather
driving gloves, would have changed one's mind. There was something vaguely familiar
to Bond in the man's silhouette. It was when the car drove away and Bond had a
glimpse of the head from the rear that he remembered. Those were the head and
shoulders and bowler hat of the driver of the sky-blue Ford Popular that had so
obstinately hugged the crown of the Herne Bay road at about twelve o'clock that
morning. Where had he been coming from? What errand had he been on? Bond
remembered something Colonel Smithers had said. Could this have been the Korean
who now travelled the country collecting the old gold from the chain of Goldfinger
jewellery shops? Had the boot of the innocent, scurrying little saloon been stuffed with
the week's takings of presentation watches, signet rings, lockets, gold crosses? As he
watched the high, primrose-yellow silhouette of the Silver
Ghost disappearing towards Sandwich, Bond thought the answer was yes.
Bond turned off the main road into the drive and followed it down between high
Victorian evergreens to the gravel sweep in front of just the sort of house that would be
called The Grange - a heavy, ugly, turn-of-the-century mansion with a glass-enclosed
portico and sun parlour whose smell of trapped sunshine, rubber plants and dead flies
came to Bond in his imagination before he had switched off the engine. Bond got slowly
 55
out of the car and stood looking at the house. Its blank, well-washed eyes stared back
at him. The house had a background noise, a heavy rhythmic pant like a huge animal
with a rather quick pulse. Bond assumed it came from the factory whose plumed
chimney reared up like a giant cautionary finger from the high conifers to the right
where the stabling and garages would normally be. The quiet watchful facade of the
house seemed to be waiting for Bond to do something, make some offensive move to
which there would be a quick reply. Bond shrugged his shoulders to lighten his thoughts
and went up the steps to the opaque glass-panelled door and pressed the bell. There
was no noise of it ringing, but the door slowly opened. The Korean chauffeur still had
his bowler hat on. He looked without interest at Bond. He stood motionless, his left
hand on the inside doorknob and his outstretched right pointing like a signpost into the
dark hall of the house. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]