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capable of carrying the heavy aqualung up the beach, an exhausted animal ready
to drop.
17.
The Red-Eye Catacomb
Bond, putting on his clothes, dodged the comments of Constable Santos. It
seemed there had been sort of underwater explosions, with eruptions on the
surface, on the starboard side of the yacht. Several men had appeared on deck
and there had been some kind of commotion. A boat had been lowered on the port
side, out of sight of the shore. Bond said he knew nothing of these things. He
had cracked his head against the side of the ship. Silly thing to do. He had
seen what he had wanted to see and had then swum back. Entirely successful.
The Constable had been a great help. Thank you very much and good night.
Bond would be seeing the Commissioner in the morning.
Bond walked with careful steadiness up the side street to where he had parked
Leiter's Ford. He got to the hotel and telephoned Leiter's room and together
they drove to police headquarters. Bond described what had happened and what
he had discovered. Now he didn't care what the consequences might be.
He was going to make a report. It waseight a.m. inLondon and there were under
forty hours to go to zero hour. All these straws added up to half a haystack.
His suspicions were boiling like a pressure cooker. He couldn't sit on the lid
any longer.
Leiter said decisively, You do just that. And I'll file a copy to C.I.A and
endorse it. What's more, I'm going to call up the Manta and tell her to get
the hell over here.
You are? Bond was amazed at this change of tune. What's got into you all of
a sudden?
Well, I was sculling around the Casino taking a good look at anyone I thought
might be a shareholder or a treasure hunter. They were mostly in groups,
standing around trying to put up the front of having a
good time---sunshine holiday and all that. They weren't succeeding. Largo was
doing all the work, being gay and boyish. The others looked like private dicks
or the rest of the Torrio gang just after the St.
Valentine Day massacre. Never seen such a bunch of thugs in my life---dressed
up in tuxedos and smoking cigars and drinking champagne and all that---just a
glass or two to show the Christmas spirit.
Orders, I suppose. But all of them with that smell one gets to know in the
Service, or in Pinkertons for the matter of that. You know, careful,
cold-fish, thinking-of-something-else kinda look the pros have.
Well, none of the faces meant anything to me until I came across a little guy
with a furrowed brow and a big egghead with pebble glasses who looked like a
Mormon who's got into a whorehouse by mistake.
He was peering about nervously and every time one of these other guys spoke to
him he blushed and said what a wonderful place it was and he was having a
swell time. I got close enough to hear him say the same thing to two different
guys. Rest of the time he just mooned around, sort of helpless and almost
sucking a corner of his handkerchief, if you get me. Well that face meant
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something to me. I knew I'd seen it before somewhere. You know how it is. So
after puzzling for a bit I went to the reception and told one of the guys
behind the desk in a cheery fashion that I thought I'd located an old
classmate who'd migrated to Europe, but I couldn't for the life of me remember
his name. Very embarrassing as he seemed to recognize me. Would the guy help?
So he came along and I pointed this feller out and he went back to his desk
and went through the membership cards and came up with the one I wanted.
Seemed he was a man called Traut, Emil Traut. Swiss passport. One of Mr.
Largo's group from the yacht. Leiter paused. Well, I guess it was the Swiss
passport that did it. He turned to Bond. Remember a fellow called Kotze,
East German physicist? Came over to the West about five years ago and sang all
he knew to the Joint Scientific Intelligence boys? Then he disappeared, thanks
to a fat payment for the info, and went to ground inSwitzerland . Well, James.
Take my word for it. That's the same guy. The file went through my hands when
I was still with C.I.A. doing desk work inWashington . All came back to me. It
was one hell of a scoop at the time. Only saw his mug on the file, but there's
absolutely no doubt about it.
That man's Kotze. And now what the hell is a top physicist doing on board the
Disco ? Fits, doesn't it?
They had come to police headquarters. Lights burned only on the ground floor.
Bond waited until they had reported to the duty sergeant and had gone up to
their room before he answered. He stood in the middle of the room and looked
at Leiter. He said, That's the clincher, Felix. So now what do we do?
With what you got this evening, I'd pull the whole lot in on suspicion. No
question at all.
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