The James Bond Anthology

The intelligent, observant eyes didn’t appear even to look him over. The man smiled. ‘Come on downstairs. Just having a talk with some American friends – sort of correspondents really. From “Old Russia” on Fifth Avenue.’

‘I know the place,’ said Bond. ‘Full of rich-looking icons and so on. Not far from the Pierre.’

‘That’s right.’ Mr Snowman seemed even more reassured. He led the way down a narrow, thickly carpeted stairway into a large and glittering showroom which was obviously the real treasure house of the shop. Gold and diamonds and cut stones winked from lit cases round the walls.

‘Have a seat. Cigarette?’

Bond took one of his own. ‘It’s about this Fabergé piece that’s coming up at Sotheby’s tomorrow – this Emerald Sphere.’

‘Ah, yes.’ Mr Snowman’s clear brow furrowed anxiously. ‘No trouble about it I hope?’

‘Not from your point of view. But we’re very interested in the actual sale. We know about the owner, Miss Freudenstein. We think there may be an attempt to raise the bidding artificially. We’re interested in the underbidder – assuming, that is, that your firm will be leading the field, so to speak.’

‘Well, er, yes,’ said Mr Snowman with rather careful candour. ‘We’re certainly going to go after it. But it’ll sell for a huge price. Between you and me, we believe the V and A are going to bid, and probably the Metropolitan. But is it some crook you’re after? If so you needn’t worry. This is out of their class.’

Bond said, ‘No. We’re not looking for a crook.’ He wondered how far to go with this man. Because people are very careful with the secrets of their own business doesn’t mean that they’ll be careful with the secrets of yours. Bond picked up a wood and ivory plaque that lay on the table. It said:

It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer.

But when he is gone his way, he boasteth.

—Proverbs XX, 14

Bond was amused. He said so. ‘You can read the whole history of the bazaar, of the dealer and the customer, behind that quotation,’ he said. He looked Mr Snowman straight in the eyes. ‘I need that sort of nose, that sort of intuition in this case. Will you give me a hand?’

‘Certainly. If you’ll tell me how I can help.’ He waved a hand. ‘If it’s secrets you’re worried about, please don’t worry. Jewellers are used to them. Scotland Yard will probably give my firm a clean bill in that respect. Heaven knows we’ve had enough to do with them over the years.’

‘And if I told you that I’m from the Ministry of Defence?’

‘Same thing,’ said Mr Snowman. ‘You can naturally rely absolutely on my discretion!’

Bond made up his mind. ‘All right. Well, all this comes under the Official Secrets Act, of course. We suspect that the underbidder, presumably to you, will be a Soviet agent. My job is to establish his identity. Can’t tell you any more, I’m afraid. And you don’t actually need to know any more. All I want is to go with you to Sotheby’s tomorrow night and for you to help me spot the man. No medals, I’m afraid, but we’d be extremely grateful.’

Mr Ke

‘That’s all. How much do you think this thing will go for?’

Mr Snowman tapped his teeth with a gold pencil. ‘Well now, you see that’s where I have to keep quiet. I know how high I’m going to go, but that’s my client’s secret.’ He paused and looked thoughtful, ‘Let’s say that if it goes for less than £100,000 we’ll be surprised.’

‘I see,’ said Bond. ‘Now then, how do I get into the sale?’

Mr Snowman produced an elegant alligator-skin notecase and extracted two engraved bits of paste-board. He handed one over. ‘That’s my wife’s. I’ll get her one somewhere else in the rooms. B5 – well placed in the centre front. I’m B6.’ Bond took the ticket. It said:

Sotheby & Co.

Sale of

A Casket of Magnificent Jewels

and

A Unique Object of Vertu by Carl Fabergé

The Property of a Lady

Admit one to the Main Sale Room

Tuesday, 20 June, at 9.30 p.m. precisely

ENTRANCE IN ST GEORGE STREET

‘It’s not the old Georgian entrance in Bond Street,’ commented Mr Snowman. ‘They have an awning and red carpet out from their back door now that Bond Street’s one-way. Now,’ he got up from his chair, ‘would you care to see some Fabergé? We’ve got some pieces here my father bought from the Kremlin around 1927. It’ll give you some idea what all the fuss is about, though of course the Emerald Sphere’s incomparably finer than anything I can show you by Fabergé apart from the Imperial Easter Eggs.’

Later, dazzled by the diamonds, the multi-coloured gold, the silken sheen of translucent enamels, James Bond walked up and out of the Aladdin’s Cave under Regent Street and went off to spend the rest of the day in drab offices around Whitehall pla

Through the next day, Bond’s excitement mounted. He found an excuse to go into the Communications Section and wander into the little room where Miss Maria Freudenstein and two assistants were working the cipher machines that handled the Purple Cipher dispatches. He picked up an en clair file – he had freedom of access to most material at headquarters – and ran his eye down the carefully edited paragraphs that, in half an hour or so, would be spiked, unread, by some junior C.I.A. clerk in Washington and, in Moscow, be handed, with reverence, to a top-ranking officer of the K.G.B. He joked with the two junior girls, but Maria Freudenstein only looked up from her machine to give him a polite smile and Bond’s skin crawled minutely at this proximity to treachery and at the black and deadly secret locked up beneath the frilly white blouse. She was an unattractive girl with a pale, rather pimply skin, black hair and a vaguely unwashed appearance. Such a girl would be unloved, make few friends, have chips on her shoulder – more particularly in view of her illegitimacy – and a grouse against society. Perhaps her only pleasure in life was the triumphant secret she harboured in that flattish bosom – the knowledge that she was cleverer than all those around her, that she was, every day, hitting back against the world – the world that despised, or just ignored her, because of her plai