James Bond, making a mental note to pass M's dictum on to the Chief of Staff, again picked up the jeweller's glass from the desk where it had fallen and this time managed to fix it securely into the socket1 of his right eye.
Although it was late July and the room was bright with sunshine, M had switched on his desk light and tilted2 it so that it shone straight at Bond. Bond picked the brilliant-cut stone up and held it to the light. As he turned it between his fingers, all the colours of the rainbow flashed back at him from its mesh4 of facets5 until his eye was tired with the dazzle.
He took out the jeweller's glass and tried to think of something appropriate to say.
M looked at him quizzically. "Fine stone?"
"Wonderful," said Bond. "It must be worth a lot of money."
"A few pounds for the cutting," said M dryly. "It's a bit of quartz6. Now then, let's try again." He consulted a list on the desk in front of him and selected a fold of tissue paper, verified the number written on it, unfolded it and pushed it across to Bond.
Bond put the piece of quartz back into its own wrapping and picked up the second sample.
"It's easy for you, Sir," he smiled at M. "You've got the crib." He screwed the glass back into his eye and held the stone, if it was a stone, up to the light.
This time, he thought, there could be no doubt about it. This stone also had the thirty-two facets above and the twenty-four below of the brilliant-cut, and it was also about twenty carats, but what he now held had a heart of blue-white flame, and the infinite colours reflected and refracted from its depths lanced into his eye like needles. With his left hand he picked up the quartz dummy7 and held it beside the diamond in front of his glass. It was a lifeless chunk8 of matter, almost opaque9 beside the dazzling translucence10 of the diamond, and the rainbow colours he had seen a few minutes before were now coarse and muddy.
Bond put down the piece of quartz and gazed again into the heart of the diamond. Now he could understand the passion that diamonds had inspired through the centuries, the almost sexual love they aroused among those who handled them and cut them and traded in them. It was domination by a beauty so pure that it held a kind of truth, a divine authority before which all other material things turned, like the bit of quartz, to clay. In these few minutes Bond understood the myth of diamonds, and he knew that he would never forget what he had suddenly seen inside the heart of this stone..
He put the diamond down on its slip of paper and dropped the jeweller's glass into the palm of his hand. He looked across into M's watchful11 eyes. "Yes," he said. "I see."
M sat back in his chair. "That's what Jacoby meant when I had lunch with him the other day at the Diamond Corporation," he said. "He said that if I was going to get involved in the diamond business I ought to try and understand what was really at the bottom of it all. Not just the millions of money involved, or the value of diamonds as a hedge against inflation, or the sentimental12 fashions in diamonds for engagement rings and so forth14. He said one must understand the passion for diamonds. So he just showed me what I'm showing you. And," M smiled thinly at Bond, "if it will give you any satisfaction, I was just as taken in by that bit of quartz as you were."
Bond sat still and said nothing.
"And now let's run through the rest," said M. He gestured towards the pile of paper packets in front of him. "I said I'd like to borrow some samples. They didn't seem to mind. Sent this lot round to my house this morning." M consulted his list, opened a packet and pushed it across to Bond. "What you were looking at just now was the best-a 'Fine Blue-white'." He gestured towards the big diamond in front of Bond. "Now this is a 'Top Crystal', ten carats, baguette-cut. Very fine stone, but worth about half a 'Blue-white'. You'll see there's the faintest trace of yellow in it. The 'Cape15' I'm going to show you next has a slight brownish tinge16, according to Jacoby, but I'm damned if I can see it. I doubt if anyone can except the experts."
Bond obediently picked up the Top Crystal' and for the next quarter, of an hour M led him through the whole range of diamonds down to a wonderful series of coloured stones, ruby17 red, blue, pink, yellow, green and violet. Finally, M pushed over a packet of smaller stones, all flawed or marked or of poor colour. "Industrial diamonds. Not what they call 'gem13 quality'. Used in machine tools and so forth. But don't despise them. America bought ?5,000,000 worth of them last year, and that's only one of the markets. Bronsteen told me it was stones like these that were used for cutting the St Gothard tunnel. At the other end of the scale, dentists use them for drilling your teeth. They're the hardest substance in the world. Last forever."
M pulled out his pipe and started to fill it. "And now you know as much about diamonds as I do."
Bond sat back in his chair and gazed vaguely18 at the bits of tissue paper and glittering stones that lay scattered19 across the red leather surface of M's desk. He wondered what it was all about.
There was the rasp of a match against a box and Bond watched M tamp20 the burning tobacco down in the bowl of his pipe and then put the matchbox back in his pocket and tilt3 his chair in M's favourite attitude for reflection.
Bond glanced down at his watch. It was 11.30. Bond thought with pleasure of the in-tray piled with Top Secret dockets he had gladly abandoned when the red telephone had summoned him an hour before. He felt fairly confident that now he wouldn't have to deal with them. "I guess it's a job," the Chief of Staff had said in answer to Bond's inquiry21. "The Chief says he won't take any more calls before lunch and he's made an appointment for you at the Yard for two o'clock. Step on it." And Bond had reached for his coat and had gone into the outer office where he was pleased to see his secretary registering in another bulky file with a Most Immediate22 tab.
"M," said Bond as she looked up. "And Bill says it looks like a job. So don't think you're going to have the pleasure of shovelling23 that lot into my in-tray. You can post it off to the Daily Express for all I care." He grinned at her. "Isn't that chap Sefton Delmer a boy friend of yours, Lil? Just the stuff for him, I expect."
She looked at him appraisingly24. "Your tie's crooked," she said coldly. "And anyway I hardly know him." She bent25 over her registry and Bond went out and along the corridor and thought how lucky he was to have a beautiful secretary.
There was a creak from M's chair and Bond looked across the table at the man who held a great deal of his affection and all his loyalty26 and obedience27.
The grey eyes looked back at him thoughtfully. M took the pipe out of his mouth. "How long have you been back from that holiday in France?"
"Two weeks, Sir."
"Have a good time?"
"Not bad, Sir. Got a bit bored towards the end."
M made no comment. "I've been looking at your record sheet. Small-arms marks seem to be keeping well up in the top bracket. Unarmed combat's satisfactory and your last medical shows you're in pretty good shape." M paused. "The point is," he went on unemotionally, "I've got rather a tough assignment for you. Wanted to make sure you'd be able to take care of yourself."
"Of course, Sir." Bond was slightly nettled28.
"Don't make any mistake about this job, 007," said M sharply. "When I say it may be tough, I'm not being melodramatic. There are plenty of tricky29 people you haven't met yet, and there may be some of them mixed up in this business. And some of the most efficient. So don't be tetchy when I think twice before getting you involved in it."
"Sorry, Sir."
"All right then," M put his pipe down and leant forward with his arms crossed on the desk. "I'll tell you the story and then you can decide whether you want to take it on."
"A week ago," said M, "one of the high-ups in the Treasury30 came to see me. Brought with him the Permanent Secretary to the Board of Trade. It had to do with diamonds. Seems that most of what they call 'gem' diamonds in the world are mined on British territory and that ninety per cent of all diamond sales are carried out in London. By the Diamond Corporation." M shrugged31 his shoulders. "Don't ask me why. The British got hold of the business at the beginning of the century and we've managed to hang on to it. Now it's a huge trade. Fifty million pounds a year. The biggest dollar-earner we've got. So when something goes wrong with it, the Government gets worried. And that's what's happened." M looked mildly across at Bond. "At least two million pounds worth of diamonds are being smuggled32 out of Africa every year."
"That's a lot of money," said Bond. "Where are they going to?"
"They say America," said M. "And I agree with them. It's by far the biggest diamond market. And those gangs of theirs are the only people who could run an operation on this scale."
"Why don't the mining companies stop it?"
"They've done everything they can," said M. "You probably saw in the papers that De Beers took on our friend Sillitoe when he left MI5, and he's out there now, working in with the South African security people. I gather he's put in a pretty drastic report and come up with plenty of bright ideas for tightening34 things up, but the Treasury and the Board of Trade aren't very impressed. They think the thing's too big to be handled by a lot of separate mining companies, however efficient they are. And they've got one very good reason for wanting to take official action on their own."
"What's that, Sir?"
"There's a big packet of smuggled stones in London at this very moment," said M, and his eyes glittered across the desk at Bond. "Waiting to go to America. And the Special Branch know who the carrier is to be. And they know who's to go out with him to keep an eye on him. As soon as Ronnie Vallance came across the story-it was leaked to one of his narks in Soho, to one of his 'Ghost Squad35' as he chooses to call it-he went straight off to the Treasury. The Treasury talked to the Board of Trade and then both their Ministers formed up to the PM. And the PM gave them authority to use the Service."
"Why not let the Special Branch of MI5 handle it, Sir?" asked Bond, reflecting that M seemed to be going through a bad phase of mixing in other people's business.
"Of course they could arrest the carriers as soon as they took delivery and tried to get out of the country," said M impatiently. "But that won't stop the traffic. These people aren't the sort thai talk. Anyway the carriers are only small fry. They probably just get the stuff from a man in a park and hand it over to another man in a park when they get to the other side. The only way to get to the bottom of the business is to follow the pipeline36 to America and see where it goes to there. And the FBI won't be much help to us, I'm afraid. It's a very small part of their battle with the big-time gangs. And it's not doing any harm to the United States. Rather the reverse if anything. It's only England that's the loser. And America is outside the jurisdiction37 of the police and MI5. Only the Service can handle the job."
"Yes, I see that," said Bond. "But have we got anything else to go on?"
"Ever heard of 'The House of Diamonds'?"
"Yes, of course, Sir," said Bond. "The big American jewellers. On West 46th Street in New York and the Rue38 de Rivoli in Paris. I gather they rank almost as high as Cartier and Van Cleef and Boucheron nowadays. They've come up very quickly since the war."
"Yes," said M. "Those are the people. They've got a small place in London, too. Hatton Garden. Used to be very big buyers at the monthly showings of the Diamond Corporation. But for the last three years they've bought less and less. Although, as you say, they seem to be selling more and more jewellery every year. Must be getting their diamonds from somewhere. It was the Treasury who brought their name up at our meeting the other day. But I can't find out anything against them. They've got one of their biggest men in charge over here. Seems odd as they do so little business. Man called Rufus B. Saye. Nothing much known about him. Lunches every day at the American Club in Piccadilly. Plays golf at Sunningdale. Doesn't drink or smoke. Lives at the Savoy. Model citizen." M shrugged his shoulders. "But the diamond business is a nice, well-regulated sort of family affair, and there's an impression that the House of Diamonds has an awkward look about it. Nothing more than that."
Bond decided39 it was time to put the sixty-four thousand dollar question. "And where do I come in, Sir?" he asked, looking across the desk into M's eyes.
"You've got an appointment with Vallance at the Yard in"-M looked at his watch-"just over an hour. He's going to start you off. They're going to pull in this carrier tonight and put you into the pipeline instead of him."
Bond's fingers curled softly round the arms of his chair.
"And then?"
"And then," said M matter-of-factly, "you're going to smuggle33 those diamonds into America, At least that's the idea. What do you think of it?"
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socket
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| n.窝，穴，孔，插座，插口 | |
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tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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tilt
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| v.(使)倾侧；(使)倾斜；n.倾侧；倾斜 | |
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mesh
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| n.网孔，网丝，陷阱；vt.以网捕捉，啮合，匹配；vi.适合； [计算机]网络 | |
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facets
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| n.（宝石或首饰的）小平面( facet的名词复数 )；（事物的）面；方面 | |
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quartz
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| n.石英 | |
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dummy
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| n.假的东西；(哄婴儿的)橡皮奶头 | |
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chunk
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| n.厚片，大块，相当大的部分（数量） | |
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opaque
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| adj.不透光的；不反光的，不传导的；晦涩的 | |
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translucence
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| n.半透明 | |
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watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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gem
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| n.宝石，珠宝；受爱戴的人 [同]jewel | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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tinge
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| vt.(较淡)着色于，染色；使带有…气息；n.淡淡色彩，些微的气息 | |
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ruby
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| n.红宝石，红宝石色 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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tamp
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| v.捣实，砸实 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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shovelling
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| v.铲子( shovel的现在分词 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份 | |
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appraisingly
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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nettled
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| v.拿荨麻打，拿荨麻刺（nettle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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tricky
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| adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的 | |
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treasury
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| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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smuggled
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| 水货 | |
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smuggle
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| vt.私运；vi.走私 | |
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tightening
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| 上紧，固定，紧密 | |
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squad
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| n.班，小队，小团体；vt.把…编成班或小组 | |
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pipeline
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| n.管道，管线 | |
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jurisdiction
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| n.司法权，审判权，管辖权，控制权 | |
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rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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