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CHAPTER seventeen

On the Queen Elizabeth

The bar of the Beverley Hills Hotel in Los Angeles was dark and cool. There were new suitcases next to Bond and Tiffany. Bond wore his nice, new Hollywood clothes and sat drinking his martini. There was a telephone on the table next to the drinks. Felix Leiter finished talking to New York for the fourth time that evening.

He put down the phone. ‘My friends at the office have got you tickets for the Queen Elizabeth and a passport for you, Tiffany. The ship leaves from New York for England tomorrow night at eight o’clock. They’ll meet you at La Guardia airport in the morning. They went to get the rest of your things from the Astor, James.’

‘Thanks, Felix,’ said Bond.

‘There’s a report in the newspaper about the Spectreville fire,’ Leiter went on. ‘Nothing about Spang. My friends tell me that the police aren’t looking for you, but the gangsters are. They’ll pay ten thousand dollars to the person who kills you. Get on the ship and stay in your cabins for two or three days. Now, I’ve got to get back to Las Vegas tonight.’

Leiter drove them to the airport.

‘You’ve got a good friend there,’ Tiffany told Bond, when they were watching him drive away.

On the plane, Bond sat in his seat and thought about the beautiful Tiffany sitting next to him. He knew that he was very near to being in love with her. But what about her? Would she ever be able to trust, and perhaps love, a man again?

He thought, too, about the diamond smuggling pipeline. One part of it was finished. But Seraffimo was only the end of the pipeline. Jack Spang and the mystery-man ABC were the real bosses. Did Jack Spang and ABC know about his and Tiffany’s escape?

So now they had to find Jack Spang, and then ABC. The Secret Service could only find the man at the beginning of the pipeline in Africa through ABC. He planned to send a report to M when they were on the Queen Elizabeth. Vallance’s men could then do the rest. There would not be much for Bond to do in London, only write reports.

At about four o’clock on Sunday afternoon, Bond and Tiffany went to their cabins on the Queen Elizabeth. A man watched them go onto the ship. He then walked quickly to a telephone.

Three hours- later, two American businessmen got out of a black car and walked onto the ship. One was a young man with white hair. The name on his small case was B. Kitteridge. The other man was big and fat. He looked sick. The name on his suitcase was W. Winter. Below the name were the words ‘My blood group is F’.

Three days later, Bond met Tiffany in the ship’s Veranda Grill for dinner. The weather was fine and the sea was calm.

‘Now tell me, James,’ said Tiffany. ‘What do you do and who do you work for?’

‘I work for the Government,’ said Bond. ‘They want to stop the diamond smuggling.’

‘You’re a sort of secret agent.’

‘Just a government worker,’ said Bond.

‘OK,’ said Tiffany. They were silent for some minutes, then she suddenly put a hand on his hand. ‘Listen, you Bond person. I love being here with you.’

‘And I love being with you, Tiffany,’ said Bond. He paused, then went on, ‘Felix told me a little about you. About the attack–’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Did he?’ She began to shake a little.

‘Don’t think about it,’ said Bond. ‘This is today, here and now. Not yesterday or a long time ago. Tell me about your work as a dealer at the casino.’

She became calmer, and they talked about blackjack. ‘Now tell me about you,’ she said. ‘What sort of a woman do you like?’

‘Somebody who can make good Sauce Bearnaise,’ said Bond, smiling. He looked closely at her. ‘And she’s got to have gold hair and blue eyes. And she must know how to play cards. The usual things.’

She laughed. ‘And would you marry this person?’

‘I’m almost married already. To a man. His name’s M.’

Later Bond took her back to her cabin, then went to his cabin and had a shower.

Soon after, there was a knock on the door. A waiter came in carrying a small tray.

‘What’s that,’ asked Bond.

‘It has just come up from the kitchen,’ said the man. He went out and closed the door.

Bond looked at the tray. On it was a bottle of champagne, a plate with four small pieces of steak, and a small bowl of sauce. Next to this was a note. It said: Miss T. Case made this Sance Bearnaise without my help.

The Chef.

Bond smiled and filled a glass with champagne. He put a lot of the sauce on a piece of steak. He ate it, then he went to the telephone.

‘Tiffany?’

He heard a little laugh at the other end. Then he said, ‘Well, you can certainly make wonderful Sauce Bearnaise…’

He put the phone down carefully.