by Ian Fleming
‘Our client is now anxious to have these facts established in order legally to obtain right to the de Bleuville title supported by an Acte de Notoriété which would in due course receive the stamp of approval of the Ministère de la Justice in Paris.
‘In the meantime, our client proposes to continue to adopt, albeit provisionally, the title of Comte de Bleuville together with the family arms which he informs us are “Argent four fusils in fesse gules” and the de Bleuville motto which, in English, is “For Hearth and Home” . ’
‘That’s a good one!’ interjected Bond. Sable Basilisk smiled and continued:
‘We understand that you, honoured Sirs, are the only body in the world who is capable of undertaking this research work and we have been instructed to get in touch with you under the strictest conditions of confidence, which, in view of the social aspects involved, we think we have the right to request.
‘The financial standing of our client is impeccable and expense is no object in this matter. As a preliminary honorarium and open acceptance of this commission, we propose a payment of one thousand pounds sterling to your account in such bank as you may designate.
‘Awaiting the favour of an early reply, we remain, honoured sirs etc. etc., Gebrüder Gumpold-Moosbrugger, Advokaten, 16 bis, Bahnhofstrasse, Zurich.’
Sable Basilisk looked up. James Bond’s eyes were glittering with excitement. Sable Basilisk smiled. ‘We were even more interested than you seem to be. You see, to let you in on a secret, our salaries are extremely modest. So we all have private means which we supplement from fees received for special work like this. These fees rarely go above fifty guineas for a piece of pretty tough research and all the leg work at Somerset House and in parish records and graveyards that is usually involved in tracking a man’s ancestry. So this looked like a real challenge for the College, and as I was “in waiting” the day the letter came in, sort of “officer of the watch”, the job fell into my lap.’
Bond said urgently, ‘So what happened? Have you kept the contact?’
‘Oh yes, but rather tenuously, I’m afraid. Of course I wrote at once accepting the commission and agreeing to the vow of secrecy which’ – he smiled – ‘you now force me to break presumably by invoking the Official Secrets Act. That is so, isn’t it? I am acting under force majeure?’
‘You are indeed,’ said Bond emphatically.
Sable Basilisk made a careful note on the top paper in the file and continued. ‘Of course the first thing I had to ask for was the man’s birth certificate and, after a delay, I was told that it had been lost and that I was on no account to worry about it. The Count had in fact been born in Gdynia of a Polish father and a Greek mother – I have the names here – on May 28th, 1908. Could I not pursue my researches backwards from the de Bleuville end? I replied temporizing, but by this time I had indeed established from our library that there had been a family of de Bleuvilles, at least as lately as the seventeenth century, at a place called Blonville-sur-Mer, Calvados, and that their arms and motto were as claimed by Blofeld.’ Sable Basilisk paused. ‘This of course he must have known for himself. There would have been no purpose in inventing a family of de Bleuvilles and trying to stuff them down our throats. I told the lawyers of my discovery and, in my summer holidays – the North of France is more or less my private heraldic beat, so to speak, and very rich it is too in connections with England – I motored down there and sniffed around. But meanwhile I had, as a matter of routine, written to our Ambassador in Warsaw and asked him to contact our Consul in Gdynia and request him to employ a lawyer to make the simple researches with the Registrar and the various churches where Blofeld might have been baptized. The reply, early in September, was, but is no longer, surprising. The pages containing the record of Blofeld’s birth had been neatly cut out. I kept this information to myself, that is to say I did not pass it on to the Swiss lawyers because I had been expressly instructed to make no inquiries in Poland. Meanwhile I had carried out similar inquiries through a lawyer in Augsburg. There, there was indeed a record of Blofelds, but of a profusion of them, for it is a fairly common German name, and in any case nothing to link any of them with the de Bleuvilles from Calvados. So I was stumped, but no more than I have been before, and I wrote a neutral report to the Swiss lawyers and said that I was continuing my researches. And there’ – Sable Basilisk slapped the file shut – ‘until my telephone began ringing yesterday, presumably because someone in the Northern Department of the Foreign Office was checking the file copies from Warsaw and the name Blofeld rang a bell, and you appeared looking very impatient from the cave of my friend the Griffon, the case rests.’
Bond scratched his head thoughtfully. ‘But the ball’s still in play?’
‘Oh yes, definitely.’
‘Can you keep it in play? I take it you haven’t got Blofeld’s present address?’ Sable Basilisk shook his head. ‘Then would there be any conceivable excuse for an envoy from you?’ Bond smiled. ‘Me, for example, to be sent out from the College to have an interview with Blofeld – some tricky point that cannot be cleared up by correspondence, something that needs a personal inquiry from Blofeld?’
‘Well, yes, there is in a way.’ Sable Basilisk looked rather dubious. ‘You see, in some families there is a strong physical characteristic that goes on inevitably from generation to generation. The Habsburg lip is a case in point. So is the tendency to haemophilia among descendants of the Bourbons. The hawk nose of the Medici is another. A certain royal family have minute, vestigial tails. The original maharajahs of Mysore were born with six fingers on each hand. I could go on indefinitely, but those are the most famous cases. Now, when I was scratching around in the crypt of the chapel at Blonville, having a look at the old Bleuville tombs, my flashlight, moving over the stone faces, picked out a curious fact that I tucked away in my mind but that your question has brought to the surface. None of the de Bleuvilles, as far as I could tell, and certainly not through a hundred and fifty years, had lobes to their ears.’
‘Ah,’ said Bond, running over in his mind the Identicast picture of Blofeld and the complete, printed physiognometry of the man in Records. ‘So he shouldn’t by rights have lobes to his ears. Or at any rate it would be a strong piece of evidence for his case if he hadn’t?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well, he has got lobes,’ said Bond, annoyed. ‘Rather pronounced lobes as a matter of fact. Where does that get us?’
‘To begin with, added to what I know anyway, that makes him probably not a de Bleuville. But after all’ – Sable Basilisk looked sly – ‘there’s no reason why he should know what physical characteristic we’re looking for in this interview.’
‘You think we could set one up?’
‘Don’t see why not. But’ – Sable Basilisk was apologetic – ‘would you mind if I got clearance from Garter King of Arms? He’s my boss, so to speak, under the Duke of Norfolk that is, the Earl Marshal, and I can’t remember that we’ve ever been mixed up in this sort of cloak-and-dagger stuff before. Actually’ – Sable Basilisk waved a deprecating hand – ‘we are, we have to be, damned meticulous. You do see that, don’t you?’
‘Naturally. And I’m sure there’d be no objection. But, even if Blofeld agreed to see me, how in hell could I play the part? This stuff is all double Dutch to me.’ He smiled. ‘I don’t know the difference between a gule and a bezant and I’ve never been able to make out what a baronet is. What’s my story to Blofeld? Who am I exactly?’
Sable Basilisk was getting enthusiastic. He said cheerfully, ‘Oh that’ll be all right. I’ll coach you in all the dope about the de Bleuvilles. You can easily mug up a few popular books on heraldry. It’s not difficult to be impressive on the subject. Very few people know anything about it.’
‘Maybe. But this Blofeld is a pretty smart animal. He’ll want the hell of a lot of credentials before he sees anyone but his lawyer and his banker. Who exactly am I?’
‘You think Blofeld’s smart because you’ve seen t
he smart side of him,’ said Sable Basilisk sapiently. ‘I’ve seen hundreds of smart people from the City, industry, politics – famous people I’ve been quite frightened to meet when they walked into this room. But when it comes to snobbery, to buying respectability so to speak, whether it’s the title they’re going to choose or just a coat of arms to hang over their fire-places in Surbiton, they dwindle and dwindle in front of you’ – he made a downward motion over his desk with his hand – ‘until they’re no bigger than homunculi. And the women are even worse. The idea of suddenly becoming a “lady” in their small community is so intoxicating that the way they bare their souls is positively obscene. It’s as if’ – Sable Basilisk furrowed his high, pale brow, seeking for a simile – ‘these fundamentally good citizens, these Smiths and Browns and Joneses and’ – he smiled across the desk – ‘Bonds, regarded the process of ennoblement as a sort of laying-on of hands, a way of ridding themselves of all the drabness of their lives, of all their, so to speak, essential meagreness, their basic inferiority. Don’t worry about Blofeld. He has already swallowed the bait. He may be a tremendous gangster, and he must be from what I remember of the case. He may be tough and ruthless in his corner of human behaviour. But if he is trying to prove that he is the Comte de Bleuville, you can be sure of various things. He wants to change his name. That is obvious. He wants to become a new, a respectable personality. That is obvious too. But above all he wants to become a Count.’ Sable Basilisk brought his hand flat down on his desk for emphasis. ‘That, Mr Bond, is tremendously significant. He is a rich and successful man in his line of business – no matter what it is. He no longer admires the material things, riches and power. He is now 54, as I reckon it. He wants a new skin. I can assure you, Mr Bond, that he will receive you, if we play our cards right that is, as if he were consulting his doctor about’ – Sable Basilisk’s aristocratic face took on an expression of distaste – ‘as if he were consulting his doctor after contracting V.D.’ Sable Basilisk’s eyes were now compelling. He sat back in his chair and lit his first cigarette. The smell of Turkish tobacco drifted across to Bond. ‘That’s it,’ he said with certitude. ‘This man knows he is unclean, a social pariah. Which of course he is. Now he has thought up this way of buying himself a new identity. If you ask me, we must help the hair to grow and flourish on his heel of Achilles until it is so luxuriant that he trips on it.’
8 ....... FANCY COVER
‘AND WHO the hell are you supposed to be?’
M. more or less repeated Bond's question when, that evening, he looked up from the last page of the report that Bond had spent the afternoon dictating to Mary Goodnight. M.'s face was just outside the pool of yellow light cast by the green-shaded reading lamp on his desk, but Bond knew that the lined, sailor's face was reflecting, in varying degrees, scepticism, irritation, and impatience. The ‘hell’ told him so. M. rarely swore and when he did it was nearly always at stupidity. M. obviously regarded Bond's plan as stupid, and now, away from the dedicated, minutely focused world of the Heralds, Bond wasn't sure that M. wasn't right.
‘I’m to be an emissary from the College of Arms, sir. This Basilisk chap recommended that I should have some kind of a title, the sort of rather highfalutin one that would impress a man with this kind of bee in his bonnet. And Blofeld's obviously got this bee or he wouldn't have revealed his existence, even to such a presumably secure and – er – sort of remote corner of the world as the College of Arms. I've put down there the arguments of this chap and they make a lot of sense to me. Snobbery's a real Achilles heel with people. Blofeld's obviously got the bug badly. I think we can get to him through it.’
‘Well, I think it's all a pack of nonsense,’ said M. testily. (Not many years before, M. had been awarded the K.C.M.G. for his services, and Miss Moneypenny, his desirable secretary, had revealed in a moment of candour to Bond that M. had not replied to a single one of the notes and letters of congratulation. After a while he had refused even to read them and had told Miss Moneypenny not to show him any more but to throw them in the wastepaper basket.) ‘All right then, what's this ridiculous title to be? And what happens next?’
If Bond had been able to blush, he would have blushed. He said, ‘Er – well, sir, it seems there's a chap called Sir Hilary Bray. Friend of Sable Basilisk's. About my age and not unlike me to look at. His family came from some place in Normandy. Family tree as long as your arm. William the Conqueror and all that. And a coat of arms that looks like a mixture between a jigsaw puzzle and Piccadilly Circus at night. Well, Sable Basilisk says he can fix it with him. This man's got a good war record and sounds a reliable sort of chap. He lives in some remote glen in the Highlands, watching birds and climbing the hills with his bare feet. Never sees a soul. No reason why anyone in Switzerland should have heard of him.’ Bond's voice became defensive, stubborn. ‘Well, sir, the idea is that I should be him. Rather fancy cover, but I think it makes sense.’
‘Sir Hilary Bray, eh?’ M. tried to conceal his scorn. ‘And then what do you do? Run around the Alps waving this famous banner of his?’
Bond said patiently, obstinately, refusing to be brow-beaten, ‘First I'll get Passport Control to fix up a good passport. Then I mug up Bray's family tree until I'm word-perfect on the thing. Then I swot away at the rudiments of this heraldry business. Then, if Blofeld takes the bait, I go out to Switzerland with all the right books and suggest that I work out his de Bleuville pedigree with him.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then I try and winkle him out of Switzerland, get him over the frontier to somewhere where we can do a kidnap job on him, rather like the Israelis did with Eichmann. But I haven't worked out all the details yet, sir. Had to get your approval and then Sable Basilisk has got to make up a damned attractive fly and throw it over these Zürich solicitors.’
‘Why not try putting pressure on the Zürich solicitors and winkle Blofeld's address out of them? Then we might think of doing some kind of a commando job.’
‘You know the Swiss, sir. God knows what kind of a retainer these lawyers have from Blofeld. But it's bound to be millionaire size. We might eventually get the address, but they'd be bound to tip off Blofeld if only to lay their hands on their fees before he vamoosed. Money's the religion of Switzerland.’
‘I don't need a lecture on the qualities of the Swiss, thank you, 007. At least they keep their trains clean and cope with the beatnik problem [two very rampant bees in M.'s bonnet!], but I daresay there's some truth in what you say. Oh, well.’ M. wearily pushed the file over to Bond. ‘Take it away. It's a messy-looking bird's-nest of a plan. But I suppose it had better go ahead.’ M. shook his head sceptically. ‘Sir Hilary Bray! Oh, well, tell the Chief of Staff I approve. But reluctantly. Tell him you can have the facilities. Keep me informed.’ M. reached for the Cabinet telephone. His voice was deeply disgruntled. ‘Suppose I'll have to tell the P.M. we've got a line on the chap. The kind of tangle it is, I'll keep to myself. That's all, 007.’
‘Thank you, sir. Goodnight.’ As Bond went across to the door he heard M. say into the green receiver, ‘M. speaking. I want the Prime Minister personally, please.’ He might have been asking for the mortuary. Bond went out and softly closed the door behind him.
So, as November blustered its way into December, James Bond went unwillingly back to school, swotting up heraldry at his desk instead of top-secret reports, picking up scraps of medieval French and English, steeping himself in fusty lore and myth, picking the brains of Sable Basilisk and occasionally learning interesting facts, such as that the founders of Gamages came from the de Gamaches in Normandy and that Walt Disney was remotely descended from the D’Isignys of the same part of France. But these were nuggets in a wasteland of archaisms, and when, one day, Mary Goodnight, in reply to some sally of his, addressed him as ‘Sir Hilary’ he nearly bit her head off.
Meanwhile the highly delicate correspondence between Sable Basilisk and the Gebrüder Moosbrugger proceeded haltingly and at a snail's pace. They, or rather Blofe
ld behind them, posed countless irritating but, Sable Basilisk admitted, erudite queries each one of which had to be countered with this or that degree of heraldic obfuscation. Then there were minute questions about this Sir Hilary Bray. Photographs were asked for, and, suitably doctored, were provided. His whole career since his schooldays had to be detailed and was sent down from Scotland with a highly amused covering note from the real man. To test the market, more funds were asked for by Sable Basilisk and, with encouraging promptitude, were forthcoming in the shape of a further thousand pounds. When the cheque arrived on December 15th Sable Basilisk telephoned Bond delightedly. ‘We've got him,’ he said, ‘He's hooked!’ And, sure enough, the next day came a letter from Zürich to say that their client agreed to a meeting with Sir Hilary. Would Sir Hilary please arrive at Zürich Central Airport by Swissair flight Number 105, due at Zürich at 1300 hours on December 21st. On Bond's prompting, Sable Basilisk wrote back that the date was not convenient to Sir Hilary owing to a prior engagement with the Canadian High Commissioner regarding a detail in the Arms of the Hudson's Bay Company. Sir Hilary could, however, manage the 22nd. By return came a cable agreeing and, to Bond, confirming that the fish had not only swallowed the hook but the line and sinker as well.
The last few days were spent in a flurry of meetings, with the Chief of Staff presiding, at Headquarters. The main decisions were that Bond should go to the meeting with Blofeld absolutely ‘clean’. He would carry no weapons, no secret gear of any kind, and he would not be watched or followed by the Service in any way. He would communicate only with Sable Basilisk, getting across such information as he could by using heraldic double talk (Sable Basilisk had been cleared by M.I.5 immediately after Bond's first meeting with him), and Sable Basilisk, who vaguely thought that Bond was employed by the Ministry of Defence, would be given a cut-out at the Ministry who would be his gobetween with the Service. This was all assuming that Bond managed to stay close to Blofeld for at least a matter of days. And that was to be his basic stratagem. It was essential to find out as much as possible about Blofeld, his activities and his associates, in order to proceed with planning the next step, his abduction from Switzerland. Physical action might not be necessary. Bond might be able to trick the man into a visit to Germany, as a result of a report which Sable Basilisk had prepared of certain Blofeld family documents at the Augsburg Zentral Archiv, which would need Blofeld's personal identification. Security precautions would include keeping Station Z completely in the dark about Bond's mission to Switzerland and a closure of the ‘Bedlam’ file at Headquarters which would be announced in the routine ‘Orders of the Day'. Instead, a new codeword for the operation, known only to an essential handful of senior officers, would be issued. It would be ‘CORONA’.