His thoughts were interrupted by a loud whining roar that began to vibrate through the room. B*nd couldn’t be sure, but it seemed that the sound was coming from far below him, deep in the bowels of the building. Then an incredible thing happened. The entire room listed abruptly over to the left, the whine increased in pitch for perhaps half a minute and then decreased again. The room slowly righted itself and began to roll slowly and regularly one way and then the other. The whine continued, although the vibration had stopped. There could be no doubt about it. The building was afloat, and under full steam.
17. The House of Usher
AS THE minutes ticked by and the whine of the motors continued, J*mes B*nd’s mind raced, trying to fit the latest happenings into the general picture. Any way he figured it made no sense. Why would a dishonest alligator dealer, no matter how rich and powerful, no matter how maniacal, find it necessary to float an entire building out to sea? There could be no doubt, Alligator was involved in something far more cosmic in scope than mere smuggling, and J*mes B*nd’s duty was to discover what that something was. But even if he should, how could he, a prisoner, get the information back to * in London? It seemed hopeless.
Even as B*nd wrestled with the problem, the replica of Big Ben above him tolled the hour of one. A distant clock echoed back the mighty chime, then sonorously gonged four extra notes.
One o’clock, thought B*nd in amazement. He had been unconscious for over four hours!
Suddenly he paused. Something was wrong, something seemed unnatural. They were miles from civilization and yet he had heard another clock. And, what’s more, it had struck five times. A four-hour time difference. That was the difference between North Atlantic time and G.M.T. Good Lord! thought B*nd. That clock is set for British time. But why?
And suddenly B*nd understood. “My God,” he cried aloud. “Big Ben! Of course. Why didn’t I realize it before? Alligator’s our man—the grand slam redoubled in bastards who’s stolen the Houses of Parliament!”
As if in answer to his shout, the door was flung open and two Germans in purple stormtrooper uniforms faced him. The taller of the two trained a Luger directly at B*nd’s head.
“A clever deduction, Herr B*nd. However did you arrive at it?” Without, waiting for a response, he motioned to his companion. “Corporal, unshackle that man!”
The second German raised his arm in the Nazi salute. “Jawohl, Herr Kapitan,” he shouted. He goose-stepped smartly over to B*nd’s chair.
“Herr B*nd, you will go with us now, if you please.”
There was no point in resisting. Prodded on by repeated shoves of the Luger, B*nd walked out the door, turned to his right, and started down a long, windowless corridor. As he walked, the whine of the motors abruptly softened, and he felt the great building gradually draw to a halt. Then the motor was turned off altogether, and the mansion was motionless except for an almost imperceptible roll as the waves slapped against its side.
The Germans escorted B*nd to the end of the hall, and into a room filled with small, circular tables. He recognized it as a replica of the small lounge where members of Parliament often drank during recesses. They walked across the room, through a door, and outside to the open-air, canopied portion of the reproduced cocktail bar. As B*nd stood on the wooden platform whose prototype had, until a few days ago, overlooked the Thames, he beheld an unbelievable sight A three-quarter moon shone a bit more than halfway up in the sky, and just beneath it, silhouetted against the horizon, was the dark shadow of Westminster Hall floating somberly six or seven hundred yards away on the small swells of what he deduced must be North Channel.
As he watched, a glittering Chris-Craft motor launch pulled up beside the cocktail deck and a gangplank was efficiently lowered by the crew of purple-shirted, mustachioed Germans. B*nd was prodded aboard. His escort climbed in behind him, the plank was raised, and the launch pulled away, its destination the genuine Houses of Parliament.
After a few moments B*nd heard a shot ring out from the top of the tower of Big Ben. It must have been a signal of some sort, for approximately ten seconds later the area was rocked by a tremendous explosion. He turned to see huge clouds of steam billow out about the bottom of the false Parliament. Great chunks of twisted, orange-painted metal flew briefly into the air.
“Flotation tanks,” B*nd surmised. Then, as he watched, the huge reproduction sank, like a modern-day House of Usher, slowly and silently out of sight.
18. Pandora’s Box
THE launch chugged smoothly towards the dark shadow of the Houses of Parliament which, B*nd noted as they approached, had been dyed a shade of purple that matched exactly the colour of the replica. The German race is expert in the manufacture and use of coal-tar-derivative dyes. The I. G. Farben Co., a German concern, was the first corporation to make purple aniline dye products on a large scale: the rich, new purple colour of the Houses of Parliament was evidence of the cold, efficient dye-sense today’s Deutschlaender have inherited from their ancestors.
How brilliant of Alligator to hire Germans, thought B*nd; indeed, how brilliantly he had planned his whole operation. The Houses of Parliament would be floated into place where Alligator’s mansion had stood, and no one would be the wiser.
The launch pulled up to the cocktail deck, the gangplank was secured, and B*nd was prodded across by the German Captain’s Luger. There, waiting for him on the deck, was Alligator.
“Well, Commander Blum! What a pleasant surprise!” He slapped him heartily on the back, simultaneously spraying him with the obscene little aerosol can. “I see you’ve recovered nicely from your bout with my little current control device. They say man can’t rule the seas, that he can’t usurp nature’s sway over the creatures of the briny deep. But when they say that, chum, they’re reckoning without Lacertus Alligator. When Lacertus Alligator wants something, Lacertus Alligator goes and gets it. Give me a shovel and I will bury the world. But only if I want to. My little current control device is proof enough of that, chum. Sharks, trilobites, coral, sting rays, angel fish, grubs, the ocean floor, even”—he glared at B*nd—“nosey intruders: all are helpless against old Lacertus Alligator and his little current control device. You admired it, of course.” It was a statement, not a question.
B*nd admitted that he had.
“Thanks for the compliment, chum. By the way, dinner’s about ready, so we’ll walk on up toward the dining room.”
He motioned to the captain who poked B*nd with the Luger, and they walked through the cocktail lounge and across the long corridor. They came to a staircase and climbed up one flight in silence, then crossed a hall to a large circular vestibule. The group stopped at the entrance, and Alligator walked over to a closed wooden door to their left, then turned and flashed a steely smile at B*nd. He looked like a fat, venomous lizard wrapped in purple aluminium foil, and B*nd would not have been surprised to see a long, slimy tail trailing away behind him.
“I think, chum,” the shrill, unpleasant voice was saying, “that before we eat, you’ll enjoy looking at this.” He beckoned B*nd to his side and using a key he carried on a long gold chain, he opened the door a crack.
B*nd crossed the vestibule towards Alligator. For an instant he considered attacking him and making a run for it, but the omnipresent Luger, not to mention the steel teeth, made the idea impracticable. He reached the door and peered through the crack. The sight that met his eyes made him stagger.
There in front of him was the chamber of the House of Commons: at his left, on the speaker’s chair, dressed in a smart Dior suit, sat Her Majesty the Queen engrossed in conversation with the Prime Minister. Both their faces, B*nd noted in horror, were dyed a rich shade of purple.
B*nd took in the rest of the room at a glance. Men were everywhere, apparently the full membership of both the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The Lords had arranged themselves about the benches reserved for the party in power, while the Commons had done their best to squeeze into the smaller area usually occupied by the Loy
al Opposition. Two stentorian speeches were in progress, one from each section of the chamber, and while B*nd couldn’t catch every word, he ascertained that both concerned the question of Britain’s entry into the Common Market. A flash bulb flared in a far corner. He glanced quickly in its direction and recognized Lord Snowdon, who, B*nd remembered reading, had been assigned to cover the Common Market debates. His face, and, B*nd noted, that of every person in the room, glinted purple in the light of the huge chandeliers.
There was no doubt about it; Alligator had certainly been thorough. The man seemed impregnable. Was it worth wasting breath by threatening him? It was betting against a royal straight flush with nothing better than a pair of deuces. Still there was just a glimmer of hope that he could outbluff his opponent. Softly, almost casually, he spoke the fatal words.
“You’ll never get away with it, Alligator.”
The mouth twisted in an ugly smile. The doll’s eyes radiated confidence. “Won’t I, chum?” came the retort.
The moment was gone. B*nd’s plan had failed.
“But this is idle chatter,” the damnable shrill voice was saying, “and dinner will be ready. Let us go upstairs to the dining room.”
He led B*nd, followed as always by the two Germans, up a flight of stairs and into a square, mahogany-panelled room which B*nd immediately recognized as the famed luncheon club of the Houses of Parliament. All but one of the tables had been removed (they had been replaced by a purple-plush Louis XIV living room set), and the portraits of former prime ministers that had ornamented the walls had all been taken down save for one of Winston Churchill which now reigned in solitary splendour over the great fireplace. Alligator motioned B*nd to sit.
“Chum, before we eat I have a little show to put on for your entertainment pleasure.” He pushed a button on the wall and Pazardzhik entered. Alligator spoke briefly in finger language and Pazardzhik raised his artificial right arm. Quickly the ugly Bulgar snapped the limb down. A tiny dart shot out of the index finger and embedded itself squarely in the middle of Winston Churchill’s right eye. Without hesitating Pazardzhik swung his arm again: another missile flashed across the room, landing this time in the left eye of the portrait.
B*nd emitted a low whistle.
“You are impressed, chum.” Again it was a statement, not a question. Alligator gave another finger signal to the mute, who nodded, walked over to mauve-backed folding chair in the corner, and sat down.
“Each one of the darts has been carefully dipped in philopon, a Japanese murder drug,” Alligator said. “Needless to say, chum, he never misses. I’ll dismiss these gunmen now—I hate to eat in the presence of firearms—but I trust you will behave as long as Mr. Pazardzhik remains.”
B*nd shrugged and nodded with a wry grin.
Alligator rasped a command at the two Purple Shirts, and saluting in the traditional Nazi fashion, they goose-stepped quickly out of the room.
The purple football of a head turned back to B*nd.
“Ah, I see they’ve brought our eggplant caviar, chum. Let’s go over and sit down.”
Seven minutes later, the succulent caviar had been finished, the main course had been set upon the table, and the pleasantries about the deliciousness of the food had been made. Alligator took a huge mouthful of beef, open-mouthedly chomped it to hideous shreds with his steel bridgework, and turned to B*nd.
“Well, chum, I forgot to ask you how you liked all those purple M.P.’s. Pretty impressive sight, eh?” He laughed sardonically. “Or how about that purple P.M.? M.P.—P.M., get it?” He prodded B*nd in the ribs with his right elbow.
B*nd got it. “Alligator,” he said deliberately, “you are a maniac. The asylums are full of people like you.”
The huge mouth chuckled. “Maniac, chum? Well, in the sense that Hitler was a maniac, that Alexander the Great was a maniac, that Napoleon was a maniac—in the sense that all great men are maniacs—in that sense, chum, I suppose you might call me a maniac. I prefer to think of myself as an artist. I gain my satisfaction from the aesthetic perfection I can succeed in bringing to my operations. The purple faces of all those Limey bigwigs in there, my little current control device, the elegant way in which I lure and capture food for my alliga . . .”
B*nd leapt out of his seat. He had completely forgotten about Anagram! “What have you done with her?” he shouted. Only the Bulgar, who was raising his arm threateningly, prevented his rushing the grotesque super-monster of a man.
“Done with her?” Alligator asked with exaggerated calmness. “I assure you, chum, that there was no need to do anything to her. On the contrary, Mr. Brine, I am afraid you have been guilty of a rather grave error in character assessment.”
“You’re lying,” spat B*nd, who had retaken his seat.
“Am I? Well, you’ll be able to judge that for yourself.”
It’s impossible, thought B*nd. It’s a bluff. But suppose it wasn’t? Suppose Anagram, beautiful, tender Anagram, had led him into this trap. He pushed the hideous thought out of his mind and turned back to Alligator.
“As I was saying, chum, I do my utmost to impart an artistic genius to all my proceedings. I want everything I do to bear my signature as clearly as the works of, say, Oskar Kokoschka. Do you understand?”
“Alligator,” B*nd reiterated, “you’re a raving paranoiac.”
“Of course, chum, of course. But when you hear my story, you will realize the fact that soon my ‘ravings’ as you call them will be emblazoned on the pages of history.” He shoveled a huge mouthful of asparagus into his mouth, and without waiting to swallow, began his tale.
“I was born in Munich, the son of two doctors—my father was a distinguished surgeon, my mother a research chemist in the field of aerosol coal-tar-derivative dyes. They were both brilliant in their fields, but politically they were total idiots. When Hitler came to power, instead of staying to further the glory of the Third Reich, they emigrated to America, a few weeks after my eleventh birthday. My father couldn’t establish himself as a doctor in New York and was finally forced to accept a job in the sewer system. As soon as I was old enough, I joined my father in his work. I hated every minute of it. The only saving grace of my duties was the rapport I struck up with the alligators that lived in the sewers—you know, those alligators that people buy at circuses, get sick of, and flush down their toilets.”
B*nd nodded absently. He had been listening with half his mind while the other half wrestled with the problem of escaping and flashing his story to *. One thing was obvious: he wouldn’t have a chance unless he could somehow get ahold of a weapon. He glanced downward at his steak knife. How could he get it without Alligator or Pazardzhik noticing? He let his fork drop from his hand. “Oh, how careless of me,” he said and made a motion to pick it up.
Just as B*nd had hoped, Alligator reached down to help. “No problem, chum,” he muttered. B*nd glanced quickly at Pazardzhik, saw that he too was looking at the fork, and hurriedly slipped the knife off the table and into the right pocket of his terry cloth bathwrap. No one had noticed.
Alligator handed B*nd the fork and resumed his story. “Anyway, as I said, I became friendly with the alligators in the sewers. I tried to convince my father that we could sell them to zoos and make a fairly decent profit, but he was a stupid idealist about the whole thing. ‘You have no right to do that, mein sohn,’ he said. ‘Those animals belong to the government of the City of New York.’ Well, as you may have guessed, chum, this little platitude had very little effect on me.” The huge mouth grinned wickedly. “I started selling the alligators, and I used the money to found a Nazi youth group. As you can imagine, my parents weren’t too happy about the whole state of affairs; as a matter of fact they were so crushed” (again the mouth smiled) “that they both committed suicide within the year. Or at least the official police verdict was suicide. Unfortunate, don’t you think, chum?”
B*nd nodded inattentively. He would need some sort of a bludgeon to go along with his knife. One of those Jacques R
oettiers Louis XV candlesticks would be perfect! Decisively he swept his right arm over the surface of the table, neatly tipping over his glass of Schlitz which rolled off the edge onto the floor. “Oh, how careless . . .” he began, and Alligator immediately grabbed a napkin and crouched down to mop up the rapidly spreading liquid. Noting that, as before, Pazardzhik was staring at the floor, B*nd blew out the candle in front of him, and jammed it and its holder into his left pocket. On an impulse he added a table lighter (fire, he knew, might be an important weapon in his behalf), and then he quickly glanced around him. He had apparently again escaped detection.
Alligator sat back in his chair. “Anyway, chum, as my illicit alligator business grew more lucrative and my Nazi youth group became more powerful, I began to develop my aesthetic appreciation for artistry in crime. My young Nazis started stealing alligators from zoos, then we would sell them back to their rightful owners. Since I loved purple, a result, psychologists might tell you, of the purple colour which my heart disease has tinted my own face, I would colour the alligators with the hypodermic coal-tar-derivative dyes upon which my mother had been working; this disguised them so that even their keepers never discovered that they had been duped.
“With the help of the Detroit Purple Gang, to whom my aesthetic intuition led me directly, I entered the field of international alligator smuggling: my already substantial income increased fourfold, and I was able to expand my Nazi youth group into a sort of special executive for counterintelligence, terrorism, revenge, and extortion—in short, The Organization Organized to Hate, or, simply, T.O.O.T.H.
“One of our biggest backers was SMERSH, the secret Soviet murder organization. They helped us to train our alligators as assassins, supplied us with trustworthy agents like your friend, Miss Le Galion, and helped us to purge our own group of traitors to our cause. We, in turn, performed acts of espionage for them in America: three of our agents were largely responsible for stealing the secret atomic bomb; a fourth, one of our most effective doubles, permitted his high-flying U.S. reconaissance plane to be ‘forced’ down over the Soviet Union. For these two feats alone, chum, T.O.O.T.H. received 33,500,000 Venezuelan bolivars from the Russian government.”
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