«A few pounds for the cutting,» said M dryly. «It’s a bit of quartz. 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 dummy and held it beside the diamond in front of his glass. It was a lifeless chunk of matter, almost opaque beside the dazzling translucence 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 watchful 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 sentimental fashions in diamonds for engagement rings and so forth. 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 ‘Cape’ I’m going to show you next has a slight brownish tinge, 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, ruby 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 ‘gem 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 vaguely at the bits of tissue paper and glittering stones that lay scattered 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 tamp the burning tobacco down in the bowl of his pipe and then put the matchbox back in his pocket and tilt 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 inquiry. «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 Immediate 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 shovelling 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 appraisingly. «Your tie’s crooked,» she said coldly. «And anyway I hardly know him.» She bent 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 loyalty and obedience.
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 nettled.
«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 tricky 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 Treasury 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 shrugged 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 smuggled out of Africa every year.»