Porterfield's benign, almost priestly countenance assumed an expression of theatrical solemnity as if he had read something really terrible in the tea leaves. "Then what happens today?" Lily clasped her hands tensely and bent her head fractionally closer to get the full impact of the news. "The old man says, 'Porterfield. A bottle of Infuriator. You understand? A full bottle!' So of course I didn't say anything but went off and brought it to him. But you mark my words, Lily"—he noticed a lifted hand down the long room and moved off—"there's something hit Sir Miles hard this morning and no mistake."
M. sent for his bill. As usual he paid, whatever the amount of the bill, with a five-pound note for the pleasure of receiving in change crisp new pound notes, new silver and gleaming copper pennies, for it is the custom at Blades to give its members only freshly minted money. Porterfield pulled back his table and M. walked quickly to the door, acknowledging the occasional greeting with a preoccupied nod and a brief lifting of the hand. It was two o'clock. The old black Phantom Rolls took him quietly and quickly northwards through Berkeley Square, across Oxford Street and via Wigmore Street, into Regent's Park. M. didn't look out at the passing scene. He sat stiffly in the back, his bowler hat squarely set on the middle of his head, and gazed unseeing at the back of the chauffeur's head with hooded, brooding eyes.
For the hundredth time, since he had left his office that morning, he assured himself that his decision was right. If James Bond could be straightened out—and M. was certain that that supreme neurologist, Sir James Molony, could bring it off—it would be ridiculous to re-assign him to normal staff duties in the Double-O Section. The past could be forgiven, but not forgotten—except with the passage of time. It would be most irksome for those in the know to have Bond moving about Headquarters as if nothing had happened. It would be doubly embarrassing for M. to have to face Bond across that desk. And James Bond, if aimed straight at a known target—M. put it in the language of battleships—was a supremely effective firing-piece. Well, the target was there and it desperately demanded destruction. Bond had accused M. of using him as a tool. Naturally. Every officer in, the Service was a tool for one secret purpose or another. The problem on hand could only be solved by a killing. James Bond would not possess the Double-O prefix if he had not high talents, frequently proved, as a gunman. So be it! In exchange for the happenings of that morning, in expiation of them, Bond must prove himself at his old skills. If he succeeded, he would have regained his prevous status. If he failed, well, it would be a death for which he would be honoured. Win or lose, the plan would solve a vast array of problems. M. closed his mind once and for all on his decision. He got out of the car and went up in the lift to the eighth floor and along the corridor, smelling the smell of some unknown disinfectant more and more powerfully as he approached his office.
Instead of using his key to the private entrance at the end of the corridor M. turned right, through Miss Money-penny's door. She was sitting in her usual place, typing away at the usual routine correspondence. She got to her feet.
"What's this dreadful stink, Miss Moneypenny?" "I don't know what it's called, sir. Head of Security brought along a squad from Chemical Warfare at the War Office. He says your office is all right to use again but to keep the windows open for a while. So I've turned on the heating. Chief of Staff isn't back from lunch yet, but he told me to tell you that everything you wanted done is under way. Sir James is operating until four but will expect your call after that. Here's the file you wanted, sir."
M. took the brown folder with the red Top Secret star in its top right-hand corner. "How's 007? Did he come round all right?"
Miss Moneypenny's face was expressionless. "I gather so, sir. The M.O. gave him a sedative of some kind, and he was taken off on a stretcher during the lunch hours. He was covered up. They took him down in the service lift to the garage. I haven't had any inquiries."
"Good. Well, bring me in the signals, would you. There's been a lot of tune wasted today on all these domestic excitements." Carrying the brown folder, M. went through the door into his office. Miss Moneypenny brought in the signals and stood dutifully beside him while he went through them, occasionally dictating a comment or a query. She looked down at the bowed, iron-grey head with the bald patch polished for years by a succession of naval caps and wondered, as she had wondered so often over the past ten years, whether she loved or hated this man. One thing was certain. She respected him more than any man she had known or had read of.
M. handed her the file. "Thank you. Now just give me a quarter of an hour, and then I'll see whoever wants me. The call to Sir James has priority of course."
M. opened the brown folder, reached for his pipe and began absent-mindedly filling it as he glanced through the list of subsidiary files to see if there was any other docket he immediately needed. Then he set a match to his pipe and settled back in his chair and read:
FRANCISCO (PACO) "PISTOLS" SCARAMANGA
And underneath, in lower-case type:
Free-lance assassin mainly under K.G.B. control through D.S.S., Havana, Cuba, but often as an independent operator for other organizations, in the Caribbean and Central American states. Has caused widespread damage, particularly to the S.S., but also to C.I.A. and other friendly services, by murder and scientific maiming since 1959, the year when Castro came to power and which seems also to have been the trigger for Scaramanga's operations. Is widely feared and admired in said territory throughout which he appears, despite police precautions, to have complete freedom of access. Has thus become something of a local myth and is known in his "territory" as The Man with the Golden Gun—a reference to his main weapon which is a gold-plated, long-barrelled, single-action Colt .45. He uses special bullets with a heavy, soft (24 ct.) gold core jacketed with silver and cross-cut at the tip, on the dum-dum principle, for maximum wounding effect. Himself loads and artifices this ammunition. Is responsible for the death of 267 (British Guiana), 398 (Trinidad), 943 (Jamaica), and 768 and 742 (Havana), and for the maiming and subsequent retirement from the S.S. of 098, Area Inspection Officer, by bullet wounds in both knees. (See above references in Central Records for Scaramanga's victims in Martinique, Haiti, and Panama.)
description: Age about 35. Height 6 ft. 3 in. Slim and fit. Eyes, light brown. Hair reddish in a crew cut. Long sideburns. Gaunt, sombre face with thin pencil moustache, brownish. Ears very flat to the head. Ambidextrous. Hands very large and powerful and immaculately manicured. Distinguishing marks: a third nipple about two inches below his left breast. (N.B. In Voodoo and allied local cults this is considered a sign of invulnerability and great sexual prowess.) Is an insatiable but indiscriminate womanizer who invariably has sexual intercourse shortly before a killing in the belief that it improves his "eye." (N.B. A belief shared by many professional lawn tennis players, golfers, gun and rifle marksmen, and others.)
origins: A relative of the Catalan family of circus managers of the same name with whom he spent his youth. Self-educated. At the age of 16 (after the incident described below under motivation) emigrated illegally to the United States where he lived a life of petty crime on the fringes of the gangs until he graduated as a full-time gunman for The Spangled Mob in Nevada with the cover of pitboy in the casino of the Tiara Hotel in Las Vegas where in fact he acted as executioner of cheats and other transgressors within and outside The Mob. In 1958 was forced to flee the States as the result of a famous duel against his opposite number for the Detroit Purple Gang, a certain Ramon "The Rod" Rodriguez, which took place by moonlight on the third green of the Thunderbird golf course at Las Vegas. (Scaramanga got two bullets into the heart of his opponent before the latter had fired a shot. Distance 20 paces.) Believed to have been compensated by The Mob with $100,000. Travelled the whole Caribbean area investing fugitive funds for various Las Vegas interests and later, as his reputation for keen and successful dealing in real estate and plantations became consolidated, for Trujillo of the Dominican Republic and Batista of Cuba. In 1959 settled in Havana and, seeing the way the wind blew, while remaining ostensibly a Batista man, began working undercover for the Castro party, and after the revolution, obtained an influential post as foreign "enforcer" for the D.S.S. In this capacity, on behalf, that is, of the Cuban secret police, he undertook the assassinations mentioned above.