'mr gold,' jed midnight pronounced sonorously, 'you are undoubtedly the greatest thing in crime since cain invented murder and used it on abel.' he paused and added emphatically, 'i shall count it an honour to be associated with you in this enterprise.'

"thank you, mr midnight. and you, mr ring?' bond was doubtful about mr billy ring. he had scrawled plusses against all the names except ring and helmut springer. to mr ring he had allotted a nought, to springer a minus sign. he had come to his conclusions by watching eyes, mouths, hands, but nothing had been betrayed by the grinner's unwavering false smile. the wink in his right eye had been as steady on the pulse-beat as a metronome and he had kept his hands below the table.

now billy ring brought his hands up from below the table and formed a cat's cradle with them on the green baize in front of him. for a moment he watched the two thumbs twirling, then he raised his nightmare face to goldfinger's. the tic in his right eye had stopped. the two rows of teeth began to operate like a ventriloquist's dummy. 'mister1 - he found difficulty with his b's, m's and p's and produced them by bringing his upper lip down over his teeth like a horse does when it takes sugar out of your hand - 'long time now my friends and i been back in legal. what i mean, the old days of leaving corpses strewn all over the landscape went out with the 'forties. me and my associates, we do all right with the girls, the hemp, and the racetrack, and when we're short there's our good friends the union to slip us the odd fin. ya see, mister' - the grinner opened his hands and then put them back into the cradle - 'we figger the old days are gone. big jim colossimo, johnny torrio, dion o'bannion, al capone - where are those guys today, huh? mister, they're pushing up the morning glory by the fence. mebbe you weren't around in the days when we used to hide up between fights in little bohemia up behind milwaukee? well, siree, in those days, people were shooting at each other so fast you'd often need a programme to tell the act from the spectators. so all right, people got tired of it - those that hadn't already got tired to death, if you get my meaning -and when the 'fifties come along and i take over the team, it's unanimous that we get out of the fireworks business. and now what, mister? now you come along and put it to me that me and my friends assist you to let off the biggest fizzbang in history! so what do i figger to say to your proposition, mister-er - whoosis? well, i tell you, mister. everybody's got his price, see? - and for a billion dollars it's a deal. we'll put away the marbles and bring out the sling-shots. we're in.'

'grinner, you sure take one hell of a long time to say yes,' commented mr midnight sourly.

goldfinger said cordially, 'thank you for your most interesting statement, mr ring. i am very happy to welcome you and your associates. mr solo?'

mr solo prefaced his reply by reaching into his coat pocket and taking out a battery shaver. he switched it on. the room filled with the noise of angry bees. mr solo leant his head back and began running the machine thoughtfully up the right side of his face while his uptilted eyes sought decision in the ceiling. suddenly he switched the razor off, put it down on the table in front of him and jerked his head down and forward like a snake striking. the black gun-muzzles of his eyes pointed threateningly across the table at goldfinger and moved slowly from feature to feature of the big moon-face. half mr solo's own face now looked naked. the other half was dark with the italian swarthiness that comes from an uncontrollable beard growth. bond guessed that he probably had to shave every three or four hours. now mr solo decided to speak. he spoke in a voice that brought chill into" the room. he said softly, 'mister, i been watching you. you are a very relaxed man for someone who speaks such big things. last man i knew was so much relaxed he got himself totally relaxed by a quick burst of the chopper. okay, okay.' mr solo sat back. he spread open palms in reluctant surrender. 'so i come in, yes. but mister' - there was a pause for emphasis - 'either we get that billion or you get dead. is okay with you?'

goldfinger's lips bent ironically. 'thank you, mr solo. your conditions are quite acceptable. i have every wish to stay alive. mr helmut springer?'

mr springer's eyes looked deader than ever. he said pompously, 'i am still giving the matter my full consideration. pray consult my colleagues while i deliberate.'

mr midnight commented impatiently, 'same old hell. waits for what he calls inspiration. he's guided - messages from the almighty on the angels' wavelength. i guess he hasn't heard a human voice in twenty years.'

'and mr strap?'

mr jack strap crinkled his eyes at goldfinger. he said smoothly, 'mister, i figure you know the odds and you surely pay the best since one of our machines at vegas got the trots and gave continuous jackpots. i guess if we provide the muscles and the guns this caper'll pay off. you can count me in.' mr strap turned off the charm. his eyes, now frightening again, turned, with goldfinger's, to miss pussy galore.

miss galore veiled her violet eyes so as not to have to look at either of them. she said indifferently to the room at large, 'business ain't been so brisk in my corner of the woods.' she tapped with long, silver-painted finger-nails on the gold bar before her. 'mind you, i won't say i'm overdrawn at the bank. let's put it i'm just a shade under-deposited. yup. sure i'll come in. me and my gals got to eat.'

goldfinger allowed himself a half-smile of sympathy. 'that is excellent news, miss galore. and now,' he turned to face across the table, 'mr springer, might we ask if you have made up your mind?'

slowly mr springer rose to his feet. he gave the controlled yawn of an opera goer. he followed the yawn with a small belch. he took out a fine linen handkerchief and patted his lips. his glazed eyes moved round the table and finally rested on goldfinger. slowly his head moved from side to side as if he was trying to exercise fibrositis in his neck muscles. he said gravely, like a bank manager refusing a loan, 'mr gold, i fear your proposal would not find favour with my colleagues in detroit.' he gave a little bow which included everyone. 'it only remains for me to thank you for a most interesting occasion. good afternoon, gentlemen and madam.' in the chilly silence, mr springer tucked his handkerchief carefully into the left-hand cuff of his immaculate pin-stripe, turned and walked softly to the door and let himself out.

the door closed with a sharp click. bond noticed gold finger's hand slip casually below the table. he guessed that oddjob was getting his signal. signal for what?

mr midnight said nastily, 'glad he's out. he's strictly a four-ulcer man. now then' - he got up briskly and turned to bond - 'how about a little drink?'

they all rose and gathered round the buffet. bond found himself between miss pussy galore and tilly masterton. he offered them champagne. miss galore looked at him coldly and said, 'move over, handsome. us girls want to talk secrets. don't we, yummy?' miss masterton blushed and then turned very pale. she whispered adoringly, 'oh yes please, miss galore.'

bond smiled sourly at tilly masterton and moved down the room.

jed midnight had witnessed the snub. he got close to bond and said earnestly, 'mister, if that's your doll, you better watch her. pussy gets the girls she wants. she consumes them in bunches - like grapes, if you follow me.' mr midnight sighed wearily. 'cheesus how they bore me, the lizzies! you'll see, she'll soon have that frail parting her hair three ways in front of the mirror.'

bond said cheerfully, 'i'll watch out. there's nothing much i can do. she's an independent sort of a girl.'

'that so?' said mr midnight with a spark of interest. 'well mebbe i can help to break it up.' he straightened his tie. 'i could go for that masterton. she's sure got natural resources. see you around." he grinned at bond and moved off down the room.

bond was having a quiet square meal off caviar and champagne and thinking how well goldfinger had handled the meeting when the door at the end of the room opened and one of the koreans hurried in and went up to goldfinger. goldfinger bent his head to the whispered words. his face became grave. he rapped a fork on his glass of saratoga vichy.

'gentlemen and madam.' he looked sadly round the group. 'i have received bad news. our friend mr helmut springer has met with an accident. he fell down the stairs. death was instantaneous.'

'ho, ho!' mr ring's laugh was not a laugh. it was a hole in the face. 'and what does that slappy hapgood, his torpedo, have to say about it?'

goldfinger said gravely, 'alas, mr hapgood also fell down the stairs and has succumbed to his injuries.'

mr solo looked at goldfinger with new respect. he said softly, 'mister, you better get those stairs fixed before me and my friend giulio come.to use them.'

goldfinger said seriously, 'the fault has been located. repairs will be put in hand at once.' his face grew thoughtful. 'i fear these accidents may be misconstrued in detroit.'

jed midnight said cheerfully, 'don't give it a thought, mister. they love funerals up there. and it'll take a load off their minds. old hell wouldn't have lasted much longer. they been stoking the fires under him these twelve months.' he appealed to mr strap who stood next to him. 'am i right, jacko?'

'sure, jed,' said mr strap sagely. 'you got the score. mr helmut m. springer had to be hit.'

'hit' - mobese for murder. when bond at last got to bed that night, he couldn't wipe the word out of his mind. oddjob had got the signal, a double ring,-and springer and his guard had got hit. there had been nothing bond could have done about it - even if he had wanted to, and mr helmut springer meant nothing to him, probably richly deserved to be hit anyway - but now some 59,998 other people were going to get hit unless he, and only he, could do something about it.

when the meeting of paramount hoods had broken up to go about their various duties, goldfinger had dismissed the girl and kept bond in the room. he told bond to take notes and then for more than two hours went over the operation down to the smallest detail. when they came to the doping of the two reservoirs (bond had to work out an exact timetable to ensure that the people of fort knox would all be 'under" in good time) bond had asked for details of the drug and its speed of action.

'you won't have to worry about that.'

'why not? everything depends on it.'

'mr bond.' goldfinger's eyes had a faraway, withdrawn look. 'i will tell you the truth because you will have no opportunity of passing it on. from now, oddjob will not be more than a yard from your side and his orders will be strict and exact. so i can tell you that the entire population of fort

knox will be dead or incapacitated by midnight on d-l. the substance that will be inserted in the water supply, outside the filter plant, will be a highly concentrated form of gb.'

'you're mad! you don't really mean you're going to kill sixty thousand people!'

'why not? american motorists do it every two years.'

bond stared into goldfinger's face in fascinated horror. it couldn't be true! he couldn't mean it! he said tensely, what's this gb?'

'gb is the most powerful of the trilone group of nerve poisons. it was perfected by the wehrmacht in 1943, but never used for fear of reprisals. in fact, it is a more effective instrument of destruction than the hydrogen bomb. its disadvantage lies in the difficulty of applying it to the populace. the russians captured the entire german stocks at dyhern-furth on the polish frontier. friends of mine were able to supply me with the necessary quantities. introduction through the water supply is an ideal method of applying it to a densely populated area.'

bond said, 'goldfinger, you're a lousy,---bastard.'

'don't be childish. we have work to do.'

later, when they had got to the problem of transporting the tons of gold out of the town, bond had had one last try. he said, 'goldfinger, you're not going to get this stuff away. nobody's going to get their hundred tons of gold out of. the place - let alone five hundred. you'll find yourself tearing down the dixie highway in a truck with a few gold bars loaded with gamma rays and the american army on your tail. and you'll have killed sixty thousand people for that? the thing's farcical. even if you do get a ton or two away, where the hell do you think you're going to hide it?'

'mr bond.' goldfinger's patience was infinite. 'it just happens that a soviet cruiser of the sverdlovsk class will be visiting norfolk, virginia, on a goodwill cruise at that time. it sails from norfolk on d+1. initially by train and then by transport convoy, my gold will arrive on board the cruiser by midnight on d-day. i shall sail in the cruiser for kronstadt. everything has been carefully planned, every possible hitch has been foreseen. i have lived with this operation for five years. now the time has come for the performance. i have tidied up my activities in england and europe. such small debris as remains of my former life can go to the scavengers who will shortly be sniffing on my trail. i shall be gone. i shall have emigrated and, mr bond, i shall have taken the golden heart of america with me. naturally' - goldfinger was indulgent -'this unique performance will not be immaculate. there has not been enough time for rehearsals. i need these clumsy gangsters with their guns and their men, but i could not bring them into the plan until the last moment. they will make mistakes. conceivably they will have much trouble getting their own loot away. some will be caught, others killed. i couldn't care less. these men are amateurs who were needed, so to speak, for the crowd scenes. they are extras, mr bond, brought in off the streets. what happens to them after the play is of no interest to me whatsoever. and now, on with the work. i shall need seven copies of all this by nightfall. where were we…?'

so in fact, reflected bond feverishly, this was not only a goldfinger operation with smersh in the background. smersh had even got the high praesidium to play. this was russia versus america with goldfinger as the spearhead! was it an act of war to steal something from another country? but who would know that russia had the gold? no one, if the plan went off as goldfinger intended. none of the gangsters had an inkling. to them goldfinger was just another of them, another gangster, slightly larger than life-size. and goldfinger's staff, his drivers for the golden convoy to the coast? bond himself, and tilly masterton? some would be killed, including him and the girl. some, the koreans for instance, would no doubt sail in the cruiser. not a trace would be left, not a witness. it was modern piracy with all the old-time trimmings. goldfinger was sacking fort knox as bloody morgan had saked panama. there .was no difference except that the weapons and the techniques had been brought up to date.

and there was only one man in the whole world who could stop it. but how?

the next day was an unending blizzard of paper-work. every half-hour a note would come in from goldfinger's operations room asking for schedules of this, copies of that, estimates, timetables, lists of stores. another typewriter was brought in, maps, reference books - anything that bond re quisitioned. but not once did oddjob relax the extreme care with which he opened the door to bond's knock, not once did his watchful eyes wander from bond's eyes, hands, feet when he came into the room to bring meals or notes or supplies. there was no question of bond and the girl being part of the team. they were dangerous slaves and nothing else.

tilly masterton was equally reserved. she worked like a machine - quick, willing, accurate, but uncommunicative. she responded with cool politeness to bond's early attempts to make friends, share his thoughts with her. by the evening, he had learnt nothing about her except that she had been a successful amateur ice-skater in between secretarial work for unilevers. then she had started getting star parts in ice-shows. her hobby had been indoor pistol and rifle shooting and she had belonged to two marksman clubs. she had few friends. she had never been in love or engaged. she lived by herself in two rooms in earls court. she was twenty-four. yes, she realized that they were in a bad fix. but something would turn up. this fort knox business was nonsense. it would certainly go wrong. she thought miss pussy galore was 'divine'. she somehow seemed to count on her to get her out of this mess. women, with a sniff, were rather good at things that needed finesse. instinct told them what to do. bond was not to worry about her. she would be all right.

bond came to the conclusion that tilly masterton was one of those girls whose hormones had got mixed up. he knew the type well and thought they and their male counterparts were a direct consequence of giving votes to women and 'sex equality'. as a result of fifty years of emancipation, feminine qualities were dying out or being transferred to the males. pansies of both sexes were everywhere, not yet completely homosexual, but confused, not knowing what they were. the result was a herd of unhappy sexual misfits - barren and full of frustrations, the women wanting to dominate and the men to be nannied. he was sorry for them, but he had no time for them. bond smiled sourly to himself as he remembered his fantasies about this girl as they sped along the valley of the loire. entre deux seins indeed!

at the end of the day, there was a final note from gold-finger:

five principals and myself will leave la guardia airport tomorrow at 11 am in chartered plane flown by my pilots for aerial survey of grand slam. you will accompany. masterton will remain. g.

bond sat on the edge of his bed and looked at the wall. then he got up and went to the typewriter. he worked for an hour, typing, single-spaced, on both sides of the sheet, exact details of the operation. he folded the sheet, rolled it to a small cylinder about the size of his little finger and sealed it carefully with gum. next he typed on a slip of paper:

urgent and vital. reward of five thousand dollars is guaranteed with no questions asked to the finder who delivers this message unopened to felix leiter care pinkerton's detective agency, 154 nassau street, new york city. immediate cash on delivery.

bond rolled this message round the cylinder, wrote $5000 reward in red ink on the outside, and stuck the little package down the centre of three inches of scotch tape. then he sat down again on the edge of the bed and carefully strapped the free ends of the scotch tape down the inside of his thigh.