Well, England needs that gold, badly - and the quicker the better.' You know about the currency crisis and the high bank rate? Of course. The Bank can do nothing about it, so we are asking you to bring Mr Gold-finger to book, Mr Bond, and get that gold back. And that gold, or most of it, belongs to England. It needs a microscope to see it, but somewhere, on each Goldfinger bar, a minute letter Z has been scratched in the metal. Oddly enough, like all artists, he couldn't refrain from signing his handiwork. I flew to Nassau and had a look at the five million pounds' worth or so he holds there in the vaults of the Royal Bank of Canada. They're bars that Mr Goldfinger has melted himself. They don't carry any official marks of origin whatsoever. And those bars, Mr Bond, are not Mint bars. In Zurich, in Nassau, in Panama, in New York, he has twenty million pounds' worth of gold bars on safe deposit. 'It took me five years, Mr Bond, to find out that Mr Goldfinger, in ready money, is the richest man in England. He placed both hands palm downwards on the desk and leant forward. Bond glanced surreptitiously at his watch. The rumble of the City came through the half-open window high up in the wall behind his chair. Thank you, Miss Philby.'Ĭolonel Smithers paused. I'm sure she'll be very good - right figure and all that. Say I'll be greatly obliged if just this once. It's the only position on the field we've got for her. "Well, if Mrs Flake won't play goals, I'm afraid she'll have to stand down. The next match is on Saturday against the Discount Houses.' He listened again. 'I'm sure I sent you a note about the summer fixtures, Miss Philby. 'Smithers speaking.' He listened, irritation growing on his face.
Colonel Smithers impatiently snatched up the receiver. 'Why the high price in India?' Bond didn't really want to know. Perhaps they'll find a way of mining gold. They're already mining oil under the sea. Perhaps the position isn't as bad as you think. He said, 'You certainly make a fascinating story of it. If you'd done only half a dozen little operations like that every year you'd be able to retire by now.'īond, smothered by this cataract of gold history, found no difficulty in looking as grave as Colonel Smithers. Just after the war you could have got three hundred per cent. Mark you,' Colonel Smithers waved his pipe airily,'that's only seventy per cent profit. He will be given one thousand seven hundred pounds for your five-pound bar and you're a richer man than you might have been. Your friend flies off to Bombay and goes to the first bullion dealer in the bazaar. You could easily afford a hundred pounds for the job. All you have to do is cut your bar into thin sheets or plates-you'd soon find someone to do this for you - and sew the plates -they'd be smaller than playing cards - into a cotton belt, and pay your friend a commission to wear it. You've got a friend going to India or perhaps you're on good terms with an airline pilot or a steward on the Far East run. That would make it worth around the thousand pounds. Now, the law says you have to sell that to the Bank of England at the controlled price of twelve pounds ten per ounce. That'll be twenty-four carat -what we call a thousand fine. Never mind for the moment where you got it from - stole it or inherited it or something. Supposing you have a bar of gold in your pocket about the size of a couple of packets of Players. Despite his prosiness, Bond was beginning to take to Colonel Smithers. Bond knew the voice well, the voice of the first-class Civil Servant. It said that he knew most things connected with that line and that he could make a good guess at all the rest. It was the voice of the specialist in a particular line of law enforcement. 'All right.' Colonel Smithers now talked in the soft, tired voice of an overworked man in the service of his Government. Square cardboard boxes were being unloaded from it and put on to a short conveyor belt that disappeared into the bowels of the Bank.
A trim chocolate-brown lorry with no owner's name had come into the courtyard through the triple steel gates. He was looking down into the deep well of the back courtyard of the Bank. While they waited for it, Bond glanced out of the tall window at the end of the passage.
Briefly, India is shorter of gold, particularly for her jewellery trade, than any other country.'īOND FOLLOWED Colonel Smithers to the lift. I can't understand these dollar swindles.' 'Can you give me an example of smuggling? In gold. 'That's a lot.' Bond measured it against the Secret Service which had a total force of two thousand.
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