James Bond Anthology (355 page)

M. turned to Dr Fanshawe. ‘Perhaps, Doctor, you would care to tell Commander Bond what it is all about.’

‘Certainly, certainly.’ Dr Fanshawe looked quickly at Bond and then away again. He addressed his boots. ‘You see, it’s like this, er, Commander. You’ve heard of a man called Fabergé, no doubt. Famous Russian jeweller.’

‘Made fabulous Easter eggs for the Czar and Czarina before the revolution.’

‘That was indeed one of his specialities. He made many other exquisite pieces of what we may broadly describe as objects of vertu. Today, in the sale rooms, the best examples fetch truly fabulous prices – £50,000 and more. And recently there entered this country the most amazing specimen of all – the so-called Emerald Sphere, a work of supreme art hitherto known only from a sketch by the great man himself. This treasure arrived by registered post from Paris and it was addressed to this woman of whom you know, Miss Maria Freudenstein.’

‘Nice little present. Might I ask how you learned of it, Doctor?’

‘I am, as your Chief has told you, an adviser to H.M. Customs and Excise in matters concerning antique jewellery and similar works of art. The declared value of the package was £100,000. This was unusual. There are methods of opening such packages clandestinely. The package was opened – under a Home Office Warrant, of course – and I was called in to examine the contents and give a valuation. I immediately recognized the Emerald Sphere from the account and sketch of it given in Mr Kenneth Snowman’s definitive work on Fabergé. I said that the declared price might well be on the low side. But what I found of particular interest was the accompanying document which gave, in Russian and French, the provenance of this priceless object.’ Dr Fanshawe gestured towards a photostat of what appeared to be a brief family tree that lay on the desk in front of M. ‘That is a copy I had made. Briefly, it states that the Sphere was commissioned by Miss Freudenstein’s grandfather directly from Fabergé in 1917 – no doubt as a means of turning some of his roubles into something portable and of great value. On his death in 1918 it passed to his brother and thence, in 1950, to Miss Freudenstein’s mother. She, it appears, left Russia as a child and lived in White Russian
émigré
circles in Paris. She never married, but gave birth to this girl, Maria, illegitimately. It seems that she died last year and that some friend or executor, the paper is not signed, has now forwarded the Sphere to its rightful owner, Miss Maria Freudenstein. I had no reason to question this girl, although as you can imagine my interest was most lively, until last month Sotheby’s announced that they would auction the piece, described as “the property of a lady”, in a week from today. On behalf of the British Museum and, er, other interested parties, I then made discreet inquiries and met the lady, who, with perfect composure, confirmed the rather unlikely story contained in the provenance. It was then that I learned that she worked for the Ministry of Defence and it crossed my rather suspicious mind that it was, to say the least of it, odd that a junior clerk, engaged presumably on sensitive duties, should suddenly receive a gift to the value of £100,000 or more from abroad. I spoke to a senior official in M.I.5 with whom I have some contact through my work for H.M. Customs and I was in due course referred to this, er, department.’ Dr Fanshawe spread his hands and gave Bond a brief glance, ‘And that, Commander, is all I have to tell you.’

M. broke in, ‘Thank you, Doctor. Just one or two final questions and I won’t detain you any further. You have examined this emerald ball thing and you pronounce it genuine?’

Dr Fanshawe ceased gazing at his boots. He looked up and spoke to a point somewhere above M.’s left shoulder. ‘Certainly. So does Mr Snowman of Wartski’s, the greatest Fabergé experts and dealers in the world. It is undoubtedly the missing masterpiece of which hitherto Carl Fabergé’s sketch was the only record.’

‘What about the provenance? What do the experts say about that?’

‘It stands up adequately. The greatest Fabergé pieces were nearly always privately commissioned. Miss Freudenstein says that her grandfather was a vastly rich man before the revolution – a porcelain manufacturer. Ninety-nine per cent of all Fabergé’s output has found its way abroad. There are only a few pieces left in the Kremlin – described simply as “pre-revolutionary examples of Russian jewellery”. The official Soviet view has always been that they are merely capitalist baubles. Officially they despise them as they officially despise their superb collection of French Impressionists.’

‘So the Soviet still retain some examples of the work of this man Fabergé. Is it possible that this emerald affair could have lain secreted somewhere in the Kremlin through all these years?’

‘Certainly. The Kremlin treasure is vast. No one knows what they keep hidden. They have only recently put on display what they have wanted to put on display.’

M. drew on his pipe. His eyes through the smoke were bland, scarcely interested, ‘So that, in theory, there is no reason why this emerald ball should not have been unearthed from the Kremlin, furnished with a faked history to establish ownership, and transferred abroad as a reward to some friend of Russia for services rendered?’

‘None at all. It would be an ingenious method of greatly rewarding the beneficiary without the danger of paying large sums into his, or her, bank account.’

‘But the final monetary reward would of course depend on the amount realized by the sale of the object – the auction price for instance?’

‘Exactly.’

‘And what do you expect this object to fetch at Sotheby’s?’

‘Impossible to say. Wartski’s will certainly bid very high. But of course they wouldn’t be prepared to tell anyone just how high – either on their own account for stock, so to speak, or acting on behalf of a customer. Much would depend on how high they are forced up by an underbidder. Anyway, not less than £100,000 I’d say.’

‘Hm.’ M.’s mouth turned down at the corners. ‘Expensive hunk of jewellery.’

Dr Fanshawe was aghast at this bare-faced revelation of M.’s philistinism. He actually looked M. straight in the face. ‘My dear sir,’ he expostulated, ‘do you consider the stolen Goya, sold at Sotheby’s for £140,000, that went to the National Gallery, just an expensive hunk, as you put it, of canvas and paint?’

M. said placatingly, ‘Forgive me, Dr Fanshawe. I expressed myself clumsily. I have never had the leisure to interest myself in works of art nor, on a naval officer’s pay, the money to acquire any. I was just registering my dismay at the runaway prices being fetched at auction these days.’

‘You are entitled to your views, sir,’ said Dr Fanshawe stuffily.

Bond thought it was time to rescue M. He also wanted to get Dr Fanshawe out of the room so that they could get down to the professional aspects of this odd business. He got to his feet. He said to M., ‘Well, sir, I don’t think there is anything else I need to know. No doubt this will turn out to be perfectly straightforward (like hell it would!) and just a matter of one of your staff turning out to be a very lucky woman. But it’s very kind of Dr Fanshawe to have gone to so much trouble.’ He turned to Dr Fanshawe. ‘Would you care to have a staff car to take you wherever you’re going?’

‘No thank you, thank you very much. It will be pleasant to walk across the park.’

Hands were shaken, goodbyes said and Bond showed the doctor out. Bond came back into the room. M. had taken a bulky file, stamped with the top secret red star, out of a drawer and was already immersed in it. Bond took his seat again and waited. The room was silent save for the riffling of paper. This also stopped as M. extracted a foolscap sheet of blue cardboard used for Confidential Staff Records and carefully read through the forest of close type on both sides.

Finally he slipped it back in the file and looked up. ‘Yes,’ he said and the blue eyes were bright with interest. ‘It fits all right. The girl was born in Paris in 1935. Mother very active in the Resistance during the war. Helped run the Tulip Escape Route and got away with it. After the war, the girl went to the Sorbonne and then got a job in the Embassy, in the Naval Attaché’s office, as an interpreter. You know the rest. She was compromised – some unattractive sexual business – by some of her mother’s old Resistance friends who by then were working for the N.K.V.D., and from then on she has been working under Control. She applied, no doubt on instruction, for British citizenship. Her clearance from the Embassy and her mother’s Resistance record helped her to get that by 1959, and she was then recommended to us by the F.O. But it was there that she made her big mistake. She asked for a year’s leave before coming to us and was next reported by the Hutchinson network in the Leningrad espionage school. There she presumably received the usual training and we had to decide what to do about her. Section 100 thought up the Purple Cipher operation and you know the rest. She’s been working for three years inside headquarters for the K.G.B. and now she’s getting her reward – this emerald ball thing worth £100,000. And that’s interesting on two counts. First it means that the K.G.B. is totally hooked on the Purple Cipher or they wouldn’t be making this fantastic payment. That’s good news. It means that we can hot up the material we’re passing over – put across some Grade 3 deception material and perhaps even move up to Grade 2. Secondly, it explains something we’ve never been able to understand – that this girl hasn’t hitherto received a single payment for her services. We were worried by that. She had an account at Glyn, Mills that only registered her monthly pay cheque of around £50. And she’s consistently lived within it. Now she’s getting her pay-off in one large lump sum via this bauble we’ve been learning about. All very satisfactory.’

M. reached for the ashtray made out of a twelve-inch shell base and rapped out his pipe with the air of a man who has done a good afternoon’s work.

Bond shifted in his chair. He badly needed a cigarette, but he wouldn’t have dreamed of lighting one. He wanted one to help him focus his thoughts. He felt that there were some ragged edges to this problem – one particularly. He said, mildly, ‘Have we ever caught up with her local Control, sir? How does she get her instructions?’

‘Doesn’t need to,’ said M. impatiently, busying himself with his pipe. ‘Once she’d got hold of the Purple Cipher all she needed to do was hold down her job. Damn it man, she’s pouring the stuff into their lap six times a day. What sort of instructions would they need to give her? I doubt if the K.G.B. men in London even know of her existence – perhaps the Resident Director does, but as you know we don’t even know who he is. Give my eyes to find out.’

Bond suddenly had a flash of intuition. It was as if a camera had started grinding in his skull, grinding out a length of clear film. He said quietly, ‘It might be that this business at Sotheby’s could show him to us – show us who he is.’

‘What the devil are you talking about, 007? Explain yourself.’

‘Well, sir,’ Bond’s voice was calm with certainty, ‘you remember what this Dr Fanshawe said about an underbidder – someone to make these Wartski merchants go to their very top price. If the Russians don’t seem to know or care very much about Fabergé as Dr Fanshawe says, they may have no very clear idea what this thing’s really worth. The K.G.B. wouldn’t be likely to know about such things anyway. They may imagine it’s only worth its breakup value – say ten or twenty thousand pounds for the emerald. That sort of sum would make more sense than the small fortune the girl’s going to get if Dr Fanshawe’s right. Well, if the Resident Director is the only man who knows about this girl, he will be the only man who knows she’s been paid. So he’ll be the underbidder. He’ll be sent to Sotheby’s and told to push the sale through the roof. I’m certain of it. So we’ll be able to identify him and we’ll have enough on him to have him sent home. He just won’t know what’s hit him. Nor will the K.G.B. If I can go to the sale and bowl him out and we’ve got the place covered with cameras, and the auction records, we can get the F.O. to declare him persona non grata inside a week. And Resident Directors don’t grow on trees. It may be months before the K.G.B. can appoint a replacement.’

M. said, thoughtfully, ‘Perhaps you’ve got something there.’ He swivelled his chair round and gazed out of the big window towards the jagged skyline of London. Finally he said, over his shoulder, ‘All right, 007. Go and see the Chief of Staff and set the machinery up. I’ll square things with Five. It’s their territory, but it’s our bird. There won’t be any trouble. But don’t go and get carried away and bid for this bit of rubbish yourself. I haven’t got the money to spare.’

Bond said, ‘No, sir.’ He got to his feet and went quickly out of the room. He thought he had been very clever and he wanted to see if he had. He didn’t want M. to change his mind.

Wartski has a modest, ultra-modern frontage at 138 Regent Street. The window, with a restrained show of modern and antique jewellery, gave no hint that these were the greatest Fabergé-dealers in the world. The interior – grey carpet, walls panelled in sycamore, a few unpretentious vitrines – held none of the excitement of Cartier’s, Boucheron or Van Cleef, but the group of framed Royal Warrants from Queen Mary, the Queen Mother, the Queen, King Paul of Greece and the unlikely King Frederick IX of Denmark, suggested that this was no ordinary jeweller. James Bond asked for Mr Kenneth Snowman. A good-looking, very well-dressed man of about forty rose from a group of men sitting with their heads together at the back of the room and came forward.

Bond said quietly, ‘I’m from the C.I.D. Can we have a talk? Perhaps you’d like to check my credentials first. My name’s James Bond. But you’ll have to go direct to Sir Ronald Vallance or his P.A. I’m not directly on the strength at Scotland Yard. Sort of liaison job.’