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And so it ith the castle of Doctor Shatterhand - a ses and lock were cracked and rusty, but a new padlock and chain had been stapled into the ork and the stone fraht filtered down to this corner of what rassed over Bond felt carefully with his fingers Yes! The chain and lock would yield to the file and jemmy in his conjurer's pockets Would there be bolts on the inner side? Probably not, or the padlock would not have been thought necessary Bond softly retraced his steps across the gravel, stepping meticulously in his previous footet for toht-handed, but still following the boundary wall, he crept off again on his survey Once, so feet and disappeared with a heavy rustle into the fallen leaves under a tree What snakes were there that really went for a -cobra, black mamba, the saw-scaled viper, the rattlesnake and the fer de lance What others? The remainder were inclined to ht hunters? Bond didn't know A so many hazards, there weren't even the odds of Russian Roulette When all the chambers of the pistol were loaded, there was not even a one in six chance to bank on

Bond was now on the castle side of the lake He heard a noise and edged behind a tree The distant crashing in the shrubbery sounded like a wounded ani a ht showed a head swollen to the size of a football, and only small slits remained where the eyes and , and Bond could see that his hands were up to his puffed face and that he was trying to prise apart the swollen skin round his eyes so that he could see out Every now and then he stopped and let out one word in an agonizing howl to the moon It was not a howl of fear or of pain, but of dreadful supplication Suddenly he stopped He seemed to see the lake for the first ti out his are and threw himself in At once there came the swirl of movereat area of water and there was a wild boiling of the surface round the vaguely threshing body A et at the man, particularly at the naked hands and face, and their six-inch bodies glittered and flashed in the le, terrible scream and Bond saw that his face was encrusted with pendent fish as if with silvery locks of hair Then his head fell back into the lake and he rolled over and over as if trying to rid himself of his attackers But slowly the black stain spread and spread around hiular had been pierced, he lay still, face doards in the water, and his head jigged slightly with the ceaseless momentum of the attack

James Bond wiped the cold sweat off his face Piranha! The South American fresh-water killer whose massive jaws and flat, razor-sharp teeth can strip a horse down to the bones in under an hour! And this man had been one of the suicides who had heard of this terrible death! He had coot his face poisoned by some pretty shrub The Herr Doktor had certainly provided a feast for his victi dishes for their delectation! A true banquet of death!

Jaht, Blofeld, he thought, that's one more notch on the sword that is already on its way to your neck Brave words! Bond hugged the wall and kept going Gun in the east

But the Garden of Death hadn't quite finished the display of its wares

All over the park, a slight s in the air, and , cracks in the ground and the quakingcircle of white-painted stones The Doctor was most careful lest anyone should fall into one of these liquid furnaces by mistake! But now Bond came to one the size of a circular tennis-court, and here there was a rough shrine in the grotto at the back of it and, dainty touch, a vase with flowers in it - chrysanthemums, because it was now officially winter and therefore the chrysanthes of dwarf rant ehostly black uniforentlesoup of the pool Jaentleman' because the man was dressed in the top hat, frock-coat, striped trousers, stiff collar and spats of a high governentleman held a carefully rolled umbrella between his clasped hands, and his head was bowed over its crook as if in penance He was speaking, in a soft cohly ritualistic church, but he estures and just stood, huods for soainst a tree, black in the blackness He felt he should intervene in what he knew to be thenothing but his 'deaf and duhost' in the garden, not get involved in soument with a man he didn't know, about some ancient sin he could never understand So Bond stood, while the trees threw long black arms across the scene, and waited, with a cold, closed, stone face, for death to walk on stage

The azed up at thetop hat Then he replaced it, tucked his umbrella under one ar, as if to a business appointe of the bubbling fu stones and went on walking He sank slowly in the glutinous grey slime and not a sound escaped his lips until, as the trehh!' and the gold in his teeth showed as his head arched back in the rictus of death Then he was gone and only the top hat re on a small fountain of mud that spat intermittently into the air Then the hat slowly crureat belch was uttered frostink of sulphur and reached Bond's nostrils

Bond controlled his rising gorge Honourable salary-one to honourable ancestors - his unknown sin expiated as his calcined bones sank slowly down into the stomach of the world And one more statistic would be run up on Blofeld's abacus of death Why didn't the Japanese Air Force come and boarden ablaze with napalm? How could this man continue to have protection from a bunch of botanists and scientists? And now here was he, Bond, alone in this hell to try and do the job with almost no weapon but his bare hands It was hopeless I He was scarcely being given a chance in atheir pound of flesh in exchange for their precious MAGIC 44 - one hundred and eighty-two pounds of it to be exact!

Cursing his fate, cursing Tiger, cursing the whole of Japan, Bond went on his hile a small voice whispered in his ear, 'But don't you want to kill Blofeld? Don't you want to avenge Tracy? Isn't this a God-given chance? You have done well tonight You have penetrated his defences and spied out the land You have even found a way into his castle and probably up to his bedroom Kill him in his sleep tomorrow I And kill her too, while you're about it! And then back into Kissy's arms and, in a week or two, back over the Pole to London and to the applause of your Chief Co suicide every thirty h the year Don't be squeamish because you've just seen a couple of numbers ticked off on a sheet in the Ministry of Health, a couple of points added to a graph Snap out of it! Get on with the job'

And Bond listened to the whisper and went on round the last ardeners' hut

He took a last look round before going in He could see a neck of the lake about twenty yards away It was now gun- and darting through the softly rising stea But of course! The haiku of Tiger's dying agent! That was the last nightmarish touch to this obscenity of a place Bond went into the hut, picked his way carefully between the machines and wheelbarrows, pulled sohosts, and demons and screams

17

SOMETHING EVIL COMES THIS WAY

THE dreaed into real ones when, four hours later, Bond awoke There was silence in the hut Bond got cautiously to his knees and put his eye to a wide crack in the rickety planking A screaed blue cotton unifor across his line of vision along the edge of the lake Four guards were after hia staves, and now one of them paused and hurled his stave accurately after theto the ground He scra hands out towards his pursuers Still laughing, they gathered round hih rubber boots, their facesby black maskos over their ly black leather soup-plate hats as the agent on the train had worn They poked at theharshly at him in voices that jeered Then, as if at an order, they bent down and, eachhihastly ripple surged forward and the ain, beat at his face with his hands and floundered as if trying to make for the shore, but the screams rapidly became weaker and finally ceased as the head went down and the red stain spread wider and wider

Doubled up with laughter, the guards on the bank watched the sho, satisfied that the fun was over, they turned away and walked towards the hut, and Bond could see the tears of their pleasure glistening on their cheeks

He got back under cover and heard their boisterous voices and laughter only yards away as they came into the hut and pulled out their rakes and barrows and dispersed to their jobs, and for so to each other across the park Then, fro of a bell, and the lanced at the cheap Japanese atch Tiger had provided It was nine o'clock Was this the beginning of the official working day? Probably The Japanese usually get to their work half an hour early and leave half an hour late in order to gain face with their eratitude for their jobs Later, Bond guessed, there would be an hour's luncheon break Work would probably cease at six So it would only be frorounds to himself Meanwhile, he uards' routines, of which he had presu out and final dispatch of suicides who had changed their ht Bond softly unzipped his container and took a bite at one of his three slabs of peht froarette!