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just sensationally announced his recognition of Red China was boxed well down the page. Bond read the whole paper—"Country Newsbits" and all—with the minute care bred of desperation.
    His horoscope said: "cheer up! Today will bring a pleasant surprise and the fulfilment of a dear wish. But you must earn your good fortune by watching closely for the golden opportunity when it presents itself and then seizing it with both hands." Bond smiled grimly. He would be unlikely to get on the scent of Scaramanga on his first evening in Havana. It was not even certain that Scaramanga was there. This was a last resort. For six weeks, Bond had been chasing his man round the Caribbean and Central America. He had missed him by a day in Trinidad and by only a matter of hours in Caracas. Now he had rather reluctantly taken the decision of try and ferret him out on his home ground, a particularly inimical home ground, with which Bond was barely familiar. At least he had fortified himself in British Guiana with a diplomatic passport, and he was now "Courier" Bond with splendidly engraved instructions from Her Majesty to pick up the Jamaican diplomatic bag in Havana and return with it. He had even borrowed the famous Silver Greyhound, the British Courier's emblem for three hundred years. If he could do his job and then get a few hundred yards' start, this would at least give him sanctuary in the British Embassy. Then it would be up to the P.O. to bargain him out. If he could find his man. If he could carry out his instructions. If he could get away from the scene of the shooting. If, if, if. .... Bond turned to the advertisements on the back page. At once an item caught his eye. It was so typically "old" Jamaica. This is what he read:
    FOR SALE BY AUCTION
    AT 77 HARBOUR STREET, KINGSTON,
    At 10:30 a.m. on WEDNESDAY,
    27th MAY
    under Powers of Sale contained in a mortgage from Cornelius Brown et ux
    No. 3-1/2LOVE LANE,
    SAVANNAH LA MAR.
    Containing the substantial residence and all that parcel of land by measurement oh the Northern Boundary three chains and fivee perches, on the Southern Boundary five chains and one perch, on the Eastern Boundary two chains exactly, and on the Western Boundary four chains and two perches be the same in each case and more or less and butting Northerly on No. 4 Love Lane.
    THE C. D. ALEXANDER
    CO. LTD.
    77 HARBOUR STREET, KINGSTON
    PHONE 4897.
    James Bond was delighted. He had had many assignments in Jamaica and many adventures on the island. The splendid address and all the stuff about chains and perches and the old-fashioned abracadabra at the end of the advertisement brought back all the authentic smell of one of the oldest and most romantic of former British possessions. For all her new-found "independence" he would bet his bottom dollar that the statue of Queen Victoria in the centre of Kingston had not been destroyed or removed to a museum, as similar relics of an historic infancy had been in the resurgent African states. He looked at his watch. The Gleaner had consumed a whole hour for him. He picked up his coat and briefcase. Not much longer to go! In the last analysis, life wasn't all that dismal. One must forget the bad and remember the good. What were a couple of hours of heat and boredom in this island compared with memories of Beau Desert and Honeychile Wilder and his survival against the mad Dr. No? James Bond smiled to himself as the dusty pictures clicked across his brain. How long ago it all was! What had happened to her? She never wrote. The last he had heard, she had had two children by the Philadelphia doctor she had married. He wandered off into the grandly named "Concourse," where the booths of many airlines stood empty and promotion folders and little company flags on their counters gathered the dust blown in with the mangrove breeze.
    There was the customary central display stand holding messages for incoming and outgoing passengers. As usual, Bond wondered whether there would be something