Chapter 7

Behind the Clock

An hour later

Bond was moving silently along the route he had followed with Drax's

butler. He had left Trudy asleep with a seraphic smile

plucking at the corner of her mouth and a sheet pulled tightly about her naked body.

In that pose she had looked like a small child tucked up snug in its cot.

It gave a false impression of what she

had been like in her waking moments. Bond paused at the foot of the stairway and listened. He could

hear a clock ticking, but nothing else. The hall was lit by moonlight and the busts in the niches

peered out like spies. Bond crossed to the door of Trax's study. No light shone from beneath it. No

sound came from within.

Bond closed his fingers around the handle and pushed down. There was a soft click and the door

opened. Bond paused for a moment and listened again. If by some chance the Doberman

Pinchers were still in residence, he wanted to give them time to announce their presence.

Satisfied that there was no one there, Bond slipped into the room and closed the door behind him.

The task before him was daunting.

He had no idea what he was looking for and there was enough furniture there to stock an auction room.

He crossed to a Louis-Cannes-Equit-ois and found it locked.

This was not surprising.

Neither, after what he had discovered in his room,

were the two thin wires running down its back and along the top of the skirting board. The piece was either booby-trapped or attached to an alarm which would go off if anybody tampered with it.

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