[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
was a harmless sort of chap and in a useful trade and he had no difficulty in getting his
papers - he started buying up small pawn-brokers all over the country. He put in his
own men, paid them well and changed the name of the shops to "Goldfinger". Then he
turned the shops over to selling cheap jewellery and buying old gold - you know the sort
of place: "Best Prices for Old Gold. Nothing too Large, Nothing too Small", and he had
his own particular slogan: "Buy Her Engagement Ring With Grannie's Locket."
Goldfinger did very well. Always chose good sites, just on the dividing line between the
well-to-do streets and the lower-middle. Never touched stolen goods and got a good
name everywhere with the police. He lived in London and toured his " shops once a
month and collected all the old gold. He wasn't interested in the jewellery side. He let
his managers run that as they liked.' Colonel Smithers looked quizzically at Bond. 'You
may think these lockets and gold crosses and things are pretty small beer. So they are,
but they mount up if you've got twenty little shops, each one buying perhaps half a
dozen bits and pieces every week. Well, the war came and Gold-finger, like all other
jewellers, had to declare his stock of gold. I looked up his figure in our old records. It
was fifty ounces for the whole chain! - just enough of a working stock to keep his shops
supplied with ring setting and so forth, what they call jewellers' findings in the trade. Of
course, he was allowed to keep it. He tucked himself away in a machine-tool firm in
Wales during the war - well out of the firing line - but kept as many of his shops
operating as he could. Must have done well out of the GIs who generally travel with a
Gold Eagle or a Mexican fifty-dollar piece as a last reserve. Then, when peace broke
out, Goldfinger got moving. He bought himself a house, pretentious sort of place, at
Reculver, at the mouth of the Thames. He also invested in a wellfound Brixham trawler
and an old Silver Ghost Rolls Royce - armoured car, built for some South American
president who was killed before he could take delivery. He set up a little factory called
"Thanet Alloy Research" in the grounds of his house and staffed it with a German
metallurgist, a prisoner of war who didn't want to go back to Germany, and half a dozen
Korean stevedores he picked up in Liverpool. They didn't know a word of any civilized
language so they weren't any security risk. Then, for ten years, all we know is that he
made one trip a year to India in his trawler and a few trips in his car every year to
Switzerland. Set up a subsidiary of his alloy company near Geneva. He kept his shops
going. Gave up collecting the old gold himself - used one of his Koreans whom he had
taught to drive a car. All right, perhaps Mr Goldfinger is not a very honest man, but he
behaves himself and keeps in well with the police, and with much more blatant fiddling
going on all over the country nobody paid him any attention.'
32
Colonel Smithers broke off. He looked apologetically at Bond. 'I'm not boring you? I
do want you to get the picture of the sort of man this is - quiet, careful, law-abiding and
with the sort of drive and single-mindedness we all admire. We didn't even hear of him
until he suffered a slight misfortune. In the summer of 1954, his trawler, homeward
bound from India, went ashore on the Goodwins and he sold the wreck for a song to the
Dover Salvage Company. When this company started breaking the ship up and got as
far as the hold they found the timbers ingregnated with a sort of brown powder which
they couldn't put a name to. They sent a specimen to a local chemist. They were
surprised when he said the stuff was gold. I won't bother you with the formula, but you
see gold can be made to dissolve in a mixture of hydrochloric and nitric acids, and
reducing agents - sulphur dioxide or oxalic acid - precipitate the metal as a brown
powder. This powder can be reconstituted into gold ingots by melting at around a
thousand degrees Centigrade. Have to watch the chlorine gas, but otherwise it's a
simple process.
'The usual nosey parker in the salvage firm gossiped to one of the Dover Customs
men and in due course a report filtered up through the police and the CID to me,
together with a copy of the cargo clearance papers for each of Goldfinger's trips to
India. These gave all the cargoes as mineral dust base for crop fertilizers - all perfectly
credible because these modern fertilizers do use traces of various minerals in their
make-up. The whole picture was clear as crystal. Goldfinger had been refining down his
old gold, precipitating it into this brown powder and shipping it to India as fertilizer. But
could we pin it on him? We could not. Had a quiet look at his bank balance and tax
returns. Twenty thousand pounds at Barclays in Ramsgate. Income tax and super tax
paid promptly each year. Figures showed the natural progress of a well-run jewellery
business. We dressed a couple of the Gold Squad up and sent them down to knock on
the door of Mr Goldfinger's factory at Reculver. "Sorry, sir, routine inspection for the
Small Engineering Section of the Ministry of Labour. We have to make sure the Factory
Acts are being observed for safety and health."
"Come in. Come in." Mr Goldfinger positively welcomed them. Mark you, he may have
been tipped off by his bank manager or someone, but that factory was entirely devoted
to designing a cheap alloy for jewellers' findings - trying out unusual metals like [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl freetocraft.keep.pl
was a harmless sort of chap and in a useful trade and he had no difficulty in getting his
papers - he started buying up small pawn-brokers all over the country. He put in his
own men, paid them well and changed the name of the shops to "Goldfinger". Then he
turned the shops over to selling cheap jewellery and buying old gold - you know the sort
of place: "Best Prices for Old Gold. Nothing too Large, Nothing too Small", and he had
his own particular slogan: "Buy Her Engagement Ring With Grannie's Locket."
Goldfinger did very well. Always chose good sites, just on the dividing line between the
well-to-do streets and the lower-middle. Never touched stolen goods and got a good
name everywhere with the police. He lived in London and toured his " shops once a
month and collected all the old gold. He wasn't interested in the jewellery side. He let
his managers run that as they liked.' Colonel Smithers looked quizzically at Bond. 'You
may think these lockets and gold crosses and things are pretty small beer. So they are,
but they mount up if you've got twenty little shops, each one buying perhaps half a
dozen bits and pieces every week. Well, the war came and Gold-finger, like all other
jewellers, had to declare his stock of gold. I looked up his figure in our old records. It
was fifty ounces for the whole chain! - just enough of a working stock to keep his shops
supplied with ring setting and so forth, what they call jewellers' findings in the trade. Of
course, he was allowed to keep it. He tucked himself away in a machine-tool firm in
Wales during the war - well out of the firing line - but kept as many of his shops
operating as he could. Must have done well out of the GIs who generally travel with a
Gold Eagle or a Mexican fifty-dollar piece as a last reserve. Then, when peace broke
out, Goldfinger got moving. He bought himself a house, pretentious sort of place, at
Reculver, at the mouth of the Thames. He also invested in a wellfound Brixham trawler
and an old Silver Ghost Rolls Royce - armoured car, built for some South American
president who was killed before he could take delivery. He set up a little factory called
"Thanet Alloy Research" in the grounds of his house and staffed it with a German
metallurgist, a prisoner of war who didn't want to go back to Germany, and half a dozen
Korean stevedores he picked up in Liverpool. They didn't know a word of any civilized
language so they weren't any security risk. Then, for ten years, all we know is that he
made one trip a year to India in his trawler and a few trips in his car every year to
Switzerland. Set up a subsidiary of his alloy company near Geneva. He kept his shops
going. Gave up collecting the old gold himself - used one of his Koreans whom he had
taught to drive a car. All right, perhaps Mr Goldfinger is not a very honest man, but he
behaves himself and keeps in well with the police, and with much more blatant fiddling
going on all over the country nobody paid him any attention.'
32
Colonel Smithers broke off. He looked apologetically at Bond. 'I'm not boring you? I
do want you to get the picture of the sort of man this is - quiet, careful, law-abiding and
with the sort of drive and single-mindedness we all admire. We didn't even hear of him
until he suffered a slight misfortune. In the summer of 1954, his trawler, homeward
bound from India, went ashore on the Goodwins and he sold the wreck for a song to the
Dover Salvage Company. When this company started breaking the ship up and got as
far as the hold they found the timbers ingregnated with a sort of brown powder which
they couldn't put a name to. They sent a specimen to a local chemist. They were
surprised when he said the stuff was gold. I won't bother you with the formula, but you
see gold can be made to dissolve in a mixture of hydrochloric and nitric acids, and
reducing agents - sulphur dioxide or oxalic acid - precipitate the metal as a brown
powder. This powder can be reconstituted into gold ingots by melting at around a
thousand degrees Centigrade. Have to watch the chlorine gas, but otherwise it's a
simple process.
'The usual nosey parker in the salvage firm gossiped to one of the Dover Customs
men and in due course a report filtered up through the police and the CID to me,
together with a copy of the cargo clearance papers for each of Goldfinger's trips to
India. These gave all the cargoes as mineral dust base for crop fertilizers - all perfectly
credible because these modern fertilizers do use traces of various minerals in their
make-up. The whole picture was clear as crystal. Goldfinger had been refining down his
old gold, precipitating it into this brown powder and shipping it to India as fertilizer. But
could we pin it on him? We could not. Had a quiet look at his bank balance and tax
returns. Twenty thousand pounds at Barclays in Ramsgate. Income tax and super tax
paid promptly each year. Figures showed the natural progress of a well-run jewellery
business. We dressed a couple of the Gold Squad up and sent them down to knock on
the door of Mr Goldfinger's factory at Reculver. "Sorry, sir, routine inspection for the
Small Engineering Section of the Ministry of Labour. We have to make sure the Factory
Acts are being observed for safety and health."
"Come in. Come in." Mr Goldfinger positively welcomed them. Mark you, he may have
been tipped off by his bank manager or someone, but that factory was entirely devoted
to designing a cheap alloy for jewellers' findings - trying out unusual metals like [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]