It was extraordinary to hear the third voice. The hour's ritual had only demanded a duologue against the horrible noise of the torture. Bond's dimmed senses hardly took it in. Then suddenly he was half-way back to consciousness. He found he could see and hear again. He could hear the dead silence after the one quiet word from the doorway. He could see Le Chiffre's head slowly come up and the expression of blank astonishment, of innocent amazement, slowly give way to fear.
'Shtop,' had said the voice, quietly.
Bond heard slow steps approaching behind his chair.
'Dhrop it,' said the voice.
Bond saw Le Chiffre's hand open obediently and the knife fall with a clatter to the floor.
He tried desperately to read into Le Chiffre's face what was happening behind him, but all he saw was blind incomprehension and terror. Le Chiffre's mouth worked, but only a high-pitched 'eek' came from it. His heavy cheeks trembled as he tried to collect enough saliva in his mouth to say something, ask something. His hands fluttered vaguely in his lap. One of them made a slight movement towards his pocket, but instantly fell back. His round staring eyes had lowered for a split second and Bond guessed there was a gun trained on him.
There was a moment's silence.
'SMERSH.'
The word came almost with a sigh. It came with a downward cadence as if nothing else had to be said. It was the final explanation. The last word of all.
'No,' said Le Chiffre. 'No. I . . .' His voice tailed off.
Perhaps he was going to explain, to apologize, but what he must have seen in the other's face made it all useless.
'Your two men. Both dead. You are a fool and a thief and a traitor. I have been sent from the Soviet union to eliminate you. You are fortunate that I have only time to shoot you. If it was possible, I was instructed that you should die most painfully. We cannot see the end of the trouble you have caused.'
The thick voice stopped. There was silence in the room save for the rasping breath of Le Chiffre.
Somewhere outside a bird began to sing and there were other small noises from the awakening countryside. The bands of sunlight were stronger and the sweat on Le Chiffre's face glistened brightly.
'Do you plead guilty?'
Bond wrestled with his consciousness. He screwed up his eyes and tried to shake his head to clear it, but his whole nervous system was numbed and no message was transmitted to his muscles. He could just keep his focus on the great pale face in front of him and on its bulging eyes.
A thin string of saliva crept from the open mouth and hung down from the chin.
'Yes,' said the mouth.
There was a sharp 'phut', no louder than a bubble of air escaping from a tube of toothpaste. No other noise at all, and suddenly Le Chiffre had grown another eye, a third e............