Bond walked up the steps and through the fine bronze portals and into the spacious, softly echoing entrance hall of the Bank of England and looked around him. Under his feet glittered the brilliant golden patterns of the Boris Anrep mosaics; beyond, through twenty-foot-high arched windows, green grass and geraniums blazed in the central courtyard. To right and left were spacious vistas of polished Hopton Wood stone. Over all hung the neutral smell of air-conditioned air and the heavy, grave atmosphere of immense riches.
One of the athletic-looking, pink frock-coated commissionaires came up to him. ‘Yes, sir?’
‘Colonel Smithers?’
‘Commander Bond, sir? This way please.’ The commissionaire moved off to the right between the pillars. The bronze doors of a discreetly hidden lift stood open.
