EXTRACTS: The Modesty Blaise Companion Expanded Edition © 2018 The Book Palace (425 PAGES in Full edition)

T H E M O D E S T Y B L A I S E C O M P A N I O N STORY No 3 DRAWN BY JIM HOLDAWAY START DATE OF STORY 3rd January, 1964 (Friday) END DATE OF STORY 18th June, 1964 (Thursday) Under the cover of the exclusive Phoenix Sanatorium in Canada, close to the U.S. border, the international criminal mastermind, Gabriel, is using Cloud Nine, a technique for extracting sensitive and valuable information from the patients without them knowing or remembering what they have said. He concentrates on industrialists, government officials and the rich. While holding a secret meeting of his top criminal bosses at nearby “Lakeside”, Gabriel pays a visit to the sanatorium to check up on operations. In England, Sir Gerald Tarrant is spending the weekend with Modesty at her country cottage. He tells her of a top secret leak and his suspicions about the sanatorium. As Willie Garvin is in Canada with a rich girlfriend , Modesty asks him to look into it. Willie reports back that it looks to him very much like a Gabriel set-up. Modesty flies to Canada and posing as a bored heiress, enters the sanatorium as a patient. Meanwhile, Willie scouts out “Lakeside”. Modesty is given the Cloud Nine treatment, reveals her identity and blows her cover. When Gabriel is told, he summons her and Willie to “Lakeside” and tells them to back off or be killed. Pretending to agree, they break into the sanatorium the same night and steal the microfilm records of the information Cloud Nine has produced. They are seen and Gabriel’s men are sent to kill them. They split up and Modesty escapes over the U.S. border, but leaves behind her blood stained sweater. Gabriel uses it to convince Willie’s girlfriend that Modesty is dead and to pass this message on to Willie. When she does, Willie goes berserk and plans retribution. He hi-jacks a huge truck, rams it into “Lakeside”, kills all eight of Gabriel’s men but Gabriel himself escapes. Willie is badly wounded in the battle and when Modesty arrives with the police, he is taken to hospital unconscious. His life is saved but he is still in a coma. Although he is physically capable of recovery, he lacks the will to live, believing Modesty to be dead. She breaks through his mental torpor, convinces him she is still alive and it was all a Gabriel bluff. Willie recovers and the nurses have to start going around in pairs. I I 208