It's no surprise that a writer who makes card games and golf sound exciting can do the same thing for a jewelry auction, so there's nothing wrong with the build up and tension in the story. But "The Property of a Lady" doesn't hold together logically super well. Why exactly is the KGB contact risking exposure when the egg will fetch a very nice price without his interference? It seems unnecessarily greedy, especially on behalf of a double agent who's conceivably doing her job out of patriotism. Fleming kind of fumbles the ending too. All the drama is in the auction scene, but once Bond identifies his target, there's nothing else to keep me interested and it feels like Fleming knows it. He agreed that "The Property of a Lady" wasn't great work and reportedly refused payment for it. A couple of decades later though, the major elements of the story found their way into the movie Octopussy, which did a better job of building a compelling story around the idea.
There's not any character development for Bond in the story, but a couple of important characters do show up. Ronald Vallance of Scotland Yard reappears after his introduction in Moonraker and also contributing to Bond's work in Diamonds Are Forever and "Risico." He's mentioned as Sir Ronald Vallance in this story, which I think is new, so congratulations to him on that.
The other major character is Mary Goodnight. This isn't her true introduction to the series, but since I'm reading stories in the order of Bond's experience and not in the order that Fleming wrote them, it's the first time she's showing up for me. She's the new secretary in the Double-O section, replacing Lil, and it's tough to get a handle on her from just this story. Presumably she gets a better introduction in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, her true first appearance. In "The Property of a Lady" though, I missed Lil and it feels like Bond does too, though he doesn't mention her. He seems to think Goodnight is hot, but he doesn't flirt with her and doesn't even seem to respect or like her. Fleming does specifically mention that Bond's already in a bad mood about something else though, so maybe I shouldn't read much into that. Look forward to getting to know her better in OHMSS, because she becomes a major player in Bond's life in the last Fleming novels.
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To my eye the most logical refinement of this basic scenario is to suggest that the KGB man is using the Faberge egg as a deliberate challenge to MI6 - letting them know that he knows that they know, as it were - strongly suggesting the presence of a second mole (Possibly one even higher up in Her Majesty’s Secret Service), which would obviously have some Serious Implications.
This plan might be even more impressive were it actually based on a leak, rather than a second mole - with M deploying Bond because he has to be SURE that there’s no second mole, even though he’s sufficiently confident there is not.
Why is Bond, rather than MI5, handling this? Obviously because the Admiral trusts 007 implicitly and wants to reveal this whole sorry business only after it has been resolved to his satisfaction (Presenting a problem solved, rather than pure humiliation).
I’m therefore assuming that the KGB agent at the auction, like the egg itself, is a nice juicy bait intended to pull in some mole hunters so they can be buried … dead or alive.
…
It occurs to me that expanding this story would be an excellent way to focus on the Double O section and the staff at it’s home office as more than just walk-on parts (Show how they each play their role in unearthing the mole and what impact this sort of thing has on their life from M to Moneypenny and so forth).
It occurs to me that this works best if the mole is uncovered relatively quickly: show how sharp the Double 0 section, officers and staff, have to be and how vulnerable they remain to harm from within.
As for the KGB, I’m assuming that the agent being used as bait is the one who picked the mole whose running has run their handler straight into trouble: being resourceful and audacious, the handler in question therefore acquires a Faberge egg and plans to use the money from it’s sale to buy a new life (Hence the concern for the bid going as high as possible so long as HE doesn’t end up having to pay for it) while explaining his presence at the auction as a plan to trap whomsoever the British send to observe.
Unfortunately he set a trap for a bobcat and got a full-grown Tiger.
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