Роберт Фиш - Rough Diamond

It was just after lunch the following Monday, and Barney Barnato was staring at a piece of paper on which he had just finished decoding an urgent telegraph from his brother Harry, in London, forwarded through the Cape Town telegraph office and sent in their company code. In translation the message read:

“What did you do question mark run into a solid reef of diamonds question mark why no notice question mark Kimberley Mines opened at seventy-five comma twenty pounds per share higher than Fridays closing on London Exchange comma fifteen pounds higher on Paris Bourse period still rising period what is happening question mark end of message”

Barney reached over for the whistle blower that was connected with another office. He blew into it and then brought the tube to his ear. From the other office one of his assistants answered.

“Yes, Barney?”

“Code a telegraph to Harry in London and send it at once. Say, ‘Don’t sell a share period I will handle everything this end period end of message.’”

“Right, Barney.”

“And I’m going over to the Exchange. I shouldn’t be too long.”

“Right, Barney.”

Barney put down the tube and stared at the message a moment before coming to his feet and starting from their new offices toward the Kimberley Stock Exchange in the St. James Hall. As he walked along, he did a lot of thinking. Somebody was making a plunge for the Kimberley Mine stocks, and spending a lot of money to do it. It could, of course, be any major investment firm in the world, acting on the behalf of a client with a lot of surplus cash, someone interested in becoming a factor in the diamond business without going through all the years of hard work he had put in, but he didn’t think so. Few investment bankers got to be where they were by advising clients to bid thirty to fifty per cent over the market value of stocks, even stocks as solid as Kimberley Mines. No, he was sure it had to be Rhodes and the De Beers group who were behind the plunge; they had never stopped trying to get control of first Barnato Mining, then Barnato-Central, and now Kimberley Mines, one way or another. Although what they hoped to gain with this particular move was hard to see, since the control of the company was firmly in the hands of the Barnato family. Actually, beyond the shares needed to control fifty-one per cent of the company, there were twenty thousand shares available to sell, and if someone wanted to add three quarters of a million pounds to the Barnato coffers, he saw no reason not to accept it.

There was a sudden pause in the noisy clamor as he walked into the Exchange and was recognized. Someone called out.

“Barney Barnato! Did you hear what’s happening to Kimberley Mines? What’s going on?”

“I heard and I have no idea what’s going on.”

There were looks of general disbelief on almost every face.

“Tell us this: are you buying or selling?”

Barney didn’t hesitate. It wouldn’t take long to find out who or what was behind the plunge. “Selling!”

“How many shares?”

“Twenty thousand!”

Men stared. Most of the men in the room who held any shares at all in Kimberley Mines considered themselves lucky if they held as many as one hundred. Twenty thousand at the price that had been reached represented a fortune!

“Twenty thousand shares at what price? Market?” It was a calm voice, yet one which managed to make itself heard over the tumult of the Exchange. Barney looked around, a bit surprised not to see anyone of the De Beers group present, and then looked at the man who had asked the question. He was a very tall, very thin man with an extraordinarily pale face, topped by a thatch of pitch-black hair and thick black full eyebrows. The man was watching him quietly.

“What is the market?” Barney asked.

“Seventy-eight,” the stranger said.

“I’ll sell at one hundred even,” Barney said, and turned to walk out.

“Sold,” the stranger said.

Barney stopped short, turning around, studying the man. He was sure he had never seen him before in Kimberley or anywhere else. He suddenly wondered if he could have made a mistake by selling, but he didn’t see how he could have. Maybe it wasn’t De Beers; maybe it was some big company interested in getting into diamonds and willing to represent a minority position in Kimberley Mines. Still, he had made a deal and in the diamond business a deal was just as binding whether verbal or signed in blood. Barney shrugged and looked at the man.

“Do you know where my offices are?”

“I’ll find them,” the man said confidently.

“Do that,” Barney said evenly. “And bring a certified check with you.”

“Will a check on the Rothschild bank branch in Paris do?”

“If I continue to hold the shares until the check clears.”

“Of course,” the stranger said, as if any other procedure would have been unthinkable.

Barney looked at him a moment more, then turned in the silence that had fallen, walking out. Behind him he could hear voices immediately raised as people began discussing the enormous transaction they had just witnessed. Barney smiled; he supposed he had added one more story to the legend of Barney Barnato, and he knew Fay would enjoy hearing of it that evening. Still, whoever the stranger was, whoever he represented, he had put almost an additional million pounds sterling into the exchequer of Kimberley Mines over and above the fair market value of the shares, and all without the Barnato family losing control of the company.

He smiled, thinking of the telegraph he would be sending Harry as soon as he got back to the office. This would call for an extra dividend, to be declared at the next board meeting—

And then he suddenly stopped short in the road, his smile disappearing completely. He frowned at a sudden thought and turned, walking rapidly in the direction of the Big Hole.

He came to the Kimberley Mines Company main sorting yard and walked between the piles of blue ground awaiting the heavy mechanical steam-driven crushers, to the house that had been built to serve as Solly Loeb’s office as well as his home. Solly was in discussion with one of the digger foremen when Barney entered; he completed his instructions quickly, waited until the man had left, and turned to Barney.

“Well, hello, stranger,” he said with a smile. “What brings you here? Did you get lost?” He gestured toward a cabinet. “Care for a drink?”

“No,” Barney said shortly, and got right down to business. “Solly, d’you happen to know a bloke, white-faced like he fell in some chalk, and with black hair, black as a Kaffir’s heel, and eyebrows as bushy as a scared cat’s tail? Almost as tall as Armando and skinny as a disselboom?”

Solly looked surprised. “As a matter of fact, I met a man like that just last night.”

“An’ at th’ Kimberley Club, I’ll bet a quid to a penny’orth o’ shit!”

Solly was puzzled by his uncle’s anger. “Yes, I met him at the club. How did you know?”

“Because I’m smart!” Barney said bitterly. “I’m too bleedin’ smart fer me own good! A man as smart as me should be locked away! And what did this chalk-faced cove want? As if I couldn’t answer that ’un with me bleedin’ eyes closed!”

Solly swallowed. When Barney Barnato fell into Cockney, then Barney Barnato was in a bad mood, and when Barney Barnato was in a bad mood it was no time to temporize or to delay in giving him answers to his questions, and quickly.

“He wanted to buy my shares in Kimberley Mines. He offered me seventy-five pounds a share. That’s twenty pounds over the market! I figured he thought he had a fish on the line, that someone had fed him a story about the mine and that the shares would go sky-high. But I knew there wasn’t anything new at the mine to make the stock go anywhere near that high, so — what the devil! — I sold. Why not?” Solly said, wondering why he was being treated as if he’d done something wrong, or something stupid. “Hell, I can buy them back at fifty or fifty-five at the most, as soon as I can get into town and to the Exchange!”