Роберт Фиш - Rough Diamond

Solly nodded. “It’s a good idea. Everything here will be handled. Not to worry.”

“I’m not worried,” Barney said, and smiled. “I’m sure, in your usual manner, you have everything organized quite well. So well, in fact, that I’m suggesting you come with me.”

“I’m afraid that would be rather difficult at the moment, Barney. There are so many things going on—”

“I’m sure. Still,” Barney said smoothly, “I want you to come with me. I’m positive the stockholders in the Barnato Investment Company would like to have a firsthand report from the man who has practically been running the company for the past few years.”

“I’d like to come,” Solly said with as much sincerity as he could muster. “I honestly would. But with the investment business in the state it’s in, especially after the Jameson affair and the trial and all, I think it would be far better for me to stay here and keep an eye on things. Once things settle down,” he added, making a concession, “I’ll be very happy to join you in London and give as many reports as you wish.”

Barney sighed. He looked at his nephew almost pityingly.

“I don’t believe you understand, Solly,” he said gently. “I’m not asking you. I’m ordering you to come with me.”

Solly looked up, his surprise genuine. “Ordering me?” He laughed. “Barney, slavery has been abolished in South Africa for a long, long time. You should read your history books.” He puffed on his cigar a moment and then set it down in an ashtray, sitting a bit more erect, frowning at his uncle. “Now, just what brought all this on?”

“Many things,” Barney said, and shrugged. “I’ll admit I’ve been derelict in my duty to our clients in that I left many decisions in your hands, allowed you a free hand, as a matter of fact, while I played around with other things that interested me. But lately I’ve been taking a greater interest in the business, checking things out for myself.”

“And?”

“And I ran into a company called the Reef Investment Company.”

“What about the Reef Investment Company?” Solly asked, and now his tone was wary.

“You own it,” Barney said calmly. “Under a dummy, but you own it nevertheless. And you’ve been using it to hurt Barnato Investment. Turning customers from Barnato to Reef. I can only assume you sold your shares in Barnato without informing the company before you started Reef. Very clever.”

Solly sighed and leaned over, crushing out his cigar. He came to his feet, looking down at Barney. When he spoke there was a touch of regret in his voice, but it was not regret for anything he had done to his uncle.

“I suppose it had to come to an end sometime, but I’m just sorry it had to come out before I’d finished the job I was doing on Barnato Investment. I imagine for the sake of your precious stockholders you’ll want my resignation in writing. You’ll have it in the morning.”

Barney looked up at the standing man. Solly was considering him with a glint of humor on his dark, handsome face. Barney returned the look imperturbably. “Sit down, Solly.”

“Why? Is there more?”

“A little more. Sit down.” There was something in Barney’s tone that Solly could not understand. He hesitated a moment and then with a shrug reseated himself. Barney smiled at him, a cold, humorless smile. “Sometimes, Solly, you have a tendency to underestimate people. Now, you know as well as I do that what you did with the Reef Investment Company was immoral, if not actually illegal. I’m sure you’re smart enough to have covered your tracks in that direction. But the fact is that to all intents and purposes you took money from the Barnato Investment Company’s stockholders. In effect, you robbed them. I think it’s only right that you come to London with me and explain to these same stockholders at a board meeting — which I’ve already asked Harry to call — exactly how and when you plan on returning that money to them.”

Solly looked at his uncle with amusement, and then made a motion as if to rise again. “If that’s all you have to say—”

“Not quite. I took you from the London slums and made you. By the same token I can break you and put you right back there again, fancy speech, fancy clothes, fancy bank account, fancy friends, and all. I’m a good friend but a bad enemy; you should have learned that much about me after all these years. You will either come back to London with me or sit here and wonder what I plan to do to ruin you. But believe me, on my mother’s life, I’ll ruin you if it costs me every penny I have.”

Solly had settled back, looking at his uncle with slightly widened eyes.

“That’s right,” Barney said approvingly. “Think about it. It’s something to think about. You know I can do it and you know I will, and the fact that you’re my sister’s boy will make no difference. There are a hundred ways, and I’m sure you know most of them as well as I do. I will make your name stink in the nostrils of every investor in the Transvaal, in the Cape Colony, in the Orange Free State. I will see to it that you’re not allowed within fifty yards of any stock exchange or brokerage house in all South Africa. I will guarantee you that before I’m through with you, your dear friends in the Rand Club will spit at hearing your name. I can and will break you into little, tiny pieces.” He paused and shrugged. “Or, you can come to London with me and face the music. Maybe even retrieve something. I don’t know.”

Solly wet his lips. “Does… does Harry or any of the others in the family know any of this?”

“Nobody in the family knows any of this,” Barney said contemptuously. “Not even Fay. I don’t make a practice of advertising my mistakes. But I imagine everyone in South Africa knows I’ve been made a fool of by you. Still, think of the pleasure you’ll get when you face the board of directors and let them in on the secret most of South Africa has been sharing for quite some time.” He watched Solly come to his feet and walk a bit unsteadily to the sideboard, pour himself a large whiskey, and down it in a single gulp. Barney’s voice remained expressionless. “Well?”

“I’ll… I’ll come to London with you…”

“Fine,” Barney said, and came to his feet. “We sail on the Scott a month from now. Your cabin has already been reserved. And don’t bother to come to the office to clear your desk. It’s being cleared right now.” He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for my dinner.”

From the front stoep of his summer cottage at Muizenberg, some ten miles from Groote Schuur in distance over the winding mountain road, but a million miles from it in influence and power, Cecil John Rhodes sat, wrapped in a shawl, and stared bleakly out over the ocean. Beneath him the road that rimmed the sea leading from Cape Town east to Port Elizabeth and Durban was busy with morning traffic, but neither the wagons that passed along the twisting highway, raising dust, nor the many small pleasure craft that beat their way either into or out of Vaalsbai before him, held his attention. His mind was far from the beauty about him. God! Forced to resign the premiership at his young age, and to be in his poor state of health at that same young age? There was no possible chance of ever coming back to power; his dream of a British Africa stretching from Cape Town to Cairo undoubtedly smashed, if not for all time, certainly for the few years he had remaining in his disease-racked body! It would have been better for everyone concerned had he died while still at Groote Schuur, still in power, before his old friend Jameson had stupidly been able — admittedly with the best of intentions — to ruin his career and with it his plans. How could the man have possibly made that ill-considered invasion of the Transvaal against all orders? At least had he died while still at Groote Schuur he would never have known of the fiasco. Had he died it was even possible that Jameson might have delayed while more intelligent men set a new course for the Reform Committee, and for the plan to add the Boer territory to the British Empire. To Rhodes, his own life was unimportant; the life of the empire was all that counted.