7

August 1883

The directors of the De Beers Mining Company were holding a meeting in a private room of the Kimberley Club. Present were Cecil Rhodes, Charles Rudd, Alfred Beit, Dr. Leander Starr Jameson, and Neville Pickering, Rhodes’ private secretary. The advantages of using the club rather than their own company offices just two blocks down the street were many. The club was less austere, for one thing; for another, there was a small serving door from the private room to the bar which permitted liquid refreshments to be served during the meeting. Then, too, the dining room of the Kimberley Club served the best food in town, should the meeting prove to run into the lunch hour. But while holding this particular meeting at the club made for pleasant surroundings, the subject of the meeting was less pleasant. They had met to discuss what to do about Barney Barnato.

“I am still absolutely amazed,” said Beit, addressing Rhodes who sat at the head of the table, “that you and Barnato have never met in person.” Beit was a short, rotund man with a happy disposition; he had been the leading trader in diamonds in Kimberley until Barney Barnato had overtaken him, but that fact had never dampened his good humor, nor did it in any way interfere with his meeting with Barnato when the need arose. He would even visit Barney at the Paris Hotel on occasion for dinner, mainly because he enjoyed Fay Barnato’s company. “After all,” he went on, “the two of you are the biggest factors in the business today.”

Rhodes shrugged. “There has never been any reason for me to meet the man as far as I could see,” he said, and leaned back in his chair, a large stoop-shouldered man with sharp hooded eyes that constantly went from face to face around the table. “He’s not my type of person,” he added, and fell silent, reaching for his whiskey glass, letting the others voice their opinions before he rendered the final decision.

“Well, I think it’s time to talk to him now,” Rudd said. He was sitting to the left of Rhodes, tilted back in his chair, a large cigar between his teeth. “Since he took over Kimberley Central and merged it with Barnato Mining, he’s taking more diamonds out of the mines than anyone else. Hell, we control the selling output of three mines, De Beers, Bultfontein, and Dutoitspan, and Barnato with half of the Kimberley hole is making us look sick.” He wiped ash from his cigar and returned it to his lips. “If he ever gets his hands on the other half, he could bankrupt us by flooding the market.”

“He got a big jump on us and everyone else in getting decent equipment to mine the blue ground,” Beit pointed out.

“That was a long time ago. Water over the dam,” Rudd said evenly. “You can’t cut your whiskey with it today.”

“He was also the first one to sink shafts and put through galleries to the blue, to get away from flooding,” Beit went on.

Rudd looked at him and nodded. Of all the others on the board of directors, Rudd liked Beit the best. He also thought that Beit had the best mind among them, and would have made a better chairman than Rhodes, although he also knew that Beit would have refused the position had it been offered him. “Everything you say is true, Alfred,” he said evenly, “which only makes the problem more acute. We lost a year to him back in ’seventy-seven and ’seventy-eight and we’ve never caught up. Between what’s in his safe and what he’s already shipped to London, Barnato probably has enough diamonds all together to put the entire market on the skids if he wants to. What he’s been releasing, added to our own releases, has already depressed the market. Try to picture what it would be like if he dumped the whole kit and caboodle.”

“Not to mention the illicit stones they say he handles,” Pickering said. Rhodes’ secretary was a smooth-faced young man in his late twenties, with a fair complexion and hair the color of mealie silk. No sooner had he spoken than he looked at the head of the table as if for confirmation from his boss, but Rhodes remained listening with no expression at all on his face.

“Let’s not get off on that tangent,” Rudd said sharply. “There’s no proof at all that Barnato deals in stolen stones, and if he did it would only make the situation worse.”

“So what’s the answer?” It was Dr. Jameson speaking. He was a handsome swashbuckling type in his early thirties with a swarthy complexion and black curly hair, a relative newcomer to Kimberley. His interest in diamonds was quite superficial; he had never been in a diamond mine and never intended to be in one if he could help it. His directorship was due principally to the fact that he was Rhodes’ personal physician and was a friend of the other directors. The small investment he had made in De Beers shares was merely the excuse the others had needed to invite him on the board. That investment had paid the doctor handsome dividends until the drop in diamond prices; now that investment could even be in jeopardy. He stared across the table. “Well, Rudd?”

“There’s only one answer that I can see,” Rudd said. “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, as some great philosopher once said.”

“Dumping diamonds would hurt Barnato as much as us,” Pickering pointed out, and once more instantly looked at Rhodes to get his reaction. Again there was no sign from the expressionless face.

Beit looked at Pickering with a look that had more pity in it than censure. “He’d only dump them until we were bleeding at the pores,” he said. He had understood Rudd’s point perfectly. “When our shares fell to next to nothing on the London Exchange and the Paris Bourse, he’d buy us out for the price of cheap gaspers.”

“And we’d all go back to learning how to use a pick and shovel,” Rudd said glumly.

“I agree with Charles,” Beit went on, looking at the head of the table. “You’ve simply got to talk to the man, Cecil. You’re the major stockholder and the chairman. We all know, and have known for a long time, that the only way to keep the diamond market on an even keel, the only way to prevent the bottom from dropping out, is to have the release of all diamonds in the hands of one group, who would release enough stones to satisfy the market but not so much as to glut it and cause prices to go down. That’s been obvious for years. Things can’t go on the way they’ve been going. It’s foolish to have the equivalent of anarchy in this business when to all intents and purposes there are only two major parties left. Let the two parties come to an understanding, and everyone will benefit.”

There was silence. Rhodes waited, looking around the table, but no one spoke. After all, there was little reason to discuss an established fact. At last he drained his glass and nodded, not necessarily in agreement, but because he was now prepared to speak.

“Suppose,” he said slowly, “that we could get Robinson’s shares in his Standard Company, and Baring-Gould’s shares in the French Company. Think of it! We’d have half the Kimberley hole. Add that to what we already control, and let the little Jew have the rest!”

Beit reddened. He was Jewish, and although he was used to being put in a different category from Barnato in Rhodes’ mind, he still resented the other’s language.

“Just how would we get control?” he asked, trying to sound merely curious instead of negative. “We’re all agreed that Barnato has built up a fortune these last three or four years, enough to enable him to dump diamonds if he feels like it. We haven’t. If we start bidding for the Robinson and the Baring-Gould properties, bidding against Barnato—because obviously he’s not going to stand still and let us buy half of Kimberley—the price will simply go up and up until it could break both of us. And it would undoubtedly break us first. But just suppose”—he dropped his voice a bit so that the attention needed to hear him made the attention needed to understand him that much more acute—“just suppose we came to an agreement with Barnato! Suppose we could get Barnato to agree to ration his output, or to sell his stones through us? Then how could Robinson or Baring-Gould stand against us? Whether we bought them out or not would be immaterial; we could force them to either sell their stones through us or sell them at prices we determined. They’d have no choice, because we could put them out of business whenever we wished. What they would really do,” he added in a conversational tone of voice, “would be to sell out, because they are both intelligent men.” He smiled. “Sell out, that is, at our price, not at the exaggerated price that would be the result of a fight between Barnato and us.”

There was silence again as Rhodes considered what Beit had said. Like Rudd, Rhodes had a lot of respect for Beit’s opinion. He also knew that Jameson listened to Beit’s words, and Rhodes had no intention of losing his leadership of the company by misjudging the temper of the board. There was too much in the future at stake. He sighed.

“All right,” he said at last. “I’ll talk to the little Jew.” He glanced at Rudd a moment. “And don’t tell me, Charles, that I once said I never would. I’m not a stubborn man.” He turned back to the others, choosing to disregard Rudd’s discreet cough, raising a finger for emphasis. “But one thing must be clear! If I get nowhere talking to him—which in my opinion is what is going to happen—then obviously other steps must be taken. I’m sure we all agree with Alfred that things simply cannot go on as they are. Should I fail to convince Barnato to agree to the control of the release of all stones, then I must have your authority to take whatever steps I feel are necessary to resolve the matter.” He looked around. “Is that agreeable?”

“Of course,” Pickering said instantly, and flushed.

“I agree,” Jameson said quietly.

“What steps?” Rudd asked curiously.

“Whatever steps would be required,” Rhodes said enigmatically.

“You’d use discretion, of course?” Beit said a bit dubiously. It was more a statement than a question.

“Obviously,” Rhodes said, looking at Beit a bit coldly, and came to his feet, indicating the meeting was at an end.

Rudd crushed out his cigar and looked up at Rhodes towering above him. “When will you talk to him?”

“Now is as good a time as any,” Rhodes said, and held up his hand. “No need for you boys to get up; stay and enjoy your drinks.”

He nodded to them and walked from the room.

Barney looked up from the tray of diamonds Jack Joel and two of the helpers he had hired had just completed sorting and registering. As Barney had accurately predicted, the illicit diamond trade had continued to flourish despite the native compounds at the sorting yards, and the searches, and the castor oil and all the rest. As a result a new law had been passed, requiring that all diamonds had to be registered in a book that was open for inspection at any time by the Illicit Diamond Detection Squad. The book noted the date of acquisition of each stone, from whom acquired, the weight of the stone, and disposition when sold or sent on to London or Paris for cutting or sale there.

He came to his feet at once, surprised. Cecil Rhodes had just walked into his office, and Cecil Rhodes was the last person he had ever expected to have visit him. He was also, Barney was thinking, the last person he would ever have invited. He moved forward.

“Mr. Rhodes, I believe.”

Rhodes merely nodded. “Barnato.” He looked around. “Where can we talk in privacy?”

“About what?” Barney sounded curious. “Do we have anything to talk about?”

Rhodes felt his face getting red and fought down his temper. Oh, what a pleasure it would be to take this uppity little Jew down a peg or two! “Why don’t we talk and then you’ll find out?”

Barney shrugged. “All right. I don’t mind talking. I talk to lots of people. Come back to my little cubbyhole. I don’t have fancy offices like De Beers.” He led the way to the rear of the long trading office and into a little partitioned section that served as his private office. He closed the door and sat down without offering Rhodes a chair. Rhodes pulled one around and sat down, his anger growing at this open sign of ill manners which he knew was far from accidental. Barnato looked at him evenly.

“Well?”

“Well,” Rhodes began, “the price of diamonds has been falling—”

“You came to tell me that?” Barney’s eyebrows went up. The man across the desk from him was the man who had sworn he would never allow Barnato to join the Kimberley Club or even be invited there, and who had made no bones about the statement; this was the man who openly referred to him contemptuously as “that little upstart kike from the London slums”; this was the man who had gotten Solly Loeb to join the Kimberley Club to point out to Barney his particular ostracism, as well as to try and learn the secrets of Barnato Mining. No, Barney thought, studying the man across from him, you have a few things coming to you, Mr. Rhodes, and this is as good a time as any to let you know it. “I already knew the price of diamonds has been falling, Mr. Rhodes,” he said.

“Let me finish!” Rhodes said, and now his voice was almost savage. “The price of diamonds has been falling and we both know why. There are too many stones being put on the market. It’s simply common sense to control the output of the mines as well as the release of the stones into the market. And we can’t do it as long as we’re competing the way we are now.”

Barney nodded. “I agree. So stop mining stones and stop releasing them. I’ll be very happy to cooperate by taking over the entire market. I’ve meant to for a very long time, anyway. And when I do, I promise to raise prices.”

“I’m trying not to lose my temper,” Rhodes said angrily, stung beyond the limits of his patience. “You’re supposed to be a smart man, Barnato, but you don’t sound like one from the way you talk. We control the output of three of the four mines in Kimberley; you control half of one mine!”

Barney considered the other man mildly. “So what are you worried about? Dump your stones on the market and I’ll dump mine. And we’ll see who’s still eating afterwards.” He looked at Rhodes calmly for a moment and then changed his tone, becoming businesslike. “Now, look, Mr. Rhodes. You didn’t come here to tell me the market for diamonds is falling. And you didn’t come here to try and establish some way we can ration the release of stones between us, because you knew before you walked in that door that I would never go along with such foolishness. You don’t trust me and I don’t trust you, so how could any agreement between us possibly work? And don’t tell me we could keep track through the registry books, because despite your books and your compounds and your IDD Squad, this town is still flooded with illicit stones. So why don’t you tell me the real reason you’re here? I promise I’ll keep it a secret.”

“All right!” Rhodes said. He hadn’t meant to bring it up in that fashion but the little Jew was intolerable! “I want to buy you out. Lock, stock and barrel!”

Barney laughed in pure enjoyment. “And I bet you’d throw in first-class coach fare for me to go to Cape Town and never come back, too, wouldn’t you? That’s an even more ridiculous suggestion than that we cooperate in setting limits on the stones.” He shook his head. “No, Mr. Rhodes. Neither Barnato Mining nor Barnato Brothers, Trading, is for sale.”

“We’re not interested in the trading end of your business. Just the mine.”

“And Barnato Trading would get their diamonds from who, Mr. Rhodes?”

“From the combine, of course.”

“You’re going to make me laugh again, Mr. Rhodes. The answer is still no.”

“But why not?” Now that Rhodes was in this far his very stubbornness made it imperative that he continue. “What’s wrong with one group controlling the entire output of Kimberley, all four mines, and setting prices? It makes sense!”

“Of course it makes sense,” Barney said agreeably. “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the idea. The only thing wrong is, it’s going to be Barnato who controls, not De Beers. Besides, what would you buy me out with? Shares in De Beers?”

Rhodes was stung. “What’s wrong with De Beers shares?” he demanded hotly.

“If you don’t know,” Barney said calmly, “then you haven’t been watching the London ’Change. You’ve got diamonds—which are losing value every day—but you don’t have cash. I’ve got diamonds and cash. You say you control the output of three mines while I only have half of one mine—but to get that control you put up too many of your shares. Your control isn’t all that firm. Then you had to put up a lot of money for the equipment to dig into the blue ground and crush it at a time when machinery prices were sky-high. You waited to dig shafts until mine were in operation, in the meantime continuing to work in wet claims, and when you finally decided that shafts were the way to go, it cost you three times as much to sink every foot than when I did. You were late and you paid for it. And you’re still paying and will for a long time. You see, Mr. Rhodes—and you see I call you Mr. Rhodes, not Rhodes—I know your business a lot better than you know mine. When a little outfit like ours can sell a few diamonds and make the great De Beers hurt, you’re in serious trouble. Now, to get back to business, if you want to sell your controlling interest in De Beers, maybe we really do have something to talk about.”

Rhodes came to his feet, his temper now under icy control since he now knew what he would have to do. It was what he should have done in the first place without demeaning himself, subjecting himself to the insulting behavior of this obnoxious little kike. There was no need for the board to even know about it, but he had recognized the possible need for it when he had gotten their permission to handle things his own way if necessary.

“You’re making a mistake, Barnato,” he said coldly.

“One more mistake won’t kill me,” Barney said calmly. “But I wonder if I could ask you a favor.”

“What?”

“Don’t slam the door on your way out.”

“You should have seen his face!” Barney said with delight to Fay at supper that night. “The great Cecil Rhodes! Somebody wouldn’t give him a candy stick. I thought he’d burst into tears!”

“Barney…” Fay’s tone was doubtful.

Barney seemed to notice Fay’s frown for the first time. “What’s the matter? You certainly didn’t think I’d sell the companies, did you?”

“Of course not. But, darling, I understand he’s a bad man to have for an enemy…”

“Honey,” Barney said philosophically, “there ain’t—I mean aren’t—any bad men it’s good to have for an enemy.” And having delivered himself of this brilliant maxim, he promptly forgot the matter and tackled the food being brought to them from the hotel kitchen.

Cecil John Rhodes was having a drink with his old friend, the mayor of Kimberley, Joseph Benjamin Robinson. Without appearing to do so, Rhodes had managed to sequester Robinson into a corner of the Kimberley Club bar that gave more privacy than any other. Their drinks ordered and served, Rhodes took a sip of his whiskey and looked at the mayor.

“Joe,” he said conversationally, “how’s the Illicit Diamond Detection Squad doing?”

Robinson shrugged. With his ever-present sun helmet still in place despite the heat of the room, his face was in shadow, but his expression could have been calculated from the tone of his voice. “The trouble is we don’t have enough men. Trained or otherwise. It’s a matter of money, of budget.”

It was the answer Rhodes wanted, nor was it at all unexpected. Robinson’s editorials on the matter were common fare in the columns of his newspaper, the Independent.

“A pity,” Rhodes commented idly, and waited.

“Yes. Now, if some of the interested parties, the ones who are suffering the most from the illicit trade,” Robinson went on with a touch of asperity, “would realize it would be in their own best interests to chip in some money to hire more men—preferably properly trained men—then maybe the squad could be more effective, accomplish more. But no!” The fact that Robinson himself was owner of the Standard Company, and as such fell into the category without donating a penny to that program or any other, did not seem to occur to Robinson. The job of mayor, while it paid very little, gave honor and prestige, and after all, Robinson made his money with the Standard mine and his newspaper.

Rhodes managed to look ashamed; it was no easy task for him.

“You’re absolutely right, Joe,” he said at last, staring down at his drink in an abashed manner. “But you know, with the costs of digging today, and the price of diamonds in London falling daily …” He suddenly looked up as an idea struck him. “However, I happen to have a trained man, an ex-policeman from Cape Town, as a matter of fact, that I brought up here to be one of the guards at one of the compounds. With the diamond market what it is, we can spare men. Why don’t I let you have him to put on the Diamond Detection Squad? I’d keep him on my payroll, of course,” he added magnanimously, quickly.

“I’ll take him,” Robinson said equally quickly, and smiled. “I don’t even care if he’s Kaffir or purple in color. I’ll take anyone at this point. You say he’s trained?”

“Yes. He’s an ex-bobby from the Cape and as tough as they come. He’s the perfect man for the job,” Rhodes said quietly, and ostensibly changed the subject. “Joe, speaking of illicits, don’t you find it a bit strange that Barnato seems to be taking more diamonds from his share of Kimberley than either you or Baring-Gould?”

Robinson considered his companion carefully. He knew Rhodes for what he was and he had no illusions as to the fact that Cecil Rhodes had no morals at all where his immediate interests were concerned.

“There’s never been a word against Barnato in that respect,” he said quietly. “I hate the Jew as much as anybody, Cecil, as you well know. But if the illegal diamond dealing is to be stopped, then chasing rainbows just because we’d all like to find a particular pot of gold at its end is no way to go about it.”

“I only said—”

“I heard what you said,” Robinson said, and was surprised a bit at his own temerity in facing Cecil Rhodes in that fashion. Although in a way it was a shame that Barney Barnato was innocent of illicit diamond dealing…

It had taken Cecil Rhodes a bit of money and a little time to locate Carl Luckner and bring him to Kimberley from Cape Town where he had been working as a bouncer in a combination bar and whorehouse, but it had been necessary before his talk with Robinson. Rhodes had no fear of Robinson: the old man was weak when it came down to basic intestinal fortitude and would end up doing what he was told if he knew what was good for him.

The story of Luckner’s fight with Barnato at the Paris Hotel had gone through Kimberley the day after the fight, and although it was now years old, it had never escaped the mind of Cecil Rhodes that the Jew Barnato had undoubtedly made an implacable enemy—another enemy, that was. Now that Luckner stood before him, looking at him with those slitted eyes, his mustache bristling, the scar along his jaw livid, Rhodes studied the man coldly, as he would any other tool he had to use in the digging of diamonds, or the eventual control he intended to exercise over the entire industry. What he saw pleased him. Here was a man obviously without scruples, which was exactly what Rhodes wanted.

Luckner returned the inspection with equal coldness. The man facing him behind the large desk, with his wide shoulders and big head and those icy hooded eyes, was as well known now in Cape Town as he was in Kimberley. As the newly elected representative of the diamond district in the Cape Assembly, he was a universally recognized figure in the capital and was often in the news. Luckner decided enough time had been wasted.

“You wanted to see me, Mr. Rhodes?”

“Yes.” Rhodes reached for a pencil and began to twiddle it as he spoke. “How would you like to get back on the police?”

“In Cape Town?”

“No, here in Kimberley. Not the regular police force, but a special branch. The Illicit Diamond Detection Squad. Under John Fry. Do you know John Fry, Mr. Luckner?”

“I knew him when he was on the force in Cape Town. Why?”

“You know, of course, that Fry is supposedly totally honest. Are you totally honest, Mr. Luckner?”

Luckner smiled, a grim smile with no humor in it. “Mr. Rhodes, if you wanted an honest man, you wouldn’t have sent all the way to Cape Town for me. There has to be at least one honest man in Kimberley. Exactly what is it you want, Mr. Rhodes? And,” he added, “what would it pay?”

Rhodes smiled, comfortable with the answer, as he continued to play idly with the pencil. “I want you to settle an old debt. An old debt of yours, that is. Together with a new debt of mine. And it will pay one thousand pounds. Is that satisfactory?”

Luckner’s eyes narrowed even further. There was only one answer to money like that. “You want somebody killed, obviously. Who? Barnato?”

Rhodes’ smile disappeared as if wiped from his face. The pencil in his fingers suddenly broke under the pressure of his strong spasmodic grip. He dropped the remains of the pencil and stared at Luckner. He was thoroughly and truly shocked.

“I abhor violence!” he said, the very tone of his voice violent in itself. “I do not want anyone killed! Never forget it! What a terrible thought!” He slowly regained his composure. “I simply wish you to examine Barnato’s registry book and compare it with the contents of his safe. Preferably while in the company of John Fry. That’s all.”

Luckner grinned wisely. “And I gather you’re pretty sure they won’t compare?” His grin faded. “But what if they do?”

“They won’t,” Rhodes said confidently. “Not if you can handle the most elementary of legerdemain …” He reached into the drawer of his desk and brought out a diamond, holding it up in the light. “This stone weighs a bit more than twenty-four carats. You will find this, not in the diamond tray in Bamato’s safe, but behind it, where he obviously kept it, hoping to keep it from the attention of the Diamond Squad…”

Luckner’s eyes widened; he whistled. “Twenty-four carats! You must hate the bastard’s guts as much as I do!” He smiled, an evil smile. “This ought to get the runt a packet on the Cape breakwater!”

Rhodes didn’t bother to answer. Luckner reached for the stone; Rhodes held it back the briefest of moments. “I should not lose this, if I were you,” he said significantly, and handed it over. “The man to see is the mayor. His name is J. B. Robinson. It’s all arranged. He’ll put you to work. You won’t be on the payroll, so the sooner you complete your task, the sooner you’ll be paid and can return to Cape Town.”

“Right, Captain—”

But Rhodes had not bothered to answer; he had bent his head to study some papers on his desk, clearly indicating that the interview was over. Luckner looked down at the bent head for several moments and then smiled slightly as he left the room, closing the door behind him. Doing Barney Barnato down was going to be a labor of love, and he was going to be paid a thousand pounds for it, yet! And up Rhodes’ arse, whoever he thought he was!

It was one week later that the two men met in the same office, but now the atmosphere in the closed office was far different from the smiling and friendly and understanding air that had prevailed at their first meeting. Now Rhodes was in an overwhelming rage. Although he managed to keep his voice low and apparently controlled, it trembled when he spoke, and his face was white, as were the knuckles of his hand with which he gripped the back of his chair.

“Well!”

Luckner shrugged. “It was one of those things. I couldn’t help it. John Fry was with me when we opened the safe, the way you wanted. Jack Joel was in the front and I assumed that Barnato was in that little cubbyhole he has in back as a sort of private office—”

“You assumed!”

“Yes, I assumed, damn it! He’s always there! So today he wasn’t—how in hell was I supposed to know?” Luckner was beginning to get angry. Rhodes was a power, he knew that, but Luckner didn’t like to be spoken to in that tone of voice by anyone. “I did what I was being paid to do. I pretended to find the stone under the tray, and we looked to see where the stone was listed in the registry book, and of course it wasn’t, and—”

“And John Fry arrested Jack Joel!” Rhodes was fuming. He glared at Luckner. “That wasn’t the purpose! I don’t give tuppence’ worth of ox droppings what happens or doesn’t happen to Jack Joel!”

“Ah, but Barnato will!” Luckner said shrewdly. “I know the runty little bastard; I worked for him for over six months. They stick together, those Jews, especially where relatives are concerned. You got even with Barnato, whether you know it or not, the same as if you’d had him arrested himself.”

Rhodes considered the other with repugnance. “Luckner, you’re a fool! What control does Jack Joel have in the Barnato Mining Company?” He shook his head in disgust, waved a hand in exasperation. “Get out!”

Luckner became very still, his fists slowly beginning to clench. “I’ll get out when I get my thousand pounds, not before.” His voice softened deceptively. “I have to testify at the trial before I leave, you know; Jack Joel’s trial. I’d hate to have to tell the judge the truth about what really happened …”

Rhodes sneered. “I should think you would! You’d get ten years on the Cape Town breakwater for planting a diamond, for falsely accusing an innocent man!”

“And what would happen to the great Cecil Rhodes? They’d ride you out of town on a rail!”

Rhodes laughed, a humorless laugh. “They wouldn’t do a thing to me. Your word against mine! Don’t make me laugh. Besides, you were known to hold a grudge against the man; not me.”

Luckner wasn’t a bit intimidated. “And I suppose I’m also supposed to be in a position to be carrying twenty-four-carat diamonds around with me like shilling bits, eh? And throwing them away for a lark, eh? Or having someone ask all over Cape Town for Carl Luckner until they found me and then having the mayor of Kimberley put me on the Diamond Squad without pay, as if we were kissing cousins, is that it? Don’t be a fool, Rhodes! The truth would hurt us both, and we both know it. So just pay up and I’ll be on my way like the little gentleman I am.”

Rhodes considered the other man and his words for several minutes, as if weighing them, and then went around his chair. He sat down, unlocked a drawer, and brought out a bundle of banknotes. He looked at them a moment and then tossed them on the desk. He leaned back in his chair and looked up at Luckner, his hooded eyes hard.

“But don’t get any fancy ideas of blackmail, Luckner,” he said quietly. “One more demand from you, and …” He allowed his words to trail to silence, but his meaning was clear.

“No fear,” Luckner said easily, and meant it. He was counting the money. “I know you’re too big to fool with, Mr. Rhodes.” He finished his count, tucked the money into a pocket, and touched his forehead with his hand, sailor fashion. “It’s been a pleasure serving under you, Captain. If you should ever want me to sign on under you again …” He smiled wisely and swaggered from the room.

Behind him Rhodes pounded softly on the desk with his fist in total frustration. It would be impossible to attempt the same ploy twice, this time with Barnato definitely present. And he had been quite serious when he said he could not contemplate violence against another man’s person. Getting control of Barnato Mining, a most vital necessity, was going to continue to be a problem …

If Cecil John Rhodes had been furious at the failure of his scheme, Barney Barnato was even more furious at its success. He leaned across John Fry’s desk, almost screaming in his fury, his Cockney accent back in full working order.

“It’s a shitty, bloody, miserable lie, I tell yer! It’s a vicious, bloody frame! Luckner finds an illicit stone in me safe, Luckner of all people, fer God’s sake! He’s only hated me guts since I tossed him out on his arse years ago! I should o’ killed the bastard! Fer the love o’ God, Fry, are y’ bleedin’ blind? My God, yer all as blind as bleedin’ bats! Who hired a sod like Luckner an’ put him on the bleedin’ squad in the first place?”

John Fry’s face was pale, his temper severely strained, but Fry had been a policeman a long time, and he knew that when facing almost hysterical wrath, a good policeman had an obligation to keep his head.

“Robinson hired him, the mayor. I had nothing to do with it,” he said in a tight voice.

“Robinson, eh? And why would old J.B. hire a vicious, insane, brutal animal like Carl Luckner fer the Diamond Squad? Why not fer walkin’ a beat where he could kick some poor old drunk t’ death just fer the bleedin’ fun o’ it? Or some poor old man not even drunk?”

Fry bit down hard on his temper. “You’ll have to ask him.”

“Yer bleedin’ right I’ll ask him! With me fist up his nose if need be!” He glared across the desk. “I always thought you was square, Fry! That’s what I always heard. Yet yer a party to this frame! How much brass passed hooks?”

Fry’s face whitened further. He sat erect, his eyes hot with anger.

“Now you listen to me, Barnato! Watch your mouth! I’ve taken a lot from you, but I happened to be there when Jack Joel opened that safe under my orders, and Luckner lifted out that tray and found that diamond! It isn’t hearsay with me, and it won’t be hearsay when I repeat what I’m saying to you, to the judge at the trial! I was there! And if you think your ranting and raving like a maniac is going to make the slightest difference when Jack Joel goes up before the court, you’ve got another think coming!” He forced himself to cool down a bit, eyeing Barney speculatively. “They tell me you used to be quite a Shakespearean at one time, Barnato. Maybe you recall the line ‘Methinks the Queen protests too much.’ It’s from Hamlet.”

Barney sneered. “You got that wrong, like you got everything wrong. And you ain’t heard protestin’ yet. Maybe you recall the line, ‘Me bloody thought wit’ violent pace shall ne’er look back … till that a capable an’ wide revenge swallow ’em.’ It’s from Othello.” And he stalked, still furious, from the room.

He marched resolutely across the hall of the newly built City Hall and into the mayor’s office. He strode through the secretary’s office without looking at the startled man, and into the adjoining office without bothering to knock. J. B. Robinson, his ever-present topee within reach on his desk, looked up from his paperwork with a frown.

“What are you doing here, Barnato? And coming in without knocking?”

“I want to know why you an’ Fry fixed me nephew!”

“Fixed?”

“That’s what I said, you ain’t deaf! Fixed, framed, take yer choice!”

“You’re insane, coming in here like this! Your nephew was caught with an illicit diamond in his possession! You know the law! So don’t take that tone with me!”

Barney dragged a chair before the desk and sat down, eye-level with the mayor. He glared across the desk. “Listen, Robinson, don’t worry about me tone. You ain’t never heard me when I’m in a real miff! Why did you hire Carl Luckner an’ put him on the diamond squad?”

Robinson caught his breath. To be talked to like this, him, J. B. Robinson and the mayor, besides, and by the Jew Barnato of all people! “I don’t have to explain to you or anyone else why I hire peace officers, or where I assign them!”

“Peace officers? Peace officers? Carl Luckner is a peace officer? Carl Luckner is as crazy as a drunken nit, and a vicious, murderin’, lyin’ shit besides! Now, I want to know why you picked this turd from Cape Town, brought him back here to Kimberley where he already killed a man without reason, and put him on the Diamond Squad, just in time fer him to find a diamond in me safe that wasn’t there until he put his dirty hooks in it! With Fry there so convenient, to see him do it!”

“And I want to tell you, you’ve more than outstayed your welcome here and if you don’t leave this very instant, I’ll have the police in here and have you jailed!” Robinson was white about the mouth; his hands were trembling. “Either your nephew Joel is guilty or you are, and making all those accusations will only get him a longer sentence when he comes up for trial, if I have anything to say about it!” Robinson had had a strong and sickening feeling since the time of the arrest that it really had been a frame and that he had been done in the eye by his old friend Rhodes; but this was certainly neither the time nor the place to admit it. There was the chance he might even reap some benefit through Rhodes if he just kept quiet and kept his nerve. He glared across the desk. “Now get out!”

Barney came to his feet. He forced himself to calmness, and with the change of temper his Cockney seemed to automatically disappear.

“Do you imagine that this is the end of the matter, Robinson?” he said quietly. “Jack goes to the Cape breakwater to sweat for ten or twenty years, and the rest of you get off scot-free for a crime you committed, not him? You know who’s behind this frame, and so do I. It wasn’t aimed at Jack; it was aimed at me.” He shook his head. “You’re a fool, Robinson. You’re nobody. You’re just a man in the middle of something too big for you to understand. But you made a serions mistake. You’re a Bible-beating churchgoer, I understand. Well, next time you’re in church, ask for forgiveness, because you’re going to need it!”

He walked out.

The evening meal at the hotel was melancholic.

“He ain’t—I mean, he doesn’t have a chance,” Barney said glumly. “I’d bet a spoiled jugged hare against a team of healthy Cape oxen they send him over. Between ten and twenty years on the Cape breakwater. Jack’ll never make it. I think Fry’s straight, blind in this case, but straight; but Robinson’s another story. He’d sell his old ma for fat for frying. And he has the judge in his pocket. I think he got hooked into playing cat’s-paw for old horse-faced Rhodes, but he’ll never admit it. He’ll try to milk it for whatever advantage he can get out of it. I can almost understand Rhodes; he’s got big ideas and he doesn’t care how he gets there. But I’ll never understand a man like Robinson. Or forgive him.” He sighed in misery. “What am I going to tell my sister Kate?”

“You may not have to tell her anything, darling,” Fay said quietly.

Barney put down his knife and fork; he hadn’t been eating but had merely used them to push his food listlessly around his plate. He looked at Fay. “What do you mean?”

“What bail did you put up for Jack?”

“Five thousand quid. Why?”

“I heard a poem the other day,” Fay said, quite as if she were changing the subject to a more pleasant one. “It went, ‘Over the Free State line, whatever is yours, is mine. If I’ve got a stone, it’s all my own, and no John Fry to make me groan.’ Free Town isn’t very far away.” She looked at him calmly. “How much is Jack’s freedom worth, Barney?”

Barney shook his head stubbornly. “It isn’t the money, Fay, you know that! It’s the fact that Jack’s innocent, that he was framed, that these bastards are getting away with something!”

“Can you prove it?”

“No,” he said miserably.

“Can you picture the judge freeing Jack?”

“No. But, damn it,” he added angrily, “he’s innocent!”

“And how much satisfaction in knowing he’s innocent do you suppose Jack will be able to garner while he’s putting in his time working on the breakwater?”

He looked at her for several moments, wondering as always how he had ever managed to survive before he had married her, and then came to his feet. “Have one of the boys fix up the Scotch cart and bring it around to the rear of the hotel,” he said. “Have them pile enough rubbish in it for Jack to hide under. Get some money from the safe, enough to get him home, at least. I’ll get Jack …”

Fay was asleep when Barney came into their room. He closed the door softly behind him and undressed as quietly as he could in the dark, slipping into bed beside her. She rolled toward him, pressing against him, her arm automatically reaching around him to hold him, nuzzling her head into his shoulder, murmuring in her half sleep.

“What time is it, darling?”

“Four o’clock.”

“What took you so long? Did everything go all right?”

There was the briefest of pauses before Barney answered. “I had something to do. And everything went fine.”

“And Jack?”

“He’s safe in Free Town. He’ll catch the early coach for Durban and take ship from there.” He leaned over and kissed her gently, and then lay back again. “Get some sleep, sweetheart.”

“You, too,” she said sleepily, and then suddenly sat up with a scream as the building shook. “Barney!”

The BOOM that followed the tremor almost instantly, rattled the windows. There was the sound of other windows being hastily raised, then men were calling and running in the streets. Lanterns bobbed in the darkness as men headed for the big hole to determine the source of the huge explosion. Barney reached up and drew Fay down again.

“Someone was careless with dynamite,” he said evenly. “Go to sleep, sweetheart.”

“But it may be our—”

“It isn’t,” he said.

“But somebody may have been—”

“They weren’t,” he said.

She raised herself on an elbow, trying to make out his features in the little moonlight that filtered into the room, and then lay back again, now wide awake, trying to analyze her feelings. She felt an odd combination of awe and fear, with a touch of pride mixed in. It was all very strange. She wondered if she would ever completely understand the man she had chosen to spend her life with, and then knew it made no difference. She was going to love him, no matter what he did, as long as she lived.