“And if he puts in compounds like the rest?”
“Then we’ll end the business of illicit diamonds once and for all,” Rhodes said calmly, “and that’s all I’ve been aiming at from the beginning…”
The compounds were low one-story brick buildings laid out in the form of a huge square with one side missing. Each building was divided with interior brick walls into spaces of a size that a tall man standing in the middle of each small room could touch the walls with his outstretched arms. A slot high in the back wall of each cubicle allowed the entrance of a small amount of light while being too small for the smallest man to pass through, even though there still remained a goodly distance between the building and the first of the two parallel fences. An entrance without a proper door gave access from the little cells to the enclosure of the compound itself. Each tiny room contained wooden shelves to accommodate eight men in sleeping.
A cookhouse was located at each end of the compound, and meals were intended to be taken in fingers while sitting on the ground of the open area. An uncanvased latrine was located to one side, a pole across a shallow ditch. The sorting yards where the earth from the mine was left for the rain and the weather to help break down stood between the compounds and the mine itself.
Rhodes, walking about and critically inspecting his partner’s handiwork, nodded in satisfaction. He stared at the high parallel fences topped by barbed wire that circled the compounds and ended at a large watchtower that would be manned by armed guards also equipped with sjamboks later that day when the first of the compounds went into service. In the runway formed by the space between the double fence large fierce-looking dogs already prowled restlessly. Rhodes gave the inner fence a push, as if to test its strength; instantly a large dog came running, baring its teeth and growling. Rhodes smiled and turned to Rudd at his side.
“A quite commendable job, Charles. Congratulations. Some of the other mineowners will be here later today to see what you’ve accomplished and to ask your help in telling them how to duplicate your work.”
“Barnato included?”
“Barnato not included,” Rhodes said, and his smile widened.
In the bar of the Paris Hotel, Barney Barnato was doing his imitation of Cecil John Rhodes.
“Omnibus,” he said in a high, affected falsetto, holding one hand with a limp wrist a bit higher than his shoulder and parading about the barroom with tiny mincing steps, his other wrist folded delicately at his waist. “Offnibus, animus, deadimus, oneimus, twoimus, threeimus. That’s Latin and Greek, you ignoramimus. I mean, ignoramimuses.” He stopped before a laughing man, looking at him sternly. “What are you laughing at, Charles? Being me is no laughing matter!” He paused to draw back with a little scream as an elderly maid came in the barroom to dump a bit of refuse into a pail. “A woman! Help!”
The laughter rose and then was interrupted. An argument had sprung up at one end of the adjoining dining room and the men turned from Barney to see what the fuss was all about. Two men, seated and facing each other at a table covered with their dishes of food, were leaning across the table, shouting at each other, their faces getting red, their voices rising in volume. Suddenly one of them came to his feet, grasped the edge of the table, and upended it, sending the other man to the floor under a deluge of dishes and food. The fallen man came to his feet roaring with rage, picking a knife from the spilled utensils on the floor as he did so. He shoved the upended table out of the way with one heave to give himself room to maneuver. He was a very large man with a full beard; the knife glittered in his huge hand as he handled it expertly. His opponent was a bit smaller but not much, with a rakish mustache and a scar that ran from the comer of his mouth to disappear at the end of a hard-looking jaw. The man with the knife made a quick forward-thrusting move and suddenly found himself flying through the air to crash painfully against a wall, the breath knocked out of him. The mustached man, cursing steadily aloud, his eyes narrowed cruelly in hate, walked over and kicked the knife from the paralyzed hand. He then began to systematically kick the fallen man in the head and sides. One kick broke the man’s nose; blood spurted. Barney hurried over, grabbing the mustached man by the arm.
“Hold it, chum! That’s enough,” he said firmly.
The man turned to meet this new interference, pulling back an arm to swing, but Barney held up a hand warningly. “I’ve no quarrel with you,” he said quietly, his very calmness causing the man to hesitate. “He pulled a knife on you and maybe deserved what he got. But that’s no reason to kick him to death. Come on,” he added in a lighter tone. “Leave him be. I’ll buy you a drink.”
The man on the floor had managed to come to a sitting position. He was holding a rag to his broken nose; it was soaked with blood. “Buy him a drink, eh?” he said thickly, speaking through the blood in his throat. “You don’t know who yer buyin’ a drink for, mister!”
The mustached man, his jaw clenched, turned with a curse and raised his foot to kick his fallen opponent again, but Barney dragged him back. The mustached man stared at the man on the floor a moment, finally shrugged, and followed Barney to the bar. Barney called over the bartender and turned back to the stranger. “What are you drinking?”
“Whiskey. Double.”
“Make that two.” Barney turned back to the other man. “That was quite a move you made when you tossed that big bloke over your shoulder. How did you do that?”
The mustached man shrugged. “It’s a Jap trick. Learned it in Tokyo, when I was in ships.”
“It’s very clever,” Barney said admiringly. “You’ll have to teach me that sometime.” He held out his hand. “I’m Barney Barnato.”
If the name meant anything to the mustached man there was no indication of it. “Carl Luckner.”
The two men shook hands, each aware of the other’s strong grip. Barney relaxed his hand, withdrew it, and picked up his drink. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you around here before. What are you doing in town?”
“Had a little trouble in Cape Town,” Luckner said evenly. “Decided to come up here and see the place. Looking for some kind of work, as a matter of fact.”
“What kind of trouble? I’m not being nosy,” Barney said quickly, “but I could maybe use somebody like you. But the thing is, Kimberley has gotten awfully respectable lately. No more Miner’s Committee. Now we’ve got a mayor — J. B. Robinson himself — and a council and a regular police force, and everything. Including a jail,” he added significantly.
“I had no trouble with the law,” Luckner said grimly. He downed his drink and rapped his glass on the bar sharply for a refill. “Well, I suppose you could say I did, in a way, if you mean trouble with the stupid police chief they got down there. But it was really the other way around. I was a police officer there. The trouble I got into was that the chief said I was too tough on the bastards I picked up. Beat them up first and asked questions afterward. He never denied most of them deserved it, though.” He took his replenished glass and drank, setting the glass down. “Oh, I’ve a miserable temper, I’ll admit that. I lose my head, see red. I can’t help it.”
Barney glanced into the dining room. Someone had set the fallen table on its feet; a woman was cleaning up the mess. A boy from the kitchen was sweeping up the broken crockery. The large bearded man with the broken nose had been helped to his feet and out the door. Barney jerked his thumb toward the arena of the fight.
“And what was that all about?”