“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.