obvious signs, no shaking hands, little tics around the mouth, beads of sweat. It was there in the eyes. Strouser looked like a man who had beheld God.
“May I ask where these stones came from?” Strouser asked.
“I cannot tell you the exact location,” Carlisle answered honestly.
“The mines of India are played out, and nothing like this has come out of Brazil. Perhaps one of the new diggings in South Africa?”
“It is not for me to say. Why? Is there a value to the stones?”
“You do not know what they are?” Strouser asked in astonishment.
“I am not an expert in minerals. My business is shipping.”
Strouser held out his hands over the stones like an ancient sorcerer. “Mr. Carlisle, these are diamonds! The finest uncut stones I have ever seen.”
Carlisle covered his amazement nobly. “I don’t question your integrity, Mr. Strouser, but I can’t believe you are serious.”
“My family has dealt in precious stones for five generations, Mr. Carlisle. Believe me when I say you have a fortune lying on the desk. Not only do they have indications of perfect transparency and clearness, but they possess an exquisite and very extraordinary violet-rose color. Because of their beauty and rarity they command a higher price than the perfect colorless stones.”
Carlisle came back on keel and cut away the cobwebs. “What are they worth?”
“Rough stones are almost impossible to classify for value since their true qualities do not become apparent until they are cut and faceted, to enhance the maximum optical effect, and polished. The smallest you have here weighs 60 carats in the rough.” He paused to hold up the largest specimen. “This one weighs out at over 980 carats, making it the largest known uncut diamond in the world.”
“I judge that it might be a wise investment to have them cut before I sell them.”
“Or if you prefer, I could offer you a fair price in the rough.”
Carlisle began to place the stones back in the leather pouch. “No, thank you. I represent a dying friend. It is my duty to provide him with the highest profit possible.”
Strouser quickly realized that the canny Scotsman could not be influenced to part with the uncut stones. The opportunity to obtain the diamonds for himself, have them faceted and then sell them on the London market for an immense gain, was not in the cards. Better to make a good profit than none at all, he decided wisely.
“You need not go any farther than this office, Mr. Carlisle. Two of my sons apprenticed at the finest diamond-cutting house in Antwerp. They are as good if not better than any cutters in London. Once the stones are faceted and polished, I can act as your broker should you then wish to sell.”
“Why should I not sell them on my own?”
“For the same reason I would come to you to ship goods to Australia instead of buying a ship and transporting them myself. I am a member of the London Diamond Exchange, you are not. I can demand and receive twice the price you might expect.”
Carlisle was shrewd enough to appreciate a sound business offer when he heard one. He came to his feet and offered Strouser his hand. “I place the stones in your capable hands, Mr. Strouser. I trust it will prove to be a profitable arrangement for you and the people I represent.”
“You can bank on it, Mr. Carlisle.”
As the Scots shipping magnate was about to step from the office, he turned and looked back at the Jewish precious-stone dealer. “After your sons are finished with the stones, what do you think they will be worth?”
Strouser stared down at the ordinary-looking stones, visualizing them as sparkling crystals. “If these stones came from an unlimited source that can be easily exploited, the owners are about to launch an empire of extraordinary wealth.”
“If you will forgive me for saying so, your appraisal sounds a bit fanciful.”
Strouser looked across the desk at Carlisle and smiled. “Trust me when I say these stones, when cut and faceted, could sell in the neighborhood of one million pounds.”[1]
“Good God!” Carlisle blurted. “That much?”
Strouser lifted the huge 980-carat stone to the light, holding it between his fingers as if it were the Holy Grail. When he spoke it was in a voice of adoring reverence. “Perhaps even more, much more.”
DEATH FROM NOWHERE
There was a curse of death about the island. A curse proven by the graves of men who set foot on the forbidding shore, never to leave. There was no beauty here, certainly nothing like the majestic ice-shrouded peaks, the glaciers that towered almost as high as the White Cliffs of Dover, or the icebergs that floated serenely like crystal castles that one might expect to see on and around the great landmass of the Antarctic and its offshore islands.
Seymour Island comprised the largest ice-free surface on or near the whole continent. Volcanic dust, laid down through the millennia, hastened the melting of ice, leaving dry valleys and mountains without a vestige of color and nearly devoid of all snow. It was a singularly ugly place, inhabited only by few varieties of lichen and a rookery of Adelie penguins who found Seymour Island an ample source for the small stones they use to build their nests.
The majority of the dead, buried in shallow pits pried from the rocks, came from a Norwegian Antarctic expedition after their ship was crushed in the ice in 1859. They survived two winters before their food supply ran out, finally dying off one by one from starvation. Lost for over a decade, their well-preserved bodies were not found until 1870, by the British while they were setting up a whaling station.
Others died and were laid beneath the rocks of Seymour Island. Some succumbed to disease, others to accidents that occurred during the whaling season. A few lost their lives when they wandered from the station, were caught by an unexpected storm and frozen by windchill. Surprisingly, their graves are well marked. Crews of whalers caught in the ice passed the winter until the spring melt by chiseling inscriptions on large stones, which they mounted over the burial sites. By the time the British closed the station in 1933, sixty bodies lay beneath the loathsome landscape.
The restless ghosts of the explorers and sailors that roamed the forsaken ground could never have imagined that one day their resting place would be crawling with accountants, attorneys, plumbers, housewives and retired senior citizens who showed up on luxurious pleasure ships to gawk at the inscribed stones and ogle the comical penguins that inhabited a piece of the shoreline. Perhaps, just perhaps, the island would lay its curse on these intruders too.
The impatient passengers aboard the cruise ship saw nothing ominous about Seymour Island. Safe in the comfort of their floating palace, they saw only a remote, unspoiled and mysterious land rising from a sea as blue as an iridescent peacock feather. They felt only excitement at a new experience, especially since they were among the first wave of tourists ever to walk the shores of Seymour Island. This was the third of five scheduled stops as the ship hopscotched among the islands along the peninsula, certainly not the most attractive, but one of the more interesting according to the cruise-line literature.
Many had traveled Europe and the Pacific, seen the usual exotic places travelers flock to around the world. Now they wanted something more, something different; a visit to a destination few had seen before, a remote place they could set foot on and brag about to friends and neighbors afterward.
As they clustered on the deck near the boarding ladder in happy anticipation of going ashore, aiming their telephoto lenses at the penguins, Maeve Fletcher walked among them, checking the bright orange insulated jackets passed out by the ship’s cruise staff, along with life jackets for the short trip between the ship and shore.
Energetic and in constant motion, she moved about with a concentrated briskness in a lithe body that had seen more than its fair share of vigorous exercise. She towered above the women and stood taller than most of the
