diamond, so Benedict left the bench and moved on.
In a row down the other side of the room sat the other Cohen brothers. Eight of them. Old Aaron was a great breeder of boys. They ranged in age from nearly forty to nineteen years and there were a couple who were still in school and hadn’t yet come into the business.
How are you Mr. van der byl? Michael Cohen looked up as
Benedict approached. Michael was shaping a fine diamond, cutting it into a round using a lesser stone as a blade. A small tray beneath the lathe caught the dust from the two stones. This dust would be used later for sawing and polishing.
“A beauty,” said Benedict. These men were of the brotherhood, working with diamonds all their lives and loving them as other men loved women or horses and fine paintings.
He moved on down the room, greeting each of the brothers, stopping to watch for a minute the loving care with which the elder boys, master craftsmen each of them, were cutting the precisely angled facets that make up the perfect round brilliant. The fifty-eight facets - table, stars, pavilions and the others which endow a cut stone with its mystic “life” and “fire’.
Leaving them crouched over their wheels, so similar to those of a potter, he went through the door at the end of the room.
“Benedict, my friend.” Aaron Cohen came from his desk to embrace him. He was a tall thin man in his late sixties with a thick silver-grey mane of hair, round-shouldered from years of crouching over a diamond wheel. “I did not know you were in London, they told me you were in Cape Town.
Benedict took the envelope from his pocket and shook twenty-seven diamonds on to the blotter of the desk.
“What do you think of those, Papa?”
“Shu! Situ!” Papa patted his own cheeks with delight, and he reached instinctively for the biggest stone.
“I should live to see such a stone!” He screwed a jeweller’s loupe into his eye, turning to catch the natural light from the high windows, and scrutinized the diamond through the eyepiece.
“Ah, yes. There is a feather*, but small. But we will cut through it. Yes, we will take two gems from this stone. Two perfect diamonds of ten or twelve carats each, and perhaps five smaller ones.” More than half a diamond’s bulk is lost in the cutting.
“Yes! Yes! From this stone we will sell a hundred thousand pounds’worth of polished diamonds!” Aaron crossed to the door. “Boys!
Come see! I will show you a prince among diamonds.” And his sons crowded into the office. Michael took it first and gave his opinion.
“A good stone, yes. But not of the same water as the stone we had in the last batch. You remember that octahedron crystal-” “What you talking!” his father . “You wouldn’t know a diamond from a piece of gorgonzola cheese already!”
“He is right, Papa.” Larry joined in the discussion. “The other stone was better.”
“So the Big Lover argues with his father! Little shiksas with skirts up around their tochis you know all about.
Semi-transparent veinlike flaw.
t Very very slight imperfection.
Dancing the Watsui and the Cha-Cha. Yes! But diamonds you know from nothing.” This declaration precipitated a full-scale, family argument in which each of the brothers joined with gusto.
“Shuddup! Shuddup! Back to work all of you! Out, Out” Aaron broke up the meeting, driving his sons from the office and slamming the door behind them.
“Shu!” He looked to heaven. “What a business! Now we can weigh the stones.” When they had weighed and tallied the stones, and Aaron had locked them into the safe, Benedict told him: “I am thinking of breaking up the Ring.” Aaron froze and looked across the desk at
Benedict.
Between them there was always the pretence that their relationship was legitimate. They never spoke about the Ring, or where the unregistered stones came from, or how the finished gems were sent to
Switzerland.
“Why?“Aaron asked carefully.
“I am a rich man now. With my father’s money, and what I have made from the Ring and invested. A very rich man. I no longer need to take the risks.”
“Such problems I wish I had. But perhaps you are wise
I would not think to argue with you.”
“There will be one or two more packages. Then it will be finished.” Aaron nodded. “I understand, he said. “Like all good things it must end.” It was a little after noon when Benedict parked the Bentley outside the mews flat off Belgrave
Square. He want to shower immediately he was home. In all the years he had lived here he had never grown accustomed to London’s grime-laden atmosphere, and he bathed or showered at least three times a day.
He sang in the shower, and then enveloped in a huge bath towel he left a string of damp footprints through to the lounge where he mixed a
Martini, and screwed up his eyes at the first stinging taste of the drink.
The phone rang.
“Van der Byl,” he said into the mouthpiece, and then his expression changed as he listened. Quickly he put down the glass and used both hands to hold the telephone receiver.
“What on earth are you doing here?” His tone of astonishment was not faked.
“What a wonderful surprise. When can I see you? How about right now - for lunch? That’s great! No, nothing I can’t put off - this is a pretty special occasion, you know.
Where are you staying? The Lancaster. Fine. Look, give me forty-five minutes, and I’ll meet you in the Looking-Glass Room on the top floor. Yes, ten past one. God, what a delightful - I’ve said that already. See you in three-quarters of an hour.” He replaced the receiver, swallowed the remains of his Martini and headed for his bedroom suite. This would make a good day into a truly remarkable one, he thought, as he quickly selected a silk shirt. He looked at his reflection in the mirror and grinned.
“The ball has really started bouncing your way, Benedict,” he whispered.
She was not at the bar, nor in the Looking-Glass Room.
Benedict crossed to the tall picture windows for a glimpse of one of London’s finest views across Hyde Park and the Serpentine. It was a smoky blue day, and the pale sun added bronze to the autumn shades of gold and red in the park.
He turned from the windows, and she was crossing the room towards him. His stomach swooped with delight for she also was pale gold with the coppery sheen of sun on her long legs and bare arms. The grace of her carriage was as he remembered it, the precise lifting and laying down of narrow feet on the thick pile of the carpet.
He stood quite still, letting her come to him. Heads turned all across the room, for she was a splendid golden creature. Benedict knew suddenly and clearly that he wanted this woman for himself.
“Hello, Benedict,” she said, and he stepped forward to take her hand in both of his.
“Ruby Lance!” He squeezed her long fingers gently. “It’s so good to see you again.” The use of her surname was the clue to the strength of his reaction. She belonged to the one man in the world that
Benedict most envied and hated. For this reason she was infinitely desirable.
“Let us celebrate with a little drink. I think the occasion deserves at the very least a champagne cocktail.” She sat with those long slim legs neatly crossed, leaning back in her chair, holding the stemmed glass with tapering fingers. Her hair hung straight to her shoulders, like some rare silken tapestry in white gold, and her eyes watched him with a catlike candour, a calm feline intentness that seemed to look into his soul.
“I should not have bothered you,” she said. “But I know so few people here.”
“How long can you stay?” He brushed aside the disclaimer.
“I must cancel my other arrangements.”
“A week.” She made it sound like an offer that was subject to negotiation.
“Oh, no!” His voice was mock distressed. “You can do better than that - we won’t be able to do half what I had planned in so short a time. You can stay longer, surely?”
