“There is a mot current in South Africa with regard to the degree of wickedness to be found in different towns. It runs: ‘Kimberley, first prize; Cradock, second; Hell, highly recommended.’”
Loree could not help laughing, and at that moment Quelch sauntered out from the hall and stood in the light close beside them. Mrs Cork, lifting her voice slightly, addressed him.
“Mr Quelch, come here and help me convince Mrs Temple that the wickedness of Babylon was as nothing compared to the wickedness of this sweet and tranquil town.”
He laughed: they all laughed, and a moment or two later they were sitting together, discussing the matter. Quelch repudiated the libel on Kimberley. If “wickedness” was in question, he thought that Johannesburg ought, at any rate, to receive an honourable mention.
“There are no diamonds in Johannesburg,” said Mrs Cork.
“Diamonds!” Quelch looked musingly at Loree. “‘The most exquisite of gems, known only to kings.’ Pliny wrote that of them in the year 100 Anno Domini!”
His voice held a melancholy cadence; the dark beauty of his face suggested the East where women are addressed with a musical, caressing softness. Loree was susceptible to voices and she listened fascinated. It appeared that the Tintara, a mine outside Kimberley which had produced some remarkable diamonds, belonged to him, but he spoke of it carelessly, as if it were a broken-kneed horse he owned. He showed them a stone that had been discovered that day. It was rather like a piece of washing soda, with no glitter or spangle at all. Difficult to believe that it could be cut and polished into dazzling beauty. It must go to Europe for that though. There are no lapidaries in Africa.
Loree heard for the first time of the theory that diamonds come from the skies, and of the possibility that the mines in various parts of the world are meteorites so immense that in falling they penetrated the earth’s crust and became part of it. This theory is backed by the curious fact that meteorites which fell in Arizona, Russia and Chile all contained small diamonds. As to the destructibility of diamonds she learned that they can be converted by the action of heat or electricity into that most banal substance—black lead! Entranced by these strange tales by Quelch’s wonderful voice, she sat spellbound while he told of the famous diamonds of the world. The Star of South Africa bought by Lord Dudley for 25,000 pounds; the Great Mogul, “a rose-cut stone tall on one side”; the Orloff stolen by a French soldier from the eye of a Brahmin idol, and stolen again and again until it was bought for 90,000 pounds for Catherine the Second and kept among the Russian crown jewels ever after; the blue-white Koh-i-noor shaped like an egg; the lovely pale rose pear-shaped Taj-e-mah belonging to the Shah of Persia; the Nassak, a beautiful stone in the possession of the Duke of Westminster; the brilliant blue Hope diamond lost and found so often, and reputed to bring bad luck; the Tiffany, a magnificent orange-yellow stone of 125.5 carats; the Dresden, part of the Saxon crown jewels, only 40 carats in weight but of a unique apple-green colour. Then there were the lovely little stones to be gathered like dewdrops in a forest in Rhodesia—the Somabula. Most of the best South African diamonds it seemed were of a flawless clearness and water-white. It was wonderful to head Quelch speak of them. It seemed to Loraine that his words were like the gems themselves sparkling and rippling and tumbling in cascades.
Before they parted that night, he invited them to go next day and see the diamonds at the De Beers offices. They accepted with fervour, and he said he would have a car waiting for them.
“He is not a De Beers man himself,” Mrs Cork told Loree as they went upstairs, “but immensely rich and hand in glove with the diamond crowd here. He can do anything he likes in Kimberley. Fascinating brute, isn’t he?”