by Wilbur Smith
Then when you didn't come to the Exchange but sent me instead, well, I can tell you, sir, there were a lot of questions asked. Johnson hesitated, then his curiosity got the better of him. Can I help you at all, sir? He started sidling across towards the desk. I think we can manage on our own, Johnson. Shut the door as you go out, please. At half-past seven they decided it was enough for one day and they went back to the hotel. As they walked into the lobby Sean saw Trevor Heyns disappear into the lounge and heard his voice. Here they are! Almost immediately Trevor appeared again with his brother.
Hello, boys, Jock appeared surprised to see them. What are you doing here? We live here, said Duff. Oh, yes, of course. Well, come and have a drink with us. Jock smiled expansively. And then you can pump us and find out what we've been doing all day, Duff suggested.
Jock looked embarrassed. I don't know what you mean, I just thought we'd have a drink together, that's all. Thanks all the same, Jock, we've had a hard day. I think we'll just go on up to bed, Duff said. They were halfway across the lobby before Duff turned back to where the two brothers were standing.
I'll tell you boys something, he said in a stage whisper.
This is really big, it's so big it takes a while for the mind to grasp it. When you two realize that it's been right there under your noses all the time, you're going to kick yourselves They left the Heyns brothers in the lobby staring after them and went up the stairs.
That wasn't very kind, Sean laughed. They won't sleep for a week. When neither Sean nor Duff put in an appearance at the Exchange the next morning, the nimours surged round the members lounge and the prices started running amok. Reliable information that Sean and Duff had struck a rich new goldfield across the vaal sent the prices up like rocketing snipe; then twenty minutes later the denial came in and clipped fifteen shillings a share off the Courtney-Charleywood stock. Johnson ran backwards and forwards between the office and the Exchange all morning. By eleven he was so tired he could hardly talk. Don't worry any more, Johnson, Sean told him.
Here's a sovereign, go down to the Grand National and buy yourself a drink, you've had a hard morning. One of Jock. Heyns's men, who had been detailed off to watch the Courtney-Charleywood offices, followed Johnson down to the Grand National and heard him place his order with the Barman. He raced back to the Exchange and reported to Jock. Their head clerk has just gone and ordered himself a bottle of French champagne, he panted. Good God! Jock nearly jumped out of his chair and beside him Trevor signalled frantically for his clerk. Buy, he whispered in the man's ear. Buy every scrap of their script you can lay your hands on. Across the lounge Hradsky settled down a little further in his chair; he clasped his hands contentedly over the front of his stomach and he very nearly smiled.
By midnight Sean and Duff had completed their counter-proposal to Hradsky's offer. How do you think Norman will react to it? asked Sean. I hope his heart is strong enough to stand the shock, Duff grinned. The only reason that his jaw won't hit the floor is that his great gut will be in the way. Shall we go down to his hotel now and show him?
suggested Sean. Laddie, laddie. Duff shook his head sorrowfully. After all the time I've spent on your education, and you still haven't learned. What do we do then? We send for him, laddie, we make him come to us. We play him on the home ground. How does that help? Sean asked. It gives us an advantage immediately, it makes him remember that he's the one doing the asking Hradsky came down to their office at ten o'clock the next morning; he came in state driven behind a four-inhand and attended by Max and two secretaries. Johnson met them at the front door and ushered them into Sean's office. Norman, dear old Norman, I'm delighted to see you, Duff greeted him and, fully aware of the fact that Hradsky never smoked, Duff thrust a cheroot between his lips.
When everyone was seated Sean opened the meeting. Gentlemen, we have spent some time examining your proposition and in the main we find it just, fair and equitable. Hear, hear, Duff agreed politely. At the outset I want to make it quite clear, Sean went on, that Mr Charleywood and myself feel strongly that the union of our two ventures is desirable, nay! essential.
If you will forgive the quotation, "ex unitate vires". Hear, hear, hear, hear. Duff lit his cigar. As I was saying we have examined your proposition and we accept it readily and happily, with the exception of a few minor details which we have listed. Sean picked up the thick pile of paper. Perhaps you would care to glance through it and then we can proceed to the drawingup of a formal agreement. Max accepted the sheaf gingerly. If you want privacy, Mr Charleywood's office which adjoins this room is at your disposal. Hradsky took his band next door and an hour later when he led them back again they looked like a party of pallbearers. Max was on the verge of tears, he cleared the lump from his throat. I think we should examine each item separately, he said sadly, and three days later they shook hands on the deal.
Duff poured the drinks and gave each man a glass. To the new company, Central Rand Consolidated. It has been a long confinement, gentlemen, but I think we have given birth to a child of which we can be proud.
Hradsky had control, but it had cost him dearly.
Central Rand Consolidated had its christening party on the main floor of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange; ten percent of the shares were put out for sale to the public.
Before the day's dealings began the crowd had overflowed the Stock Exchange building and jammed in the street for a block in each direction. The President of the Exchange read the prospectus of Central Rand Consolidated; in the cathedral hush his every word carried clearly to the members lounge.
The bell rang and still the hush persisted.
Hradsky's authorized clerk broke the silence timidly.
sell C. R. C. s. It was nearly a massacre; two hundred men were trying to buy shares from him simultaneously. First his jacket and then his shirt disintegrated beneath the clutching hands; he lost his spectacles, crushed to powdered glass beneath the trampling feet. Ten minutes later he managed to fight his way out of the crowd and report to his masters, I was able to sell them, gentlemen. Sean and Duff laughed. They had reason to laugh, for in those ten minutes their thirty percent holding in C. R. C. had appreciate in by half a million pounds.
That year Christmas dinner at Candy's Hotel was considerably better than it had been five years previously.
Seventy-five people sat down to it at one table and by three o'clock, when it ended, only half of them were able to stand up. Sean used the banisters to get up the stairs and at the top he told Candy and Duff solemnly, I love you, I love you both desperately, but now I must sleep. He left them and set off down the corridor bouncing against the walls like a trick billiard shot until he ricocheted through the door into his suite. You'd better make sure he's all right, Dufford. A case of the blind drunk leading the blind drunk, said Duff indistinctly, and also employing the wall to wall route followed Sean down the corridor. Sean was sitting on the edge of his bed wrestling with one of his boots.
What you trying to do, laddie, break your ankle? Sean looked up and smiled beatifically. Come in, come in, all four of you. Have a drink! Thanks, I brought my own. Duff closed the door behind him like a conspirator and produced a bottle from under his coat, She didn't see me - she didn't know her little Dufford had a big beautiful bottle in his inside pocket. Vould you mind helping me with this damn boot?
Sean asked. That's a very good question, said Duff seriously as he set a course across the room.
glad you asked it. He reached the chair and dropped into it. The answer, of course, is, Yes! I would mind.
Sean let his foot drop and lay back on the bed.
Laddie, I want to talk to you, Duff said. Talk's free, help yourself. Sean, what do you think of Candy?
Lovely pair of titties, Sean opened. Sure, but a man cannot live by titties alone No, but I suppose she's also got the other basic equipment, Sean said drowsily.
laddie, I'm being serious now, I want your help. Do you think I am doing the right thing, this marriage business, I mean. Don
't know much about marriage.
Sean rolled over on his face. She's calling me Dufford already, did you notice that, laddie? That's an omen, that's an omen of the most frightful portent.
Did you notice, hey? Duff waited a second for an answer which he didn't receive. That's what the other one used to call me. dufford, she'd say, I can hear it now, dufford, you're a pig"!
Duff looked hard at the bed. Are you still with me?
No answer. Sean, laddie, I need your help.
Sean snored softly.
oh, you drunken oaf said Duff miserably.
Xanadu was finished by the end of January and the wedding was set for the twentieth of February. Duff sent the Commandant and the entire police force of Johannesburg an invitation: in return they put a twenty-four hour a day guard on the ballroom of Xanadu where the wedding gifts were laid out on long trestle tables. Sean drove up with Duff and Candy on the afternoon of the tenth, as Duff put it, to make the latest count of the booty. Sean gave the constable on duty a cigar and then they went through into the ballroom. Look, oh look, squealed Candy. There's a whole lot of new presents!
one's from Jock and Trevor, Sean read the card. Open quickly, please, Dufford, let's see what they've given us. Duff prised the lid off the case and Sean whistled softly, A solid gold dinner service, gasped Candy. She picked up one of the plates and hugged it to her chest, Oh, I just don't know what to say. Sean examined the other boxes. Hey, Duff, this one will make you specially happy, "Best wishes, N.
Hradsky". This I must see, said Duff with the first enthusiasm he had shown in a month. He unwrapped the parcel. A dozen of them! Duff hooted gleefully. Norman, you priceless little Israelite, a whole dozen dish towels. It's the thought that counts, laughed Sean. Dear old Norman, how it must have hurt him to shell out for them! I'll have him autograph them and I'll frame them and hang them in the front hall. They left Candy to arrange the presents and they went out into the garden.
Have you got this mock priest organized? asked Duff. Yes, he's at a hotel in Pretoria. He's in training now he'll be able to rattle through the service like an old hand when the time comes. You don't think that faking it is just as bad as doing it properly? asked Duff dubiously.
It's a hell. of a time to think of that now, said Sean. Yes, I suppose it is. Where are you going for the honeymoon? Sean asked. We'll coach down to Capetown and take the mail boat to London, then a month or so on the Continent. Be back here about June. You should have a good time. Why don't you get married as well?
What for? Sean looked surprised. Well, don't you feel as though you're letting the old firm down a bit, me going into this alone? No, said Sean. Anyway, who is there to marry? What about that lass you brought to the races last Saturday; she's a lovely piece of work. Sean raised an eyebrow. Did you hear her giggle? Yes, I did, admitted Duff. You couldn't very well miss itCan you imagine that giggle coming at you across the breakfast table? Sean asked.
Duff shuddered. Yes, I see your point. But as soon as we get back I'll have Candy start picking you out a suitable female. I've got a better idea, you let Candy run your life and I'll run my own. That, laddie, is what I'm very much afraid is going to happen. Hradsky reluctantly agreed that the activities of the group, the mines, the workshops, the transport companies, all of them - should be suspended on the twentieth to allow their employees to attend Duff's nuptials. This meant that half the businesses on the Witwatersrand would shut down for the day. Consequently, most of the independent companies decided to close as well. On the eighteenth the wagons carrying the food and liquor started caravanning up the hill to Xanadu. Sean in a burst of benevolence that night invited the entire company from the Opera House to the wedding. He remembered it vaguely the next morning and went down to cancel the invitation but Blue Bessie told him that most of the girls had already gone into town to buy new dresses. The hell with it then, let them come. I just hope Candy doesn't guess who they are, that's all On the night of the nineteenth Candy gave them the use of the dining-room and all the downstairs lounges of the Hotel for Duffs bachelor party. Francois arrived with a masterpiece made up in the mine workshops, an enormous ball and chain. This was formally locked onto Duff's leg and the party began.
Afterwards there was a school of thought that maintained that the building contractor commissioned to repair the damage to the Hotel was a bandit and that the bill for just under a thousand pounds that he presented was nothing short of robbery. However, none of them could deny that the bok-Bok game in the dining-room, played by a hundred men, had done a certam amount of damage to the furniture and fittings; nor that the chandelier had not been able to support Mr Courtney's weight and on the third swing had come adrift from the ceiling and knocked a moderately large hole through the floor.
Neither did anyone dispute the fact that after Jock Heyns had tried unsuccessfully for half an hour to shoot a glass off the top of his brother's head with champagne Forks, the resulting ankle-deep lake of wine in the one-lounge made it necessary for the floor to be relaid. Nevertheless they felt that a thousand was a little bit steep. On one point, however, everyone agreed, it was a memorable party.
At the beginning Sean was worried that Duff's heart wasn't in it for Duff stood by the bar with the metal ball under one arm listening to the lewd comment, with a lopsided grin fixed on his face. After seven or eight drinks Sean stopped worrying about him and went off to have his way with the chandelier. At midnight Duff talked Francois into releasing him from his chains and he slipped out of the room. No one, least of all Sean, noticed him go.
Sean could never remember how he got up to bed that night but next morning he was tactfully awakened by a waiter with a coffee tray and a note.
What time is it? asked Sean as he unfolded the note. Eight o'clock, baas. No need to shout, muttered Sean. His eyes focused with difficulty for the pain in his head was pushing them out of their sockets. Dear Best Man, This serves as a reminder that you and Duff have an appointment at eleven o'clock. I am relying on you to get him there, whole or in pieces. Love Candy The brandy fumes in the back of his throat tasted like chloroform, he washed them out with coffee and lit a cigar which started him coughing, and every cough nearly took the top off his head. He stubbed out the cigar and went to the bathroom. Half an hour later he felt strong enough to wake Duff. He went across the sitting-room and pushed open Duffs door, the curtains in the room were still drawn. He pulled them open and was nearly blinded by the sunlight that poured in through them. He turned to the bed and frowned with surprise. He walked slowly across and sat on the edge of it. He must have slept in Candy's room, Sean muttered as he looked at the unused pillows and neatly tucked blankets. it took a few seconds for him to find the fault in his reasoning. Then why did she write that note? He stood up, feeling the first twinge of alarm. A picture of Duff, drunk and helpless lying out in the yard or knocked over the head by one of the busy Johannesburg footpads; came very clearly to mind. He ran across the bedroom and into the sitting-room. Halfway to the door he saw the envelope propped up on the mantelpiece and he took it down. What is this, a meeting of the authors guild? he muttered. The place is thick with letters. The paper crackled as he opened it and he recognized Duff's back sloping hand. The first the worst, the second the same. I'm not going through with it. You're the best man so make my excuses to all the nice people. I'll be back when the dust has settled a little.
Sean sat down in one of the armchairs, he read through it twice more- Then he exploded. Damn you, Charleywood, "make my excuses". You craven bastard. Walk out and leave me to sweep up the mess. He rushed across the room with his dressing-gown flapping furiously round his legs. You'll make your own damned excuses, even if I have to drag you back on the end of a rope. Sean ran down the back stairs. Mbejane was in the stable yard talking to three of the grooms.