Barney stared down at the man. “Johnny, didn’t you hear what I said to all the boys before?”
“I heard it, but who gives up a fortune just to stop a few men from going to prison? The chances are that Kruger isn’t going to hang the four. There’d be too much noise around the world if he did. He’s just giving them a skrik, a fright. Then he’ll give them prison sentences like the others. And who’s going to close all his mines and other businesses to save men from doing a few years in quod, especially men he was in open disagreement with? Men who weren’t particularly his friends? Men who, in many countries, would probably have been shot for what they did, instead of getting off with a mere two years on the rock pile? Who would throw away a fortune for them?”
“I would, that’s who. Now, let the horse go.”
“Look, Barney, I know you too well—”
“Let the horse go, or you’ll get the whip!”
The reporter released the horse but stepped up into the trap next to Barney. Barney hesitated a moment and then reluctantly slid to one side, letting Ryan enter the vehicle, rather than waste any more time. There was a chorus of complaining yells from the other reporters, but Ryan waved them away. Barney shook the reins, putting the trap in motion.
“Now, look, Barney,” Ryan said, trying to sound reasonable, “there’s a story in this, and you know me well enough to know I’ve got to get it. Why these notices you’re posting? And give me the real reason, this time. It’s not to save Carl Luckner’s hide, I’m sure.”
Barney spoke without looking at the man. “How about saving my sister’s son, Solly Loeb, from two years at hard labor in one of Kruger’s hell-hole prisons?”
The reporter looked at him in utter disbelief. “To save Solly Loeb? I should have thought you’d have paid to have him put away! I’ve wondered for the past year why you didn’t, but I figured you knew your business. Now I’m beginning to wonder.”
Barney frowned. He turned to stare at the man. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Ryan still could not believe it. “You mean you don’t know?”
“Know what?” Barney was beginning to lose his temper. “Look, Johnny, start talking before I toss you out of the rig! Know what?”
“Know that your precious Solly Loeb has been cheating you for a long, long time!”
“What!” Barney’s hand jerked at the reins; the horse skittered and then recovered. Barney glared at Ryan. “You’re a liar!”
Johnny Ryan sighed. “Barney, reporters don’t lie. They may exaggerate, sometimes, but they don’t lie. And in any event, this isn’t even an exaggeration. You know, Barney, you’re a bright guy and I like you, but sometimes you’re a damn fool. You can’t see what’s under your nose, and most people are afraid to tell you. I know you’re a busy man, what with the new playhouse you’re building, and the improvements in the racecourse, and everything else you’re involved in, but it wouldn’t hurt you to pay some attention to your business every now and then.”
“What are you talking about?”
“For example,” Ryan said, quite as if Barney had not interrupted him, “have you heard of a new company in Jo’burg? The Reef Investment Company? A little over a year old. And going strong.”
“I’ve heard of it, of course. They’re competitors. Tough competitors, Solly tells me.”
Ryan snorted. “Solly tells you, does he? Well, he should know: he owns it.”
“What!”
“That’s right. Lock, stock, and barrel. He’s taken a good number of Barnato investors along with him to Reef — all the while running Barnato. Running it into the ground, that is. I thought at first it was a ploy of yours, but I’ve done some checking around. You’re just the innocent babe in the woods, waiting for the robins to come along and cover you with leaves.”
Barney pulled up the reins; the horse obediently stopped. Barney considered Ryan with dangerous quiet. “I don’t believe you.”
“Then you’re the only one in town who doesn’t. They’ve been laughing at you, Barney. One half the town’s been laughing at you. The other half has been praying you’d be taken down a peg or two. They resent you not taking a part in this revolt thing. They resent your success. They resent your money. They resent your being a Jew. They resent your friendship with Kruger, who they hate like poison. Maybe I’m foolish for telling you all this, but it’s high time somebody did. You’re throwing away a fortune, if what you told the boys is true, for men who don’t deserve it.”
“Then I guess I’m going to throw it away,” Barney said without expression, and whipped the horse up again. “Reach behind you for another poster, Johnny. We’ll be at the Primrose shaft in a few minutes.”
The reporter stared at him a moment. Barney returned the stare imperturbably. Johnny Ryan sighed and then, with a shrug of nonunderstanding, reached behind the seat for another notice of closure. One thing he knew, though: whether Barney Barnato was being a damned fool or not, it was going to be one hell of a story.
Paul Kruger had donned his most formal dress; across his barrel chest ran a new and lustrous blue-green silk sash of office, and although he was seated indoors on his favorite chair in the front sitting room of his home, a new tophat graced his large head, quite as if he were presiding over the Volksraad. Barney, shown into the presidential presence, stood almost at attention before the impressive-looking man.
“You sent for me, Mr. President?”
Kruger waited until his aide had withdrawn, closing the door behind him, and then looked at Barney. His hands, bent arthritically around the curved lions’ heads at the end of the chair’s arms, were clenched about the ornate wood tightly; there was the pain of defeat in his old eyes.
“Mr. Barnato, I have asked you here to give you the decision of the Executive Committee of the Volksraad. It is a decision made with mercy. The sentences of those involved in the attempt to overthrow the Transvaal Republic have been commuted. The four ringleaders, upon payment of a proper fine, will be freed and deported, banished for life from the Transvaal. There can be no discussion on this point. The sixty other men involved in the so-called Reform Committee will be freed upon payment of a proper fine, but not deported nor banished from the Transvaal.”
No muscle moved in Barney’s face at this triumph. “Thank you, Mr. President.”
“In return, I expect the notices of closure on your properties will be removed.”
“By nightfall, Mr. President.” He hesitated as Kruger remained silent. “Is there anything else, Mr. President?”
“Yes. One thing.” There was a moment’s silence before Kruger continued. When he did there was a touch of sadness in his voice, but the rigid hardness of steel as well. “You will not be welcome in this house again, Mr. Barnato.”
“I’m sorry to hear it, Mr. President.” It was an unfortunate thing, Barney knew, but he could understand it. He wondered if, under the same circumstances, he could have voiced the same dictum with the same composure. He bent his head a fraction and this time, in deference to the old man sitting there so majestically, while at the same time so helplessly defeated, Barney Barnato slowly backed from the room, his head remaining bent in recognition of having been in the presence of a great man, a man he had been privileged to know as a friend, a man he had bested for others who were, in effect, far more his enemies than the old man sitting so rigidly in the gloom of the rococo room.
“England,” Barney said to Fay with a broad smile, and patted her growing stomach affectionately. “You’ll have Jason, or Michelle, or whoever, there. Would you like that? A proper doctor, with proper nurses, in a proper hospital if you want — everything proper and the best for our second kind. What d’you say?”