Page 30 of Skin and Other Stories

'Great Scott!' Robert Sandy cried, jumping up. The little jeweller's words seemed to have lifted him clean out of his seat. He stood there, stunned.

'And now,' Harry Gold was saying, 'we must find out precisely how many carats it weighs.' He crossed over to a shelf on which there stood a small metal apparatus. 'This is simply an electronic scale,' he said. He slid back a glass door and placed the diamond inside. He twiddled a couple of knobs, then he read off the figures on a dial. 'It weighs fifteen point two seven carats,' he said. 'And that, in case it interests you, makes it worth about half a million dollars in the trade and over one million dollars if you bought it in a shop.'

'You are making me nervous,' Robert Sandy said, laughing nervously.

'If I owned it,' Harry Gold said, 'it would make me nervous. Sit down again, Mr Sandy, so you don't faint.'

Robert Sandy sat down.

Harry Gold took his time settling himself into his chair behind the big partner's desk. 'This is quite an occasion, Mr Sandy,' he said. 'I don't often have the pleasure of giving someone quite such a startlingly wonderful shock as this. I think I'm enjoying it more than you are.'

'I am too shocked to be really enjoying it yet,' Robert Sandy said. 'Give me a moment or two to recover.'

'Mind you,' Harry Gold said, 'one wouldn't expect much less from the King of the Saudis. Did you save the young prince's life?'

'I suppose I did, yes.'

'Then that explains it.' Harry Gold had put the diamond back on to the fold of white paper on his desk, and he sat there looking at it with the eyes of a man who loved what he saw. 'My guess is that this stone came from the treasure-chest of old King Ibn Saud of Arabia. If that is the case, then it will be totally unknown in the trade, which makes it even more desirable. Are you going to sell it?'

'Oh gosh, I don't know what I am going to do with it,' Robert Sandy said. 'It's all so sudden and confusing.'

'May I give you some advice?'

'Please do.'

'If you are going to sell it, you should take it to auction. An unseen stone like this would attract a lot of interest, and the wealthy private buyers would be sure to come in and bid against the trade. And if you were able to reveal its provenance as well, telling them that it came directly from the Saudi Royal Family, then the price would go through the roof.'

'You have been more than kind to me,' Rob

ert Sandy said. 'When I do decide to sell it, I shall come first of all to you for advice. But tell me, does a diamond really cost twice as much in the shops as it does in the trade?'

'I shouldn't be telling you this,' Harry Gold said, 'but I'm afraid it does.'

'So if you buy one in Bond Street or anywhere else like that, you are actually paying twice its intrinsic worth?'

'That's more or less right. A lot of young ladies have received nasty shocks when they've tried to re-sell jewellery that has been given to them by gentlemen.'

'So diamonds are not a girl's best friend?'

'They are still very friendly things to have,' Harry Gold said, 'as you have just found out. But they are not generally a good investment for the amateur.'

Outside in The High, Robert Sandy mounted his bicycle and headed for home. He was feeling totally light-headed. It was as though he had just finished a whole bottle of good wine all by himself. Here he was, solid old Robert Sandy, sedate and sensible cycling through the streets of Oxford with more than half a million dollars in the pocket of his old tweed jacket! It was madness. But it was true.

He arrived back at his house in Acacia Road at about half past four and parked his bike in the garage alongside the car. Suddenly he found himself running along the little concrete path that led to the front door. 'Now stop that!' he said aloud, pulling up short. 'Calm down. You've got to make this really good for Betty. Unfold it slowly.' But oh, he simply could not wait to give the news to his lovely wife and watch her face as he told her the whole story of his afternoon. He found her in the kitchen packing some jars of home-made jam into a basket.

'Robert!' she cried, delighted as always to see him. 'You're home early! How nice!'

He kissed her and said, 'I am a bit early, aren't I?'

'You haven't forgotten we're going to the Renshaws for the weekend? We have to leave fairly soon.'

'I had forgotten,' he said. 'Or maybe I hadn't. Perhaps that's why I'm home early.'

'I thought I'd take Margaret some jam.'

'Good,' he said. 'Very good. You take her some jam. That's a very good idea to take Margaret some jam.'

There was something in the way he was acting that made her swing round and stare at him. 'Robert,' she said, 'what's happened? There's something the matter.'

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