Shock Wave(66)

"A tidy sum for college tuition for those days," Pitt said consideringly. "The kids must have had a ball."

Perlmutter shook his head. "You're wrong this time. They lived frugally at Cambridge. Mary attended a proper girl's school outside of London. She and Charles married soon after he took his degree, and they returned to the island, where they directed the mining operations in the dormant volcanoes. Jess Junior remained in England and opened the House of Dorsett in partnership with a Jewish diamond merchant from Aberdeen by the name of Levi Strouser. The London end of the business, which dealt in the cutting and sale of diamonds, had luxurious showrooms for retail sales, elegant offices on the upper floors for larger wholesale trading and a vast workshop in the basement, where the stones from Gladiator Island were cut and polished. The dynasty prospered, helped in no small measure by the fact that the diamonds that came out of the island pipes were a very rare violet-rose color and of the highest quality."

"The mines have never played out?"

"Not yet. The Dorsetts have been very shrewd in holding back much of their production in cooperation with the cartel to hold up the price."

"What about offspring?" asked Pitt.

"Charles and Mary had one boy, Anson. Jess Junior never married."



"Anson was Arthur's grandfather?" Pitt asked.

"Yes, he ran the company for over forty years. He was probably the most decent and honest of the lot. Anson was satisfied to run and maintain a profitable little empire. Never driven by greed like his descendants, he gave a great deal of money to charity. Any number of libraries and hospitals throughout Australia and New Zealand were founded by him. When lie died in 1910, he left the company to a son, Henry, and a daughter, Mildred. She died young in a boating accident. She fell overboard during a cruise on the family yacht and was taken by sharks. Rumors circulated that she was murdered by Henry, but no investigations were made. Henry's money made sure of that. Under Henry, the family launched a reign of greed, jealousy, cruelty and ravenous power that continues to this day."

"I recall reading an article about him in the Los Angeles Times," said Pitt. "They compared Sir Henry Dorsett to Sir Ernest Oppenheimer of De Beers."

"Neither was exactly what you'd call a saint. Oppenheimer climbed over a multitude of obstacles to build an empire that reaches out to every continent and has diversified holdings in automobiles, paper and explosives manufacture, breweries, as well as the mining of gold, uranium, platinum and copper. De Beers' main strength, however, still lies with diamonds and the cartel that regulates the market from London to New York to Tokyo. Dorsett Consolidated Mining, on the other hand, remained totally committed to diamonds. And except for holdings in a number of colored gemstone mines-rubies in Burma, emeralds in Colombia, sapphires from Ceylon -the family never really diversified into other investments. All profits were plowed back into the corporation."

"Where did the name De Beers come from?"

"De Beers was the South African farmer who unknowing sold his diamond-laden land for a few thousand dollars to Cecil Rhodes, who excavated a fortune and launched the cartel."

"Did Henry Dorsett join Oppenheimer and the De Beers cartel?" asked Pitt.

"Although he participated in market price controls, Henry became the only large mine owner to sell independently. While eighty-five percent of the world's production went through the De Beers-controlled Central Selling Organization to brokers and dealers, Dorsett bypassed the main diamond exchanges in London, Antwerp, Tel Aviv and New York so he could market a limited production of fine stones direct to the public through the House of Dorsett, which now numbers almost five hundred stores."

"De Beers did not fight him?"

Perlmutter shook his head. "Oppenheimer formed the cartel to ensure a stable market and high prices for diamonds. Sir Ernest did not see Dorsett as a threat so long as the Australian didn't attempt to dump his supply of stones on the market."

"Dorsett must have an army of craftsmen to support such an operation."

"Over a thousand employees in three diamond-cutting facilities, two cleaving workshops and two polishing departments. They also have an entire thirty-story building in Sydney, Australia, that houses a host of artisans who create the House of Dorsett's distinctive and creative jewelry. While most of the other brokers hire Jews to cut and facet their stones, Dorsett hires mostly Chinese."

"Henry Dorsett died sometime in the late seventies, didn't he?"



Perlmutter smiled. "History repeated itself. At the age of sixty-eight, he fell off his yacht while in Monaco and drowned. It was whispered that Arthur got him drunk and shoved him into the bay."