The Firm of Girdlestone Chapter 12 - A Corner in Diamonds

Ashton Hoffman (0:00)

Chapter 12 of The Firm of Girdlestone by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Ashton Hoffman. A Corner in Diamonds.

John Girdlestone promulgated his attention with such dignity and emphasis, evidently expected the announcement to come as a surprise upon his son. If so, he was not disappointed, for the young man stared open-eyed. A corner in diamonds, he repeated. How will you do that? You know that a corner, as his father explained, if you buy up all the cotton, say, or sugar in the market, so as to have the whole of it in your hands, and to be able to put your own price on it in selling it again. That is called making a corner in sugar or cotton. I intend to make a corner in diamonds. Of course I know what a corner is, as is said impatiently, but how on earth are you going to buy all the diamonds in? You would want the capital of a Rothschild. Not so much as you think, my boy, for there are not any good amount of diamonds in the market at any one time. The yield of the South African fields regulates the price. I've had this idea in my head for some time, and have studied the details. Of course I should not attempt to buy in all the diamonds that are in the market. A small portion of them would yield profit enough to float the firm off again. But if you have only a part of the supply in your hands, how are you to regulate the market value? You must come down to the price at which other holders are selling. Ha ha, very good, very good, the merchant said, shaking his head good humanely. But you don't quite see my plan yet. You have not altogether grasped it. Allow me to explain it to you. His son lay back upon the sofa with a look of resignation upon his face. Girdlestone continued to stand upon the hearth rug and spoke very slowly and deliberately, as though giving vent to thoughts which had been long and carefully considered.

You see, Ezra, he said, diamonds being a commodity of great value, of which there is never very much in the market at one time, or extremely sensitive to all sorts of influences, the value of them varies greatly from time to time.

A very little thing serves to depreciate the price, and an equally small thing will stand it up again.

Ezra Girdlestone grunted to show that he followed his father's remarks. I did some business in diamonds myself when I was a younger man, and so I had the opportunity to observe the fluctuations in the market.

Now there is one thing which invariably depreciates the price of diamonds. That is the rumor of fresh discoveries of mines in other parts of the world. The instance such as things gets when the value of the stones goes down wonderfully. The discovery of diamonds in Central India not long ago had that effect very markedly, and they have never recovered their value since. Do you follow me? An expression of interest had come over Ezra's face. He nodded to show that he was listening. Now, supposing, continues the senior partner with a smile on his thin lips, that such a report got about supposed to that was where at this time, when the market was in a depressed condition, to invest a considerable capital on them. If these rumors of any alleged discovery turn out to be entirely unfounded, of course, the value of stones, which we held would go up once more, and we might very well sell out for double or triple the sum that we invested. Don't you see this is a sequence of events?

There seems to me to be rather too much of this supposed in it, remarked Ezra. How do we know that such rumors will get about, and if they do, how do we know that they will prove to be unfounded?

How are we to know? The merchant cried, wiggling his long-lying body with amusement. Why, my lad, if we spread the rumors ourselves, we shall have pretty good reason to believe that they are unfounded. Ezra, you think there are some brains in the old man yet? Ezra looked at his father considerably surprised and some admiration. Why, damn it, he exclaimed, it's dishonest. I am not sure that it's not actionable. It's honest, pooh, the merchant snapped his fingers. It's finesse, my boy, commercial finesse. Who's to trace it? I should like to know. I haven't worked out all the details. I want your cooperation over that. But here's a rough sketch of my plan. We send a man we can depend upon to some distant part of the world, Chimborazu, for example, or the Yule Mountains. It doesn't matter where as long as it is out of the way. On arriving at this place or agent, they sort of report that he has discovered a diamond mine. We should even go to the length if he considers it necessary of hiding a few rough stones in the earth, which he can dig up to give color to his story.