The Fourth Estate by Jeffrey Archer Read Free Book Online

with the head of the Czar. He studied it for some time.
Lubji realized that he had no real interest in the coin: this was simply a ploy
he had seen him carry out many times before asking the price of the object he
really wanted. “Never let them work out what you’re after,” he must have told
the boy a hundred times.
    Lubji waited
patiently for the old man to turn his attention to the center of the box.
    “And how much do
you expect to get for this?” the jeweler asked finally, picking up the gold
ring.
    “What are you
offering?” inquired the boy, playing him at his own game.
    “One hundred
korunas,” replied the old man.
    Lubji wasn’t
quite sure how to react, as no one had ever offered him more than ten korunas
for anything before. Then he remembered his mentor’s maxim: “Ask for triple and
settle for double.” He stared up at his tutor.
    ‘Three hundred
korunas.”
    The jeweler bent
down and placed the ring back on the center of the box ...
    “Two hundred is
my best offer,” he replied firmly.
    ‘Two hundred and
fifty,” said Lubji hopefully.
    Mr. Lekski
didn’t speak for some time, continuing to stare at the ring.
    “Two hundred and
twenty-five,” he eventually said. “But only if you throw in the old coin as
well.”
    Lubji nodded
immediately, trying to mask his delight at the outcome of the transaction.
    Mr. Lekski
extracted a purse from the inside pocket of his coat, handed over two hundred
and twenty-five korunas and pocketed the ancient coin and the heavy gold ring.
Lubji looked up at the old man and wondered if he had anything left to teach
him.
    Lubji was unable
to strike another bargain that afternoon, so he packed up his cardboard box
early and headed into the center of the town, satisfied with his day’s work.
When he reached Schull Street he purchased a brand-new bucket for twelve
korunas, a chicken for five and a loaf of fresh bread from the bakery for one.
    The young trader
began to whistle as he walked down the main street. When he passed Mr. Lekski’s
shop he glanced at the window to check that the beautiful brooch he intended to
purchase for his mother before Rosh Hashanah was still on sale.
    Lubji dropped
his new bucket on the ground in disbelief. His eyes opened wider and wider. The
brooch had been replaced by an old coin, with a label stating that it bore the
head of Czar Nicholas I and was dated 1829. He checked the price printed on the
card below.
    “One thousand
five hundred korunas.”

CHAPTER FOUR
    MELBOURNE
COURIER
    25 OCTOBER 1929
    W all Street
Crisis:
    Stock Market
Collapses THERE ARE MANY advantages and some disadvantages in being born a
second-generation Australian. It was not long before Keith Townsend discovered
some of the disadvantages.
    Keith was born
at 2:37 P.M. on 9 February 1928 in a large colonial mansion in Toorak. His
mother’s first telephone call from her bed was to the headmaster of St.
Andrew’s Grammar School to register her first-born son for entry in 1941. His
father’s, from his office, was to the secretary of the Melbourne Cricket Club
to put his name down for membership, as there was a fifteen-year waiting list.
    Keith’s father,
Sir Graham Townsend, was originally from Dundee in Scotland, but at the turn of
the century he and his parents had arrived in Australia on a cattle so boat,
Despite Sir Graham’s position as the proprietor of the Melbourne Courier and
the Adelaide Gazette, crowned by a knighthood the previous year, Melbourne
society-some members of which had been around for nearly a century, and never
tired of reminding you that they were not the descendants of convicts-either
ignored him or simply referred to him in the third person.
    Sir Graham
didn’t give a damn for their opinions, or if he did, he certainly never showed
it. The people he liked to mix with worked on newspapers, and the ones he
numbered among his friends also tended to spend at least one afternoon a week
at the racecourse. Horses or greyhounds, it made no