"I don't know their exact number," was the reply. "Their value, I should say, was about sixty thousand dollars. Except for this little house, and the grounds adjoining, practically all of Mr. Kellner's money was invested in diamonds. Those you have there are part of an accumulation of many years, imported in the rough, one or two at a time."
Mr. Czenki was gazing abstractedly out of a window, but the expression on his lean face indicated the keenest interest, and—and something else; apprehension, maybe. The chief stared straight into the young man's eyes for an instant, and then:
"And Mr. Kellner's family?" he inquired.
"There is no one, except his granddaughter, Doris."
Some change, sudden as it was pronounced, came over the chief, and his whole attitude altered. He dropped into a chair near the door.
"Have a seat, Mr. Wynne," he invited courteously, "and let's understand this thing clearly. Over there, please," and he indicated a chair partly facing that in which Mr. Czenki sat.
Mr. Wynne sat down.
"Now you don't seem to believe," the chief went on pleasantly, "that
Czenki here killed Mr. Kellner?"
"Well, no," the young man admitted.
Mr. Czenki glanced at him quickly, warningly. The chief was not looking, but he knew the glance had passed.
"And why don't you believe it?" he continued.
"In the first place," Mr. Wynne began without hesitation, "the diamonds were worth only about sixty thousand dollars, and Mr. Czenki here draws a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars a year. The proportion is wrong, you see. Again, Mr. Czenki is a man of unquestioned integrity. As diamond expert of the Henry Latham Company he handles millions of dollars' worth of precious stones each year, and has practically unlimited opportunities for theft, without murder, if he were seeking to steal. He has been with that company for several years, and that fact alone is certainly to his credit."
"Very good," commented the chief ambiguously. He paused an instant to study this little man with an interest aroused by the sum of his salary. "And what of Haney's description? His accusation?" he asked.
"Haney might have lied, you know," retorted Mr. Wynne. "Men in his position have been known to lie."
"I understood you to say," the chief resumed, heedless of the note of irony in the other's voice, "that you and Miss Kellner are to be married?"
"Yes."
"And that she is the only heir of her grandfather?"
"Yes."
"Therefore, at his death, the diamonds would become her property?"
For one instant Mr. Wynne seemed startled, and turned his clear eyes full upon his interrogator, seeking the hidden meaning.
"Yes, but—" he began slowly.
"That's true, isn't it?" demanded the chief, with quick violence.
"Yes, that's true," Mr. Wynne admitted calmly.
"Therefore, indirectly, it would have been to your advantage if Mr.
Kellner had died or had been killed?"
"In that the diamonds would have come to my intended wife, yes," was the reply.
Mr. Czenki clasped and unclasped his thin hands nervously. His face was again expressionless, and the beady eyes were fastened immovably on Chief Arkwright's. Mr. Birnes was frankly amazed at this unexpected turn of the affair. Suddenly Chief Arkwright brought his hand down on the arm of his chair with a bang.
"Suppose, for the moment, that Red Haney lied, and that Mr. Czenki is not the murderer, then—As a matter of fact your salary isn't twenty-five thousand a year, is it?"
He was on his feet now, with blazing eyes, and one hand was thrust accusingly into Mr. Wynne's face. It was simulation; Mr. Birnes understood it; a police method of exhausting possibilities. There was not the slightest movement by Mr. Wynne to indicate uneasiness at the charge, not a tremor in his voice when he spoke again.
"I understand perfectly, Chief," he remarked coldly. "Just what was the time of the crime, may I ask?"
"Answer my question," insisted the Chief thunderously.
"Now look here, Chief," Mr. Wynne went on frigidly, "I am not a child to be frightened into making any absurd statements. I do not draw a salary of twenty-five thousand a year, no. I am in business for myself, and make more than that. You may satisfy yourself by examining the books in my office if you like. By intimation, at least, you are accusing me of murder. Now answer me a question, please. What was the time of the crime?"
CHAPTER XV
THE TRUTH IN PART
The chief dropped back into his chair with the utmost complacency.
This was not the kind of man with whom mere bluster counted.
"Haney says Saturday morning," he answered. "The coroner's physician agrees with that."
"Yesterday morning," Mr. Wynne mused; then, after a moment: "I think, Chief, you know Mr. Birnes here? And that you would accept a statement of his as correct?"
"Yes," the chief agreed with a glance at Mr. Birnes.
"Mr. Birnes, where was I all day Saturday?" Mr. Wynne queried, without so much as looking around at him.
"You were in your house from eleven o'clock Friday night until fifteen minutes of nine o'clock Saturday morning," was the response. "You left there at that time, and took the surface car at Thirty-fourth Street to your office. You left your office at five minutes of one, took luncheon alone at the Savarin, and returned to your office at two o'clock. You remained there until five, or a few minutes past, then returned home. At eight you—"
"Is that sufficient?" interrupted Mr. Wynne. "Does that constitute an alibi?"
"Yes," he admitted; "but how do you know all this, Birnes?"
"Mr. Birnes and the men of his agency have favored me with the most persistent attentions during the last few days," Mr. Wynne continued promptly. "He has had two men constantly on watch at my office, day and night, and two others constantly on watch at my home, day and night. There are two there now—one in a rear room of the basement, and another in the pantry, with the doors locked on the outside. Their names are Claflin and Sutton!"
So, that was it! It came home to Mr. Birnes suddenly. Claflin and Sutton had been tricked into the house on some pretext, and locked in! Confound their stupidity!
"Why are they locked up?" demanded the chief, with kindling interest.
"Why have you been watched?"
"I think, perhaps, Mr. Birnes will agree with me when I say that that has nothing whatever to do with this crime," replied Mr. Wynne easily.
"That's for me to decide," declared the chief bluntly.
There was a long pause. Mr. Czenki was leaning forward in his chair, gripping the arms fiercely, with his lips pressed into a thin line. It was only by a supreme effort that he held himself in control; and the lean, scarred face was working strangely.
"Well, if you insist on knowing," observed Mr. Wynne slowly, "I suppose I'll have to tell all of it. In the first place—"
"Don't!" It came finally, the one word, from Mr. Czenki's half-closed lips, a smothered explosion which drew every eye upon him.
Mr. Wynne turned slightly in his chair and regarded the diamond expert with an expression of astonishment on his face. The beady black eyes were all aglitter with the effort of repression, and some intangible message flashed in them.
"In the first place," resumed Mr. Wynne, as if there had been no interruption, "Mr. Kellner here—"
"Don't!" the expert burst out again desperately. "Don't! It means ruin—absolute ruin!"
"Mr. Kellner had those diamonds—about sixty thousand dollars' worth of them," Mr. Wynne continued distinctly. "Mr. Kellner decided to sell some diamonds. One of the quickest and most satisfactory methods of selling rough gems, such as those you have in your hand, Chief, is to offer them directly to the men who deal in them. I went to Mr. Henry Latham, and other jewelers of New York, on behalf of Mr. Kellner, and offered them a quantity of diamonds. It may be that they regarded the quantity I offered as unusual; that I don't know, but I would venture the conjecture that they did."
He paused a moment. Mr. Czenki's face, again growing expressionless, was turned toward the light of the window; Chief Arkwright was studying it shrewdly.
"Diamond merchants, of course, have to be careful," the young man went on smoothly. "They can't afford to buy whatever is offered by people whom they don't know. They had reason, too, to believe that I was not acting for myself alone. What was more natural, therefore, than that they should have called in Mr. Birnes, and the men of his agency, to find out about me, and, if possible, to find out whom I represented, so they might locate the supply? I wouldn't tell them, because it was not desirable that they should deal directly with Mr. Kellner, who was old and childish, and lacking, perhaps, in appreciation of the real value of diamonds.
"The result of all this was that the diamond dealers placed me under strict surveillance. My house was watched; my office was watched. My mail going and coming, was subjected to scrutiny; my telephone calls were traced; telegrams opened and read. I had anticipated all this, of course, and was in communication with Mr. Kellner here only by carrier-pigeons." He glanced meaningly at Mr. Birnes, who was utterly absorbed in the recital. "Those carrier-pigeons were not exchanged by express, because the records would have furnished a clew to Mr. Birnes' men; I personally took them back and forth in a suitcase before I approached Mr. Latham with the original proposition."
He was giving categorical answers to a few of the multitude of questions to which Mr. Birnes had been seeking answers. The tense expression about Mr. Czenki's eyes was dissipated, and he sighed a little.
"I saw the Red Haney affair in the newspapers this morning, as you will know," he continued after a moment. "It was desirable that I should come here with Miss Kellner, but it was not desirable, even under those circumstances, that I should permit myself to be followed. That's how it happens that Mr. Claflin and Mr. Sutton are now locked up in my house." Again there was a pause. "Mr. Birnes, I know, will be glad to confirm my statement of the case in so far as his instructions from Mr. Latham and the other gentlemen interested bear on it?"
Chief Arkwright glanced at the detective inquiringly.
"That's right," Mr. Birnes admitted with an uncertain nod—"that is, so far as my instructions go. I understood, though, that the diamonds were worth more than sixty thousand dollars; in fact, that there might have been a million dollars' worth of them."
"A million dollars!" repeated Chief Arkwright in amazement. "A million dollars!" he repeated. He turned fiercely upon Mr. Wynne. "What about that?" he demanded.
"I'm sure I don't know what Mr. Birnes understood," replied the young man, with marked emphasis. "But it's preposterous on the face of it, isn't it? Would a man with a million dollars' worth of diamonds live in a hovel like this?"
The chief considered the matter reflectively for a minute or more, the while his keen eyes alternately searched the faces of Mr. Wynne and Mr. Czenki.
"It would depend on the man, of course," he said at last. And then some new idea was born within him. "Your direct connection with the crime seems to be disproved, Mr. Wynne," he remarked slowly; "and if we admit his innocence," he jerked a thumb at the expert, "there remains yet another view-point. Do you see it?"
The young man turned upon him quickly.
"Does it occur to you that every argument I advanced to furnish you with a motive for the crime might be applied with equal weight against—against Miss Kellner?"
"Doris!" flamed Mr. Wynne. For the first time his perfect self-possession deserted him, and he came to his feet with gripping hands. "Why—why—! What are you talking about?"
"Sit down," advised the chief quietly.
Mr. Czenki glanced at them once uneasily, then resumed his fixed stare out of the window.
"Sit down," said the chief again.
Mr. Wynne glared at him for an instant, then dropped back into his chair. His hands were clenched desperately, and a slight flush in his clean-cut face showed the fight he was making to restrain himself.
"All the property this old man owned, including the diamonds, would become her property in the event of his death—or murder," the chief added mercilessly. "That's true, isn't it?"
"But when she entered this room her every act testified to her innocence," Mr. Wynne burst out passionately.
The chief shrugged his shoulders.
"She has been living at a little hotel in Irving Place," the young man rushed on. "The people there can satisfy you as to her whereabouts on Saturday?"
Again the chief shrugged his shoulders.
"And remember, please, that the best answer to all that is that Haney had the diamonds!"
"It doesn't necessarily follow, Mr. Wynne," said the other steadily, "that she committed the crime with her own hands. It comes down simply to this: If there were only sixty thousand dollars' worth of diamonds then the one motive which Czenki might have had is eliminated; because Haney had practically fifty thousand dollars' worth of them, and here are some others. There would have been no share for your expert here. And again, if there were only sixty thousand dollars' worth of the diamonds you or Miss Kellner would have been the only persons to benefit by this death."
"But Haney had those!" protested Mr. Wynne.
"Just what I'm saying," agreed the other complacently. "Therefore there were more than sixty thousand dollars' worth. However we look at it, whoever may have been Haney's accomplice, that point seems settled."
"Or else Haney lied," declared Mr. Wynne flatly. "If Haney came here alone, killed this old man and stole the diamonds there would be none of these questions, would there?"
Mr. Birnes, who had listened silently, arose suddenly and left the room. Mr. Wynne's last suggestion awakened a new train of thought in the police official's mind, and he considered it silently for a moment. Finally he shook his head.
"The fact remains," he said, as if reassuring himself, "that Haney described an accomplice, that that description fits Czenki perfectly, that Czenki has refused to defend himself or even make a denial; that he has drawn suspicion upon himself by everything he has done and said since he has been here, even by the strange manner of his appearance at this house. Therefore, there were more diamonds, and he got his share of them."
"Hello!" came in Mr. Birnes' voice from the hall. "Give me 21845
River, New York. . . . Yes. . . . Is Mr. Latham there? . . . Yes,
Henry Latham . . . ."
Again Mr. Wynne's self-possession forsook him, and he came to his feet, evidently with the intention of interrupting that conversation. He started forward, with gritting teeth, and simultaneously Chief Arkwright, Detective-Sergeant Connelly and Mr. Czenki laid restraining hands upon him. Something in the expert's grip on his wrist caused him to stop and cease a futile struggle; then came a singular expression of resignation about the mouth and he sat down again.
"Hello! This Mr. Latham! . . . . This is Detective Birnes. . . . I've been able to locate some diamonds, but it's necessary to know something of the quantity of those you mentioned. You remember Mr. Schultze said something about . . . . Yes. . . . Yes. . . . Oh, there were? . . Unexpected developments, yes. . . . I'll call and see you to-night about eight. . . . Yes. . . . Good-by!"
Mr. Birnes reentered the room, his face aglow with triumph. Mr. Wynne glanced almost hopelessly at Mr. Czenki, then turned again to the detective.
"I should say there were more than sixty thousand dollars' worth of them," Mr. Birnes blurted. "There were at least a million dollars' worth. Mr. Schultze intimated as much to me; now Mr. Latham confirms it."
Chief Arkwright turned and glared scowlingly upon the diamond expert. The beady black eyes were alight with some emotion which he failed to read.
"Where are they, Czenki?" demanded the chief harshly.
"I have nothing to say," replied Mr. Czenki softly.
"So your disappearance Friday night, and your absence all day yesterday did have to do with this old man's death?" said the chief, directly accusing him.
"I have nothing to say," murmured Mr. Czenki.
"That settles it, gentlemen," declared the chief with an air of finality. "Czenki, I charge you with the murder of Mr. Kellner here. Anything you may say will be used against you. Come along, now; don't make any trouble."
CHAPTER XVI
MR. CZENKI EXPLAINS
Fairly drunk with excitement, his lean face, usually expressionless, now flushed and working strangely, and his beady black eyes aglitter, Mr. Czenki reeled into the study where Mr. Latham and Mr. Schultze sat awaiting Mr. Birnes. He raised one hand, enjoining silence, closed the door, locked it and placed the key in his pocket, after which he turned upon Mr. Latham.
"He makes them, man! He makes them!" he burst out between gritting teeth. "Don't you understand? He makes them!"
Mr. Latham, astonished and a little startled, came to his feet; the phlegmatic German sat still, staring at the expert without comprehension. Mr. Czenki's thin fist was clenched under his employer's nose, and the jeweler drew back a little, vaguely alarmed.
"I don't understand what—" he began.
"The diamonds!" Mr. Czenki interrupted, and the long pent-up excitement within him burst into a flame of impatience. "The diamonds! He makes them! Don't you see? Diamonds! He manufactures them!"
"Gott in Himmel!" exclaimed Mr. Schultze, and it was anything but an irreverent ejaculation. He arose. "Der miracle has come to pass! Ve might haf known! Ve might haf known!"
"Millions and millions of dollars' worth of them, even billions, for all we know," the expert rushed on in incoherent violence. "A sum greater than all the combined wealth of the world in the hands of one man! Think of it!" Mr. Latham only gazed at him blankly, and he turned instinctively to the one who understood—Mr. Schultze. "Think of the mind that achieved it, man!"
He collapsed into a chair and sat looking at the floor, his fingers writhing within one another, muttering to himself. Mr. Latham was a cold, sane, unimaginative man of business. As yet the full import of it all hadn't reached him. He stared dumbly, first at Mr. Czenki, then at Mr. Schultze. There was not even incredulity in the look, only faint amazement that two such well-balanced men should have gone mad at once. At last the German importer turned upon him flatly.
"Why don'd you ged egzited aboud id, Laadham?" he demanded. "He iss all righd, nod crazy," he added with whimsical assurance. "He iss delling you dat dose diamonds are made—made like doughnuds, mitoud der hole; manufactured, pud togedher. Don'd you ged id?"
He ran off into guttural German expletives; and slowly, slowly the idea began to dawn upon Mr. Latham. The diamonds Mr. Wynne had shown were not real, then; they were artificial! It was some sort of a swindle! Of course! But the experts had agreed that they were diamonds—real diamonds! Perhaps they had been deceived, or—by George! Did these two men mean to say that they were real diamonds, but that they were manufactured? Mr. Latham's tidy little imagination balked at that. Absurd! Whoever heard of a diamond as big as the Koh-i-noor, or the Regent, or the Orloff being made? They were crazy—the pair of them!
"Do I understand," he demanded in a tone of deliberate annoyance, "that you, Czenki, and you, Schultze, expect me to believe that those diamonds we saw were not natural, but were real diamonds turned out by machinery in a—in a diamond factory? Is that what you are driving at?
"Das iss!" declared the German bluntly. "Id vas coming in dime, Laadham, id vas coming, of course Und I haf always noticed dat whatever iss coming does come."
"Made, made—made as you make marbles," Mr. Czenki repeated monotonously. "Yes, it had to come, but—but imagine the insuperable difficulties that one brain had to surmount!" He passed a thin hand across his flushed brow, and was thoughtfully silent.
"I don't believe it," asserted Mr. Latham tartly. "It's impossible!
I don't believe it!" And sat down.
"Id don'd madder much whedher you belief id or nod," remarked the German in a tone of resignation. "If id iss, id iss. Und all dose diamonds in your place und mine are nod worth much more by der bushel as potatoes."
Mr. Latham turned away from him, half angrily, and glared at the expert, who was still regarding the floor.
"What do you know about this, anyway, Czenki?" he demanded. "How do you know he makes them? Have you seen him make them?"
Thus directly addressed Mr. Czenki looked up, and the living flame of wonder within his eyes flickered and died. In silence, for a minute or more, he studied the unconcealed skepticism in his employer's face, and then asked slowly:
"Do you know what diamonds are, Mr. Latham?"
"There is some theory that they are pure carbon, crystallized."
"They are that," declared the expert impatiently. "You know that diamonds have been made?"
"Oh, I've read something about it, yes; but what I—"
"Every school-boy knows how to make a diamond, Mr. Latham. If pure carbon is heated to approximately five thousand degrees Fahrenheit, and simultaneously subjected to a pressure of approximately six thousand tons to the square inch, it becomes a diamond. And there's no theory about that—that's a fact! The difficulty has always been to apply the knowledge we have in a commercially practicable way—in other words, to isolate a carbon that is absolutely pure, and invent a method of applying the heat and pressure simultaneously. It has been done, Mr. Latham; it has been done! Don't you understand what it means to—"
With an effort he repressed the returning excitement which found vent in a rising voice and quick, nervous gestures of the hands. After a moment he went on:
"Half a score of scientists have made diamonds, minute particles no larger than the point of a pin. Professor Henri Moissan, of Paris, went further, and by use of an electric furnace produced diamonds as large as a pinhead. You may remember that when I first met Mr. Wynne he inquired if I had not done some special work for Professor Moissan. I had; I tested the diamonds he made—and they were diamonds! I dare say the suggestion Mr. Wynne conveyed to me by that question—that is, the suggestion of manufactured diamonds—had been carefully planned, for he is a wonderful young man, Mr. Wynne— a wonderful young man." He paused a moment. "We know that he has millions and millions of dollars' worth of them—we know because we saw them—and who can tell how many billions more there are? The one man holds in his hand the power to overturn the money values of the earth!"
"But how do you know he makes them?" demanded Mr. Latham, returning to the main question.
"He suggested it by his question," Mr. Czenki went on. "That suggestion lingered in my mind. When the detective, Mr. Birnes, reported that Mr. Wynne was an importer of brown sugar I was on the point of advancing a theory that the diamonds were manufactured, because of all known substances burnt brown sugar is richest in carbon. But you, Mr. Latham, had discredited a previous suggestion of mine, and I—I—well, I didn't suggest it. Instead, that night I personally began an investigation to see what disposition was made of the sugar. I found that the ships discharged their cargoes in Hoboken, that the sugar was there loaded on barges, and those barges hauled up a small stream to the little town of Coaldale, all consigned to a Mr. Hugo Kellner.
"It took Friday, all day Saturday, and a great part of to-day to learn all this. This afternoon I went to see Mr. Kellner. I found him murdered." He stated it merely as an inconvenient incident. "In the room with the body were Mr. Birnes, Chief Arkwright of the New York police, and another New York detective. I had glanced at the story of Red Haney and the diamonds in the morning papers, and from what I knew, and from Mr. Birnes' presence, I surmised something of the truth. I was instantly placed under arrest for murder—the murder of this man I had never seen—the real diamond master, the man who achieved it all."
He was silent for a moment, as if from infinite weariness.
" . . . Mr. Wynne came, and a Miss Kellner, granddaughter of the dead man. . . . He saw me, and understood . . . between us we contrived that I should be taken away as the murderer, and so prevent an immediate search of the house. . . . I made no denial. . . . I permitted myself to be taken . . . some mistake as to identity. . . . I proved an alibi by the shipping men in Hoboken . . . the diamonds are there, untold millions of dollars' worth of them . . . the diamond master is dead!"
Mr. Latham had been listening, as if dazed, to the hurried, somewhat disconnected, narrative; Mr. Schultze, keener to comprehend all that the story meant, was silent for a moment.
"Den if all dose men know all he has told us, Laadham," he remarked finally, "our diamonds are nod worth any more as potatoes alretty."
"But they don't know," Mr. Czenki burst out fiercely. "Don't you understand? Haney, or somebody, killed Mr. Kellner and stole some uncut diamonds—you must have seen the newspaper account of it to-day. The New York police traced Haney's course to Coaldale and to that house. But all they know is that sixty thousand dollars' worth of uncut stones were stolen. There was not even a suggestion to them of the millions and millions of dollars' worth that were manufactured. Don't you understand? I permitted myself to be accused and arrested, knowing I could establish an alibi, in order to lead them away from there and gain time, at least, to give Mr. Wynne an opportunity of hiding the other diamonds, if they were there. He understood what I was trying to do, and fell in with the plan. He knew that I knew the diamonds were made. Mr. Birnes doesn't know; no one knows but you and me and Mr. Wynne, and perhaps the girl! But, don't you see, if you don't accept the proposition he made the diamond market of the world is ruined? You are ruined!"
"But how do you know they are made?" insisted Mr. Latham doggedly.
"You've never seen them made, have you?"
"Mein Gott, Laadham, how do you know when you haf der boil on der pack of your neck? You can'd zee him, ain'd id?" Mr. Schultze turned to Mr. Czenki. "Der dhree of us vill go und zee Mr. Wynne. Id iss der miracle! Vass iss, iss, und id don'd do any good to say id ain'd."
CHAPTER XVII
THE GREAT CUBE
A cube of solid, polished steel, some twenty feet square, set on a spreading base of concrete, and divided perpendicularly down the middle into Titanic halves, these being snugly fitted one to the other by a series of triangular corrugations, a variation of the familiar tongue and groove. Interlacing the ponderous mass, from corner to corner, were huge steel bolts, and the hulking heads of more bolts, some forty on each of the four sides, showed that the whole might be split into halves at will, and readily made whole again, one enormous side sliding back and forth on a short track.
In the two undivided faces of the cube, relatively squaring the center, were four borings somewhat smaller in diameter than an ordinary pencil, and extending through; and directly in the center was focused a network of insulated wires which dropped down out of the gloom overhead. In the other two sides of the great cube, just where the dividing lines of the halves came, were the funnel-like mouths of a two-inch boring. This, too, extended straight through.
Directly opposite each of the two mouths, a dozen feet away, was mounted a peculiarly-constructed heavy gun of the naval type. In a general sort of way these were not unlike twelve-inch ordnance, but the breech was much larger in proportion, the barrel longer, and the bore only two instead of twelve inches. The mountings were high, and the adjustment so delicate that, looking into the open breech of one gun, the bore through the twenty-foot cube and through the barrel of the gun on the other side seemed to be continuous.
"This is the diamond-making machine, gentlemen," said Mr. Wynne, and he indicated to Mr. Latham, Mr. Schultze and Mr. Czenki the cube and the two guns. "It is perfectly simple in construction, has enormous powers of resistance, as you may guess, and is as delicately fitted as a watch, being regulated by electric power. This cube is the solution of the high-pressure, high-temperature problem, which was only one of the many seemingly insuperable obstacles to be overcome. When the bolts are withdrawn one half slides back; when the bolts are in position it is as solid as if it were in one piece, and perfectly able to withstand a force greater than the ingenuity of man has ever before been able to contrive. This force is a combination of a heat one-half that of the sun on its surface, and a head-on impact of two one-hundred-pound projectiles fired less than forty feet apart with an enormous charge of cordite, and possessing an initial velocity greater than was ever recorded in gunnery.
"This vast force centers in a sort of furnace in the middle of the cube. The furnace is round, about three feet long and three feet in diameter, built of half a dozen fire-resisting substances in layers, perforated for electric wires, with an opening through it lengthwise of the exact size of the borings in the guns and in the cube. It fits snugly into a receptacle cut out for it in the center of the cube, and is intended to protect the steel of the cube proper from the intense heat. This heat reaches the furnace by electric wires which enter the cube from the sides, as you see, being brought here by a conduit along the river-bed from a large power-plant five miles away. Twenty-eight large wires are necessary to bring it; I own the power-plant, ostensibly for the operation of a small sugar refinery. I may add that the furnace is a variation of the principle employed by Professor Moissan, in Paris." He turned to Mr. Czenki. "You may remember having heard me mention him?"
"I remember," the expert acquiesced grimly.
"Now, pure carbon is vaporized, as you perhaps know, at a fraction less than five thousand degrees Fahrenheit," Mr. Wynne continued. "A carbon not merely chemically pure but absolutely pure, in highly compressed disks, is packed in the furnace, the furnace placed within the cube, the ends of the two-inch opening in the furnace being blocked to prevent expansion, the cube closed, the bolts fastened, and heat applied, for several minutes—a heat, gentlemen, of five thousand two hundred and eighty degrees Fahrenheit. The heat of the sun is only about ten thousand degrees. And then the pressure of about seven thousand tons to the square inch is added by means of the two guns. In other words, gentlemen, pure carbon, vaporized, is caught between two projectiles which enter the cube simultaneously from opposite sides, being fired by electricity. The impact is so terrific that what had been two feet of compressed carbon is instantly condensed into an irregular disk, one inch or an inch and a half thick. And that disk, gentlemen, is a diamond!
"The violence of the operation, coupled with the intense heat, fuses everything—furnace, projectiles, electric wires, fire-brick, even asbestos, into a single mass. The cube is opened, and this mass, white-hot, is dropped into cold water. This increases the pressure until the mass is cool. Then it is broken away, and in the center is a diamond—as big as a biscuit, gentlemen! Four small bores lead from the two-inch bore through the cube, and permit the escape of air as the projectiles enter. There is no rebound because the elastic quality of the carbon is crushed out of existence—driven, I may say, into the diamond itself. Of course the furnace, the two projectiles and the connecting electric wires are all destroyed at each charge, which brings the total cost of the operation to a little more than eight hundred dollars, including nearly three tons of brown sugar. The diamond resulting is worth at least a million when broken up for cutting, sometimes even two millions. That is all, I think."
There was a long, awed silence. Mr. Latham, leaning against the giant cube, stared thoughtfully at his toes; Mr. Schultze was peering curiously about him, thence off into the gloom; Mr. Czenki still had a question.
"I understand that all the diamonds were made in that disk-like shape," he remarked at last. "Then the uncut stones that were stolen were—"
"They were natural stones," interrupted Mr. Wynne, "imported for purposes of study and experiment. I told Chief Arkwright the truth, but not all of it. In the last twenty years Mr. Kellner had destroyed some twenty thousand dollars' worth of diamonds in this way. I may add that while Mr. Kellner had succeeded in making diamonds of large size he had never made a perfect one until eight years ago. But meanwhile the expenses of the work, as you will understand, were enormous, so during the past eight years about a million dollars' worth of diamonds have been sold, one or two at a time, to meet this expense."
He paused a moment, then resumed musingly:
"All this, you understand, is not the work of a day Mr. Kellner was nearly eighty-one years old, and it was fifty-eight years ago that he began work here. The cubes there were made and placed in position thirty years ago; the guns have been there for twenty-eight years— so long, in fact, that recollection of them has passed from the minds of the men who made them. And, until four years ago, he was assisted by his son, Miss Kellner's father, and her brother. There was some explosion in this chamber where we stand which killed them both, and since then he has worked alone. His son—Miss Kellner's father—was the inventor of the machine which has enabled us to cut all the stones I showed you. I mailed the application for patent on this machine to Washington three days ago. It is as intricate as a linotype and delicate as a chronometer, but it does the work of fifty expert hand-cutters. Until patent papers are granted I must ask that I be allowed to protect that."
Mr. Latham turned upon him quickly.
"But you've explained all this to us fully," he exclaimed sharply, indicating the cube and the guns. "We could duplicate that if we liked."
"Yes, you could, Mr. Latham," replied Mr. Wynne slowly, "but you can't duplicate the brain that isolated absolutely pure carbon from the charred residue of brown sugar. That brain was Mr. Kellner's; the secret died with him!"
Again there was a long silence, broken at last by Mr. Schultze:
"Dat means no more diamonds can be made undil some one else can make der pure carbon, ain'd id? Yah! Und dat brings us down to der question, How many diamonds are made alretty?"
"The diamonds I showed you gentlemen were all that have been cut thus far," replied Mr. Wynne. "Less than twenty of the disks were used in making them. There are now some five hundred more of these disks in existence—roughly a billion dollars' worth—so you see I am prepared to hold you to my proposition that you buy one hundred million dollars' worth of them at one-half the carat price you now pay in the open market."
Mr. Latham passed one hand across a brow bedewed with perspiration, and stared helplessly at the German.
"The work of cutting could go on steadily here, under the direction of Mr. Czenki," Mr. Wynne resumed after a moment. "The secrecy of this place has not been violated for forty years. We are now one hundred and seventy feet below ground level, in a gallery of the abandoned coal mine which gave Coaldale its name, reached underground from the cellar in the cottage. Roofs and walls of the entire place are shored up to insure safety, and heavy felts make this chamber sound-proof, smothering even the detonation of the guns. Mr. Czenki is the man to do the work. Mr. Kellner, for ten years, held him to be the first expert in the world, and it would be carrying out his wishes if Mr. Czenki would agree. If he does not I shall undertake it, and flood the market!" His voice hardened a little. "And, gentlemen, call off your detectives. The secret is now more yours than mine. It destroys you if it becomes known, not me! The New York police have turned this end of the investigation over to the local police, and they are fools; all the forms have been complied with, so this place is safe. Now call off your men! On the day the last diamond is delivered to you, and the payment of one hundred million dollars is completed, everything here will be destroyed. That's all!"
"One hundred million dollars!" repeated Mr. Latham. "Even if we accept the proposition, Schultze, how can we raise that enormous sum within a year, and preserve the secret?"
"Id ain'd a question of can, Laadham—id's a question of musd," was the reply. He thoughtfully regarded Mr. Wynne. "Id's only Sunday nighd, yed; we haf undil Thursday to answer, you remember." He turned to Mr. Latham, with a recurrence of whimsical philosophy. "Think of id, Laadham, der alchemisds tried for dhree thousand years to make a piece of gold so big as a needle-point und didn'd; und he made diamonds so big as your fist mit a liddle cordide und some elecdricity! Mein Gott, man! Think of id!"
The jewelers accepted Mr. Wynne's proposition. Mr. Wynne bowed his thanks, and handed to Mr. Czenki a scientific periodical opened at a page which bore a head-line:
Newly Discovered Property of Radium.
Diamonds, Rubies, Emeralds and Sapphires
Changed in Color by Exposure of One
Month to Radium.
For the fourth time Red Haney underwent the "third degree." It culminated in a full confession of the murder of Mr. Kellner. There had been no accomplice.
"Yer see, Chief," he explained apologetically, "you an' that other guy" (meaning Mr. Birnes) "was so dead set on sayin' there was somebody else in it, an' was so ready wit' yer descriptions, that it looked good to me, an' I said 'Sure,' but I done it."