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. Schultzesat awaiting Mr. Birnes. He raised one hand, enjoining silence,closed the door, locked it and placed the key in his pocket, afterwhich he turned upon Mr. Latham.
"He _makes_ them, man! He _makes them!_" he burst out betweengritting teeth. "Don't you understand? _He makes them!_"
Mr. Latham, astonished and a little startled, came to his feet; thephlegmatic German sat still, staring at the expert withoutcomprehension. Mr. Czenki's thin fist was clenched under hisemployer'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-upexcitement within him burst into a flame of impatience. "Thediamonds! He makes them! Don't you see? Diamonds! He_manufactures_ them!"
"_Gott in Himmel!_" exclaimed Mr. Schultze, and it was anything butan 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. "Asum greater than all the combined wealth of the world in the handsof 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 fingerswrithing within one another, muttering to himself. Mr. Latham was acold, sane, unimaginative man of business. As yet the full import ofit 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 gonemad at once. At last the German importer turned upon him flatly.
"Why don'd you ged egzited aboud id, Laadham?" he demanded. "He issall righd, nod crazy," he added with whimsical assurance. "He issdelling you dat dose diamonds are _made_--made like doughnuds, mitoudder hole; manufactured, pud togedher. Don'd you ged id?"
He ran off into guttural German expletives; and slowly, slowly theidea began to dawn upon Mr. Latham. The diamonds Mr. Wynne hadshown were not real, then; they were artificial! It was some sort ofa swindle! Of course! But the experts had agreed that they werediamonds--real diamonds! Perhaps they had been deceived, or--byGeorge! Did these two men mean to say that they were real diamonds,but that they were _manufactured?_ Mr. Latham's tidy littleimagination balked at that. Absurd! Whoever heard of a diamond asbig as the Koh-i-noor, or the Regent, or the Orloff being made? Theywere 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 thosediamonds we saw were not natural, but _were_ real diamonds turned outby machinery in a--in a diamond factory? Is that what you aredriving at?
"_Das iss!_" declared the German bluntly. "Id vas coming in dime,Laadham, id vas coming, of course Und I haf always noticed datwhatever iss coming does come."
"Made, made--made as you make marbles," Mr. Czenki repeatedmonotonously. "Yes, it had to come, but--but imagine the insuperabledifficulties that one brain had to surmount!" He passed a thin handacross 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 theGerman in a tone of resignation. "If id iss, id iss. Und all dosediamonds in your place und mine are nod worth much more by der bushelas potatoes."
Mr. Latham turned away from him, half angrily, and glared at theexpert, who was still regarding the floor.
"What do you know about this, anyway, Czenki?" he demanded. "How doyou _know_ he makes them? Have you _seen_ him make them?"
Thus directly addressed Mr. Czenki looked up, and the living flame ofwonder within his eyes flickered and died. In silence, for a minuteor more, he studied the unconcealed skepticism in his employer'sface, 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 thatdiamonds 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 purecarbon is heated to approximately five thousand degrees Fahrenheit,and simultaneously subjected to a pressure of approximately sixthousand tons to the square inch, it becomes a diamond. And there'sno theory about that--that's a fact! The difficulty has always beento apply the knowledge we have in a commercially practicable way--inother words, to isolate a carbon that is absolutely pure, and inventa method of applying the heat and pressure simultaneously. It hasbeen done, Mr. Latham; _it has been done!_ Don't you understand whatit means to--"
With an effort he repressed the returning excitement which found ventin a rising voice and quick, nervous gestures of the hands. After amoment he went on:
"Half a score of scientists have made diamonds, minute particles nolarger than the point of a pin. Professor Henri Moissan, of Paris,went further, and by use of an electric furnace produced diamonds aslarge as a pinhead. You may remember that when I first met Mr. Wynnehe inquired if I had not done some special work for ProfessorMoissan. I had; I tested the diamonds he made--_and they werediamonds!_ I dare say the suggestion Mr. Wynne conveyed to me bythat question--that is, the suggestion of manufactured diamonds--hadbeen carefully planned, for he is a wonderful young man, Mr. Wynne--a wonderful young man." He paused a moment. "We know that he hasmillions and millions of dollars' worth of them--we know because wesaw them--and who can tell how many billions more there are? The oneman holds in his hand the power to overturn the money values of theearth!"
"But how do you know he makes them?" demanded Mr. Latham, returningto the main question.
"He suggested it by his question," Mr. Czenki went on. "Thatsuggestion lingered in my mind. When the detective, Mr. Birnes,reported that Mr. Wynne was an importer of brown sugar I was on thepoint of advancing a theory that the diamonds were manufactured,because of all known substances burnt brown sugar is richest incarbon. But you, Mr. Latham, had discredited a previous suggestionof mine, and I--I--well, I didn't suggest it. Instead, that night Ipersonally began an investigation to see what disposition was made ofthe sugar. I found that the ships discharged their cargoes inHoboken, that the sugar was there loaded on barges, and those bargeshauled up a small stream to the little town of Coaldale, allconsigned to a Mr. Hugo Kellner.
"It took Friday, all day Saturday, and a great part of to-day tolearn all this. This afternoon I went to see Mr. Kellner. I foundhim murdered." He stated it merely as an inconvenient incident. "Inthe room with the body were Mr. Birnes, Chief Arkwright of the NewYork police, and another New York detective. I had glanced at thestory of Red Haney and the diamonds in the morning papers, and fromwhat I knew, and from Mr. Birnes' presence, I surmised something ofthe truth. I was instantly placed under arrest for murder--the murderof this man I had never seen--the _real_ diamond master, the man whoachieved it all."
He was silent for a moment, as if from infinite weariness.
" . . . Mr. Wynne came, and a Miss Kellner, granddaughter of the deadman. . . . He saw me, and understood . . . between us we contrivedthat I should be taken away as the murderer, and so prevent animmediate search of the house. . . . I made no denial. . . . Ipermitted myself to be taken . . . some mistake as to identity. . . .I proved an alibi by the shipping men in Hoboken . . . the diamondsare there, untold millions of dollars' worth of them . . . thediamond master is dead!"
Mr. Latham had been listening, as if dazed, to the hurried, somewhatdisconnected, nar
rative; Mr. Schultze, keener to comprehend all thatthe story meant, was silent for a moment.
"Den if all dose men know all he has told us, Laadham," he remarkedfinally, "our diamonds are nod worth any more as potatoes _alretty_."
"But they _don't_ know," Mr. Czenki burst out fiercely. "Don't youunderstand? Haney, or somebody, killed Mr. Kellner and stole someuncut diamonds--you must have seen the newspaper account of it to-day.The New York police traced Haney's course to Coaldale and to thathouse. But all _they_ know is that sixty thousand dollars' worth ofuncut stones were stolen. There was not even a suggestion to them ofthe 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 fromthere and gain time, at least, to give Mr. Wynne an opportunity ofhiding the other diamonds, if they were there. He understood what Iwas trying to do, and fell in with the plan. He knew that _I_ knewthe diamonds were made. Mr. Birnes doesn't know; _no_ one knows butyou 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 theworld 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 derpack of your neck? You can'd zee him, ain'd id?" Mr. Schultzeturned to Mr. Czenki. "Der dhree of us vill go und zee Mr. Wynne. Idiss der miracle! Vass iss, iss, und id don'd do any good to say idain'd."