The jacques futrelle meg.., p.113
The Jacques Futrelle Megapack, page 113
“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.
