The Diamond Master Part 15

"You were in your house from eleven o'clock Friday night until fifteen minutes of nine o'clock Sat.u.r.day 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 const.i.tute 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 bas.e.m.e.nt, 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 quant.i.ty of diamonds. It may be that they regarded the quant.i.ty 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 mult.i.tude 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 pa.s.sionately.

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 Sat.u.r.day?"

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 rea.s.suring 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."

"h.e.l.lo!" 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.