The Diamond Master Part 17

"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! Va.s.s 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 t.i.tanic 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 ma.s.s, 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 ma.s.s. The cube is opened, and this ma.s.s, white-hot, is dropped into cold water. This increases the pressure until the ma.s.s 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 pa.s.sed from the minds of the men who made them. And, until four years ago, he was a.s.sisted 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 pa.s.sed 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 sh.o.r.ed 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."