"As a matter of fact," asked Mr. Latham pointedly at last, "you would not venture to say which of those stones it was you examined this morning, would you?"
"No," replied Mr. Czenki curtly, "not without weighing them."
"And if the weight is identical?"
"No," said Mr. Czenki again. "If the weight is the same there is not the minutest fraction of a difference between them."
CHAPTER III
THURSDAY AT THREE
Mr. Latham ran through his afternoon mail with feverish haste and found—nothing; Mr. Schultze achieved the same result more ponderously. On the following morning the mail still brought nothing. About eleven o'clock Mr. Latham's desk telephone rang.
"Come to my offiz," requested Mr. Schultze, in gutteral excitement. "Mein Gott, Laadham, der—come to my offiz, Laadham, und bring der diamond!"
Mr. Latham went. Including himself, there were the heads of the five greatest jewel establishments in America, representing, perhaps, one-tenth of the diamond trade of the country, in Mr. Schultze's office. He found the other four gathered around a small table, and on this table—Mr. Latham gasped as he looked—lay four replicas of the mysterious diamond in his pocket.
"Pud id down here, Laadham," directed Mr. Schultze. "Dey're all dwins alike—Dweedeldums und Dweedledeeses."