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.
"Den if all dose men know all he has told us, Laadham," he remarked finally, "our diamonds are nod worth any more as potatoes alretty."
"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! Vass 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 Titanic 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 mass, 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.