"Oh, yes. Why should you rob me? You can earn more money than you can ever need in this world by looking after my interests properly. If only you will believe this statement it will save you much future worry, I assure you."
"Were you in earnest when you said that you have an abundance of stones like those in your hands?"
"So many, Mr. Isaacstein, that you will have some trouble in disposing of them. I have diamonds as big, as big—let me see—as big as an egg."
The wonder is that the Jew did not faint.
"My God!" he gurgled, "do you know what you are saying? Where are they, boy? You will be robbed, murdered for their sake. Where are they? Let me put them in some safe place. I will deal honestly by you. I swear it, by all that I hold sacred. But you must have them taken care of."
"They are quite safe; be certain of that. Reveal my secret I will not. I have borne insult and imprisonment to preserve it, so it is not likely I will yield now to your appeals."
Philip's face lit up with a strange light as this protest left his lips. The meteor was his mother's bequest. She gave it to him, and she would safeguard it. Had she failed hitherto? Was not all London ringing with the news of his fortune, yet what man or woman had discovered the whereabouts of his treasure? In his pocket he felt the great iron key of No. 3, Johnson's Mews, and he was as certain now that his hiding place was unknown as that his mother's spirit was looking down on him from heaven, and directing his every movement.
The Jew, in spite of his own great lack of composure, saw the fleeting glimpse of spirituality in the boy's eyes. Puzzled and disturbed though he was, he made another violent effort to pull his shattered nerves into order.
"There is no need to talk all day," he said, doggedly. "Now I am going to tell you something you don't know. If your boast is justified—if you really own as many diamonds, and as good ones, as you say you own—there must be a great deal of discretion exercised in putting them on the market. Diamonds are valuable only because they are rare. There is a limit to their possible purchasers. If the diamond mines of the world were to pour all their resources forthwith into the lap of the public, there would be such a slump that prices would drop fifty, sixty, even eighty per cent. Do you follow me?"
"Yes," nodded Philip.