"In two weeks, everybody'll have forgotten all about it," the lieutenant told us. "You may even be a hero. I don't know."
Before we left, we went with McGill to the lab and saw the diamond. It sat on a bench, gleaming brilliant, smooth-faceted and without a flaw. It was at least two feet across, about the same as the chunk of "glass" on Fifty-first Street.
"The cops never recognized what it was," McGill said, "it being so big."
"Who would?" Molly asked. "McGill, I've got an idea—"
"All I had to do," McGill said, ignoring her, "was to put the graphite on some cinder blocks and the fragment on the graphite. Then I turned a bunsen flame on it and it caught fire with a terrifically bright flame—very small—I guess you saw it." I nodded. "It didn't give off any heat," he went on. "Adiabatic process. And it got its necessary pressure from the random motions together of the graphite particles. Some random motions! When that was used up, it started on the cinder blocks and then the CO2 in the air. That's what caused the suction: the blinds were blown straight in. You probably missed that." I shook my head. "Anyway, this thing—"
"McGill," Molly interrupted, "I've got an idea!"
"—this thing has got to be dumped out at sea."
"Oh," Molly said, looking crest-fallen. "I was just going to say why don't we break a piece off and sell it in Amsterdam?"
"Good God, no! That would only start it up all over again!"
"Just a little piece, McGill?"