A few words to him and the samovar was lit; then he hurried off on padding feet, to return with miraculous speed, bearing not only the whiskey and soda but a platter heaped with exotic cakes, cubed sandwiches of caviar and spiced fish, together with a profusion of other delicacies—doubly welcome to men who had toiled all day on a mountain peak, with nothing but chocolate to sustain them.
And while they drank and ate, Prince Krassnov told his story—a story whose very first words were an admission that he was the head of the great diamond-smuggling plot Stoddard had set out to trace down.
t was a story as dramatic and romantic as it was unscrupulous.
Finding himself and the crew of the rocket marooned on the upper slopes of this mighty mountain, in the midst of an incalculable wealth, he had set about at once to capitalize their astounding discovery.
First he had made certain adjustments in the mechanism of his apparatus—which fortunately had not been injured by its forced landing—and then he had taken off with specimens of the treasure, bringing the craft down this time with precision in the midst of his ancestral estates near Baku, in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains.
This vast property the Bolsheviks had not confiscated, partly because of its remoteness, no doubt, and partly because of the prince's services to the Soviet Republic. At any rate, it was here he had developed in secret the details of his amazing plot—a plot that had as its aim not only his own enrichment but the rehabilitation of all the Russian nobles.
Once they had heard his story of the Diamond Thunderbolt and seen the specimens he showed them, many had eagerly joined the plot, with the result that an international ring had been formed for disposal of the gems.
His plans perfected, Prince Krassnov had then returned to Kinchinjunga with his rocket, since when the mysterious flood of those perfect diamonds into the jewel markets of the world had begun.