stones," he went on tauntingly. "They are of all sizes and values. For instance?"

He lifted still another jewel from the packet and held it aloft for an instant.

"The Orloff!" gasped Mr. Solomon.

"No," the young man corrected; "this, too, is a duplicate. The original is in the Russian sceptre. This is a replica—color, weight and cutting being identical—one hundred and ninety-three carats, nearly as large as a pigeon's egg."

Again Mr. Wynne glanced along the table. Suddenly the frank amazement had vanished from the faces of these men, and he found only the tense interest of an audience watching a clever juggler. For a time Mr. Schultze studied the Orloff duplicate, then passed it along to the experts.

"Der grand Cullinan diamond weighs only two or d'ree pounds," he questioned in a tone of deep resignation. "Maybe you haf him in der backage, alretty?"

"Not yet," replied Mr. Wynne, "but I may possibly get that on my next trip out. Who knows?"

There was a long, tense silence. Mechanically Mr. Czenki placed the three spheres and the replicas in an orderly little row on the table in front of him and the uncut stones beside them—six, seven, eight million dollars' worth of diamonds.

"Gentlemen, are you convinced?" demanded Mr. Wynne suddenly. "Is there one lingering doubt in any mind here as to the tremendous find which makes the production of all those possible?"

"Id iss der miracle, Mr. Vynne," admitted the German gravely, after a little pause. "Dere iss someding before us as nefer vas in der vorld. I am gonvinced!"

"Up to this moment, gentlemen, the De Beers Syndicate has controlled the diamond market," Mr. Wynne announced, "but now, from this moment, I control it. I hold it there, in the palm of my hand, with the unlimited supply back of me. I am offering you an opportunity to prevent the annihilation of the market. It rests with you. If I turn loose a billion dollars' worth of diamonds within the year you are ruined—all of you. You know that—it's hardly necessary to tell you. And, gentlemen, I don't care to do it."

"What is your proposition?" queried Mr. Latham quietly. His face was ghastly white; haggard lines, limned by amazement and realization, were marked clearly on it. "What is your proposition?" he repeated.

"Wait a minute," interposed Mr. Solomon protestingly, and he turned to the young man. "The Syndicate controls the market by force of a reserve stock of ten or fifteen million dollars. Do we understand that you have more than these ready for market now?"

Mr. Wynne stooped and lifted the small sole-leather grip which had been unheeded on the floor. He unfastened the catch and turned the bag upside down upon the table. When he raised it again the assembled jewelers gazed upon a spectacle unknown and undreamed of in the history of the world—a great, glittering heap of diamonds, flashing, colorful, prismatic, radiant, bedazzling. They rattled like pebbles upon the mahogany table as they slipped and slid one against another, and then, at rest, resolved themselves into a steady, multi-colored blaze which was almost blinding.

"Now, gentlemen, on the table before you there are about thirty million dollars' worth of diamonds," Mr. Wynne announced calmly. "They are all perfect, every one of them; and they're mine. I know where they come from; you can't find out. It's none of your business. Are you satisfied now?"

Mr. Latham looked, looked until his eyes seemed bursting from his head, and then, with an inarticulate little cry, fell forward on the table with his face on his arms. The German importer came to his feet with one vast Teutonic oath, then sat down again; Mr. Solomon plunged his hand into the blazing heap and laughed senselessly. The others were silent, stunned, overcome. Mr. Wynne walked around the table and replaced the spheres and replicas in his pocket, after which he resumed his former position.

"I have stated my case, gentlemen," he continued quietly, very quietly. "Now for my proposition. Briefly it is this: For a consideration I will destroy the unlimited supply. I will bind myself to secrecy, as you must; I will guarantee that no stone from the same source is ever offered in the market or privately, while you gentlemen," and his manner was emphatically deliberate, "purchase from me at one-half the carat price you now pay one hundred million dollars' worth of diamonds!"

He paused. There was not a sound; no one moved.

"You may put them on the market as you may agree, slowly, thus preventing any material fluctuation in value," he went on. "How to hold this tremendous reserve secretly and still permit the operation of the other diamond mines of the world is the great problem you will have to face."

He leaned over, picked up a handful from the heap and replaced them in the leather bag. The others he swept off into it, then snapped the lock.

"I will give you one week to decide what you will do," he said in conclusion. "If you accept the proposition, then six weeks from next Thursday at three o'clock I shall expect a cash payment of ten million dollars for a portion of the stones now cut and ready; within a year all the diamonds will have been delivered and the transaction must be closed." He hesitated an instant. "I'm sorry, gentlemen, if the terms seem hard, but I think, after consideration, you will agree that I have done you a favor by coming to you instead of going into the market and destroying it. I will call next Thursday at three for your answer. That is all. Good day!"

The door opened and closed behind him. A minute, two minutes, three minutes passed and no one spoke. At last the German came to his feet slowly with a sigh.

"Anyhow, gendlemens," he remarked, "dat young man has a hell of a lod of diamonds, ain'd id?"

CHAPTER V

THE ASTUTE MR. BIRNES

It was a few minutes past four o'clock when Mr. Wynne strode through the immense retail sales department of the H. Latham Company, and a uniformed page held open the front door for him to pass out. Once on the sidewalk the self-styled diamond master of the world paused long enough to pull on his gloves, carelessly chucking the small sole-leather grip with its twenty-odd million dollars' worth of precious stones under one arm; then he turned up Fifth Avenue toward Thirty-fourth Street. A sneak thief brushed past him, appraised him with one furtive glance, then went his way, seeking quarry more promising.

Simultaneously with Mr. Wynne's appearance three men whose watchful eyes had been fastened on the doorway of the H. Latham Company for something more than an hour stirred. One of them—Frank Claflin—was directly across the street, strolling along idly, the most purposeless of all in the hurrying, well-dressed throng; another—Steve Birnes, chief of the Birnes Detective Agency—appeared from the hallway of a building adjoining the H. Latham Company, and moved along behind Mr. Wynne, some thirty feet in the rear; the third—Jerry Malone—was half a block away, up Fifth Avenue, coming slowly toward them.

Mr. Birnes adjusted his pace to that of Mr. Wynne, step for step, and then, seeming assured of his safety from any chance glance, ostentatiously mopped his face with a handkerchief, flirting it a little to the left as he replaced it in his pocket. Claflin, across the street, understood from that that he was to go on up Fifth Avenue to Thirty-fourth Street, the next intersection, and turn west to board any crosstown car which Mr. Wynne might possibly take; and a cabby, who had been sitting motionless on