THREE MEN OF MILLIONS.
Marcus Meyer, head of the wealthy firm of jewelers who did business
under the name of the Meyer Diamond Company, was pacing restlessly up
and down his luxuriously fitted up private office on the third floor of
the Commercial Building in Denver.
He was a smooth-shaven, alert Hebrew of about thirty-nine or forty,
well groomed and clothed with a fastidious taste, which was almost
foppish, in garments of the very latest cut and material. In reality,
however, there was nothing of the fop or fool about Marcus Meyer. He
was a keen, quick-witted business man of extraordinary cleverness, and
had the reputation of knowing more about the inside conditions of the
diamond industry than any other individual west of the Alleghenys, save
only the great Herman Spreckles, of Chicago.
As he walked restlessly from end to end of the long room, his
troubled eyes sought the ornate clock which slowly ticked away the
minutes on a mantel of carved marble, and every now and then his
slim, well-manicured fingers strayed to his smooth, black hair in an
unconscious gesture of impatience.
Presently he stopped at one end of the long mahogany table, which
was set around with heavy leather-cushioned chairs, and occupied
the centre of the room. Seated in one of these chairs was a man of
about fifty-five. Short, stout, and comfortable of build, round-faced
and rosy-cheeked, with light-blue eyes in which was a look of
almost infantile innocence, one would never have guessed him to be
the Philander Morgan who held a controlling interest in so many
corporations on the Pacific Coast, and who was reputed to be the
wealthiest man in San Francisco.
“I can’t understand why he doesn’t come,” complained Meyer, in his
quick, nervous manner. “The train was due at nine-fifteen, and here it
is nearly ten.”
He took out a handkerchief and passed it over his moist forehead.
Philander Morgan eyed him quizzically, with a slight pursing of his
lips.
“Ah, you young men!” he said placidly. “How much vital energy you
waste in worry! You prance about, tear your hair, and get hot
and unpleasantly moist; and what do you gain by making yourself
uncomfortable? Nothing. Spreckles will come because he said he would,
and I have never known him to break his word. There are such an
infinite number of reasons why he should be late that it is useless
to speculate. Take my advice and make yourself comfortable until he
appears.”
He folded his plump hands and gazed meditatively at the ceiling.
“I know it’s absurd,” Meyer replied, with a harassed smile; “but I
can’t help it. Besides, I have so much more at stake than you. In
comparison to all the other irons you have in the fire, your interest
in the diamond trade is insignificant. But should this monstrous,
incredible thing prove true, I shall be ruined--totally ruined.”
Philander Morgan withdrew his eyes from the ceiling and puffed out his
fat cheeks.
“Tut! tut!” he protested. “Don’t speak of it. Surely you have not
allowed yourself to credit for an instant this wild rumor. It’s
absurd--impossible.”
The Hebrew tapped nervously with his finger nail on the polished
surface of the table.
“That’s what I told myself at first,” he said slowly. “I snapped my
fingers at them--I laughed. It was inconceivable, beyond the bounds of
reason. But later, every evidence seemed to point----”
A loud knock sounded at the door and he broke off abruptly.
“Come in!” he cried, springing to his feet.
The door slowly opened and an old man appeared on the threshold. He was
very tall and very thin, with narrow, drooping shoulders and a slow,
almost shambling step. His clothes were mussed and almost threadbare;
but, in spite of that, it needed no more than a glance at the wrinkled
face, the great mane of snow white hair brushed straight back from a
high, broad forehead, the piercing eyes, bright as live coals, gleaming
through big spectacles with rims of tortoise shell, to tell that he was
somebody.
Such a man was Herman Spreckles, of Chicago. Rumor had it that, besides
his many other interests, he was the moving spirit of a gigantic secret
combination of jewelers which ruled the diamond market of the United
States with a rod of iron.
Marcus Meyer hurried forward with both hands outstretched.
“My dear Mr. Spreckles!” he cried joyfully. “I am very glad to see you.
We were beginning to fear that you had missed your train.”
The tall man sniffed scornfully as he took one of the Hebrew’s hands.
“Huh! Did you ever know me to miss a train, Meyer?” he inquired.
Then he looked out in the hall.
“Come in, Pickering--come in!” he said sharply. “Don’t dawdle out
there.”
He moved away from the door, and a slim, alert-looking man of about
forty appeared, at the sight of whom Marcus Meyer’s eyes sparkled.
“Ah--Pickering!” he exclaimed with satisfaction. “I’m glad you’re here.
We shall need the skill of the best diamond expert in the country
before we’re through, or I’m very much mistaken.”
Meanwhile Herman Spreckles had advanced to the table, where Philander
Morgan arose ponderously to greet him.
“Ha! You here, too?” inquired the older man, peering through his
spectacles. “This begins to look serious.”
He shook hands with the stout man and dropped into a chair.
“Well, Meyer, let us get to business at once,” he said briskly. “I must
take the early afternoon train back. What’s this cock-and-bull yarn
you’ve been writing me about. Begin at the beginning and let us get
through with it. Sit down, man--sit down! You make me nervous stamping
up and down that way.”
The Hebrew dropped upon a chair and passed his hand over his hair with
a nervous gesture.
“You both had my letters in cipher,” he began quickly. “You know about
the mysterious diamonds which have been coming in to me for the past
few months with such amazing regularity.”
Spreckles nodded.
“Exactly,” he said impatiently. “You purchased them on my instructions
at the prevailing price, and I wired you to ascertain where they came
from. Have you done so?”
Marcus Meyer made a gesture with his hands.
“I have, so far as has been in my power. There was no difficulty in
finding out who they came from. Their original source remains as much a
mystery as it was in the beginning. Perhaps, in order that we may have
all the facts clearly, I had better tell the whole story briefly.”
He looked questioningly at the white-haired Spreckles, who nodded
silently.
“On the third of March,” Meyer began, “a man came to me and asked
whether I wished to buy some diamonds. I told him, of course, that I
should have to examine them first, whereupon he promptly pulled out of
his pocket an oblong package wrapped in white tissue paper. Imagine my
astonishment when I unrolled it and found within, twenty perfect stones
ranging from one to five carats in weight. They were flawless and of
that exquisite blue-white color which, as you both know, is so sought
after and so rare. I have sold no better stones than those for five
hundred dollars a carat.”
“And the man?” Herman Spreckles asked quickly. “Where did he say they
came from?”
“He would not say,” Meyer answered. “He would tell me nothing. He said
that if I did not care to buy them he would go elsewhere. I finally
paid him three hundred and fifty dollars a carat--a great bargain. As
soon as he had gone, I sent for a detective and had inquiries made. The
fellow was one Johnson, a native of Denver, who had been in a variety
of enterprises, none of which were very successful. For the past year
he had apparently done nothing at all, though the report had it that he
lived very well, in a comfortable place on the outskirts of the city,
where he kept an expensive motor car, among other luxuries. His only
intimate was an eccentric fellow named Randolph, who came here from the
East some seven years ago, built an extraordinary fortified dwelling
in the mountains, and has lived there a recluse ever since, supposedly
dabbling in chemical experiments of some sort.”
“Ha!” exclaimed Spreckles. “You had this fellow Randolph looked up?”
“Not at once,” returned Meyer. “At the time it seemed to me that he
could have no connection with the diamonds. It was much more probable
that Johnson had stolen or smuggled them; but as the weeks passed
no stones of that description were reported missing, and inquiry
at Washington revealed the fact that there had been no suspicious
purchasing abroad. The day after I received that letter, Johnson
appeared with another packet, which, on opening, I found to be in every
way identical with the first. There were twenty stones of the same
blue-white color, and they weighed, to a fraction of a carat, exactly
what the first had weighed.
“I was dumfounded. It seemed incredible that such stones as those
could have been brought into the country without my knowing it. I was
positive they had not been stolen. Johnson persisted in his absolute
silence regarding the source from which they came, he was even loath
to let them remain in my hands for three days while my experts made an
exhaustive examination of them. It was then that I wrote to you. I had
already paid out nearly twenty-five thousand dollars for the first lot,
and dared not sink any more money without your sanction.”
“Quite so,” nodded Spreckles. “You sent on one of the stones, and I
wired you to purchase as many of them as you could, and to find out
their source.”
“Exactly,” returned Marcus Meyer. “I paid the man and at once set the
detectives on the trail of Randolph, for the thing was becoming too
serious to neglect any clue, however slight. The report they turned in
was singularly complete in some respects, and disappointingly lacking
in others. Scott Randolph is a man of about thirty-two or three. He
comes from a good New England family, and, while he was still in
college, his father died and left him about seventy-five thousand
dollars. He appears not to have any near relatives and but few friends.
He graduated from Yale, and then spent three years at the Sheffield
school of science, where he paid particular attention to chemistry
and mechanics. After leaving New Haven he came directly to Denver,
bought a tract in the mountains and built there a stone house which
is absolutely impregnable. The windows are guarded with iron bars and
steel shutters, the door is of steel like a safe, and, so far as I
could discover, no human being but this Johnson has ever been inside.
His provisions are brought to the door and left there; apparently he
does his own cooking, for there are no servants around.”
Herman Spreckles lifted a thin, wrinkled hand.
“Wait,” he said quickly. “What about the men who built the house?”
“All brought from a distance,” Meyer answered. “None of them could be
located. I did, however, examine a teamster who carted his belongings
from the freight office. This fellow saw a few rooms in the lower
part of the house and confirms the general impression that the place
is as difficult to get into as a fort. Randolph’s belongings were all
carefully crated, but the teamster remembered that many of the crates
were extraordinarily heavy; several, he knew, contained machinery.”
“At regular intervals Randolph disappears. At first it was supposed
that he had left the house, since no amount of knocking or pounding
could rouse him. After my detectives got on the trail, they kept a
strict watch of the place day and night to catch him when he came forth
or returned, in order to find out where he went. They finally came to
the conclusion that he did not leave the house. He did not issue from
any of the doors or windows. His motor car remained unused in a small
shed to one side of the larger building. It was apparent, therefore,
that he shut himself up alone for some purpose.”
He paused and looked from one to the other of the two men before him.
They were both intensely interested in his recital. Philander Morgan’s
fat face had lost the look of baby innocence, and had taken on a keen,
alert expression, which quite transformed the man. Spreckles’ shaggy
head was bent slightly forward and from beneath beetling brows his eyes
gleamed like coals as he surveyed the Hebrew.
“Well,” he said sharply--“well, what was that purpose?”
Marcus Meyer hesitated, his slim hand straying again to the smooth head.
“I can think of but one solution,” he said slowly at length. “Wild,
absurd, incredible as it may sound, I think the man has discovered the
secret for which so many scientists have toiled in vain. I believe--he
has found a way--of manufacturing diamonds!”
The stillness which followed the Hebrew’s amazing statement was so
intense that the slow ticking of the clock on the mantel beat on the
tense nerves of the waiting men like the strokes of a hammer. Suddenly
Philander Morgan snorted incredulously.
“Ridiculous!” he cried in a shrill voice. “The thing’s impossible!”
Herman Spreckles made no reply, for several moments his piercing eyes
remained fixed on Meyer’s pale face. Then he turned swiftly toward the
man he had brought with him.
“Pickering!”
The name came snapping from his thin, straight lips like the shot of a
pistol, and the young man sprang up from where he had been sitting at
the far end of the table and came forward.
“Yes, sir.”
“Is such a thing possible--manufacturing diamonds, I mean.”
James Pickering hesitated an instant.
“It has been done,” he said slowly. “Both Edouard Fournier, of Paris,
and Professor Hedwig, of Berlin University, have produced pure
diamonds; but the process was so costly and the resulting stones so
small, that their methods were not commercially practicable.”
Again silence fell. Spreckles was thinking, while Philander Morgan
sat aghast, with pendulous cheeks and popping eyes. His expression of
dismay would have been ludicrous had the situation not been so serious.
Marcus Meyer passed a crumpled handkerchief over his moist forehead;
then he began again.
“I can think of no other explanation,” he said in a low, strained
voice. “The man never leaves his house. His only known accomplice
never leaves Denver. Yet, a few days after these regular periods of
retirement, twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth of exquisite diamonds
are brought to me with the precision of clockwork. They are all of the
same perfect quality and the carat weight of each package is identical.
I could make out my check beforehand and it would be correct.”
“You have the stones?” Spreckles asked quickly.
Meyer nodded.
“All except those in the first lot, which I have sold.”
“Get them.”
The Hebrew arose from the table and went over to a great safe in
the corner. Opening this, he took out a small drawer, which he
carried back and placed before the other two men. The contents of
the drawer were hidden by a folded square of black velvet, and when
this was removed and spread out on the polished mahogany, five small,
insignificant-looking packets of white tissue paper were revealed.
With fingers that trembled a little, Meyer took up one of these
packets, and, unfolding the paper, poured the contents out on the
velvet square.
There was a glittering cascade of light as they streamed down onto the
velvet and lay against the black surface, a blazing mass, catching the
light from a thousand facets, gleaming with a wonderful fire, until
even Herman Spreckles could not suppress an exclamation of admiration,
as he leaned forward and plucked one between thumb and forefinger.
“A diamond of the first water,” he said slowly, examining it intently.
“And you tell me that has been made by the hand of man? I won’t believe
it.”
He turned to Pickering, who stood behind his chair.
“Look it over, James,” he said, “and let us know what you think of it.”
The expert’s face was slightly pale and his eyes very bright, but
otherwise he betrayed no signs of emotion as he took the stone from the
old man’s hand and carried it over to one of the windows. Here he fixed
a glass in one eye and began a thorough inspection of the diamond.
Philander Morgan clasped his chubby hands together nervously.
“But what are we going to do?” he asked plaintively. “If this man can
make diamonds, the bottom will fall out of the market in no time. We’ll
be ruined. Our stock will be worthless. What are we going to do?”
Herman Spreckles surveyed him with a cynical gleam in his black eyes.
“Don’t cry before you’re hurt, Morgan,” he said sarcastically. “Even if
you lose your diamond stock, I hardly think you’ll be a candidate for
the poor house. Besides the stock has not depreciated yet, and it is
our business to see that it does not.”
He glanced up from under his shaggy brows at the expert, who was coming
back from the window.
“Well, Pickering, what’s the verdict?”
“It’s a diamond, all right, Mr. Spreckles,” the man said decidedly.
“I’ll stake my reputation on that. It has all the fire and color of the
best products of the Kimberly mines, and is absolutely flawless. It’s
worth easily five hundred dollars a carat. Whether it is a natural or
manufactured product I cannot tell. Had I not heard the story Mr. Meyer
has just told, I would have sworn that this came from South Africa. As
it is, I frankly confess I am puzzled. If this Randolph has discovered
a process whereby diamonds like this can be made, he has done something
which will cause a world-wide stir, and very probably world-wide ruin
to a vast industry.”
Philander Morgan moaned a little and wiped his fat face with a large
handkerchief. Marcus Meyer was biting his finger nails nervously. Only
the grim Chicago magnate remained apparently unmoved.
“Select some from the other packets,” he said tersely, “and examine
them carefully. We must be sure of the facts before we act.”
The expert selected two stones at random from each of the four unopened
packages, and retired with them to the window.
Spreckles leaned back in his chair and put the tips of his skinny
fingers together.
“This Randolph,” he began slowly, “receives mail, I suppose--parcels by
express and by freight?”
“Very little mail,” the Hebrew answered. “Most of it is apparently
from chemical supply houses and other dealers. He seems to have no
personal correspondence. It is also rare that anything comes to him by
express; but he has a good many pieces of freight, which are invariably
delivered by Johnson. So far as I have been able to discover, they also
come from supply houses and seem to contain chemicals of some sort.”
“We must make sure,” Spreckles said significantly. “From this moment
Randolph must receive nothing into that house which we do not know of.
Above all, his letters must be examined carefully.”
Marcus Meyer’s face paled a little.
“But the government----” he protested.
“Tut, tut, my dear Meyer!” Spreckles said calmly. “You are a sensible
man, and a clever one. Don’t let us have any foolish qualms when a
matter of such moment is at stake. There are plenty of ways in which
this can be done quietly and safely by a man of your ability. I leave
the details to you, who are on the ground. But I repeat that neither
Randolph nor this man Johnson must receive anything which you have not
previously read or examined. Well, Pickering?”
The diamond expert returned the stones to their original packets and
faced his employer.
“They are identical with the first one,” he said quietly. “Perfect,
flawless, and of equal value. I think there can be no question that
their source is the same.”
“I expected as much,” Spreckles said quietly. “Though I am not an
expert like Pickering, my eyes are still pretty fair, and I have
examined a goodly number of diamonds in my life. That will be all for
the present, James. Be good enough to wait for me downstairs. I will be
through directly and we can take lunch and return on the early train.”
As the door closed behind the diamond expert, Herman Spreckles bent
forward a little and fixed his eyes keenly on Marcus Meyer.
“In addition to the precautions I have suggested,” he said quietly, “it
is absolutely necessary for us to obtain an entrance to this house of
Randolph’s and make a thorough examination. That is the most important
step of all. It would be more satisfactory if you yourself could be
present, but I doubt whether that is possible. However, pick your
detectives intelligently, tell them exactly what you want to know, and
the result should be adequate.”
The Hebrew’s face turned pale and he twisted his fingers nervously
together.
“But think of the risk,” he objected. “That’s a criminal proceeding.
It’s breaking and entering.”
The older man waved away his objection impatiently.
“Don’t be a child, Meyer,” he snapped. “Everything, in this world is a
risk. Do you realize that your very existence is at stake? If we don’t
get at the bottom of this business and stop it, you will be ruined, and
Morgan and I will be severely crippled. Let us have no more of this
foolish squeamishness. Do as I tell you, and do it at once.”
As he arose, his gaunt height towered above his companions.
“One more thing,” he went on. “Don’t let the man suspect. Buy all the
diamonds which are offered, and above all keep silent about them.
Should a whisper of this get abroad, a tremendous slump in our stocks
will follow. Keep me advised daily as to your progress. I am taking
the two-fifteen train back. Don’t hesitate to draw on me for money if
you need it. Good-by.”
He stepped into the hall and closed the door behind him, leaving
Philander Morgan and Marcus staring at one another with expressions of
the deepest anxiety and concern.