by Author of "Elusive Isabel," "The Thinking Machine," etc. Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer Indianapolis The Bobbs-Merrill Company Publishers 1909 [Frontispiece] There were thirty or forty personally addressed letters, the daily heritage of the head of a great business establishment; and a plain, yellow-wrapped package about the size of a cigarette-box, some three inches long, two inches wide and one inch deep. It was neatly tied with thin scarlet twine, and innocent of markings except for the sup

A little while later, when Mr. Latham started out to luncheon, he thrust the white glazed box into an inside pocket. It had occurred to him that Schultze—Gustave Schultze, the greatest importer of precious stones in America—was usually at the club where he had luncheon, and— He found Mr. Schultze, a huge blond German, sitting at a table in an alcove, alone, gazing out upon Fifth Avenue in deep abstraction, with perplexed wrinkles about his blue eyes. The German glanced around at Latham quickly a

Mr. Latham ran through his afternoon mail with feverish haste and found—nothing; Mr. Schultze achieved the same result more ponderously. On the following morning the mail still brought nothing. About eleven o'clock Mr. Latham's desk telephone rang. "Come to my offiz," requested Mr. Schultze, in gutteral excitement. " Mein Gott , Laadham, der—come to my offiz, Laadham, und bring der diamond!" Mr. Latham went. Including himself, there were the heads of the five greatest jewel establishments in Ame

"If you will all be seated again, please?" requested Mr. Wynne, who still stood, cool and self-certain, at the end of the table. The sound of his voice brought a returning calm to the others, and they resumed their seats—all save Mr. Cawthorne, who walked over to a window with the three spheres in his hand and stood there examining them under his glass. "You gentlemen know, of course, the natural shape of the diamond in the rough?" Mr. Wynne resumed questioningly. "Here are a dozen specimens whi

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 th

Mr. Birnes' busy heels fairly spurned the pavements of Fifth Avenue as he started toward Madison Square. Here was a long line of cabs drawn up beside the curb, some twenty or thirty in all. The fifth from the end bore the number he sought—Mr. Birnes chuckled; and there, alongside it, stood William Johns, swapping Billingsgate with the driver of a hansom, the while he kept one eye open for a prospective fare. It was too easy! Mr. Birnes paused long enough to congratulate himself upon his marvelou

A snow-white pigeon dropped down out of an azure sky and settled on a top-most girder of the great Singer Building. For a time it rested there, with folded pinions, in a din of clanging hammers; and a workman far out on a delicately balanced beam of steel paused in his labors to regard the bird with friendly eyes. The pigeon returned his gaze unafraid. "Well, old chap, if I had as little trouble getting up here and down again as you do I wouldn't mind the job," the workman remarked cheerfully. T

Mr. Gustave Schultze dropped in to see Mr. Latham after luncheon, and listened with puckered brows to a recital of the substance of the detective's preliminary report, made the afternoon before. "Mr. Birnes left here rather abruptly," Mr. Latham explained in conclusion, "saying he would see me again, either last night or to-day. He has not appeared yet, and it may be that when he comes he will be able to add materially to what we now know." The huge German sat for a time with vacant eyes. "Der g

There was a rap on the door, and a clerk thrust his head in. "Mr. Birnes to see you, sir," he announced. "Show him in," directed Mr. Latham. "Sit down, both of you, and let's see what he has to say." There was an odd expression of hope deferred on the detective's face when he entered. He glanced inquiringly at Mr. Schultze and Mr. Czenki, whereupon Mr. Latham introduced them. "You may talk freely," he added. "We are all interested alike." The detective crossed his legs and balanced his hat caref

When the police of Mulberry Street find themselves face to face with some problem other than the trivial, every-day theft, burglary or murder, as the case may be, they are wont to rise up and run around in a circle. The case of Red Haney and the diamonds, blared to the world at large in the newspapers of Sunday morning, immediately precipitated a circular parade, while Haney, the objective center, snored along peacefully in a drunken stupor. The statement of the case in the public press was alto

He stood looking at her with earnest thoughtful eyes. Suddenly the woman-soul within her awoke in a surging, inexplicable wave of emotion which almost overcame her; and after it came something of realization of the great fight he was making for her—for her, and the aged, feeble grandfather waiting patiently out there. He loved her, this master among men, and she sighed contentedly. For the moment the maddening anxiety that brought her here was forgotten; there was only the ineffable sweetness of

Some years ago a famous head of the police department clearly demonstrated the superiority of a knock-out blow, frequently administered, as against moral suasion, and from that moment the "third degree" became an institution. Whatever sort of criticism may be made of the "third degree," it is, nevertheless, amazingly effective, and beyond that, affords infinite satisfaction to the administrator. There is a certain vicious delight in brutally smashing a sullen, helpless prisoner in the face; and

Half an hour later Mr. Birnes, Chief Arkwright and Detective Sergeant Connelly were on a train, bound for Coaldale. Mr. Birnes had left them for a moment at the ferry and rushed into a telephone booth. When he came out he was exuberantly triumphant. "It's my man, all right," he assured the chief. "He has been missing since Friday night, and no one knows his whereabouts. It's my man." It was an hour's ride to Coaldale, a sprawling, straggly village with only four or five houses in sight from the

Doris looked down in great, dry-eyed horror upon the body of this withered old man whom she had loved, and the thin thread of life within her all but snapped. It had come; the premonition of disaster had been fulfilled; the last of her blood had been sacrificed to the mercilessly glittering diamonds—father, brother and now him! Mr. Wynne's face went white, and his teeth closed fiercely; he had loved this old man, too; then the shock passed and he turned anxiously to Doris to receive the limp, in

The chief dropped back into his chair with the utmost complacency. This was not the kind of man with whom mere bluster counted. "Haney says Saturday morning," he answered. "The coroner's physician agrees with that." "Yesterday morning," Mr. Wynne mused; then, after a moment: "I think, Chief, you know Mr. Birnes here? And that you would accept a statement of his as correct?" "Yes," the chief agreed with a glance at Mr. Birnes. "Mr. Birnes, where was I all day Saturday?" Mr. Wynne queried, without

Fairly drunk with excitement, his lean face, usually expressionless, now flushed and working strangely, and his beady black eyes aglitter, Mr. Czenki reeled into the study where Mr. Latham and Mr. Schultze sat awaiting Mr. Birnes. He raised one hand, enjoining silence, closed the door, locked it and placed the key in his pocket, after which he turned upon Mr. Latham. "He makes them, man! He makes them! " he burst out between gritting teeth. "Don't you understand? He makes them! " Mr. Latham, ast

A cube of solid, polished steel, some twenty feet square, set on a spreading base of concrete, and divided perpendicularly down the middle into Titanic halves, these being snugly fitted one to the other by a series of triangular corrugations, a variation of the familiar tongue and groove. Interlacing the ponderous mass, from corner to corner, were huge steel bolts, and the hulking heads of more bolts, some forty on each of the four sides, showed that the whole might be split into halves at will,