ed positively.

"Id _iss_ der miracle, Laadham, when Czenki make der mistake!" the
German exploded suddenly. "Show him der odder von."

Mr. Czenki glanced from one to the other with quick, inquisitive
glance; then, without a word, Mr. Latham produced the second box and
opened it. The expert stared incredulously at the two perfect stones
and finally, placing them side by side on a sheet of paper, returned
to the window and sat down. Mr. Latham and Mr. Schultze stood beside
him, looking on curiously as he turned and twisted the jewels under
his powerful glass.

"As a matter of fact," asked Mr. Latham pointedly at last, "you would
not venture to say which of those stones it was you examined this
morning, would you?"

"No," replied Mr. Czenki curtly, "not without weighing them."

"And if the weight is identical?"

"No," said Mr. Czenki again. "If the weight is the same there is not
the minutest fraction of a difference between them."

CHAPTER III

THURSDAY AT THREE

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 America, representing, perhaps,
one-tenth of the diamond trade of the country, in Mr. Schultze's
office. He found the other four gathered around a small table, and on
this table--Mr. Latham gasped as he looked--lay four replicas of the
mysterious diamond in his pocket.

"Pud id down here, Laadham," directed Mr. Schultze. "Dey're all
dwins alike--Dweedeldums und Dweedledeeses."

Mr. Latham silently placed the fifth diamond on the table, and for
a minute or more the five men stood still and gazed, first at the
diamonds, then at one another, and then again at the diamonds. Mr.
Solomon, the crisply spoken head of Solomon, Berger and Company,
broke the silence.

"These all came yesterday morning by mail, one to each of us just as
the one came to you," he informed Mr. Latham. "Mr. Harris here, of
Harris and Blacklock, learned that I had received such a stone, and
brought the one he had received for comparison. We made some
inquiries together