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