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Poissan had moved toward the furnace. With a quick motion he seized the long tongs. There was a cloud of choking vapour. Kennedy leaped to the switch and shut off the current. With the tongs he lifted out a shapeless piece of valueless black graphite. "All that is left of the priceless Morowitch jewels," he exclaimed ruefully. "But we have the murderer."
Spencer," said Kennedy to me, "that it is no sleight-of-hand trick and that the professor has not several uncut stones palmed in his hand like a prestidigitator." The Frenchman faced us, his face livid with rage. "You call me a prestidigitator, a fraud you shall suffer for that! Sacrebleu! Ventre du Saint Gris! No man ever insults the honour of Poissan. Francois, water on the electrodes!"
There was something peculiar about his insistence, but after he picked out the next diamond I was hardly prepared for Kennedy's next remark. "Let me see the palms of your hands." Poissan shot an angry glance at Kennedy, but he did not open his hands. "I merely wish to convince you, 'Mr.
"You remember Morowitch's 'hallucination, as the doctor called it? That was no hallucination; that was a reality. This man Poissan says he has discovered a way to make diamonds artificially out of pure carbon in an electric furnace. Morowitch, I believe, was to buy his secret. His dream of millions was a reality at least to him." "And did Kahan and Mrs. Morowitch know it?" I asked quickly.
There are no keys to offices to be stolen from our pockets. And let me tell you you are not the only man in New York who knows the secret of thermite. I have told the secret to the police, and they are only waiting to find who destroyed Morowitch's correspondence under the letter 'P' to apprehend the robber of his safe. Your secret is out." "Revenge! revenge!" Poissan cried. "I will have revenge.
You are spies, spies. You come from the friends of Morowitch, do you? You have gone too far with me." Kennedy said nothing, but retreated and took his coat and hat off the window ledge. The hideous penetrating light of the tongues of flame from the furnace played on the ground-glass window. Poissan laughed a hollow laugh. "Put down your hat and coat, Mistair Kennedy," he hissed.
What is the highest temperature you have attained, Professor?" "Something over three thousand degrees Centigrade," replied Poissan, as he and his assistant busied themselves about the furnace. We sat watching him in silence. "Ah, gentlemen, now I am ready," he exclaimed at length, when everything was arranged to his satisfaction.
Instead of being cowed Kennedy grew bolder, though I, for my part, felt so weakened that I feared the outcome of a hand-to-hand encounter with either Poissan or Francois, who appeared as fresh as if nothing had happened. They were hurriedly preparing to leave us. "That would do you no good," Kennedy rejoined, "for we have no safe full of jewels for you to rob.
He went to the door into the hall and stood there with a mocking laugh. I moved to make a rush toward them, but Kennedy raised his hand. "You will suffocate," Poissan hissed again. Just then we heard the elevator door clang, and hurried steps came down the long hall. Craig whipped out his automatic and began pumping the bullets out in rapid succession.
Around an "L" in the hall I could see a ground-glass window with a light shining through it. Kennedy stopped at the window and quickly placed the little coil on the ledge, close up against the glass, with the wires running from it down the hall. Then we entered. "On time to the minute, Professor," exclaimed Poissan, snapping his watch.
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