But the diamond expert was on his feet, protesting with a white face.
“No, professor, if you have any such mad idea in your head, I must refuse to permit you to take the chance,” he said. “We will have no demonstration to-night.”
“To-night as well as any other time, my dear Saleworth,” replied the professor, smiling. “I do not intend to give up trying to prove to the world that I can make diamonds. This is the result of years of labor on my part. I insist upon going on with the matter and at once.”
“But you make us all so frightfully uncomfortable,” said the lawyer, Farren. “Great Scott, I feel as though I am a criminal myself!”
“And perhaps you are, my dear Farren,” smiled the professor grimly. “I do not know. But the lieutenant will find out.”
“I’d go home after that, Phil,” said Linda Price indignantly. “I wouldn’t stay for the silly old demonstration. Let us all go home.”
“The man who makes that move will be rather unfortunate,” said the professor mildly.
“You are right,” spoke Clinton then. “We must stay. I, for one, would not think of leaving. If anything so horrible as an attempt upon the professor’s life actually does take place, I want to be present after this speech of his. And that violin stuff rather has me going.”
“Quite so,” joined in Harmer, who had grown rather white. “Of course we cannot any of us leave now. Buck up, Linda. We’ve all got to see it through.”
“This man, one of you, feels quite safe,” said the professor looking about the table. “He has carefully thought out this thing. He feels he can defy the police. He is not afraid even though the famous Lieutenant Williams, who has many successes behind him, is seated at the table with him. Come, let us go and get the thing over with.”
Chapter IV
In the Crucible Room
Caresse Wheatland stood for a moment at the head of the table, her radiant head held high. But the lieutenant, watching her, thought he saw death in her eyes. And why not? It was the death, perhaps, of her love, if the professor had spoken truth. In giving herself to the man she cared for, after the death of her husband, she signed his warrant, she branded him as a murderer. Marriage to Caresse Wheatland would have been a confession after that scene at the dinner table, provided the professor was murdered.
And as the little party left the dining room and walked in silence down the stairs and along the softly carpeted corridor to the apartment that held the crucible and the furnace, the lieutenant could not help thinking of a march to the electric chair. What were they going to and how would he and his office be able to cope with it? Was the professor right or insane with jealousy? Could he actually make a genuine diamond, or was he a fake? A crook? Williams could not decide.
But as he had several times before this brought out a handful of genuine diamonds from his crucible, and as he would probably bring out some more that night, no matter how he did it, there must be, to the lieutenant’s way of thinking, a store of diamonds in the house, in all likelihood, in that queer workroom. Suppose the criminal knew that? Knew the hiding place of the gems? But his plans must have been horribly upset by that dinner table speech of the professor’s, by the presence of Lieutenant Williams.
The professor, stepping ahead of the others, unlocked the door with its secret combination. Then, standing to one side, with a courteous gesture he invited them into the room.
Switching on the light by the door, the professor snapped the door shut with a meaning look at the lieutenant. And Williams knew that only the professor, Caresse and himself knew how to get out of that room. And one other, the murderer — if the woman he loved had told him.
In the lieutenant’s opinion, the professor well deserved to die, for anything more diabolical than the trap he had set for his lovely wife and her lover he could not imagine. It must have fanned into wild hatred the feeling already smoldering in the killer’s heart. And no woman could ever live happily with Wheatland. The lieutenant was inclined to sympathize with Caresse, although he was on the alert to pick up anything that might help him if the prophesied crime really took place.
The professor motioned them to chairs and removed his coat and turned up the sleeves of his dinner shirt, rolling them to his shoulder.
“Saleworth, you are at liberty to watch me mix my ingredients,” he nodded to the diamond expert, who was watching him uneasily.
“I again ask you not to try this tonight, professor,” said Saleworth earnestly. “You have made me most uncomfortable.”
“To-night as well as any other time,” said Wheatland, with a twisted smile. “But one more word. The door by which you all came in is the only exit from this room. There are no windows. The door is locked by a combination only myself, my wife and Lieutenant Williams know. Caresse may have told the man who is going to murder me. I do not know. But he will not make use of the knowledge — now.”
As he said this the professor turned a devilish grin upon the horrified faces about him. Picking up the crucible he passed it to the lieutenant.
“Every one kindly examine this most carefully,” he instructed.
In silence the container was passed from hand to hand.
The professor, in silence, too, carefully watched by Saleworth, mixed the ingredients which he told them would form, in the terrifically hot furnace, a small collection of genuine diamonds. And gathered about the table the little group examined the mixture before it was placed in the crucible.
“I have only one formula,” said the professor as he placed the crucible in the furnace. “That is in this room. I do not need any, for the trick is engraved upon my mind, so long I have labored at the thing. This formula is carefully hidden, but I think the murderer can find it. He thinks he can. It is for this secret he will kill me as much as to win my wife. But now he will have to take great care and skill in using it, else he will be sent to the chair.”
“Let us out of this hideous room!” gasped Linda Price. “I cannot stand this any longer. Caresse, poor darling, how do you endure it? The man is mad.”
“Perhaps that is why I endure it,” said Caresse with a strange smile. “He is mad, Linda. He can no more make a diamond than I can.”
The lieutenant believed her. And in watching closely the movements of the professor he had forgotten for the time the impending tragedy. For the life of him he could not discover how he worked the trick. But of course no diamonds were in that crucible at the moment. Plow the diamonds would get into it was what interested Williams.
Chapter V
Eight Diamonds!
“We will have a wait of about a half hour, or a trifle more,” announced the professor, turning from the furnace. “Lieutenant, I will be grateful if you will stand beside the light switch. I do not intend to have my demonstration stopped before I show to Mr. Saleworth the diamonds which I shall take from the crucible.”
With folded arms Williams took up his stand beside the door where a button controlled the powerful lamp which was set in the snowy ceiling and which lighted the small apartment with a trying white glare. His eyes wandered from face to face. Every one was £rave and a bit shocked, uneasy and just a little disgusted, as was to be expected. But even with all his experience he could not decide what man had murder in his heart or the weapon upon him which would cause the death of the professor. And at that last thought he had an inspiration.