table, he swept his hand over it,
indicating a heap of rough diamonds that must have represented
millions.

"Merely a fraction of my treasure, gentlemen," he told them, with a
deprecating shrug. "I hadn't quite finished storing away the last
shipment, when you interrupted me."

He strode to one of the walls, drew out a small drawer from a built-in
cabinet and dumped its glittering contents on the table with the rest.

All around the room, Stoddard noted as he stood there swaying, were
other cabinets dotted with the knobs of similar drawers.

"And this, gentlemen, is but my American sub-headquarters," the
Prince went on. "In Siberia, in Brazil--but why bore you with the
multiplication of my now useless wealth? Tell me, instead, my good
friends--Professor Prescott, Doctor Stoddard--how come you back here,
after I saw you safely on your way earlier in the afternoon?"

"Because I happen to have a knack with can-openers, and my colleague
is rather adept with machinery," Stoddard told him, "while Major
Hendricks here is quite a hand with geography, not to mention
aviation."

* * * * *

A question or two, which they answered briefly, and Krassnov had the
story.

"Ah, my poor rocket!" he sighed. "But it is fate, I suppose; Kismet,
as the Turkish say. Still, I deserved a better fate than to be
captured by a pair of American professors, when the secret service of
the world was on my trail."

"Then cheer up!" said Stoddard, gritting his teeth to keep back the
pain of his throbbing shoulder. "For I have the honor to represent
Washington in this case."

At that, the prince scowled darkly for a moment. Then he brightened.

"Kismet again! I might have acted differently, had I known that,
but--well, I drink to your success, Doctor Stoddard!"

Whereupon, before they could restrain him, he lifted a vial from a
shelf over one of the cabinets and downed its contents.

"A diamond-dust cocktail!" he smiled, replacing the vial. "The most
expensive, even in your country of costly drinks--and the most
deadly!"

But Stoddard knew, as the doomed nobleman stood there facing them in
stoic triumph, that diamond dust in the human system was as slow as it
was deadly, and that the desperate gesture had been futile, so far as
justice was concerned.

There would be ample time, in the weeks Prince Krassnov of Imperial
Russia still lived, to round up his international allies and stamp out
the remnants of