The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Diamond Master, by Jacques Futrelle

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Title: The Diamond Master

Author: Jacques Futrelle

Release Date: February 4, 2005 [eBook #14896]
[Date last updated: February 12, 2005]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DIAMOND MASTER***

E-text prepared by Ed Ferris

THE DIAMOND MASTER

by

JACQUES FUTRELLE

Author of "Elusive Isabel," "The Thinking Machine," etc.

Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer

Indianapolis
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
Publishers

1909

[Frontispiece]

CONTENTS

I THE FIRST DIAMOND
II TWEEDLEDUM AND TWEEDLEDEE
III THURSDAY AT THREE
IV THE UNLIMITED SUPPLY
V THE ASTUTE MR. BIRNES
VI THE MYSTERIOUS WOMAN
VII A WINGED MESSENGER
VIII SOME CONJECTURES
IX AND MORE DIAMONDS!
X THE BIG GAME
XI THE SILENT BELL
XII THE THIRD DEGREE
XIII MR. CZENKI APPEARS
XIV CAUGHT IN THE NET
XV THE TRUTH IN PART
XVI MR. CZENKI EXPLAINS
XVII THE GREAT CUBE

CHAPTER I

THE FIRST DIAMOND

There were thirty or forty personally addressed letters, the daily
heritage of the head of a great business establishment; and a plain,
yellow-wrapped package about the size of a cigarette-box, some three
inches long, two inches wide and one inch deep. It was neatly tied
with thin scarlet twine, and innocent of markings except for the
superscription in a precise, copperplate hand, and the smudge of the
postmark across the ten-cent stamp in the upper right-hand corner. The
imprint of the cancellation, faintly decipherable, showed that the
package had been mailed at the Madison Square substation at half-past
seven o'clock of the previous evening.

Mr. Harry Latham, president and active head of the H. Latham Company,
manufacturing jewelers in Fifth Avenue, found the letters and the
package on his desk when he entered his private office a few minutes
past nine o'clock. The simple fact that the package bore no return
address or identifying mark of any sort caused him to pick it up and
examine it, after which he shook it inquiringly. Then, with kindling
curiosity, he snipped the s