, sir, you certainly are
the man."

"Thanks," said Nick, dryly. "I'll take you home with me for the night."

CHAPTER XVII.

THE GAME UNCOVERED.

The following morning.

The clock in Nick Carter's library was striking nine.

Nick and Chick were seated at one side of the table, and Jean Pylotte
occupied a chair at the opposite side.

Upon the dark cloth top of the table between them lay two large
diamonds, declared by Pylotte to have been artificially made, the two
with which he claimed to have been swindled.

Yet to the eyes of a layman they had all the qualities of natural gems,
gleaming and glistening with magnificent fire in the cheerful sunlight
of Nick's library.

Pylotte had invented a very clever and consistent story about himself
and his mission in New York, as well as about the meeting and being
victimized by the counterfeit diamond shover, and Nick as yet saw no
occasion for seriously distrusting him, or connecting him with the
Kilgore gang.

He rather suspected, in fact, that Pylotte had shadowed the swindler,
whom Nick felt sure was Kilgore, with a view to learning just how the
diamonds had been manufactured, and possibly with a design to turn the
discovery to his own advantage.

This was, indeed, the most natural deduction for Nick to arrive at,
after considering all the circumstances.

"So you are confident that these stones are works of art, rather than
of nature, are you?" inquired Nick, who had been carefully examining the
gems.

"I am absolutely sure of it, Mr. Carter," declared Pylotte.

"Have you any idea how such counterfeits can be made?"

"Oh, yes."

"By what process and means, Mr. Pylotte?"

Pylotte hastened to explain.

"A natural diamond, Mr. Carter, is pure carbon, crystallized under
enormous heat and pressure in the bowels of the earth."

"I am aware of that."

"Charcoal and graphite are also pure carbon, but not in a crystallized
condition," continued Pylotte. "If that condition could be imparted to
the substances mentioned, we should have the artificial diamond."

"How may that be done?" inquired Nick.

"By subjecting the substance to the same condition under which the
natural diamond was crystallized."

"Heat and pressure?"

"Precisely," bowed Pylotte. "Attempts to thus manufacture diamonds have
frequently been made. A Mr. Acheson, of Pittsburg, while so engaged, and
in obtaining graphite from coal by the heat of an electric furnace,
discovered that