The Diamond Master by Jacques Futrelle
page 30 of 121 (24%)
page 30 of 121 (24%)
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"Up to this moment, gentlemen, the De Beers Syndicate has controlled
the diamond market," Mr. Wynne announced, "but now, from this moment, I control it. I hold it there, in the palm of my hand, with the unlimited supply back of me. I am offering you an opportunity to prevent the annihilation of the market. It rests with you. If I turn loose a billion dollars' worth of diamonds within the year you are ruined--all of you. You _know_ that--it's hardly necessary to tell you. And, gentlemen, I don't care to do it." "What is your proposition?" queried Mr. Latham quietly. His face was ghastly white; haggard lines, limned by amazement and realization, were marked clearly on it. "What is your proposition?" he repeated. "Wait a minute," interposed Mr. Solomon protestingly, and he turned to the young man. "The Syndicate controls the market by force of a reserve stock of ten or fifteen million dollars. Do we understand that you have more than these ready for market now?" Mr. Wynne stooped and lifted the small sole-leather grip which had been unheeded on the floor. He unfastened the catch and turned the bag upside down upon the table. When he raised it again the assembled jewelers gazed upon a spectacle unknown and undreamed of in the history of the world--a great, glittering heap of diamonds, flashing, colorful, prismatic, radiant, bedazzling. They rattled like pebbles upon the mahogany table as they slipped and slid one against another, and then, at rest, resolved themselves into a steady, multi-colored blaze which was almost blinding. "Now, gentlemen, on the table before you there are about thirty million dollars' worth of diamonds," Mr. Wynne announced calmly. |
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