Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 51, No. 2, June 28, 1930

Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 51, No. 2, June 28, 1930

Diamond Death by Madeleine Sharps Buchanan

In the room of the crucible a terrible fate awaits professor Wheatland, maker of gems...

Chapter I Room of the Crucible

Lieutenant Williams, head of the city’s murder squad, followed the sedate butler down a softly carpeted hallway, under a fall of magnificent tapestry, and through a steel door into a room he had long wished to see.

A man in a linen smock rose from an easy chair before a table and came forward with outstretched hand. He was a rather heavy man of medium Height, but his keen eyes under bushy brows gave the lie to his dull large featured face.

“Professor Wheatland?” smiled the lieutenant. “I am very much interested to see your workshop, but I’m rather curious to know what you can want with me.”

For a moment Wheatland, scientist and society man, looked gravely and appraisingly at the tall lithe figure of the young lieutenant. He was satisfied with what he saw, since it amply lived up to the reputation the officer had built for himself in the past five years, and with a smile he motioned to a chair.

“I sent for you, lieutenant, because I am about to be murdered,” he said flatly.

“What!” Williams, gazing with interest about the curious room, brought his gaze back to the professor’s face with a start.

Wheatland nodded.

“Yes. It is quite a serious matter. But first of all, I must show you this room. Then you may understand better. Of course you have heard of my ability to manufacture diamonds?”

“Yes,” said the lieutenant, looking frankly incredulous. “And I must confess that with the rest of the city, I don’t believe you can.”

The professor smiled fleetingly.

“Look at this room,” he requested. “That door you came in by is positively the only opening it has. No other doors and no windows. Here I work in absolute secrecy. I have to, as my invention would be worth millions to many industries. You realize what it will mean if I make diamonds in this crucible.”

He motioned toward a stand near a huge electric furnace.

Williams nodded.

“Yeah, if you can make them,” he said. “But no man can make a real diamond, professor. Don’t try to hand me that.”

“I expect that attitude, naturally,” said the professor patiently. “But I have already demonstrated to the heads of various jewel industries that I can make diamonds in that furnace. They have seen me do it. The diamond powers are growing frightened. And well they may. But it is not to show you how I make diamonds that I asked you to come here. First of all I wish you to examine to your own satisfaction this room. Convince yourself that there is no way out of it save through the door by which you just entered.”

With growing interest, despite his incredulity, Williams rose and walked about the oval room, tapping the white painted walls and pausing to carefully examine the electric furnace.

“The door is locked by a combination only my wife and myself know,” went on the professor. “And I have been most careful to let my wife know this combination. Examine the lock if you please.”

Williams did so, wondering if what the papers said about the scientist was not true, and if he were not just a bit gone in the head.

“This,” said the professor scribbling on a paper and handing it to the astounded officer of the law, “is the combination. Memorize it if you please.”

The lieutenant having read the paper, the professor immediately burned it in a small dish on the table.

“In this room to-night, lieutenant,” he resumed, “I demonstrate to a few friends, a reporter, and the head of a famous diamond mining company, an expert, that I can mix my ingredients in this crucible and put the crucible in that furnace and in a short time take from the crucible a handful of genuine diamonds. I am giving a little dinner party first, but it is not with that I am interested. In this room, before this select little group leaves it, after my demonstration, I shall be killed.”

The lieutenant’s disgusted face flushed a little.

“How can you possibly know that?” he demanded.

“I have been told over the telephone and by notes left at my door and discovered in the morning by Jock, the butler. The notes will be of no help to the police, and I have not saved them. They have all been alike, worded the same, and composed of printed words cut from newspapers and stuck on a bit of wrapping paper. There has never been any envelope.”

“I should have liked to see them, however,” said the lieutenant impatiently. “They might have told us more than they told you. We have some rather good men at headquarters.”