"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.
"They are all perfect, every one of them; and they're mine.