“Well?” he queried impatiently, at last.

“Laadham, id is der miracle!” Mr. Schultze explained solemnly, with his characteristic, whimsical philosophy.  “I haf der dupligade of id, Laadham—­der dwin, der liddle brudder.  Zee here!”

From an inner pocket he produced a glazed white box, identical with that which Mr. Latham had just set down, then carefully laid the cover aside.

“Look, Laadham, look!”

Mr. Latham looked—­and gasped!  Here was the counterpart of the mysterious diamond which still lay in Mr. Schultze’s outstretched palm.

“Dey are dwins, Laadham,” remarked the German quaintly, finally.  “Id came by der mail in dis morning—­yust like das, wrapped in paper, but mit no marks, no name, no noddings.  Id yust came!”

With his right hand Mr. Latham lifted the duplicate diamond from its cotton bed, and with his left took the other from the German’s hand.  Then, side by side, he examined them; color, cutting, diameter, depth, all seemed to be the same.

“Dwins, I dell you,” repeated Mr. Schultze stolidly.  “Dweedledum und Dweedledee, born of der same mudder und fadder.  Laadham, id iss der miracle!  Dey are der most beaudiful der world in—­yust der pair of dem.”

“Have you made,” Mr. Latham began, and there was an odd, uncertain note in his voice—­“Have you made an expert examination?”

“I haf.  I measure him, der deepness, der cudding, der facets, und id iss perfect.  Und I take my own judgment of a diamond, Laadham, before any man der vorld in but Czenki.”

“And the weight?”

“Prezizely six und d’ree-sixdeendh carads.  Dere iss nod more as a difference of a d’irty-second bedween dem.”

Mr. Latham regarded the importer steadily, the while he fought back an absurd, nervous thrill in his voice.

“There isn’t that much, Schultze.  Their weight is exactly the same.”

For a long time the two men sat staring at each other unseeingly.  Finally the German, with a prodigious Teutonic sigh, replaced the diamond from Mr. Latham’s right hand in one of the glazed boxes and carefully stowed it away in a cavernous pocket; Mr. Latham mechanically disposed of the other in the same manner.

“Whose are they?” he demanded at length.  “Why are they sent to us like this, with no name, no letter of explanation?  Until I saw the stone you have I believed this other had been sent to me by some careless fool for setting, perhaps, and that a letter would follow it.  I merely brought it here on the chance that it was one of your importations and that you could identify it.  But since you have received one under circumstances which seem to be identical, now—­” He paused helplessly.  “What does it mean?”

Mr. Schultze shrugged his huge shoulders and thoughtfully flicked the ashes from his cigar into the consomme.

“You know, Laadham,” he said slowly, “dey don’t pick up diamonds like dose on der streed gorners.  I didn’t believe dere vas a stone of so bigness in der Unided States whose owner I didn’t know id vas.  Dose dat are here I haf bring in myself, mostly—­dose I did not I haf kept drack of.  I don’d know, Laadham, I don’d know.  Der longer I lif der more I don’d know.”