"Oblige me by looking at that tray and the contents," he said. "You
recognize it, of course? Just so. Now, do you know where that tray was
when you went out, leaving your grandfather alone, yesterday afternoon?"
"Yes," replied Zillah, unhesitatingly. "On the table in the back-parlour--
where I saw it when I came in. My grandfather had taken it out of the
front window, so that he could polish the rings."
"Do you know how many rings it contained?"
"No. Perhaps twenty-five or thirty."
"They are, I see, laid loosely in the tray, which is velvet-lined. They
were always left like that? Just so. And you don't know how many there
were--nor how many there should be there, now? As a matter of fact, there
are twenty-seven rings there--you can't say that is the right number?"
"No," answered Zillah, "and my grandfather couldn't have said, either. A
ring might be dropped into that tray--or a ring taken out. They are all
old rings."
"But--valuable?" suggested Mr. Parminter.
"Some--yes. Others are not very valuable."
"Now what do you mean by that word valuable? What, for instance, is the
value of the least valuable ring there, and what is that of the most
valuable?"
Zillah glanced almost indifferently at the tray before her.
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