A strange sound came from the throat of the man in black, and then, seeming to fancy that he had admitted altogether too much, he hastened to say:
"The ring is valuable to me; but it is worth little to anybody else."
"I suppose that is because nobody else knows its secret?" came from Snell.
"Secret! Bah! It has no secret!"
But it was not easy to convince Snell that this was the truth.
"Then why should you go to such extremes to get possession of a wretched old thing of that sort?" demanded Wat.
"I have told you. The ring belonged to me—was stolen from me. It has been in our family a great length of time, and was given me by my father. I prize it highly for that reason. I do not know how it came into the possession of this Merriwell family, and I cannot prove my claim to my own property, so I must recover it in such a manner as is possible. That is the truth."
Wat said nothing. Somehow he was doubtful, for it did not seem that anybody who was sane could resort to such desperate expedients to recover an ugly old ring that had no particular value save as an heirloom.
As for Frank, he might have believed the strange man's story, but for the fact that the man had told him something entirely different. One story or the other might be true, but in any case the man in black was a liar.
There was a brief silence, and then Snell asked: