Merritt grinned at the simplicity of the question. It was not worthy of the brilliant lady who had so far got the better of him.
"Latch-keys are very much alike," he said. "Give me three latch-keys, and I'll open ninety doors out of a hundred. Give me six latch-keys of various patterns, and I'll guarantee to open the other ten."
"I had not thought of that," Chris admitted. "Did Van Sneck happen by any chance to tell you what he and Mr. Henson had been quarrelling about?"
"He was too excited to tell anything properly. He was jabbering something about a ring all the time."
"What sort of a ring?"
"That I can't tell you, miss. I fancy it was a ring that Van Sneck had made."
"Made! Is Van Sneck a working jeweller or anything of that kind?"
"He's one of the cleverest fellows with his fingers that you ever saw. Give him a bit of old gold and a few stones and he'll make you a bracelet that will pass for antique. Half the so-called antiques picked up on the Continent have been faked by Van Sneck. There was that ring, for instance, that Henson had, supposed to be the property of some swell he called Prince Rupert. Why, Van Sneck copied it for him in a couple of days, till you couldn't tell t'other from which."
Chris choked the cry that rose to her lips. She glanced at Littimer, who had dropped his glass, and was regarding Merritt with a kind of frozen, pallid curiosity. Chris signalled Littimer to speak. She had no words of her own for the present.
"How long ago was that?" Littimer asked, hoarsely.