"How long is it since you made this purchase?"
"About ten days ago."
"And what did you pay for it?"
"Three and sixpence."
By this time they had got opposite the square where the girl lived. She crossed, and he followed, in the meantime asking her name.
"There is Abram's house," she said; "there's light in the window."
And the officer, standing a little to see where she went, now began to examine the outside of Abram's premises. A chink in the shutters showed him a part of the person of some one inside, whom he conjectured to be Abram sitting at his work. He opened the door, and it was as he thought. An old man was sitting at a bench, with a pair of nippers in his hand, peering into some small object.
"Can you mend that?" said the officer abruptly, and, without a word of prelocution, pressing into his hands a ring.
"Anything," was the prompt reply.
But no sooner had the ring come under the glance of his far-ben eye—