“Forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven—­”

Still nothing had happened.  Mrs. Kildair did not vary her measure the slightest, only the sound became more metallic.

“Sixty-six, sixty-seven, sixty-eight, sixty-nine and seventy—­”

Some one had sighed.

“Seventy-three, seventy-four, seventy-five, seventy-six, seventy-seven—­”

All at once, clear, unmistakable, on the resounding plane of the table was heard a slight metallic note.

“The ring!”

It was Maude Lille’s quick voice that had spoken.  Mrs. Kildair continued to count.

“Eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one—­”

The tension became unbearable.  Two or three voices protested against the needless prolonging of the torture.

“Ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine and one hundred.”

A match sputtered in Mrs. Kildair’s hand and on the instant the company craned forward.  In the center of the table was the sparkling sapphire and diamond ring.  Candles were lit, flaring up like searchlights on the white accusing faces.

“Mr. Cheever, you may give it to me,” said Mrs. Kildair.  She held out her hand without trembling, a smile of triumph on her face, which had in it for a moment an expression of positive cruelty.

Immediately she changed, contemplating with amusement the horror of her guests, staring blindly from one to another, seeing the indefinable glance of interrogation that passed from Cheever to Mrs. Cheever, from Mrs. Jackson to her husband, and then without emotion she said: 

“Now that that is over we can have a very gay little supper.”

When Peters had pushed back his chair, satisfied as only a trained raconteur can be by the silence of a difficult audience, and had busied himself with a cigar, there was an instant outcry.

“I say, Peters, old boy, that is not all!”

“Absolutely.”

“The story ends there?”

“That ends the story.”

“But who took the ring?”

Peters extended his hands in an empty gesture.

“What!  It was never found out?”

“Never.”

“No clue?”

“None.”

“I don’t like the story,” said De Gollyer.

“It’s no story at all,” said Steingall.

“Permit me,” said Quinny in a didactic way; “it is a story, and it is complete.  In fact, I consider it unique because it has none of the banalities of a solution and leaves the problem even more confused than at the start.”

“I don’t see—­” began Rankin.

“Of course you don’t, my dear man,” said Quinny crushingly.  “You do not see that any solution would be commonplace, whereas no solution leaves an extraordinary intellectual problem.”

“How so?”