“Now, to continue. There was here, you will perceive, at least a certain relation established between a Mrs Barclay Rivers and a packet of bird-skins, with the man and girl in Lower Marsh for the hyphen connecting them as it were. How to ascertain the nature of the relationship, the degree of kindred so to speak, was the question. Obviously, the simplest course was to hunt out the widow herself, and to make a frank offer to her of my services; and that was the course I adopted.
“The auctioneers who had sold the property were fortunately in a position to acquaint me with the present address of the lady. She was living in lodgings in the Earl’s Court Road, they informed me, and, to supplement her income, which was small, she gave music lessons. They opined that her husband’s death—which occurred in the Malay Peninsula some eighteen months ago—had left her very ill provided for, and that the sale of her household effects had been due to that cause. I must confess that both here and elsewhere I did not hesitate to quote, when necessary, my credentials. You may think that hardly playing the game; in which case I offer no defence. But it saved a world of explanations.
“I called upon Mrs Rivers. She was accessible, of course, professionally, and I took the opportunity to introduce myself and to state my object in visiting her. Fortunately she was well acquainted with the reputation of our Agency, and from that first moment all, so far as she was concerned, was plain sailing. It is unnecessary for me to enter into particulars; but I may say, generally, that she gave me her complete confidence.”
Miss Halifax, fluttering butterfly lashes, shot one glance at the secretary. He sat absorbed and intent, and her lids fell again.
“She was the widow, it appeared,” continued Gilead, “of a Captain Barclay Rivers, who, at the time of his death, had been abroad on a scientific expedition in the Malay Peninsula, and its contiguous islands. Some few weeks before the news of his death had reached her, there had arrived from him through a shipping agency, and directed in his handwriting, a small bale of bird-skins, but unaccompanied by any letter or notification of their despatch. There was nothing about the parcel to lead her to attach any particular significance to its contents, or to any part of its contents, and she put the skins aside, after a brief examination, fully expecting to hear from her husband by the next mail. Instead there came to her the tragic information of his death from swamp fever.
“She was left—needless to elaborate the reasons—in such restricted circumstances that it became necessary for her to realize on her every stick of property, and to retire into obscurity. The parcel of skins was included in the sale, and it found a purchaser. Such was the sum total of her testimony. She had no reason for assuming that the parcel had contained anything extraordinary, and, interested as she was in my view of the case, she was inclined to the belief, I fancy, that it would lead me to no more than the discovery of a beautiful mare’s-nest. Questioned about the contents of the bale, she admitted that, to the best of her memory, it had contained a single skin of the sort described; but she could not in the least recollect if that especial skin had been included in the lot sold by auction. She had, however, no reason for supposing otherwise.
“Well, here was something more gained, if a little less than suggestive. I had, of course, already minutely examined my purchase. It included no rose-ring, and yielded no solution. My next step was to return to the broker’s shop, to enquire if any previous customer had overhauled the packet that I had bought. Judge of my gratification when I learned that a week or two before, a man, answering in every description to my friend of Lower Marsh, had considered, and, after a careful scrutiny, had declined, the purchase. From that moment I saw the connection proved, and knew that it needed no more than tact and persistence to bring me to the heart of the mystery.
“Now it occurred to me that the bonnet shop in the Borough—known as Mélanies’—which had acquired from the broker the bulk of the lot purchased by him, should form my next subject for enquiry, and thither I bent my steps one morning about mid-day. As I reached the place, by a truly extraordinary chance the hands were trooping out to dinner, and amongst them I saw and recognised at once the figure of the girl whom I had seen issuing from the empty shop in Lower Marsh. Fortunately I passed unobserved by her, or she might have suspected something. But it came to me in a flash that she was in league with Jenniver, or whatever the man’s name might be, to trace the rose-ring to some customer of the firm, and that since she had been presumably unsuccessful, the rose-ring could not figure among the stock at Mélanies’, and therefore it was useless my pursuing my enquiries further in that direction. Really, I think, Miss Halifax, I was inspired in all this.”
“I am sure you were, Mr Balm. What was your next step?”
“Why, to induce Mrs Barclay Rivers to come with me to see if by any chance she could identify the man Jenniver himself. It was just possible, and it might explain everything.”