“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.