This was too much for the jeweller. He touched a bell and had the apprentice lad, Edward Price, sent for, and drew from him such a minute account of the delivery of the parcel, that it became the gentleman’s turn to be staggered and to doubt his own convictions. The lad described the house, the hall, and the clean-shaven footman so clearly and accurately that his narrative bore an unmistakable impress of truthfulness. The gentleman could, therefore, only suggest the possibility of Price having mistaken the _number_ of the house, and the things being accepted as a present by the persons who had thus received them by mistake. But even this supposition—which was afterwards proved to be fallacious—did not account for the most mysterious feature in the case—how the things had been ordered and by whom. It was clear to Mr Ward that the gentleman before him and the buyer of the presents were two distinct persons, having no facial resemblance; but the new Mr Whitmore having, in his impatience to be gone, drawn from his pocket a gold watch, with the peculiar black dial already described, a fresh shade of mystery was cast over the case. “I have seen that watch before,” he ventured to say. “The gentleman who ordered the things wore just such a watch as that. I saw it when he was leaving. And he had on his finger a diamond ring very like that which you wear. I had it in my hand for a few moments, and it bore his initials inside.” The gentleman, looking doubly surprised, drew from his finger the ring in question and placed it in the jeweller’s hand. The initials “S.W.” were there inside, exactly as he had seen them on the ring of the mysterious representative. “Did you ever lend this ring to any one?” he asked in amazement.