On examination of the remains of the paper, it appeared to have been a receipt, such as was usually granted by the excise to innkeepers for payment of the duties on spirits received into the town from a distance, and which served as a permit entitling the holder to put the article into his cellars. The upper part of the receipt containing the name of the party to whom it was granted was burnt, but the lower part was preserved, containing the signature of the excise officer, and the date of the permit: it was the 16th March of the same year. From these materials it was easy to ascertain what innkeeper in the town had, on that day, received such a permit for spirits. From an examination of the excise register, it appeared that on that day Nicholas D—— had received and paid the duties on several ankers of Geneva. Taken by itself, this would have afforded but slender evidence that he had been the person who had used the paper for a match, and had dropped it within Madame Andrecht's room; but, taken in connexion with the finding of the handkerchief, and the suspicious history of his nocturnal rambles which preceded it, it strengthened in a high degree the suspicions against the ex-dragoon.
After a short consultation, orders were issued for his apprehension. Surprise, it was thought, would probably extort from him an immediate confession. His wife, his father—a man advanced in years—and his brother, a shoemaker's apprentice, were apprehended at the same time.
A minute search of the house of the innkeeper followed; but none of the stolen articles were at first discovered, and indeed nothing that could excite suspicion, except a larger amount of money than might perhaps have been expected. At last, as the search was on the point of being given up, there was found in one of the drawers a memorandum-book. This was one of the articles mentioned in the list of Madame Andrecht's effects; and, on inspection, there could be no doubt that this was the one referred to—for several pages bore private markings in her own handwriting, and in a side-pocket were found two letters bearing her address. Beyond this, none of the missing, articles could be traced in the house.
The persons apprehended were severally examined. Nicholas D—— answered every question with the utmost frankness and unconcern. He admitted the truth of the woolspinner's story of his courtship, his nightly scrambles over the hedge, and his subsequent visits to his intended by means of the forage-boat. The handkerchief he admitted to be his property. When and where he had lost it he could not say. It had disappeared about six months before, and he had thought no more about it. When the pocket-book which had been found was laid before him, he gave it back without embarrassment, declared he knew nothing of it, had never had it in his possession, and shook his head with a look of surprise and incredulity when told where it had been found.
The other members of his household appeared equally unembarrassed: they expressed even greater astonishment than he had done, that the pocket-book, with which they declared themselves entirely unacquainted, should have been found in the place where it was. The young wife burst out into passionate exclamations: she protested it was impossible; or if the book was really found on the spot, that it was inexplicable to her how it came there. The Saturday before, (her apprehension having taken place on a Thursday,) she had brushed out the press from top to bottom—had cleared out the contents, and nothing of the kind was then to be found there.
The behaviour of the married pair and their inmates made, on the whole, a favourable impression on the judge who conducted the inquiry. Their calmness appeared to him the result of innocence; their character was good; their house was orderly and quiet, and none of the articles of value had been discovered in their possession. True, they might have disposed of them elsewhere; but the articles were numerous, and of a kind likely to lead to detection. Why should they have preserved the comparatively worthless article found in the drawer, instead of burning or destroying it? Why, above all, preserve it in a spot so likely to be discovered, if they had so carefully made away with every trace of the rest?
Still unquestionable suspicions rested on the landlord. The thieves must have been well acquainted with Madame Andrecht's house; and this was undeniably his position. His handkerchief, found on the spot about the time of the robbery; the half-burned match dropped on the premises; the pocket-book found in his own house—these, though not amounting to proof, scarcely seemed to admit of an explanation absolutely consistent with innocence.
In this stage of the inquiry, a new witness entered upon the scene. A respectable citizen, a dealer in wood, voluntarily appeared before the authorities, and stated that his conscience would no longer allow him to conceal certain circumstances which appeared to bear upon the question, though, from an unwillingness to come forward or to appear as an informer against parties who might be innocent, he had hitherto suppressed any mention of them.
Among his customers was the well-known carpenter, Isaac Van C——, who was generally considerably in arrears with his payments. These arrears increased: the wood-merchant became pressing: at last he threatened judicial proceedings. This brought matters to a point. A few days before the discovery of the robbery at Madame Andrecht's, the carpenter made his appearance in his house, and entreated him to delay proceedings, which he said would be his ruin, by bringing all his creditors on his back. "See," said he, "in what manner I am paid myself," putting a basket on the table, which contained a pair of silver candlesticks and a silver coffee-pot. "One of my debtors owes me upwards of sixty guldens: I have tried in vain to get payment, and have been glad to accept of these as the only chance of making any thing of the debt. From the silversmiths here I should not get the half the value for them: I must keep them by me till I go to Amsterdam, where such things are understood; but I shall leave them with you in pledge for my debt." The wood-merchant at first declined receiving them, but at length, thinking that it was his only prospect of obtaining ultimate payment, he yielded, and the articles remained in his hands.
A few days afterwards, the robbery became public; the list of the silver articles contained a coffee-pot and candlesticks; and the wood-merchant, not doubting that the articles pledged had formed part of the abstracted effects, had felt himself compelled to make known the way in which they had been obtained, and to place them in the hands of the officers of justice. He meant, he said, to convey no imputation against the carpenter, but it would be easy to learn from his own lips who was the debtor from whom the articles had come.