The criminal proceedings, in consequence of these disclosures, took a completely different turn. The merchant was a witness entirely above suspicion. True, there was here only the testimony of one witness, either to the innocence of the dragoon, or the guilt of the carpenter; but the moral conviction to which his statement gave rise in the mind of the judge was so strong, that he did not hesitate to issue an immediate order for the arrest of the carpenter and his companions, before publicity should be given to the merchant's disclosures. No sooner were they apprehended, than a strict scrutiny was made in the carpenter's house.
This measure was attended with the most complete success. With the exception of a few trifles, the whole of the effects which had been abstracted from Madame Andrecht's, were found in the house. The examination of the prisoners produced a very different result from those of Nicholas and his comrades. True, they denied the charges, but they did so with palpable confusion, and their statements abounded in the grossest contradictions of each other and even of themselves. They came to recriminations and mutual accusations; and, being threatened with the torture, they at last offered to make a full confession. The substance of their admissions was as follows:—
Isaac Van C——, his apprentice, and his housekeeper, were the real perpetrators of the robbery at Madame Andrecht's. Who had first suggested to them the design, does not appear from the evidence. But with the old lady's house and its arrangements they were as fully acquainted as the dragoon. The apprentice, when formerly in the service of another master, had wrought in it, and knew every corner of it thoroughly. They had borrowed the boat for the purpose of getting access across the canal into the garden, and used it for carrying off the stolen property, as already mentioned. On the morning when the robbery became public, the master and the apprentice had mingled with the crowd to learn what reports were in circulation on the subject. Among other things, the apprentice had heard that the woolspinner's wife had unhesitatingly expressed her suspicions against the Blue Dragoon. Of this he informed his comrades, and they, delighted at finding so convenient a scapegoat for averting danger from themselves, forthwith formed the infernal design of directing, by every means in their power, the suspicions of justice against the innkeeper.
The apprentice entered the drinking-room of the innkeeper, and called for some schnaps, at the same time asking for a coal to light his pipe. While the innkeeper went out to fetch the coal, the apprentice took the opportunity of slipping the widow's memorandum-book, which he had brought in his pocket, betwixt the drawers. He succeeded, and the consequences followed as the culprits had foreseen: the house was searched, the book found, and, in the eyes of many, the dragoon's guilt established.
If these confessions were to be trusted, the dragoon and his family seemed exculpated from any actual participation in the robbery. Still, there were circumstances which these confessions did not clear up; some grave points of doubt remained unexplained. That the carpenter had himself pledged the silver plate with the wood-merchant, without having received it from Nicholas, was now likely enough; he had accused him, probably, only to screen himself. But how came Nicholas's handkerchief to be found by the side of the hedge? How came the excise receipt, which belonged to him, to be used as a match by the thieves? The carpenter and his comrades declared that as to these facts they knew nothing; and as they had now no inducement to conceal the truth, there could be no reasonable doubt that their statement might, in these particulars, be depended upon.
The suspicion again arose that other accomplices must be concerned in the affair; and the subject of the letter from the corporal who had deserted, became anew the subject of attention. If not written by himself, it might have been written by another at his suggestion, and in one way or other it might have a connexion with the mysterious subject of the robbery.
In fact, while the proceedings against the carpenter and his associates were in progress, an incident had occurred, which could not fail to awaken curiosity and attention with regard to this letter. The schoolmaster of a village about a league from the town presented himself before the authorities, exhibited a scrap of paper on which nothing appeared but the name Joseph Christian Ruhler, and inquired whether, shortly before, a letter in this handwriting and subscribed with this name, had not been transmitted to the court? On comparing the handwriting of the letter with the paper exhibited by the schoolmaster, it was unquestionable that both were the production of the same hand.
The statement of the schoolmaster was this,—
In the village where he resided, there was a deaf and dumb young man, named Henry Hechting, who had been sent by the parish to the schoolmaster for board and education. He had succeeded in imparting to the unfortunate youth the art of writing; so perfectly, indeed, that he could communicate with any one by means of a slate and slate-pencil which he always carried about with him. He also wrote so fair a hand, that he was employed by many persons, and even sometimes by the authorities, to transcribe or copy writings for them. Some time before, an unknown person had appeared in the village, had inquired after the deaf and dumb young man in the schoolmaster's absence, and had taken him with him to the alehouse to write out something for him. The unknown had called for a private room, ordered a bottle of wine, and, by means of the slate, gave him to understand that he wanted him to make a clean copy of the draft of a letter which he produced. Hechting did so at once without suspicion. Still, the contents of the letter appeared to him of a peculiar and questionable kind, and the whole demeanour of the stranger evinced restlessness and anxiety. When he came, however, to add the address of the letter, "To Herr Van der R——, Burgomaster of M——," he hesitated to do so, and yielded only to the pressing entreaties of the stranger, who paid him a gulden for his trouble, requesting him to preserve strict silence as to the whole affair.
The deaf and dumb young man, when he began to reflect on the matter, felt more and more convinced that he had unconsciously been made a party to some illegal transaction. He at last confessed the whole to his instructor, who at once perceived that there existed a close connexion between the incident which had occurred and the criminal procedure in the noted case of the robbery. The letter of the corporal had already got into circulation in the neighbourhood, and was plainly the one which his pupil had been employed to copy. The schoolmaster, at his own hand, set on foot a small preliminary inquiry. He hastened to the innkeeper of the village inn, and asked him if he could recollect the stranger who some days before had ordered a private room and a bottle of wine, and who had been for some time shut up with the deaf and dumb lad. The host remembered the circumstance, but did not know the man. His wife, however, recollected that she had seen him talking on terms of cordial familiarity with the corn-miller, Overblink, as he was resting at the inn with his carts. The schoolmaster repaired on the spot to Overblink, inquired who was the man with whom he had conversed and shaken hands some days before at the inn; and the miller, without much hesitation, answered, that he remembered the day, the circumstance, and the man, very well: and that the latter was his old acquaintance the baker, H——, from the town. The schoolmaster hastened to lay these particulars before the authorities.