"JOSEPH CHRISTIAN RUHLER, Formerly Corporal in the Company of Le Lery."
The receipt of this letter started a new set of conjectures, followed up by inquiries. Captain le Lery's company was quartered in the town, and Corporal Ruhler had, as a matter of fact, belonged to it, but he had mysteriously and suddenly disappeared about the time of the robbery. No trace of him had been found. His letter seemed to throw light upon his disappearance, yet when it was shown to his captain and some of his comrades it was unanimously declared to be a forgery. What could have been the writer's object in fabricating it? Various theories were advanced, the most popular being that some guilty party, knowing the corporal had gone, thought to implicate him and save the accused from the torture, which might have driven them to full confession, in which the names of all accomplices would have been divulged. It was a clumsy explanation, but the only feasible one forthcoming. Every effort was made to discover the author of the letter, but without avail.
Now a fresh witness volunteered information--a merchant who lived in Madame Andrecht's neighbourhood, and who had left home about the time that the robbery had been perpetrated. He had just returned, to find that the mysterious affair was the talk of the town--indeed, he had had a full account of it from his fellow-passengers in the coach which brought him home. He now came to the authorities and told them what he knew. A day or two before the robbery a carpenter, Isaac van C----, had come to him seeking to borrow his boat, which the merchant kept in the fosse just behind his warehouse. Isaac made some pretence for wanting the boat which was not altogether satisfactory to the merchant, who refused to lend it, but yielded when the carpenter declared he wished to use it for the purposes of fishing. The next morning the boat was returned, but was not in exactly its right place; the inside of the boat, moreover, was too clean and dry for it to have been recently used for fishing. The merchant, although he had not yet heard of the robbery, strongly suspected that the carpenter had used the boat for some improper purpose, and he was strengthened in this view by finding two silver spoons under one of the thwarts. This discovery angered him, for he felt he had been deceived, and putting the spoons in his pocket, he went at once to the carpenter for an explanation. The carpenter, with whom were his housekeeper and apprentice, seemed greatly embarrassed when the spoons were produced, and after having been pressed by the merchant, they confessed that they had been up to no good, but would not say where or how they had obtained these spoons. The merchant was now called away from home, and the affair was driven from his mind by more serious transactions. Now that he heard of the robbery, he remembered the suspicious conduct of the carpenter and his servants.
