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.