"A very strange thing has happened here. Kurz, the shopkeeper had the manure he bought for his own field carted to, and spread over that of Wredow, the baker, who is his rival in respect to the town jail. Hawermann found a bit of black waxcloth with the Rambow arms upon it amongst the manure, and this has been a great comfort to him, because of the suspicion resting on him of having taken part in the theft of the Louis d'ors in the year '45, especially as the mayor says that it is a piece of evidence. The mayor has just appointed me assessor, in which post I can make a little money, but at great inconvenience to myself, for I have always been accustomed to lead a very active life as farm-bailiff, and indeed I ought still to take a great deal of exercise because of my gout. I havn't to work hard, but sitting still so long makes me horribly sleepy. However there's one good thing in it, and that is, that I get to know what the mayor won't let me tell Hawermann. But as you are in Paris, and not in Rahnstädt, I can tell you as a friend, all that is going on. The thing is this. The weaver told a lie when he said he had never had any communication with his divorced wife, and that, the mayor says, is another piece of evidence. Indeed we have so many of these links in the chain of evidence, that it's enough to make even a dog howl to think that more can't be made out of them. The central point of the story is widow Kählert. Now widow Kählert is determined to marry the weaver, and has discovered that he won't have her, because his divorced wife has made up her mind to marry him again. This discovery has given rise to an evil feeling in dame Kählert's breast, which may be characterised as jealousy, and so she has let fall some new bits of evidence that the mayor tells me are both important and relevant, or as I should say, to the point. The mayor says, however, that one has to be very cautious about believing the woman, for she is so enraged that she wouldn't stick at a lie if she thought it would serve her cause. I don't know about the lies, but I'm sure that she told the truth when she said that the weaver showed her a number of Danish double Louis d'ors which he has in his possession, for Krüger, the butcher, has twice borne witness to his having them. And this morning while the weaver was giving us new evidence of his powers lying, Höppner and some other detectives were busy searching his house, where they found _nine_ Danish double Louis d'ors in the secret drawer of his desk. He tried to deny all knowledge of them at first, but did not succeed in convincing any one. The former Mrs. Schmidt is also arrested as a principal actor in this affair, for the police have found in her possession a snuff box which belonged to the late Mr. Behrens, and which had always been kept under a glass case as a sort of heir loom. This theft has gained her free quarters in the jail. Dame Kählert is there too, but merely for puncto cichuriarum,[3] for in her passion