This part of the statement, indeed, was confirmed by the other inmates of his family; but, in other respects, their statements were calculated to increase the suspicions against him. Nicholas, for instance, had stated that no part of his debt to Isaac, had been paid--that in fact he had not been in a condition to do so--while the other three members of the household, on the contrary, maintained that a few months before he _had_ made a payment of twenty guldens to Isaac, expressly to account of this claim. Nicholas became vastly embarrassed when this contradiction between his own statement and the evidence of the witnesses was pointed out to him. For the first time his composure forsook him--he begged pardon for the falsehood he had uttered. It was true, he said, that he had counted out twenty guldens, in presence of the members of his family, and told them it was intended as a payment to account of Isaac's claim; but the money had not been paid to his creditor. He had been obliged to appropriate it to the payment of some old gambling debts, of which he could not venture to inform his wife. This departure from truth on the part of the accused had apparently but slender bearing on the question of the robbery; but it excited a general doubt as to his statements, which further inquiry tended to confirm. The carpenter, anxious to remove any suspicion as to the truth of his own story, produced a sort of account-book kept by himself, in which, under the sale of 23d June, there was the following entry,--"The innkeeper, Nicholas D----, has this day paid me the value of thirty guldens in old silver." The housekeeper and apprentice of the carpenter also deponed that they had been present on one occasion when the dragoon had proposed that their master should take the silver in payment. If, on the one hand, the innkeeper had handed over to the carpenter the silver plate, it was plain he was either the thief or the receiver: if he had not done so, the carpenter had not only been guilty of a calumnious accusation, but the suspicion of a guilty connexion with the robbery became turned against himself. All presumptions, however, were against the innkeeper. He had admittedly been guilty of a decided falsehood as to the payment,--he could not or would not give the names of any one of those to whom his gambling debts had been paid, as he alleged,--and the fact that he had brought the plate to the carpenter's was attested by three creditable witnesses. The general opinion in the town was decidedly against him. The utmost length that any one ventured to go, was, to suggest that his relations, who had been apprehended along with him, might be innocent of any participation in his guilt; though, being naturally anxious to save him, they might somewhat have compromised the truth by their silence, or their statements.