The object, then, was to give to the authorities such hints as should induce them to pass over the houses of the baker and the woolspinner. The woolspinner's wife had the merit of devising the infernal project which occurred to them. The Blue Dragoon was to be the victim. A robbery had taken place. Why might he not have been the criminal? He had often scaled the hedge--had often entered the house at night during his courtship. But then a corroborating circumstance might be required to ground the suspicion. It was supplied by the possession of a handkerchief which he had accidentally dropt in her house, and which she had not thought it necessary to restore to him. It might be placed in any spot they thought fit, and the first links in the chain of suspicion were clear. The invention of the baker came to the aid of the woolspinner's wife. One token was not enough; a second proof of the presence of the dragoon in Madame Andrecht's house must be devised. The baker had, one day, been concluding a bargain with a peasant before the house of the dragoon. He required a bit of paper to make some calculation, and asked the host for some, who handed him an old excise permit, telling him to make his calculations on the back. This scrap of paper the baker still had in his pocket-book. This would undoubtedly compromise the dragoon. But then it bore the name and handwriting of the baker on the back. This portion of it was accordingly burnt; the date and the signature of the excise officer were enough for the diabolical purpose it was intended to effect. It was rolled up into a match, and deposited by the baker (who, as already said, had contrived to make his way along with the police into the house) upon the floor, where he pretended to find it, and deliver it to the authorities. The machinations of these wretches were unconsciously assisted by those of the carpenter and his confederates. The suspicion which the handkerchief and the match had originated, the finding of the pocket-book within the house of the dragoon appeared to confirm and complete,--an accidental concurrence of two independent plots, both resorted to from the principle of self-preservation, and having in view the same infernal object.