Mannert's wife and sons corroborated his statements. Nevertheless, the barber, Kirchmeier, when confronted with them, stuck to his story. The entire absence of all malicious motive strengthened his testimony and gained him full credence from the Nuremberg authorities. So the Mannert family were also consigned to durance, while their residence was searched from top to bottom. Nothing incriminating was found; only in a lumber room one of the planks appeared to have been recently disturbed, and this, although it led to no further discovery, was deemed highly suspicious. Meanwhile, Schönleben had been again questioned, and still stoutly denied his guilt. When asked as to his accomplices and confederates, he replied that he could have had none, having committed no crime. Beutner, the beadmaker, had no doubt asked him once where Sterbenk's counting-house was situated, and whether the family all slept upstairs, but, after all, that might be mere curiosity. Beutner excused himself by saying he must have been drunk when he asked such questions--at least, he had no recollection of putting them. Several independent witnesses deposed to having been with Beutner on the night of the robbery till 2 a.m., after which they walked home with him. The perverse cruelty of the Nuremberg Court, which had accepted Kirchmeier's story so readily, was not yet exhausted, and, very much as in the case of Calas, given on a previous page, it persisted in seeking a confession as its own best justification. Mannert was still obdurate, however, and force was now applied. Floggings were tried, but quite without result, and at last, a fresh search of the dwellings of both Mannert and Schönleben having proved fruitless, it was resolved to appeal to the antiquated instruments of Nuremberg justice, surviving still, within ten years of the nineteenth century--the priest and the rack. The power of the priest to extort confession, even from the most hardened criminals, had often proved successful heretofore, and public expectation was raised high that justice would once more be vindicated in this fashion. But the priests failed now. Neither Mannert, nor his wife, nor his sons would make the slightest acknowledgment of their guilt, and it became clear that they had won over the priests to their side. Still the Court was resolute to follow out its own line of action. Confession having failed, it determined to try the effect of flogging the woman, or, if her health did not allow such an extreme proceeding, she was to be strictly isolated, and kept upon bread and water in the darkest dungeon of the prison; lastly, if these merciless measures proved of no avail, she was to be subjected to the rack.