A few weeks later, a young German, in custody in London for a trifling offence, was recognised as Karl Franz. He himself positively denied that he was the man, but at last acknowledged that the documents found in Kingswood Rectory were his property. He was, in due course, committed for trial at the Croydon assizes. The prosecution seemed to hold very convincing evidence against him. A Saxon police officer was brought over, who identified him as Karl Franz, and swore that the various certificates produced had been delivered to him on the 6th of April of the same year. Another witness swore to Franz as one of the men seen in the neighbourhood of the rectory on the 11th of June; while a third deposed to having met two strangers in a wayside public-house, talking a foreign language, and identified Franz as one of them. This recognition was made in Newgate, where he picked out Franz from a crowd of prisoners. Yet more: the servant of a brushmaker in Reigate deposed that two men, speaking some unknown tongue, had come into the shop on the day of the crime, and had bought a hank of cord. One of these men she firmly believed to be the accused. This was the same cord as that with which the murdered woman was bound. What could the accused say to rebut such seemingly overwhelming evidence? He had, nevertheless, a case, and a strong case. He explained first that he had changed his name because he had been told of the Kingswood murder, and of the discovery of his papers. They were undoubtedly his papers, but they had been stolen from him. His story was that he had landed at Hull, and was on the tramp to London, when he met two other Germans by the way, seamen, Adolf Krohn and Muller by name, and they all joined company. Muller had no papers, and was very anxious that Karl Franz should give him his. On the borders of Northamptonshire the three tramps spent the night behind a haystack. Next morning Franz awoke to find himself alone; his companions had decamped, and his papers were gone. He had been robbed also of a small bag containing a full suit of clothes.