Having learned all that was necessary for his purpose, the Deacon went one day to the office with Smith, on pretence of inquiring for Mr. Corbett, and while he thus engaged the attention of the cashier, Smith took an impression in putty of the key of the outer door, which, according to the prevailing ingenuous custom, was hung upon a nail inside it. From this Brodie prepared a drawing of the wards, and Smith filed a key of similar pattern. The next step was to ascertain the habits of the watchman who guarded the premises, and for this purpose Ainslie--whose department seems to have been scouting--was deputed to observe the office on several successive nights. He found that it was usually closed for the day at eight o’clock; that when all the clerks had left the outer door was locked, and the key taken to Mr. Dundas, “the housekeeper,” who lived in the court, and that the night watchman did not come on duty until ten o’clock. The Excise Office was thus left wholly unguarded between the hours of eight and ten at night. Smith and Brown had already tried the efficiency of the new key, which readily opened the outer door, but the lock of the inner door to the cashier’s room refused to yield to their persuasive methods. Smith was of opinion that its resistance could only be overcome by violence, observing that the coulter of a plough would be a suitable instrument for that purpose. Accordingly, on the afternoon of Friday, 28th February, Ainslie and Brown repaired to Duddingston as a likely spot for picking up such an implement. Having refreshed themselves after their walk with a bottle of porter at a house in the village, they entered a field in the neighbourhood, where they had seen a man ploughing, and, when his back was turned, removed the coulter of the plough and two iron wedges, which on their way home by the King’s Park they hid in Salisbury Crags. Unfortunately for themselves and Smith, they were accompanied upon this country ramble by a black dog, belonging to the latter, named “Rodney,” which, curiously enough, was at a later stage to bear testimony against its master before the Sheriff.