Having carefully considered his position, therefore, and immediately
after securing his dividend at Smith’s, Brown proceeded to William
Middleton, of the Sheriff-Clerk’s Office, and informed him that he had
certain discoveries to make concerning the robberies recently committed
in the city. Late as it then was--eleven o’clock--Middleton at once took
Brown to the Procurator-Fiscal, to whom he told the whole story,
suppressing, however, in the meantime, all mention of Deacon Brodie’s
name in connection with the crimes. His object in taking this course was
doubtless to secure a hold upon the Deacon which would enable him, at
his leisure, to blackmail that respectable gentleman with impunity. At
his own request the Procurator-Fiscal and Middleton went with him that
same night to Salisbury Crags, where Brown pointed out a number of false
keys underneath a stone, hidden there by Smith after the affair at the
Excise Office, of which the Fiscal took possession.
The next morning, Saturday, 8th March, Brown, accompanied by Middleton,
left for Chesterfield in pursuit of Inglis & Horner’s goods by the very
coach in which Mrs. Smith was to have performed the same journey. How
they fared upon their errand is not recorded, but it would have been
interesting to know what happened when John Tasker’s unexpected guests
dropped in at the “Bird in Hand.”
The same day Ainslie, Smith, and his wife, and servant-maid were
apprehended; and, having been examined before the Sheriff, were
committed to the Tolbooth, the two women being subsequently set at
liberty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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