kept”--together with “a black case, with a lid to it, the case full of
potty,” with which it had been the Deacon’s amiable habit to take
impressions of his friends’ door keys, and of which Smith remarked that
he “approved of Brodie keeping the potty in a case, as the lid prevented
an impression of a key, when taken, from being defaced.” On a subsequent
occasion, Smith conducted the sheriff-officers to the foot of
Warriston’s Close, where the iron crow--“Little Samuel”--the “toupee
tongs,” and the false key for the Excise Office door were discovered
hidden “in an old dyke.” The Deacon’s dark lantern and twenty-five false
keys were, on 13th December, 1841, presented by the then Clerk of
Justiciary to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, in whose museum
they still remain.
On Tuesday, 11th March, George Williamson, King’s Messenger for
Scotland, was deputed to search for the missing Deacon. He tried several
of Brodie’s haunts in Edinburgh and Leith--even examining the enclosed
tombs in Greyfriars Churchyard, which had more than once sheltered
living offenders against the law--but without success. Prosecuting his
inquiries along the London Road, Williamson first got scent of his
quarry at Dunbar, which the fugitive had left at four o’clock on the
Sunday afternoon in a post-chaise, and afterwards traced him to
Newcastle, where he had taken the “Flying Mercury” light coach for York
and London. From the coachman of that vehicle Williamson learned that
Deacon Brodie had left the coach at the foot of Old Street, Moorfields,
instead of proceeding to the “Bull and Mouth,” where the coach stopped,
and there all trace of him was lost. His pursuer repaired to the
billiard tables, hazard tables, cock-pits, tennis courts, and other
likely places, without hearing anything of him, and pushed his inquiries
as far as Margate, Deal, and Dover, with the like result. Finally, after
eighteen days’ fruitless search, the King’s Messenger was compelled to
return to Edinburgh and confess himself at fault.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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