The Blue Dragoon
A Story of Circumstantial Evidence
From the Criminal Records of Holland*
In the town of M—, in Holland, there lived, toward the close of the last century, an elderly widow, Madame Andrecht. She inhabited a house of her own, in company with her maid servant, who was nearly of the same age. She was in prosperous circumstances; but, being in delicate health and paralyzed on one side, she had few visitors, and seldom went abroad except to church or to visit the poor. Her chief recreation consisted in paying a visit in spring to her son, who was settled as a surgeon in a village a few miles off. On these occasions, fearing a return of a paralytic attack, she was invariably accompanied by her maid, and, during these visits, her own house was left locked up, but uninhabited and unwatched.
On the 30th June, 17—, the widow returning to M—, from one of these little excursions, found her house had been broken open in her absence, and that several valuable articles, with all her jewels and trinkets, had disappeared. Information was immediately given to the authorities, and a strict investigation of the circumstances took place without delay.
The old lady had been three weeks absent, and the thieves of course had had ample leisure for their attempt. They had evidently gained access through a window in the back part of the house, communicating with the garden, one of the panes of which had been removed, and the bolts of the window forced back, so as to admit of its being pulled up. The bolts of the back door leading into the garden had also been withdrawn, as if the robbers had withdrawn their plunder in that direction. The other doors and windows were uninjured; and… Read More