The dog halted in the reeds before the men did. A peddler and the ferrymen accompanying him saw the beast refuse the boat, return to the very same bank, and bark toward the edge of the Hoogvliet ferry landing. Drawing nearer, they came upon a naked corpse, already rigid and bearing marks of violence. It proved necessary to carry it to the communal hall and attempt to restore it to life before any inquiry could begin. The Pitaval notes that it here draws upon a narrative published at Groningen in 1830 under the title “Nemesis.” Its editors caution that the tale may belong among apocryphal accounts, even as they acknowledge within it a core that may be authentic. This adapted source places the discovery, which it sets in the final third of the eighteenth century, on the island of Putten in Holland; it unites two murders separated by nearly nine years through the dying words of a man on the threshold of death.
The innkeeper of Spykenis recognized in the deceased the younger of two travelers he had seen crossing a few days earlier. The elder companion soon returned to the district; he maintained that he had known the victim only since their encounter on the road, and could not say where the youth had gone after their parting. Another detail emerged from the testimony: the young man had once more requested passage toward Spykenis, with the intention of reaching Geervliet before nightfall. He never arrived. Passersby described a traveler whose garments matched those of Munter, yet both the identification and the itinerary remained incomplete.
The road led toward a seldom-frequented ferry, which the proprietress of an inn had leased out. As the laborers were occupied in the fields, two boatmen offered to carry the traveler across in their own skiff. They declared that they had set him ashore on the opposite bank. Witnesses subsequently believed they had caught sight of the same man upon the dike; none could describe with certainty what had transpired there. The body had sustained a mortal blow to the head, dealt with a blunt instrument. According to the medical opinions reported by the book, approximately twenty-four hours had elapsed between the demise and the discovery. The tempest, the falling dusk, and the tide explained, in the compiler’s view, how the corpse had been carried into the reeds.
The magistrates examined travelers, ferrymen, and hostleries alike. The elder man who had parted from Munter was interrogated; the boatmen confirmed the crossing. Nothing, however, permitted justice to trace the perpetrators. Suspects were apprehended, then discharged for want of proof or when an explanation cleared them of suspicion. The tribunal of Putten could not determine who had slain the man. In the version of the Pitaval, the affair closes upon a roadway devoid of decisive witnesses, and thereafter remains long dormant.
The narrative resumes at Leerdam, where Christoph Bleeker established himself as a merchant of provisions. The inhabitants came to call him the “grimmige Stoffe.” The compiler depicts him as solitary and severe, pious in public view, yet observes that he received into his dwelling the horse dealer Roelf Zeegers. The latter spent long hours at the tavern and returned at times in liquor. The two men shared, according to the observations recorded in the chapter, a friendship that their neighbors struggled to comprehend. Bleeker concealed his past; explanations concerning his naval service and his establishment under the patronage of the Prince of Orange remain mere conjectures within the account.
As disputes between partisans of the Prince and the Patriots intensified, Bleeker reportedly took a more prominent share in political discourse. Zeegers, for his part, cared little for these contentions, though he was no stranger to the tavern where they unfolded. During an evening at the fair, a sharp exchange of words set them at variance before the other patrons. The company present intervened, and the two men appeared to reconcile. According to their subsequent depositions, Zeegers then resumed a lighthearted conversation, whereas Bleeker remained mute and regarded him with hostility. This depiction derives from retrospective testimony; it affords no access to the private designs of either man.
Toward one o’clock in the morning, the patrons quitted the tavern. Bleeker and Zeegers lingered for a few moments more. In another inn, opposite Bleeker’s house, witnesses could still hear noise, though the street appeared deserted. Suddenly, a cry followed by the sound of a fall drew them out of doors. They discovered Zeegers stretched upon the paving stones, his countenance covered in blood. The wounds to his head were grievous. Upon regaining his senses, he named Bleeker as the man who had struck him down, affirming that he had done nothing to provoke the assault. The surgeon pronounced the injuries mortal.
The tavern-keeper crossed the street to alert the authorities. At that moment, a man emerged from Bleeker’s house and strode swiftly away. The townsfolk overtook him at the end of the street: Bleeker was clad in traveling garments and bore a small bundle. The narrative states that upon seeing the wounded Zeegers, he admitted having struck him. He was taken into custody. On the following day, Zeegers was still able to depose before the tribunal. He asserted then that his companion had committed with him, nine years before, the murder of a traveler and the robbery of his effects. Shortly thereafter, he expired. His declaration supplied justice with a lead that no other witness appeared capable of confirming.
Bleeker admitted having dealt the blow that killed Zeegers, but disputed any intention to slay him. He ascribed the act to drunkenness, to an insult, and to an altercation that had erupted before his threshold. The witnesses from the inn reported no such quarrel in the street as he described. Rather, they recollected the outward reconciliation in the tavern and Bleeker’s silence on the homeward walk. Inhabitants also recounted words spoken by Zeegers, who had at times remarked that his friend could never escape his secrets. Bleeker denied ever having taken part in the murder of Munter, presenting Zeegers’s accusation as an act of malice.
For the earlier murder, the court of Putten possessed solely the word of a dying man, himself implicated in the crime he recounted. The chapter records no distinctly reasoned verdict regarding Bleeker’s guilt in the death of Munter prior to his final confession. Regarding the death of Zeegers, however, the judges rejected the defense of an accident occasioned by intoxication. They rested their decision upon the circumstances of the evening, the statements of the patrons, the reported threats, and Bleeker’s flight. The tribunal pronounced him guilty of premeditated murder and condemned him to death.
As the execution drew near, Bleeker requested a further interrogation. He then confessed his participation in the murder of Friedrich Christian Munter. In the account of this confession, he and Zeegers, natives of the same village near ’s-Hertogenbosch, were serving as seamen. They had reportedly fallen in with Munter at an inn, agreed to convey him across the Meuse, and resolved to despoil him after catching sight of his purse. According to the recorded confession, they overtook him upon the dike, struck him upon the head, killed him at the river’s edge, cast his corpse into the water, and concealed his garments and pack, weighted down with a stone. They divided the coin between them and went their way.
Bleeker subsequently explained their long association by the terror that Zeegers might disclose their crime. The belated confession also attributed to guilt and dread the austere manner in which Bleeker had lived at Leerdam. These reasons are those imputed to him by the compiler in reproducing the confession; they find no corroboration from any other witness. Following the murder of Zeegers, Bleeker was put to death. The chapter concludes that his final confession shed light upon the disappearance of Munter, but documents no complete re-examination of the physical evidence, nor any separate judgment rendered upon that first affair.
The fair of Leerdam gives its name to a history that opens beside a ferry crossing, with the discovery of an unnamed man. Two deaths, which the inquiry had left severed for nearly nine years, are brought together at last in the words of the dying Zeegers and in the confession that the chronicle attributes to Bleeker. The tribunal pronounced the capital penalty for the murder of Zeegers; the belated confession illuminated that of Munter, without the chapter presenting any separate judicial decision in its regard.