Dixon, which was returning to Edinburgh but he paid the ship to detour and drop in Flushing in the Netherlands from whence he got to Ostend. However, on the boat he had given a Mr Geddes several letters to deliver to another mistress, on Cant's Close in Edinburgh. Geddes was suspicious and gave the letters to the authorities in Edinburgh. Williamson resumed his pursuit and found Brodie in Amsterdam where Brodie was planning to flee to the United States. Brodie was returned to Edinburgh for trial. The trial of Brodie and Smith started on 27 August 1788. At first there was no hard evidence against Brodie, although the tools of his criminal trade (copied keys, a disguise and pistols) were found in his house and workshops. But with Brown's evidence and Ainslie being persuaded to turn King's Evidence, added to the self-incriminating lines in the letters he had written while on the run, the jury found Brodie and Smith guilty. Brodie and George Smith were hanged at the Old Tolbooth in the High Street on 1 October 1788 before a crowd of 40,000 including Brodie's 10 year old daughter Cecil(e). The rope had to be adjusted in length three times as the bell of St Giles Cathedral adjacent tolled the death toll. According to one tale, Brodie wore a steel collar and silver tube to prevent the hanging from being fatal. It was said that he had bribed the hangman to ignore it and arranged for his body to be removed quickly in the hope that he could later be revived. If so, the plan failed. Brodie was buried in an unmarked grave in the north-east corner of the graveyard at St. Cuthbert's Chapel of Ease in Chapel Street (north of Buccleuch Place). However, rumours of his being seen in Paris circulated later and gave the story of his scheme to evade death further publicity. Cultural references Popular myth holds that Deacon Brodie built the first gallows in Edinburgh and was also its first victim. Of this William Roughead in Classic Crimes states that after research he was sure that although the Deacon may have had some hand in the design, "...it was certainly not of his construction, nor was he the first to benefit by its ingenuity". Robert Louis Stevenson, whose father owned furniture that had been made by Brodie, wrote a play (with W. E. Henley) entitled Deacon