Around 2 a.m. on April 15, 1865, members of the District of Columbia police visited the Surratt boarding house, seeking John Wilkes Booth and John Surratt. Why the police came to the house is not entirely clear. Most historians conclude that Weichmann's friend, Department of War employee Daniel Gleason, had alerted federal authorities to Confederate activity centered on the Surratt house, but that does not explain why police rather than federal agents appeared there. (Historian Roy Chamlee, however, says that there is evidence that Gleason did not tell police about his suspicions of Weichmann for several days.) Within 45 minutes of the attack on Lincoln, John Surratt's name had become associated with the attack on Secretary of State William H. Seward. The police as well as the Provost Marshal's office both had files on John Surratt Jr. and knew he was a close friend of Booth. (It is possible that either James L. Maddox, property supervisor at Ford's Theatre and a friend of Booth's, or actor John Matthews, both of whom may have known about the plot to attack government officials, mentioned Surratt's name.) Historian Otto Eisenschiml has argued that David Herold's attempt to steal a horse from John Fletcher may have led them to the Surratt boarding house, but at least one other scholar has called the link uncertain. Other sources claim that eyewitnesses had identified Booth as Lincoln's attacker, and the detectives had information (a tip from an unnamed actor and a bartender) linking John, Jr., to Booth. Mary lied to the detectives that her son had been in Canada for two weeks. She also did not reveal that she had delivered a package to the tavern on Booth's behalf only hours earlier.