CHARLES PEACE, after the habit of his kind, was born of scrupulously
honest parents. The son of a religious file-maker, he owed to his father
not only his singular piety but his love of edged tools. As he never
encountered an iron bar whose scission baffled him, so there never was
a fire-eating Methodist to whose ministrations he would not turn a
repentant ear. After a handy portico and a rich booty he loved nothing
so well as a soul-stirring discourse. Not even his precious fiddle
occupied a larger space in his heart than that devotion which the
ignorant have termed hypocrisy. Wherefore his career was no less
suitable to his ambition than his inglorious end. For he lived the king
of housebreakers, and he died a warning to all evildoers, with a prayer
of intercession trembling upon his lips.
The hero's boyhood is wrapped in obscurity. It is certain that no
glittering precocity brought disappointment to his maturer years, and he
was already nineteen when he achieved his first imprisonment. Even then
'twas a sorry offence, which merited no more than a month, so that he
returned to freedom and his fiddle with his character unbesmirched.
Serious as ever in pious exercises, he gained a scanty living as
strolling musician. There was never a tavern in Sheffield where the
twang of his violin was unheard, and the skill wherewith he extorted
music from a single string earned him the style and title of the modern
Paganini. But such an employ was too mean for his pride, and he soon
got to work again--this time with a better success. The mansions
of Sheffield were his early prey, and a rich plunder rewarded his
intrepidity. The design was as masterly as its accomplishment. The grand
style is already discernible. The houses were broken in quietude and
good order. None saw the opened window; none heard the step upon the
stair; in truth, the victim's loss was his first intelligence.
But when the booty was in the robber's own safe keeping, the empiricism
of his method was revealed. As yet he knew no secret and efficient fence
to shield him from detection; as yet he had not learnt that the complete
burglar works alone. This time he knew two accomplices--women both, and
one his own sister! A paltry pair of boots was the clue of discovery,
and a goodly stretch was the proper reward of a clumsy indiscretion. So
for twenty years he wavered between the crowbar and the prison house,
now perfecting a brilliant scheme, now captured through recklessness or
drink. Once when a mistake at Manchester sent him to the Hulks, he owned
his failure was the fruit of brandy, and after his wont delivered (from
the dock) a little homily upon the benefit of sobriety.
Meanwhile his art was growing to perfection. He had at last discovered
that a burglary demands as diligent a forethought as a campaign; he had
learnt that no great work is achieved by a multitude of minds. Before
his boat carried off a goodly parcel of silk from Nottingham, he was
known to the neighbourhood as an enthusiastic and skilful angler. One
day he dangled his line, the next he sat peacefully at the same employ;
and none suspected that the mild mannered fisherman had under the
cloud of night despatched a costly parcel to London. Even the years of
imprisonment were not ill-spent. Peace was still preparing the great
achievement of his life, and he framed from solitary reflection as well
as from his colleagues in crime many an ingenious theory afterwards
fearlessly translated into practice. And when at last he escaped the
slavery of the gaol, picture-framing was the pursuit which covered
the sterner business of his life. His depredation involved him in no
suspicion; his changing features rendered recognition impossible. When
the exercise of his trade compelled him to shoot a policeman at Whalley
Range, another was sentenced for the crime; and had he not encountered
Mrs. Dyson, who knows but he might have practised his art in prosperous
obscurity until claimed by a coward's death? But a stormy love-passage
with Mrs. Dyson led to the unworthy killing of the woman's husband--a
crime unnecessary and in no sense consonant to the burglar's craft; and
Charles Peace was an outlaw, with a reward set upon his head.
And now came a period of true splendour. Like Fielding, like Cervantes,
like Sterne, Peace reserved his veritable masterpiece for the certainty
of middle-life. His last two years were nothing less than a march of
triumph. If you remember his constant danger, you will realise the
grandeur of the scheme. From the moment that Peace left Bannercross with
Dyson's blood upon his hands, he was a hunted man. His capture was worth
five hundred pounds; his features were familiar to a hundred hungry
detectives. Had he been less than a man of genius, he might have taken
an unavailing refuge in flight or concealment. But, content with no
safety unattended by affluence, he devised a surer plan: he became a
householder. Now, a semi-detached villa is an impregnable stronghold.
Respectability oozes from the dusky mortar of its bricks, and escapes in
clouds of smoke from its soot-grimed chimneys. No policeman ever detects
a desperate ruffian in a demure black-coated gentleman who day after day
turns an iron gate upon its rusty hinge. And thus, wrapt in a cloak
of suburban piety, Peace waged a pitiless and effective war upon his
neighbours.
He pillaged Blackheath, Greenwich, Peckham, and many another home of
honest worth, with a noiselessness and a precision that were the envy of
the whole family. The unknown and intrepid burglar was a terror to all
the clerkdom of the City, and though he was as secret and secluded as
Peace, the two heroes were never identified. At the time of his true
eminence he 'resided' in Evelina Road, Peckham, and none was more
sensible than he how well the address became his provincial refinement.
There he installed himself with his wife and Mrs. Thompson. His
drawing-room suite was the envy of the neighbourhood; his pony-trap
proclaimed him a man of substance; his gentle manners won the respect of
all Peckham. Hither he would invite his friends to such entertainments
as the suburb expected. His musical evenings were recorded in the local
paper, while on Sundays he chanted the songs of Zion with a zeal which
Clapham herself might envy.
The house in Evelina Road was no mere haunt of quiet gentility. It
was chosen with admirable forethought and with a stern eye upon the
necessities of business. Beyond the garden wall frowned a railway
embankment, which enabled the cracksman to escape from his house without
opening the front door. By the same embankment he might, if he chose,
convey the trophies of the night's work; and what mattered it if the
windows rattled to the passing train?
At least a cloud of suspicion was dispelled. Here he lived for two
years, with naught to disturb his tranquillity save Mrs. Thompson's
taste for drink. The hours of darkness were spent in laborious activity,
the open day brought its own distractions. There was always Bow Street
wherein to loaf, and the study of the criminal law lost none of its
excitement from the reward offered outside for the bald-headed fanatic
who sat placidly within. And the love of music was Peace's constant
solace. Whatever treasures he might discard in a hurried flight, he
never left a fiddle behind, and so vast became his pilfered collection
that he had to borrow an empty room in a friend's house for its better
disposal.
Moreover, he had a fervent pride in his craft; and you might deduce from
his performance the whole theory and practice of burglary. He worked
ever without accomplices. He knew neither the professional thief nor his
lingo; and no association with gaol-birds involved him in the risk of
treachery and betrayal. His single colleague was a friendly fence, and
not even at the gallows' foot would he surrender the fence's name. His
master quality was a constructive imagination. Accident never marred his
design. He would visit the house of his breaking until he understood
its ground-plan, and was familiar with its inhabitants. This demanded an
amazing circumspection, but Peace was as stealthy as a cat, and he would
keep silent vigil for hours rather than fail from an over keen anxiety.
Having marked the place of his entry, and having chosen an appropriate
hour, he would prevent the egress of his enemies by screwing up the
doors.
He then secured the room wherein he worked, and the job finished, he
slung himself into the night by the window, so that, ere an alarm could
be raised, his pony-trap had carried the booty to Evelina Road.
Such was the outline of his plan; but, being no pedant, he varied it
at will: nor was he likely to court defeat through lack of resource.
Accomplished as he was in his proper business, he was equally alert to
meet the accompanying risks. He had brought the art of cozening strange
dogs to perfection; and for the exigence of escape, his physical
equipment was complete. He would resist capture with unparalleled
determination, and though he shuddered at the shedding of blood, he
never hesitated when necessity bade him pull the trigger. Moreover,
there was no space into which he would not squeeze his body, and the
iron bars were not yet devised through which he could not make an exit.
Once--it was at Nottingham--he was surprised by an inquisitive detective
who demanded his name and trade. 'I am a hawker of spectacles,' replied
Peace, 'and my licence is downstairs. Wait two minutes and I'll show it
you.' The detective never saw him again. Six inches only separated the
bars of the window, but Peace asked no more, and thus silently he
won his freedom. True, his most daring feat--the leap from the
train--resulted not in liberty, but in a broken head. But he essayed
a task too high even for his endeavour, and, despite his manacles, at
least he left his boot in the astonished warder's grip.
No less remarkable than his skill and daring were his means of evasion.
Even without a formal disguise he could elude pursuit. At an instant's
warning, his loose, plastic features would assume another shape; out
shot his lower jaw, and, as if by magic, the blood flew into his face
until you might take him for a mulatto. Or, if he chose, he would
strap his arm to his side, and let the police be baffled by a wooden
mechanism, decently finished with a hook. Thus he roamed London up and
down unsuspected, and even after his last failure at Blackheath, none
would have discovered Charles Peace in John Ward, the Single-Handed
Burglar, had not woman's treachery prompted detection. Indeed, he was an
epitome of his craft, the Complete Burglar made manifest.
Not only did he plan his victories with previous ingenuity, but he
sacrificed to his success both taste and sentiment. His dress was always
of the most sombre; his only wear was the decent black of everyday
godliness. The least spice of dandyism might have distinguished him
from his fellows, and Peace's whole vanity lay in his craft. Nor did the
paltry sentiment of friendship deter him from his just course. When
the panic aroused by the silent burglar was uncontrolled, a neighbour
consulted Peace concerning the safety of his house. The robber,
having duly noted the villa's imperfections, and having discovered the
hiding-place of jewellery and plate, complacently rifled it the next
night. Though his self-esteem sustained a shock, though henceforth his
friend thought meanly of his judgment, he was rewarded with the solid
pudding of plunder, and the world whispered of the mysterious marauder
with a yet colder horror. In truth, the large simplicity and solitude of
his style sets him among the Classics, and though others have surpassed
him at single points of the game, he practised the art with such
universal breadth and courage as were then a revolution, and are still
unsurpassed.
But the burglar ever fights an unequal battle. One false step, and
defeat o'erwhelms him. For two years had John Ward intimidated the
middle-class seclusion of South London; for two years had he hidden from
a curious world the ugly, furrowed visage of Charles Peace. The bald
head, the broad-rimmed spectacles, the squat, thick figure--he stood
but five feet four in his stockings, and adds yet another to the list
of little-great men--should have ensured detection, but the quick change
and the persuasive gesture were omnipotent, and until the autumn of 1878
Peace was comfortably at large. And then an encounter at Blackheath put
him within the clutch of justice. His revolver failed in its duty,
and, valiant as he was, at last he met his match. In prison he was
alternately insolent and aggrieved. He blustered for justice, proclaimed
himself the victim of sudden temptation, and insisted that his intention
had been ever innocent.
But, none the less, he was sentenced to a lifer, and, the mask of John
Ward being torn from him, he was sent to Sheffield to stand his trial as
Charles Peace. The leap from the train is already recorded; and at his
last appearance in the dock he rolled upon the floor, a petulant and
broken man. When once the last doom was pronounced, he forgot both
fiddle and crowbar; he surrendered himself to those exercises of piety
from which he had never wavered. The foolish have denounced him for a
hypocrite, not knowing that the artist may have a life apart from his
art, and that to Peace religion was an essential pursuit. So he died,
having released from an unjust sentence the poor wretch who at Whalley
Range had suffered for his crime, and offering up a consolatory prayer
for all mankind. In truth, there was no enemy for whom he did not
intercede. He prayed for his gaolers, for his executioner, for the
Ordinary, for his wife, for Mrs. Thompson, his drunken doxy, and he went
to his death with the sure step of one who, having done his duty, is
reconciled with the world. The mob testified its affectionate admiration
by dubbing him 'Charley,' and remembered with effusion his last grim
pleasantry. 'What is the scaffold?' he asked with sublime earnestness.
And the answer came quick and sanctimonious: 'A short cut to Heaven!'