A VISIT TO THE BLACK MUSEUM――PEACE AND BANDY-LEGGED BILL――THE BURGLARY
AT DENMARK-HILL.
After the attempted robbery at the jeweller’s Peace had deemed it
advisable to leave his quarters for awhile.
Bandy-legged Bill had agreed to take charge of the premises till he
returned.
Peace therefore betook himself to a coffee-shop at Putney, where he
slept for several nights after his mishap.
He took the precaution, also, of altering his appearance as much as
possible, and to carry this into effect he had made a suit of clothes
dissimilar in every respect to those he was accustomed to wear; but,
to say the truth, all these arrangements were quite needless, for the
police had never had the faintest clue to the real culprit, and in a
short time gave the matter up as hopeless.
Indeed, to say the truth, they were so ashamed of their own want of
foresight, that they were but too glad to let the recollection of
blundering die out as speedily as possible.
The constable who had but recently joined the force was made a
scapegoat by his companions, who threw all the blame upon him.
He was reprimanded by the superintendent, who enjoined him to be more
careful for the future.
The young fellow promised not to make such a mistake again if he could
help it, and justice was satisfied, and the majesty of the law
vindicated.
Peace’s coat and hat, which had been left behind at the jeweller’s,
were for some time in charge of the police. When all hope of finding
its owner had been given up the garments in question were conveyed to
what is termed the “Black Museum” in Scotland-yard.
This place is one of the sights of London, but it is rare indeed that
any stranger is admitted into its sacred precincts. The uninitiated
may possibly feel some interest in a description of this receptacle
for criminal curiosities.
We subjoin an account of the place, which the reader may rest assured
is genuine.
“Take care how you step,” said a courteous official, who preceded the
visitor up a staircase in one of the houses in Scotland-yard, and
opened a door on an upper story.
“We are obliged to throw a great deal of this about;” the substance in
question was a disenfecting powder.
The room into which we were conducted was a large bare-floored
apartment, with barred windows, fitted up with wide shelves, which
were divided into compartments, and their contents were liberally
sprinkled with the all-pervading powder.
The room is that in which the articles of property taken from convicts
are stowed away until they are claimed by their owners.
Of course there was not much chance of any one coming forward to claim
Peace’s hat and coat from the stand in the centre of this receptacle,
of the objects of the “unlawful possessor” class, to which a large
room up stairs is also devoted.
Overhead is the “Black Museum,” in which during the last three years
_pieces de conviction_, which until then had been kept indiscriminately
with the other property of criminals, have been arranged and labelled,
forming a ghastly, squalid, and suggestive show.
On entering the lower room the visitor is struck by its odd
resemblance to a seed shop.
Hundreds of hooks stud the rims of the shelves and the sides of the
compartments, and from them are suspended hundreds of little packets
neatly made up in brown paper, tied with white twine, and severally
distinguished by large parchment labels, each bearing a neat
inscription.
The packets contain small articles taken from the prisoners, who in
due course, after they are discharged from prison will be brought to
Scotland-yard, and their portraits taken by force should they object
to that process.
The larger things are deposited in the compartments of the shelves,
and every item, no matter how insignificant, is entered into the
proper register.
A motley collection are the larger articles, with a preponderance
among them of grimy pocket-books and greasy purses.
But there are valuable things in some of those parcels, and downstairs
in the officials’ room is a massive iron safe, fitted with sliding
shelves, in which is kept a large collection of watches, rings, choice
pins, scent bottles, pencil cases, and other jewellery, which are
either the lawful property of prisoners or have been found in their
unlawful possession and confiscated, but for whom no owners have been
discovered.
Among the watches are some beautiful specimens. One in particular,
taken from a costermonger, of exquisite workmanship and ornamentation,
is valued at fifty pounds.
The prisoners’ property room is scrupulously clean and tidy, but the
look of it is forlorn and squalid, the powder lying thick on
everything, and the scent of moth and rot is in the air.
Great bales of cloth and woollen stuff occupy the shelves of the
central stand.
They are shaken and beaten and turned, but all to no avail; the moth
and rot get at them, and the unwholesome weirdness peculiar to once
worn but long unused garments is upon the articles of wearing apparel
which are hung or folded up in the room.
This impression comes more strongly upon the visitor when he goes up
higher still into the topmost apartment, where heaps of clothing hang
upon the walls――some new, some worn.
The heaps of shawls have a draggled and furtive look, and some
children’s clothing has a touch of its inseparable prettiness, even
here.
Old books, a picture or two, some worthless table ornaments,
innumerable articles which could not be described or classed except as
odds and ends, form a portion of the collection which goes on
accumulating, and which has no ultimate destination.
What is to become of all this? asks the visitor, and is answered to
his surprise that nobody knows, that the things are nobody’s property,
and nobody has the power to do anything with them.
A piece of information which makes them more ghastly and
nightmare-like to the imagination than before.
An ever-growing dust heap formed of thieves’ clothing and unlawful
possessions, which nobody can cart away to distribute or bury out of
sight for evermore――an accumulating banquet spread for the moth, the
rust, and the rat――the contents of these rooms are far from pleasant
to think of.
It seems supremely ridiculous, but it is a fact, that nothing but a
legislative measure could rid the premises of these rotting garments,
out of every fold of which one might shake with the dust an image of
squalor, crime, and punishment.
Outside the door of the “Black Museum” is a shelf in the wall of the
landing place.
The visitor passing it is aware of a huddled heap of dirty coats, a
serge gown, and a coarse kind of rug――the skin of an animal, with red
and white hair upon it.
Under the shelf, on the floor, lies some rough packing cloth.
He passes the heap carelessly, and enters the museum.
What are his first impressions of it?
They are various. That it is like a bit out of a gamekeeper’s room,
with a bigger bit out of a smith’s forge, a touch of a carpenter’s
workshop, a broad suggestion of a harness-room, something of a marine
store complexion (and a good deal of its odour), a lump of an open-air
stall in front of a pawnbroker’s shop, a little of the barrack-room
gun-rack, with no bright barrels, enforced a general air of a
lumber-room, with just a dash of an anatomical museum; but above all,
and increasing with every moment’s prolonged observation, a likeness
to the cutlery booth in a foreign fair, the articles being so rusty
that the said booth might have been shut up for full half-a-century,
and the salesman and his customers were all ghosts.
Opposite the door, and on the face of the wall to the right, are
displayed on a wooden shelf with iron rings, which convey to the
visitor a hint of the open-air stall in front of a pawn-shop in a very
small way of business indeed, a common looking-glass in a wooden
frame, four black glass buttons, two wisps of rope, a pair of trumpery
ear-rings in card-box, two bullets, a pipe, a cluster of soft light
brown hair wound round a pad, a comb, a pocket-knife, and a little
wooden stand covered with glass, are the most noticeable articles. On
the shelf to the right are a dirty Prayer-book, a pocket dictionary, a
pair of boots, a gaudy bag worked in beads, and the crushed remains of
a woman’s bonnet, made of the commonest black lace, and flattened into
shapelessness.
In both these instances the other impressions of the place came in
too, for over the shelf fronting the door hung workmen’s tools,
hammer, and cleaver, and spade, and beside them to the right is just
such a bundle as adorns the walls of a marine-store. It consists of a
gown, a petticoat of cheap, poor stuff, bearing dreadful dim stains,
and a tattered crinoline.
The visitor is in the presence of the objects which perpetuate the
memory of two peculiarly horrible crimes.
The soft, brown hair is that of Harriet Lane, murdered by Wainwright;
the buttons and the earrings are those which were found in the earth
where her body had been buried.
The bullets were taken out of her skull. The object under the glass
case is the several pieces of her skin which completed the
identification of her body. The wisps of rope dragged her out of the
earth under the warehouse; the cleaver, the hammer, and spade are the
implements with which the horrible deed, which led to Wainwright’s
detection, was done.
The knife was Thomas Wainwright’s, the pipe was Henry’s, and when the
visitor is leaving the museum he will be shown in the pack-cloth on
the floor under the shelf outside the door the wrapper in which the
dismembered body was packed, and one of the dirty coats――a horrid
thing, with its hideous rents and smears――Wainwright’s vesture on the
occasion.
The coat of the captain of the “Lennie,” with the gash in the cloth,
torn by the knife of his murderer, and eaten through and through with
rot and moth, is not nearly so disgusting an object; and as for the
serge robe of that poor rogue, “Professor Zandavesta,” and the little
cloak of the confiscated “anatomical” wax African, who grins awfully
in one corner of the museum, a real skeleton hand and arm considerably
hidden behind him, they are quite cheerful to look at in comparison.
The Prayer-book and the other pitiful objects upon the shelf to the
right were found on the body of Maria Clousen, who was murdered in
Kidbrook-lane; the blood and mud-stained clothes were hers, and they
contrast with grim-irony as evidences of an unpunished crime, with the
all-gory objects which tell of one brother hanged and the other
transported.
Along the wall, on the right side of the room, is ranged a choice
collection of guns, crowbars, and “jemmies,” the latter implements of
the housebreaking industry, which admit of great variety, and are
susceptible of highly artistic handling; and among them is a pair of
tongs unevenly rusted, and with a dirty paper book written all over
with incoherent sentences attached to it.
The tongs are those with which a man named Macdonald killed his wife
some four or five years ago. He was hanged, as also were many of the
proprietors of the horrid labelled assortment of hammers, knives,
including the bread-carving and pocket varieties, razors and pistols
which suggest a booth in a fair.
There is dried blood on all the knives and razors, and some of the
hammers also, and every one of them stands for a murder or suicide.
In a terrible number of cases they record the murder of a wife by her
husband.
Several of the pistols, mostly beautiful weapons, are the instruments
of suicide, and each is labelled with the name, date, and place.
The simple suicides are almost all among the higher class of society;
and when the visitor asks how the pistol, with which a gentleman of
wealth and station shot himself, came into the keeping of the museum,
he is told――
“The family mostly do not like to have it, and so they ask the police
to take it away.”
In a corner hang the clothes of the Rev. J. Watson, who murdered his
wife at Stockwell, the horse-pistol with which he shot her, and the
heavy hammer with which he knocked the nails into the chest, in which
he proposed to hide her body.
So carefully had the murderer washed his trousers and his
coat-sleeves, that the blood stains could only be observed with
difficulty at the time of the investigation.
But since the coat and trousers have been hanging on the Black
Museum’s walls, the stains have come out close and thick.
“We have often noticed that,” the visitor is told.
The frightful weapons used by the “Lennie” mutineers are here neatly
ranged under the photograph of the ringleader, “French Peter.”
Hard-by is a bundle of letters, forming the correspondence which
furnished much of the evidence against Margaret Waters, the
baby-farmer.
How much sin, shame, sorrow, and cruelty that small dusty bundle
represents it would be hard to say.
A small billycock hat, with a mask fastened inside the broad rim, into
which is packed a purse, a comforter, a small lantern, and a
life-preserver with a terrific lump of lead on it, is quite a cheerful
object to turn to from all these grim relics of worse crimes, though
the burglar who formerly owned the life-preserver informed the
police――who seized but also rescued him, having come up upon hearing
his cries when he was caught between the iron bars of a window,
through which he was escaping on a false alarm――that he had thoroughly
intended to “do for” anyone who should interrupt him with that
convenient weapon.
A large assortment of burglars’ tools is not the least suggestive
object here.
The weapons of the thieves’ war upon society are models of good
workmanship, and of the adaptation of means to ends.
When the neatest “centre-bit” of the carpenter’s shop is compared with
the deft, swift, noiselessly working instrument which goes into an
iron shutter as a cheesemonger’s scoop goes into a “fresh Dutch;” when
one looks at the wedges of finely-tempered steel working between the
zinc side-bits; at the two home-made dark lanterns, contrived with
extraordinary cleverness out of a mustard tin and metal match-box
respectively; at the rope ladder and the “beautiful litte jemmy,” in a
carefully buttoned red flannel case――this small, powerful tool is made
of a piece of a driving wheel belonging to the finest machinery, and
the metal was, of course, stolen to make it; at the bright, slender,
skeleton keys; at the safe-breaking tools――which make one think that
there is nothing like the old stocking in the thatch after all――one is
amazed at and sorry for the misused cleverness and perverted
inventiveness to which these things testify.
Among the skeleton keys is one delicate little contrivance which, at a
first glance, one might take for an ornament to a lady’s chatelaine;
it is, in fact, a double instrument for picking latch keyholes, one
part forming the key and the other lifting the spring.
This pretty trifle was made from the brass clasp of a purse, and used
with such success by the inventor that in a short time he found
himself in prison.
While one is actually inside the Black Museum one cannot be amused at
anything, but by the time we have turned into the Strand the
impression of the dreary reliquary of crime has so far passed away
that one can smile at the story told of the impudent simplicity of
this poor clever thief.
“When he was discharged from prison,” said the curator of the Black
Museum, as he restored the delicate dangling little bit of villainy to
its place, “the man came here and asked us to let him have it back.”
* * * * * * *
In a few days Peace returned to his lodgings. He was informed by the
gipsy that all was going on well. No stranger had been to Leather-lane
to inquire for the industrious and exemplary frame-maker.
“And so, old man, you needn’t bother yourself any more,” cried the
gipsy.
“There will be no more stir in the matter. But you’ve done me a good
turn, Bill, and I shan’t forget it. How are you getting on?”
“How? Much the same as usual――anyhow. But I’m not driven so much in a
corner as I have been once or twice in my life. I do a little with
horses, and have got a swell as’ll fork out a couple of quid or so
when I’m regularly hard up. He’s a rum sort though. I can’t quite
reckon him up; he’s so ’nation sly and mysterious. He it was who set
me to work to prig the jewels at the ‘Carved Lion.’ My eye, wasn’t he
riled when he heard of the end o’ that night’s business; and it was
all through you, you beggar,” cried the gipsy, with a laugh. “But Lord
love ye, I don’t think any the worse on ye for it――not a morsel.”
“Oh!” murmured Peace; “he set you to work to get the jewels, did he?”
“Yes.”
“I wonder what that was for.”
“I don’t know.”
“But I think I do.”
“You don’t mean that!”
“Yes, I do. They were the chief evidence in proof of Aveline
Gatliffe’s identity, and this swell, whoever he may be, has reason for
not wishing that identity to be established. Who, and what is he?”
“Well, that I am not at liberty to make known,” returned the gipsy.
“He’s a swell in his way, but he aint of much account as far as I can
learn――leastways, he’s a hot-un in many ways, so I’ve been told. I met
him by chance when I was with my first gov’nor, and he weren’t much to
boast on.”
“Oh, he has a motive, depend upon that, and a strong one too, I should
say; but it matters not――it does not concern either of us.
“Not a bit.”
Peace and the gipsy had now become what might be termed cronies or
pals. To say the truth, the latter had displayed a considerable amount
of faithfulness and disinterested friendship for our hero――much more
than he really deserved.
In the afternoon of that day “Bandy-legged Bill” brought round his
pony trap and took Peace out for a drive.
During this little excursion our hero had an eye to business. He never
failed to look out for houses which he thought best adapted to his
purpose. He preferred those which stood in their own grounds, detached
from any others, and those also that were not near the high road,
along which a policeman might be passing.
While out with the gipsy his attention was attracted to a handsome
residence situated in the neighbourhood of Denmark-hill.
He noticed the place, and as he did so promised himself the pleasure
of paying it a visit at no distant day, or rather night.
The gipsy, who had noticed the attention he had given to the house,
pointed with his whip to the habitation in question and said,
jocularily――
“The very place for you, old man――eh?”
Peace nodded.
“It’s a tempting-looking crib, I must confess,” he murmured.
“And is occupied by some wealthy bloke, I’ll wager,” said the gipsy.
“Oh, I dare say. No doubt.”
“I aint good at that sort of business, but I’ll drive you here any
night you like, and wait for you with the trap till the job’s done. Of
course for a consideration,” observed the gipsy, with great gravity;
“business is business all the world over.”
“You shan’t go unrewarded, Bill.”
“I don’t expect half, but I must have something.”
“Agreed. To-morrow night will do.”
“Will it? Then I’m your man.”
This little matter being settled the two friends parted at the corner
of Leather-lane, the gipsy promising to call for Peace at half-past
ten or from that to eleven o’clock on the following night.
In tracing the lawless career of a great criminal like Charles Peace
it is not requisite to trouble the reader with a full discription of
all his depredations. The leading events in his career it is our
business to chronicle.
As a rule he committed most of his daring burglaries without the
assistance of confederates or accomplices; but this was not always the
case.
In the earlier part of his life he had many lawless companions.
At Sheffield and Manchester he was associated with a band of
desperadoes.
The burglary we are about to describe was not undertaken alone, and
possibly it was for this reason Peace had made one or two signal
failures, and in consequence had escaped in a most marvellous manner
on both occasions.
He therefore gladly accepted the service of the gipsy, in whom he felt
he could place implicit confidence.
From a psychological point of view the character of Peace presents
rather a curious study.
He seems to have been one of those exceptional beings in whom there
was an almost innate criminal propensity, and whose infamous practices
were in themselves as great a source of pleasure and satisfaction as
the booty derived from them.
Mrs. Thompson, his companion in the later period of his life, has
declared that he committed lawless acts for the love of adventure.
Not long ago a distinguished German psychologist said that his studies
led him to regard the impulses of criminal nature in the light of
natural laws.
He said that an “anthropological change,” or, in other words, a
defective organisation of the brain lies at the foundation of the
criminal propensity of habitual thieves, murderers, &c.; that the
cerebral changes were of so gross and palpable a nature as to admit of
easy demonstration in the post-mortem room, and that they might even
be recognised during life by a careful examination of the criminal’s
head.
Whether the conformation of Peace’s cranium or brain was different
from that of most people we will not venture to say, but, judging from
his photographs, a man like Professor Benedikt, of Vienna, might
certainly find some further data for his doctrines by an examination
of Peace’s head.
Be this as it may, we have no doubt the cerebral organisation of such
a hardened and determined fellow as Peace must have been very
different from that of ordinary individuals, although we do not for a
moment believe that the difference was of so gross and palpable a
nature as to be detectable after death, much less before it.
None the less true, however, is the materialistic view of the criminal
propensity――a view which, unfortunately, precludes all hope of our
ever permanently ridding society of such characters.
As long as human nature is as it is, we shall have amongst us thieves,
murderers, forgers, _et hoc genus omne_.
No amount of education, no penal codes, no force of example, no
religious or moral suasion, will deter such men from their evil
courses, or induce them to lead an honest life.
Indeed, the very propensity which seems to be “born and bred” in their
flesh is fanned and encouraged by the morbid interest and sympathy of
society, which considers itself outraged by their acts.
When well-dressed ladies contend for the opportunity of looking at
these villains through their opera glasses, and “special
correspondents” are “told off” to watch and record every change in the
features of the criminal, and every word or whisper that escapes his
lips, can we wonder that such men may even feel as much pleasure and
pride in being infamous as their more discreet neighbours do in being
honest?
Bandy-legged Bill kept his appointment, and on the following evening
he drove up to Peace’s door at about twenty minutes to eleven.
Peace in the meanwhile had been reconnoitring in the course of that
day, in the immediate vicinity of the residence upon which he was to
perform.
From what he could gather in the neighbourhood he was led to the
conclusion that there was a considerable amount of property in the
house. The mistress and children were said to be away on a visit to a
relative. The master, who was a rich city merchant, was at home.
All these facts he had wormed out of the idlers and gossips about the
place.
Before the gipsy made his appearance Peace had stained his face, and
otherwise disguised himself; his implements were brought forth from
their hiding place; these were in a small box, which is thus discribed
by Mrs. Thompson:――
“He always had with him a red box. This he generally had left at the
nearest station to the house he was about to operate on, with a notice
outside that it was to be called for.
“His tools consisted of a jemmy about fourteen inches long, having a
screw at one end and a chisel at the other, which could be used as a
plane also. He also carried a block of wood, which he required when
using the jemmy, and a knife like a pork butcher’s, which he used in
cutting through panelling.
“The screw end of the jemmy was for use when the chisel end could not
get a purchase in a door.
“He seldom carried lock-picks, having a wonderful facility in making
use of a piece of wire, with which he has been known to open locks of
the most intricate nature.
“One great cause of his success,” says the woman Thompson, “was the
fact that he wore small ‘fours’ ladies’ boots without nails; and the
police, when they were put on his track, always thought the crime had
been committed by a boy, judging from the footsteps.”
“Here I be, old man,” cried the gipsy, as Peace presented himself at
the door. “Are you ready?”
Peace handed the red box to his companion, then went back into his
room again, and returned with a bag and his dog Gip, both of which
were placed in the cart.
In another moment the vehicle was rattling over the stones with its
two occupants.
“What have you brought the dog for?” inquired Will.
“He may be of service; if we have to leave the trap I’ll warrant me
that he won’t let anybody overhaul its contents.”
“All right, guv’nor; you know best,” cried the gipsy. “So on we goes,
and may we be successful, and have good luck, which is what, I know,
we both deserve. Eh, old man?”
“Oh, we both deserve it,” answered Peace. “But people never get their
deserts in this world; they either get ten times what they ought to
have, or none at all. However, it isn’t of much use complaining.”
The vehicle went rapidly over the stones till the macadamised road was
reached, and in due course of time the travellers came within sight of
the palatial dwelling which had lured them to the spot.
“Now,” said the gipsy, “where had I better wait with the trap?”
“There is a narrow lane runs by yonder house, wait there. If a bobby
says anything to you, tell him you’ve lost your way, and are uncertain
which road to take. But lor, it’s so far removed from the high road,
and is, moreover, so dark, that you will not be seen.”
Peace alighted with his implements and bag, and crept through the
shrubbery in front of the house.
The gipsy drove slowly on to the dark lane.
No other persons besides their two selves were to be seen.
Peace passed through the grounds unobserved by any one.
He then took a survey of the residence he was about to perform on.
No lights were visible at any of the windows, and to all appearance
the inmates of the house had long since retired to rest.
Peace had been informed in the early portion of the day that the owner
and his domestics were early people; he therefore concluded that the
inmates were asleep.
But as he had met with one or two failures he was more than usually
cautious on this occasion, so that he might render the possibility of
discomfiture still more remote.
We have on a former occasion made reference to the long screw he
occasionally employed in his predatory excursions; these were most
ingeniously constructed. At the end of each screw was a sharp point,
and the worm was so well made that the screw itself could be forced
into the wood of a door without even making a hole first with a gimlet
or bradawl.
A small screwdriver was the only implement required to drive home the
screws.
They, however, worked much more freely or easily when a small hole was
bored.
Peace was furnished with these on the night in question, and to cut
off the retreat of the inmates, should any of them be aroused, and to
baffle the police, should they endeavour to enter the premises without
his permission, he thought it just as well to secure the front door.
He, therefore, at once proceeded to insert two of his patent
screws――one near the top, and the other near the base of the door.
This done, he went to the back of the house. Here he saw two doors,
one of which opened on to the lawn.
He secured both of these in the same way.
When this had been done, he climbed a spout and got on the balcony,
which ran in front of one of the back windows.
He then proceeded to effect an entrance as speedily and noiselessly as
possible.
He had but little difficulty in doing this, for the window had been
left unfastened, owing to the carelessness of one of the maid
servants, who had shot back the clasp presumably in a hurry, for it
did not overlap the opposing window sufficiently to prevent its being
drawn either up or down.
The shutters, however, were fastened, but very insecurely; Peace had
therefore but little difficulty in throwing them back.
All this had not occupied the space of more than three or four
minutes, and the movements of the burglar had not been seen by anyone,
either from within or without.
Peace dropped gently on the floor of the apartment, which was covered
with a thick Turkey carpet.
He had on at this time a pair of women’s boots, and his footsteps were
almost as soft and noiseless as those of a cat.
The room in which he found himself was furnished in the best possible
manner, but there were not many articles therein which were
sufficiently portable to be transferred to the burglar’s bag, and
Peace did not therefore waste much time in examining its contents.
He ignited one of his silent matches, and took a cursory but rapid
review of its most noticable features.
Before leaving it, however, he drew back the shutters and opened the
bottom window sufficiently wide to admit of his passing through in
case of any surprise or alarm.
He crept downstairs and entered the front parlour. In this there were
several articles of value, which he at once deposited safely in his
bag.
He then proceeded towards the back parlour. This was fitted up as a
library. To all appearance the owner of the habitation made use of it
for business purposes, for on a library table there were spread out
vast heaps of papers, tied up in bundles, with letters, ledger account
books, and other objects usually found in a merchant’s counting house
or a lawyer’s office.
In a recess at one corner of the room was a large iron safe; this at
once attracted the burglar’s attention. Closing the door of the room
softly Peace drew from his pocket a curled waxed taper, the end of
which he ignited with one of his matches.
He then made a careful examination of the safe which, he felt assured,
contained property――possibly notes and gold were encased therein.
Drawing forth his bent wire, he endeavoured therewith to pick the
lock.
He twisted and turned the wire in every possible direction, but was
not successful in opening the safe. But he was not a man, as we have
already seen, to give up a thing easily.
[Sidenote: No. 24.]
[Illustration: “OH! MY LORD,” SAID AVELINE, “PITY AND PARDON ME.”]
He had set his heart upon ransacking the safe, and to leave the house
without effecting this object was the very last idea that would enter
his mind.
He persevered with most laudable ambition, but the lock was too much
for him――it was of peculiar construction.
He tried his skeleton keys with no better result. He sat down in one
of the library chairs, the very image of despair; he never remembered
to have been so baffled.
He had another turn at the door of the safe, which was as immovable as
the Rock of Gibraltar――a place, by the way, he was afterwards destined
to become acquainted with.
He now made an attempt to force open the door with his jemmy and the
piece of wood he carried with him, but it resisted all his efforts,
and he at last began to despair.
A sudden thought struck him――the key of the safe was doubtless
somewhere in the house. Probably the owner of it had it in his pocket.
Peace crept up stairs again. Not a soul was to be seen. No one was in
either the back or front room first floor.
He went up cautiously to the next story. In the front room of this he
heard some one snoring.
He concluded that this was the master of the house. He opened the door
for about an inch, and peered in――a man, with a dark beard and a
moustache, was in bed.
He was evidently sleeping soundly. On a chair, by the side of the bed,
were several garments.
There was just sufficient light for the burglar to discern these.
He felt the time had come for him to make an effort. Grasping his
revolver in his right hand he crept on all fours to the side of the
bed, watching as he did so the face of the sleeping man with the eyes
of a lynx.
He placed his hand on a pair of black trousers, and felt something
heavy in one of the pockets. Gathering them together in a heap he
crept back towards the door, which he passed through in safety.
When on the landing he rifled the pockets, in one of which was a large
bunch of keys.
He slid downstairs and gained the back parlour, or library, as it was
usually termed by the household.
Once more he ignited his wax taper, and breathed more freely.
To his infinite delight one of the keys fitted the lock, which was
turned back; then the massive doors of the safe were thrown open.
Peace looked curiously at its contents. One shelf contained a mass of
documents, some books, and other articles which were of no value to
the burglar.
But on one of the other shelves there was a cash-box and two canvas
bags.
“All right,” murmured Peace; “this is worth fighting for. My word, but
it is lucky I thought of the keys being in the house.”
The bags were at once placed in the one he had brought with him, the
cash-box was opened with a small key he had found on the bunch
abstracted from the gentleman’s pocket.
Between fifty and sixty sovereigns were in the cash-box, together with
a roll of notes. It is needless to observe that these found their way
into Peace’s pocket.
A gold cup, a silver salver, and a box containing jewels were also in
the safe. These were placed in the burglar’s bag to keep company with
the other valuables.
Peace had been fortunate enough to have a good haul, and, having been
so far successful, he thought it best to get clear off with his booty
while the coast was clear.
He at once made for the back-room first-floor. From the balcony of
this he let his bag gently down on to the grass plot beneath with a
small piece of cord; then he climbed over the balcony, and hanging for
a moment by his hands, he dropped from thence on to the grass.
Unfortunately for him, his coat-tail swept down one of the shrubs in a
flower-pot; this fell on to a glass skylight over the back kitchen.
The crash of glass awoke one of the maidservants, who jumped out of
bed, and, opening one of the back-windows, peered forth.
She saw a man running across the grass plot towards the shrubbery by
the side of the house, and at once suspected that something was amiss.
Panting and almost breathless, Peace arrived at the spot where
Bandy-legged Bill was awaiting his reappearance.
He jumped into the cart, and told his companion to drive off at once.
Bill urged on his pony to its fullest speed, and in a very short time
he and his companion were far away from the scene of the burglary.
In a short time they reached Leather-lane in safety, without the
faintest degree of suspicion being attached to them.
The burglary at Denmark-hill was pronounced to be a great success both
by the principal and his abettor.
Peace presented his companion with fifty pounds as a recompense for
his valuable services.
It was a great deal more than the gipsy had ever expected, and he
expressed himself more than satisfied――indeed, he was modest enough to
intimate that it was more than he deserved.
Meanwhile the inmates of the house at Denmark-hill were aroused from
their slumbers by the screaming of the servant girl, who had seen the
burglar make a precipitate retreat over the lawn in the rear of her
master’s house.
Her fellow-servants jumped out of their beds, huddled on their things,
and hastened at once to see what was the matter.
The owner of the establishment looked in vain for his trousers, which
our hero had so cleverly possessed himself of.
The gentleman sought for another pair, but his wardrobe as well as the
drawers in his room were locked, and his bunch of keys was not at
hand.
Wrapping himself in his long dressing gown and drawers, and putting
his feet into his slippers, he sallied forth.
The open safe, the black trousers on one of the chairs of the library,
together with the missing property, clearly demonstrated that a
burglar had been in the premises.
A search was at once instituted for the robber, but without any
satisfactory result.
The merchant was furious.
He ordered one of his man-servants to hasten at once to the station
and give notice to the police.
But here a difficulty presented itself.
The front door could not be opened. Peace had firmly secured it with
his screws.
The whole party rushed to the back entrance, which was equally well
secured.
Everybody was astonished, as well they might be. It seemed like
sorcery.
One of the man-servants unfastened the shutters of the front parlour,
and threw open the window, and by this means succeeded in leaving the
premises.
In about a quarter of an hour he returned with three police officers.
The usual formula had to be gone through. A list of the missing
articles, as far as these could be ascertained, was made by the
inspector, who declared the robbery had been committed by a practised
hand.
He was perfectly right, but this was but poor consolation to the owner
of the property.
He asked the girl if she could identify the burglar. She answered in
the negative.
She had only seen his back. His face she never caught sight of, and
even assuming she had, identification would have been almost
impossible.
There was not even a remote chance of discovering the depredator, and
Peace was perfectly well assured of this.
The booty he had obtained by this burglary was considerably over two
hundred pounds, after deducting the fifty he had given to Bandy-legged
Bill, and as he had received a letter from his mother urging him in
the strongest terms to return to Sheffield, he determined upon
quitting the metropolis and taking up his quarters in his native town.