PEACE’S DOINGS IN LONDON AND THE SUBURBS――HIS HOME LIFE AT
EVELINA-ROAD, PECKHAM.
After changing his place of residence two or three times, Peace
ultimately settled himself permanently at Peckham with his two
housekeepers――Mrs. Peace and Mrs. Thompson――together with Willie Ward,
his step-son, and it was at this time that he committed a series of
burglaries in the suburbs of London, which are altogether unparalleled
in the history of any criminal.
The house he had chosen for his residence was No. 5, East-terrace,
Evelina-road, Peckham. It was very conveniently situated for the
masterly operations of the crafty burglar’s nefarious art; he selected
it manifestly with an eye to business.
It was the end one of a row, and was bordered with a hedge on one
side, that abutted on the Palace railway embankment, near the Nunhead
Station. A gateway leading to the rear of the house gave entrance to
an ordinary vehicle, and the exits from the dwelling were so numerous
that a rascal of Peace’s type would rarely be so ambuscaded as to
block his flight in case of surprise, however cleverly contrived.
He came into the neighbourhood as a retired gentleman, possessed of a
modest competence, which would enable him to live quietly without
business cares, and also enable him to indulge little whims in a
scientific direction, in which indulgence he gave out that he had lost
thousands.
Mr. Cleaves, the greengrocer at the corner, was commissioned to “move
him,” as Mr. Cleaves says, from Greenwich, where he had been living a
retired and peaceful life, allowing his days and nights to ebb in the
cause of science.
Mr. Cleaves charged a sovereign for the job of transporting, and the
convict was so beneficent as to add 2s. and a fried steak and beer, in
appreciation of the services rendered.
The furniture was costly, and somewhat extravagant for a man of the
convict’s simplicity, there being two suites of drawing-room
furniture, and loads of knick-knacks that only a luxurious taste would
covet, and a heavy purse undertake to own.
But unquestionably a large amount of plate and a considerable
collection of pictures that the convict owned were not transported
openly in Mr. Cleaves’ vans, but forwarded secretly from Greenwich to
Peckham.
The neighbours in the course of a few weeks made acquaintance with the
new comer, but none of them divined the being he was, although most of
them seemed to have thought him singular.
He was a man of independent means, yet he had no servant. He was able
to maintain a pony, and ride behind it in a gig.
Yet in the small house of two parlours and a kitchen and three
bedrooms he had two women living, one of whom is conjectured to have
been his wife, and who certainly had borne him a son, and the other
had passed as Mrs. Thompson, Peace himself proclaiming that his name
was Thompson.
How the real wife and the mistress, or how both the mistresses came to
live in one house, is only to be explained by the knowledge that both
of the women had of the convict, and their fear of being held
accountable as accessories after the fact in his crimes. The mixed
family did not live in harmony.
Mrs. Thompson had frequently a black eye, and indeed was rarely
without one, and shrieking and cursing were not uncommonly heard
proceeding from the house in the midnight hours and in the afternoon.
Peace was very rarely seen in the morning, or until late in the day.
People in the vicinity who gave the matter any attention supposed he
was busy with his scientific invention, of which he was fond of
talking in an effusive manner.
He conveyed the impression that he was a man of moral tone.
“I would not do anything to injure the poor,” he said one day to the
greengrocer, as he pulled out a handful of sovereigns, the number of
which the greengrocer magnifies into seventy; and when in conversation
with the landlord of some new houses near the “Railroad Tavern,” he
informed Mr. Gosling that he did not approve of public-house fellows
who went to the bar so early in the morning.
This was a reflection upon the milkman and the greengrocer, who had
presumptuously saluted him.
Nevertheless, he occasionally invited his neighbours into his mansion
to take something, and by all accounts he was a jovial host.
He was possessed of seven or eight guitars and almost as many violins,
and in his leisure moments he took pleasure in musical performances
that brought out to the full the qualities of the instruments.
The greengrocer owns a musical bell of glass, which belonged to the
convict. When he came outside the gate in the afternoon, and took a
cast around the sky with his furtive eye, Peace was communicative and
critical to whoever was passing that knew him, and he especially
delighted in a chat about crime and criminals with the watchful
policemen of his district.
In conversation, he had an odd habit of digging his hands deep into
his pockets, and twisting himself round in the pantomimic contortions
of a clown. Social visits were never paid, and, except informally, he
did not encourage them to his house.
The large menagerie of pets that he formed at Peckham was certainly
extraordinary for so unpretentious an establishment, but he was a
gentleman devoted to science, and might be allowed to indulge a hobby
for zoology.
Whether he was really attached to animals is doubtful, for there are
many traits of his nature that indicate he was cruel and remorselessly
selfish.
The collection embraced thirty-two guinea pigs, some goats, cats,
dogs, canaries, fowls, pigeons, and he had a pony which apparently was
much beloved, and which he wept over with tears of regret when “Tommy”
died.
Some of these pets he had trained to execute tricks wonderful enough
to earn a showman his living. His pony especially had a marvellous
obedience to command. At a word he would rear up and remain standing,
and at another word he would lie down and remain as if dead.
In short, “Tommy” had been trained to be a silent partner in burglary.
The custom of Peace was to go out during the day, with Mrs. Peace and
Mrs. Thompson and the son in his trap, himself driving, and take a
survey of the mansions he intended to rob during the night, and the
precise spots to which he would carry the booty for subsequent
recovery and resetting. He made two attacks, as the neighbours express
it.
He went out early in the evening when the family were downstairs, and
robbed the house upstairs, and later in the evening, or far on in the
morning, when the family were upstairs, he roamed through the lower
regions and abstracted the heavy articles of plate and gems, of
pictures, and all valuables that were portable and transmutable into
money. He went out alone on these expeditions.
The son, Willie Ward, was seen by the greengrocer at Forest Hill one
morning at six, driving rapidly, as if he had business; and the
greengrocer’s man saw the son on two occasions out early in the
morning. It is surmised that the son took these early rides in the
vehicle, by arrangement with the father, for the purpose of collecting
the plunder of the night, and conveying it in an unsuspicious way to
the town.
Peace encountered a man at Lewisham one night, who had passed Nunhead,
and was obliged to walk back. The two had a most interesting
conversation upon botany, in which science Peace seems to have laid
magnificent foundations for studying, having selected for culture, in
a plot of thirty square feet, several hundreds of choice plants.
The pony went out from Peace’s stables at most unearthly hours, and
sometimes the neighbours woke up when it returned. One night the
driving in at the gate was furious, and the pony knocked over the
gate, and made such a racket that the attention of No. 120 policeman
was drawn to the circumstance.
The policeman was on the threshold of discovery but suspected nothing.
Peace unquestionably had just returned from an expedition with spoils,
but when he saw the officer he blandly invited him in, although it was
one o’clock in the morning, and lifting up the lid of a long box, he
explained that he had been engaged in perfecting an invention for
raising sunken vessels, which he and a Mr. Brion were about to patent.
“And you know it would not do to let people know about this in the
day-time,” added the convict, upon which the policeman drank his
health, and hoped he didn’t intrude, and assisted Mr. Knight, the
milkman adjacent, to re-adjust the gate on its hinges. On another
occasion the convict was surprised while occupied at two o’clock in
the morning in his back yard.
The milkman had returned home with his waggon, and was astonished to
discover old Peace at work in the garden digging.
“It’s only me, Mr. Knight,” said Mr. Peace, as he heard a door grate,
and discovered the milkman scanning his midnight toil. The milkman
went nearer, and perceived that Peace had dug a hole long enough and
deep enough for a grave, and Peace explained that the exhumed earth
was intended for potting, and that the hole would do for manure from
the stable.
But Peace played it on the milkman some time later than this to a
prodigious extent.
“Poor Tommy” died, and was lamented with bitter lamentations by his
bereaved master, and a few days afterwards the bland Peace, with a
truly sympathetic manner, went to the milkman, and said, “Mr. Knight,
I see your stable is very damp, and I don’t like to see any animal
treated to damp quarters. Since ‘Tommy’ died I have had no use for my
stable, and you might as well put your pony in there, where it is dry,
and you know I am a man of means, and will take every care of him. In
fact I am very fond of animals.” The milkman had commiseration for his
beast, and stabled him in Peace’s stable.
The convict consideratedly said he would not charge anything, and he
showed an interest in his charge by providing a new bucket for the
pony, and supplying good litter. But in the mornings the milkman
noticed that his pony was often bespattered thickly with mud, and was
eating hungrily from the manger.
[Sidenote: No. 48.]
[Illustration: PEACE STRIKING MRS. THOMPSON.]
He threatened to kick his stable-boy for not having scrubbed the beast
down, but was astonished, on reckoning with himself, to remember that
on the previous evening he had both washed and curried the pony with
his own hands. In addition to these strange manifestations, the pony
from having been a brisk trotting animal suddenly developed a turn for
laziness, and was, in fact, as jaded and listless a trotter as could
be seen on the road.
The milkman never found the reason why his pony was dispirited. It was
Box and Cox in the stable, with the pony in the _role_ of both, and
the play lasted three months.
The pony obtained repose when the brutal midnight driver was arrested
after his murderous attack on the police-constable at Blackheath.
Peace’s pets were not chosen without some regard to his profession.
He had studied dogs; and it is said that, stranger as he must have
been in his burglarious prowls about mansions, he never had any
difficulty in silencing the most ferocious mastiff or impudent
terrier.
It was a sight to see him on a Sunday walking through Peckham,
followed by the six dogs that owned him as master.
The impression of the neighbours about his appearance was exceedingly
various. When abroad on his raids he was accustomed to stain his face,
and some considered him a retired Jew from Ratcliff-highway.
The lower part of his face was mobile to a surprising extent, and he
could at will assume a disguise very bewildering.
He allowed it to be understood that his left arm was maimed; he wore
across the palm of the hand a dark bandage, and when he sat down to
meals he fastened on the arm an apparatus of indiarubber, into which
as a socket a fork was secured. It was all a blind to produce the
belief that he was weak and helpless.
His house at Peckham was most beautifully furnished. In the
drawing-room was a suite of walnut-wood, worth fifty or sixty guineas;
a Turkey carpet, mirrors, and all the et ceteras which were considered
necessary in the house of a gentleman of good position.
Upon the bijou piano was an inlaid Spanish guitar worth thirty
guineas, the result of some depredation, and said to be the property
of a countess.
His “sitting room” was a model of comfort: there was not a side table
missing where it appeared requisite. In every essential it was fit for
an independent gentleman, and even the slippers which were provided
for his convenience were beaded so as to show their value.
The residents of Peckham wondered, for the favours in the way of
burglaries which for a year past had seemed the exclusives of Lambeth
and Greenwich, recommenced in that neighbourhood.
The police were again on the alert, but of no avail. The public press
called attention to this abominable state of things; householders lost
their goods, and Charles Peace prospered. He added to his earthly
store of wealth and furniture.
Peace had always loved a “bit of music.” Even in his less prosperous
days he had bought a wooden canary which could sing a song, and as the
residents of Peckham wondered why, in addition to the robberies of
plate and jewels from their abodes, there was always sure to be a good
fiddle missing if it had been near the plate, yet the store of musical
instruments in Peace’s dwelling gradually and more surely increased.
At length he had so many musical instruments that his new sanctum
would not hold them, and he was obliged to ask a neighbour to place a
few in his house.
He was considered, as before observed, to be a “gentleman of
independent means,” and as he “never played anything but sacred music”
people believed him to be a discreet and proper sort of man.
His home life at Peckham appears to be quite different to that of his
previous career――to say the least, the occupants of the house in the
Evelina-road were not altogether a happy or united family.
Peace, with the heavy burthen of the murders on his conscience, was in
many respects an altered man. He had his hour of conviviality and
relaxation, it is true, but he was soured in temper, and at times was
brutal to his two female associates or housekeepers.
Despite his bravado and cruelty he was afraid of them turning round
upon him, and accusing him of the Bannercross murder.
Clever as he was he found it no easy task to get along with the two
ladies of his house.
He could manage his two cats, his three dogs, his billygoat, his
Russian rabbits, his seven Guinea pigs, his young thrushes, his
collection of canaries, his parrots, and his cockatoo――to say nothing
of his pony――for which he had an inordinate affection. This varied
family gave him little trouble till the pony died.
His pets, indeed, afforded him much amusement in the quiet hours of
the afternoon, before he went on his evening expeditions. But two
“wives” were too much for him. All the stories which have been told
about his domestic surroundings are either grossly exaggerated or
altogether untrue.
When Peace arranged to live at Peckham he sought out Mr. S. Smith, of
Ryde-villas, St. Mary’s-road, who had several houses to let. Peace had
a large number to choose from, and he at last hit on No. 5,
East-terrace, Evelina-road――“the first house through the viaduct.” I
was directed to it.
Mr. Smith, however, is a careful man. He does not let his houses to
everybody who asks to become his tenant. He knew not “Mr. Thompson,”
and demanded references.
Mr. Thompson was evidently prepared for the request, and at once
offered to give him any number, which he did, driving Mr. Smith over
to Greenwich for the purpose.
Mr. Smith was perfectly satisfied, and let him have the house, which
was admirably adapted for Peace’s purpose.
It was the last house in the terrace. The railway is close to it, and
when he went out on his midnight business he was not obliged to use
the front door, as he could slip out at the back, steal up the
embankment, cross the railway, and find his way to the quarry he had
“spotted” during the afternoon excursions when he drove his ladies out
for an “airing”――always in the direction of the better-class houses
towards Blackheath and Greenwich――“cribs which were worth cracking,”
as a policeman put it.
No. 5, East-terrace, was rented at £30 a year, and Mr. Thompson paid
his first quarter all right――the landlord lacks the last quarter,
though he knows where the furniture is, and can follow it if he
pleases.
One curiosity of the establishment Mr. Smith found after his tenant
left――the crucible which Peace must have used to melt down the
jewellery he got in his burglaries, and which he wanted to put off the
possibility of detection.
Since Thompson’s real character came out, Mr. Smith tells me he might
by selling bits of his goods as relics have recouped himself for his
rent and more, the morbid curiosity of visitors having been equal to
anything of the kind experienced in the case of previous remarkable
criminals.
The new tenant appears at first to have favourably impressed Mr.
Smith, for he found himself frequently at No. 5 taking tea with Mr.
and Mrs. Thompson and the other lady. Everything, he tells me, was
very clean and comfortable.
Mr. Thompson was a kind and pressing host; the best of everything was
put on the table, and the appointments in china and silver, to use the
landlord’s own words, “were always up to the knocker.”
Thompson conversed freely on the various subjects of the day, took an
interest in politics, and impressed his guest with the intelligence
and knowledge he possessed.
Whilst Mrs. Thompson deftly served the tea, her husband enunciated his
views on the different topics he had found to interest him in the
newspapers, of which he was a diligent reader. It may interest
Russophiles to know that this distinguished character took a great
interest in the war, and favoured their views of the question.
Mr. Smith tells me that though he frequently talked about the war, he
never indicated his views in his presence.
Another gentleman, who was the recipient of Mr. Thompson’s opinions on
more than one occasion, says that he expressed very general regret
that nations could not find a more humane way of settling their
differences than by the sword.
He wanted to know what our Christianity and civilisation meant by
countenancing such murderous ways of deciding disputes.
He thought that the Turks had shown themselves a cruel race――he
admitted they had good qualities, particularly in the matter of
abstaining from intoxicants, which was a hobby of Mr. Thompson’s――and
he was glad that they had been punished for their cruelty. The Emperor
of Russia, he held, had undertaken a high Christian mission, and our
Government were greatly to blame in interfering with him.
He was confident that the Ministers would be punished (that was a
favourite word of his) for their interference with the only Power
which had shown any practical sympathy for the “suffering races,” and
so on.
With tea, toast, and talk, and anything in season from the
neighbouring greengrocer’s at the corner, the evening passed
pleasantly away, the later hours being filled up with music by Mrs.
Thompson, Mr. Thompson and the boy “Ward,” who had been taught to play
on many strange instruments until he was almost equal to Peace himself
in his proficiency.
Shortly after tea, Mr. Thompson would quietly rise from his chair, and
the guests――usually only one, or at the most two――would take the hint
and leave, Mr. Thompson apologising by saying that he was not quite so
strong as he once was, and late hours being detrimental to his health
and opposed to his habits, he was obliged to go to bed at what other
people would consider very early hours.
This idea he seemed anxious to impress upon the neighbourhood, and
succeeded in doing it.
Mrs. Long, who lived near him for the most of those six months, tells
me that they were very early people――“the light,” she says, “was out
at No. 5 before any other house in the neighbourhood.”
The explanation, of course, is easy. Peace might ostentatiously lock
his front door at half-past ten, and half an hour after, when the
people supposed he and his family were sleeping the sleep of the just,
he would be stealing out at the back, climbing the railway embankment,
and off on his midnight raids, which always meant robbery and
plundering, and, if necessary a murder.
Mrs. Thompson played a most conspicuous part throughout the latter
part of Peace’s career. How she and Mrs. Peace could have consented to
live under the same roof with the burglar Peace is altogether
unaccountable.
The ladies of the house in the Evelina-road are thus described by one
who had an opportunity of learning something of the doings in that
abode of bliss.
I am afraid (says the narrator) I must knock on the head a good many
of the stories that have been printed about Peace’s establishment, as
well as about his ways of life.
In the first place he had no servants at all. There were in the house,
in addition to himself, the younger person who passed as Mrs.
Thompson, the other elderly woman, who gave herself the name of Mrs.
Ward, and a lad of seventeen, who was named Willie Ward.
Tempted by the stories about Mr. Thompson being a gentleman of
independent means, a girl once offered herself as domestic servant.
“She saw a man,” she says, “who told her he did not believe in
servants, as they were always gossiping.”
Probably Peace had too much experience of the information to be got
from servants’ loose tongues to have one about his own premises.
That girl did not get the place. Mrs. Ward, I find, acted as a kind of
working housekeeper.
She is described to me as having usually the appearance of a cross
between a washerwoman and a monthly nurse, wearing an apron, her arms
akimbo, and altogether a slattenly, unlovable, unclean-looking
personage.
Mrs. Thompson, on the other hand, was a likely lady for a companion.
She was much taller than Peace, walked in a firm manner, carrying her
head with a somewhat jaunty air, until latterly, when Peace’s
cruelties “took it out of her,” as a neighbour put it to me.
She was a good figure, inclined to full habit, had pleasing brown
hair, which she sometimes wore in curls; a good, fresh complexion,
dark eyes, Grecian nose (but no snub), and altogether, as I have said,
a person of a rather attractive appearance.
She dressed well, and never appeared to want for anything, Mrs. Long
and other neighbours telling me that her wardrobe must have been very
rich, and extensive, as she never wanted for changes of dresses――appearing
sometimes in tightly-fitting costumes, and at others in richly trimmed
and fashionably-cut jackets, donning for the afternoon drives a superb
sealskin paletot.
The neighbours say that Mrs. Thompson’s weakness was drink.
The boy who piloted me about Peckham told me that the first week they
came he fetched 4s. worth of whiskey for Mrs. Thompson, “who,” he
added, “was a very nice person when she was herself,” meaning when she
was sober.
Mrs. Long, to whom Mrs. Thompson seems to have confided her troubles,
believes that she would not have “gone to the drink” if it had not
been for the cruelty to which she was latterly subjected.
But that she _did_ drink is beyond dispute.
Indeed, the old woman, Mrs. Ward, gave it out to Mrs. Cleaves, a most
intelligent neighbour, from whom I had many most interesting details,
that her principal business at No. 5 was to watch Mrs. Thompson, whose
drunkenness grieved Mr. Thompson very much.
He was a very temperate man himself, and could not do with drunken
people about him.
Mrs. Ward was eloquent about Peace’s liberality to the younger woman.
“He did not care,” she said to Mrs. Cleaves, “what she costs him in
dress; he never refused her anything she asked, and what was very kind
of him, he always bought it and brought it himself.”
Of course he did, the clever scoundrel!
He knew the places to get his goods on easy terms.
“She could swim in gold if she liked,” said Mrs. Ward, on another
occasion. “He does not mind what he gives her, he is so fond of her,
if she would only keep off the drink.” That was good Mr. Peace’s
greatest trouble, “and that,” added the old lady, carefully removing a
tear from the corner of her eye, “frequently puts him out, and makes
him angry, till I’am afraid the neighbours hear him.”
And the neighbours did hear him. Frequently, there were sounds of
quarrelling at No. 5. In the shrill tones of a boy’s voice would be
heard the cry, “Don’t, father, don’t,” succeeded shortly after by the
shriek of a woman.
When the storm had reached this height it speedily subsided. It was no
part of Peace’s plan to be a noisy neighbour. These disturbances,
however, were repeated, and the neighbours knew that things were not
going well at No. 5.
They wondered why it was that the afternoon, or the early hours of the
evening, should be selected for these scenes, which in ordinary
households usually come on later in the evening; but they were not
sufficiently curious to follow the matter up.
On one occasion when the boy’s voice was heard, as imploring “father”
to stop, the shriek of the woman, who was evidently suffering some
outrage, was so agonising that a person passing ran up the steps and
knocked for admittance.
In an instant everything was still. The man who could strike the woman
was equal, no doubt, to gagging her mouth when her cries attracted
attention. Mrs. Ward, the next day, always made a point of explaining
the sounds in her own way.
Mrs. Thompson had been drinking again, and Mr. Thompson was angry with
her. She did wish Mrs. Thompson would leave off the evil habit, as she
was sure it would break the heart of her husband.
Her husband all this time seemed more bent on breaking Mrs. Thompson’s
head than his own heart, but Mrs. Ward played her part well――so well
that some of the neighbours appear indisposed even as yet to believe
any good whatever of the poor creature who, in an evil hour, linked
her fate to the burglar and murderer.
One time Peace’s cruelty reached a crisis.
Mrs. Thompson ran from the house, and sought shelter from Mrs. Long,
who lives in Kimberley-road, a short way off. Thompson, she said, had
struck her insensible, and amongst other marks of ill-usage she
pointed to her eyes, which were frightfully discoloured.
Her face was cut――the effects of a blow he had given her with his
fist. He always wore a large diamond ring――sometimes two of them――and
that afternoon, Mrs. Thompson having offended him at tea, he coolly
rose up from his seat and “landed her” a couple of frightful blows on
the face.
This was the outrage which had roused Mrs. Thompson to leave the house
whenever Peace’s back was turned. She began to tell Mrs. Long her
miserable story.
She had met Thompson――she did not say where――and believing he was an
honest man, as he represented himself to be, able to keep her in a
comfortable position, as he also represented, she began to receive his
advances favourably.
He told her the old story about his being a gentleman of independent
means, with a liking to travel about. She listened, and was deceived.
Not so her mother and father. Both of them took an instinctive dislike
to the plausible villain who came after their daughter.
She did, as many other daughters do, and will do to the end of the
chapter――she believed the stranger, and left her home with him.
She insisted that she was properly married to him at church――which, if
true, would add bigamy to Peace’s other offences against the law――but
never gave any indication where the ceremony took place.
“I never quite liked the man,” she said, “even though I disobeyed my
parents to follow him; and on my way to church to get married a strong
feeling took hold of me to turn back. How I wish now I had done it!”
Then she would burst afresh into tears, and exclaim――
“But it serves me right. It is but a just punishment upon me for
disobeying my parents. They did not want me to have anything to do
with the man, and I ought never to have spoken to him. It was a sorry
day for me I ever saw him.”
She went on to say that she had relatives in a good position in the
North. “I wonder,” she cried, “if my brother would take me in.”
Her brother, she told Mrs. Long, was a medical man, and her sisters,
of whom she had several, were well married.
She asked Mrs. Long if she would advise her to write to them. Mrs. Long
thought that would be the best thing she could do, and here came a
strange bit of feminine jealousy, which showed of what a contradictory
compound some womenkind are made.
“Mrs. Ward” passed in the pony trap along with Peace, evidently going
out for a drive. Mrs. Thompson, in a moment, was herself again.
“No,” she said, with decision, “I’ll not leave him. That woman’s in my
place, and he would no doubt like me to leave; but I won’t――I’ll go
back to my husband, and assert my rights.”
And back she went to be brutally abused as before, to bear upon her
face and body the marks of his blows, and to endure all the mental
agony which was now hers as the truth gradually oozed out about her
husband’s real character.
Mrs. Thompson found too late what sort of a man she had so imprudently
taken up with. About this time the real character of Peace was
presented to her in all its hideous deformity. But she found it
difficult and next to impossible to detach herself from the cunning
and cruel rascal who held her in bondage. It was not possible for her
to be an inmate of the house in the Evlina-road, without having some
inkling of the goings on in that delectable establishment. Numberless
boxes were coming and going. Thompson or Peace was absent at strange
times. On the evenings he was absent he returned at all hours, nobody
knew when or how, but with his return was associated an accession of
worldly goods.
How these were obtained those around him could make a shrewd guess,
but neither of his housekeepers had the temerity to ask any question.
Mrs. Long, who was in a great measure Mrs. Thompson’s confidant,
declared that up to two months before No. 5 became famous, her friend
Mrs. Thompson had no guilty knowledge of Peace’s nefarious doings. We
are, however, of a different opinion.
We find it impossible to believe in her innocence, particularly in the
face of her flight and continued concealment out of the way of the
police; but she managed to make many people in Peckham believe it, and
we are only repeating the version of their story as it relates to her.
They believe that Peace got to know that Mrs. Thompson was uneasy, and
redoubled his vigilance over her.
This is likely enough. He certainly, according to credible authority,
treated her at times in a most brutal manner.
Mrs. Peace or Mrs. Ward, as she was called at this time simultaneously,
became more than ever watchful over her charge.
So, taken altogether, it was a pretty family party at Peckham.
The stories of drunkenness accounting for the quarrels became more
frequent, and if Mrs. Thompson visited any of the houses she had been
accustomed to drop into at Peckham, Mrs. Ward was quickly at her
heels.
One day when she went to Mrs. Long’s, the old woman haunted the house
till she came out. That very day Mrs. Thompson seemed terribly
distressed. She appeared to have some dreadful load on her mind, which
she was anxious to communicate to some one. At last she burst out with
a cry――
“Oh, Mrs. Long, if I could only tell you everything――if I could but
find the courage to make you acquainted with all I know!”
Mrs. Long, who was getting rather uneasy about Peace, for whom she had
a strong but unaccountable aversion, did not encourage her to say any
more.
She was afraid it would get her into trouble, as she had been given to
understand that Thompson――it is immaterial whether we call him Peace
or Thompson――disapproved of his wife’s visits to the house.
This he knew through Mrs. Ward, the constant spy upon the other’s
movements.
Every effort was now made to keep Mrs. Thompson a close prisoner in
the house.
The Longs at that time kept a dairy, and used to supply the Thompsons
with their milk, where the little girl delivered the milk in the
morning.
Mrs. Thompson would come for it, but at her back was the old woman to
see and hear what passed.
Ultimately the Longs were told not to send any more milk――Peace and
the old lady evidently hoping in this way to cut off the communication
between the two houses.
On the evening to which we more particularly refer, Mrs. Thompson said
“he,” meaning Peace, had gone to the theatre, and she did not know
when he would be back.
She had seized the chance of running out unknown to Mrs. Ward. She
deceived herself. At that very moment Mrs. Ward was at the door,
waiting and watching for her return. And that evening she repeated the
visit to Peace, who, in Sheffield phrase “paid” the poor wretch
severely for her call upon Mrs. Long.
On that night Mrs. Thompson was in great fear.
She trembled all over her body, as she disclosed to Mrs. Long that she
felt in danger of her life, adding, now and again, “Oh that I could
tell you what I know――oh, that I knew what to do!”
It would be interesting to know if Peace really did play in the
orchestra of any London theatre. Mrs. Thompson sometimes accounted for
his frequent disappearances at night in this way, until she began to
know better, or rather worse, and even she seems to have been
undecided between fear of telling the truth and shame of keeping up
the old lie in the face of Peckham.
Peace told her that he occasionally played in the orchestra――not that
he needed to do so, but simply through love of music, and because, as
he boasted, he was pressed to do so by the conductor, who said he was
the best “bow” he had.
Peace’s skill on the violin, of course, is well known, having long
earned him the distinctive title, of which he was particularly fond,
of “the modern Paganini.”
It is not unlikely that one night he operated with his violin in the
orchestra to Blackheath ladies and gentlemen, in one of whose houses
he the following night operated with equal skill with the burglar’s
tools, supplemented by a knife and a revolver slung to his wrist by a
leathern thong.
One day Mr. Long was walking down Evlina-road, when he met Mrs.
Thompson, to whom he spoke as usual. She seemed in a hurry and
disconcerted, passing on at a quick pace, and not stopping to speak,
as was her wont.
Further on he met Thompson, moving along with rapid strides and
carrying an ugly-looking whip in his hand, which he was handling in a
nervous yet vicious style.
“Good morning, Mr. Thompson,” said Mr. Long, adding, “Mrs. Thompson is
just a little before you.”
Long held out his hand, which Thompson shook as usual, then nodding
quickly, said “Good morning――I’m in a hurry,” and he expedited his
walk till he overtook her he was after, and then they slowly returned
to the house together.
What happened there did not transpire till some time after, when Mrs.
Thompson took to pouring into Mrs. Long’s sympathetic ears the story
of her “married” life at No. 5.
Thompson, when he got her inside, used his whip about the wretch’s
shoulders, and beat her with the butt end of the stock, to frighten
her into doing what he wanted.
The fact was, he began to be suspicious, and as a consequence his
usual caution forsook him.
That scene in the street, which took place some two months before his
capture by Robinson, was the most impudent thing he did at Peckham,
and there is reason to believe that he was then contemplating another
change of residence, where Mrs. Thompson’s tales would be in less
danger of getting through the neighbours to the police.
Had he not “tried” that house at Blackheath, or had he succeeded in
doing it and getting off, Peckham would speedily have lost the society
of the independent gentleman with the interesting household.
Peace’s life at this time must have been something terrible to think
of――that is, assuming he had any feeling or conscience, which, to say
the truth, is very questionable.
With all his cunning he must have been in constant fear of detection.
His wife was faithful enough to him, but he had good reasons for
mistrusting the woman Thompson, who was prone to gossipping, and given
to drink, and who was, moreover, kept under subjection by cruel usage
and a system of espionage; but, with all this, there was no telling
how soon a man might be compromised by means of an incautious word,
and it required a wonderful amount of pains and trouble to keep watch
and ward over Mrs. Thompson, who, to say the least of her, was
anything but a prudent woman.
In addition to all this, Peace had to elude the vigilance of the
police. This he continued to do successfully enough for a considerable
period, but it was not done without a vast amount of dodging, and even
while at Peckham he was disturbed by them.
One morning the local policeman noticed a light in Thompson’s house at
an unusual hour――about two o’clock. He was afraid things were not
quite right, and was unwilling to let so estimable a citizen be
robbed.
He knocked loudly at the door. All was silent. He knocked again, and
then there shuttled along the passage some one who cautiously opened
the door.
When Peace saw it was the policeman, and heard his business, he was
instantly himself――the cool, impudent rogue that he was.
Flinging open the door, he insisted upon his coming in, saying――
“We are working here at all hours of the night at present. The fact
is, I am busy on an invention by which I expect to make my fortune
over again――it is for raising sunken ships, and I hope to start with
the ‘Eurydice.’”
And the interested constable went in and had the invention explained
to him. It is more probable that at that time Peace was busy at his
crucible melting down some stolen goldware, and that he first cleared
away all signs of the work and substituted the model of his patent to
produce before the policeman. On one occasion Peace had a “scare.”
A “Long Firm” had been established at Peckham, and two detectives――one
rather famous in his profession――came over from Greenwich.
At that time, an assistant to Mr. Cleaves――a man named Thomas, who
looks after the removal of furniture――was helping Peace to erect his
stable. Peace’s quick eye noticed the detectives stop opposite his
house.
He said, “Thomas, are these not two policemen in plain clothes?”
Thomas said they were. He knew one of them――naming him as the famous
M――――.
Peace was frightened for the moment, but was reassured when Thomas
told him they had come to inquire about a “Long Firm” case, mentioning
one man he knew they were after.
“Oh! ――――,” said Peace, “the damned old scamp! Why can’t he get his
living in an honest way?”
Had the famous M―――― known he was in sight of the Bannercross
murderer, I fancy he would have let the other “old scamp” slide for
the moment.
Thomas tells me that Peace did not go out much after his pony died.
That event seemed to take the heart out of him. He was accustomed to
trot his pony very fast, and he always went out in the afternoon
“prospecting.”
When his pony became ill he showed the greatest solicitude for its
recovery, walking it up and down at a most gingerly pace, and stroking
it tenderly, while nothing was too good for it to wear, or too
expensive for it to take.
Mrs. Thompson used to tell Mrs. Long that, however great a villain he
was, he was very kind to dumb creatures, and would not let anyone hurt
a hair of their heads.
Mrs. Long has got his favourite black cat, and is very anxious to get
possession of “Rosie,” a dog which had a great liking for Mrs.
Thompson.
Once, when Peace struck her, Rosie sprang at him and bit him severely.
Rosie has disappeared. Every morning Mrs. Thompson cut down a big loaf
for Peace’s pets, which he always saw fed himself. He was very
careful, too, about their being cleaned, making it his rule to get
down on his knees and scrub the stable flagstones himself.
Thomas once said to him jestingly while the stable was being built
that “it was a good amusement for him――it kept him out of the
public-house.” “The public-house,” said Peace, “is the ruin of all. I
never go there. Keep out of it, my friend, if you would be a
respectable man and do well.”
As a matter of fact he did go to the public-house. He would take one
glass, never any more, though he would pay for any quantity for other
people. He usually went to the Hollydale Tavern, Hollydale-road, and
he never sat down. “He always stood up, near the door,” it was said,
“as if he was ready to make a run for it.”
Meanwhile robberies went on night after night, and the magnitude of
the depredations, together with the immunity of the burglar, was a
matter of surprise to everybody. Letters appeared in the papers
complaining of the inefficiency of the police, but all was in vain.
Peace for a long time escaped discovery or capture. The wonderful way
in which he disguised himself is most remarkable, and we doubt if it
has ever been equalled by any other criminal, either great or small.
We have already said that Peace was very careful in hiding his
mutilated hand. That hand might have been to Peace what his heel was
to Achilles. The tenant of No. 5 was more careful about keeping the
missing finger from the not very prying eyes of the Peckhamites. He
did not look like a man who was much given to the wearing of gloves,
and anything new that way seemed to sit clumsily upon him, but upon
the left hand he usually wore a glove, and to outward appearance he
had the usual complement of fingers. He got over the difficulty by
having one glove finger padded. When he had forgotten his glove, which
was on very rare occasions, he pushed his left hand into his breast,
and loitered about, but did not care to talk to anybody.
But, more important than the glove expedient, were his other measures
to conceal his identity. He treated his hair in a variety of ways.
After the Bannercross murder he eschewed beard and whiskers
altogether, and in addition to getting rid of them he shaved his
forehead, thus giving himself the appearance of a person with a bald
head. In talking, the neighbours can now recollect how strangely he
used to “lift up,” as it were, the whole front of his forehead, and
let it quickly settle down again. When he elevated his eyebrows――he
had not much in that direction to elevate, and these were usually
“doctored” in various ways――it seemed to him as if the whole of the
front part of his head went with them.
Indeed, this interesting old gentleman had begun to amuse his nearest
neighbours by what they considered his little oddities and innocent
eccentricities.
He was fond of wearing a wig, and he seemed unable to decide upon any
given kind or colour of wig. At one time he would show the
carefully-arranged locks of hair――not one awry――which always indicate
the work of the peruke-maker――in the glossiest of black; then a few
grey hairs would give him a venerable aspect, and anon he would fall
in love with a pleasing brown, which the neighbours thought was a
close imitation of the tresses of Mrs. Thompson. So much was he given
to change that some people thought that the tenant of No. 5 was a
trifle “cracked”――or, what Yorkshire people call, “silly”――in this
respect.
Another method he had of disguising himself was the way in which he
coloured his complexion. Peace had, no doubt, picked some walnuts in
his day, and the singularly effective dye which exudes from the outer
shell had not escaped his attention. It was walnut-juice he used to
impart to his face that peculiar tinge which would enable him to pass
himself off as a half-caste. Mrs. Cleaves, the lady to whom I have
already repeatedly referred, includes walnuts among the articles she
sells at her premises four doors off. “Mrs. Thompson” or “Mrs.
Ward”――I forget which at this moment――used to ask Mrs. Cleaves to be
good enough to save the walnut shells for her, and Mrs. Cleaves gave
one or other of these “ladies” a basketful at a time, frequently
wondering what the people at No. 5 could want with so many walnut
shells. One day feminine curiosity got the better of her, and she
asked Mrs. Thompson, who said Mr. Thompson had a secret of making
“ketchup” from walnut shells, and that was what they used them for.
Another day, the man Thomas, while he lived next door, observed his
neighbour, “Mr. Thompson,” emptying some dark shell out of a black
bottle, and he was curious enough to ask the mistress――by “the
mistress” he meant Mrs. Thompson――what that stuff was. She replied
that “he” had been trying his hand at pickling walnuts, and had spoilt
them.
An intelligent young Peckhamite said that he and other lads had begun
to notice something very peculiar about Mr. Thompson’s back hair. He
sometimes wore a low hat which fitted loosely to his head, and the
wind would occasionally “ruffle up” the hair at the back. They could
then see that there were distinct colours, which were no doubt caused
by the dyeing with walnut juice. He must have used it very freely
about his face, chest, neck, hands, and arms, and well down his body,
and on his legs, for when the police stripped him he looked even
darker than the half-caste he professed to be. I am told that almost
every morning he could be seen picking the shells of walnuts and
throwing the nuts away.
Peace, as we have already seen, was as cunning as a fox, and in fact
as far as scruples were concerned, he did not profess any. He would
resort to any artifice for the purpose of carrying out his notorious
practices. How “he obliged a friend,” is very well remembered by the
inhabitants of Peckham to this day.