The meeting was, of course, an affectionate one, and our hero, with three pounds in his pocket, returned once more to his humble home, where he had “a bit of a jollification,” as he termed it, and an indent was made in the three pounds he had brought with him.
CHAPTER LXXXVIII.
PEACE’S LATER CAREER—THE WHALLEY RANGE MURDER.
After his return from penal servitude he followed his trade of picture-frame maker with renewed assiduity. He was very careful to duly report himself at the police station in the district, in which he resided, and it appears from all we can gather that the police treated him generally with the greatest consideration, and never hunted him down as it is termed. Indeed, they had a great reluctance to expose him or interfere in any way with him while following his ordinary avocation.
We have but little to chronicle in respect to Charles Peace from the time of his release up to the year 1876.
Presumably he was following an honest course of life, but we fear this was supplemented by occasional acts of dishonesty and depredation.
He, however, managed to steer clear of the law; and no conviction or even suspicion fell upon him till the year referred to.
It is said that for a short period he opened a provision shop in Hull, and that he left that town suddenly, for what reason does not transpire. After this he was again a picture-frame maker in Darnall.
We now propose following up the record of his career in something like consecutive order that the reader may fully comprehend the events which ultimately led to his conviction upon the charge of murder.
We have it from reliable authorities that at the time of the Banner-Cross murder, his mother—Mrs. Jane Peace—lived in Orchard-street, Sheffield, and she had not seen her son Charles—who by the way was her favourite son—for two years, on account of a difference arising out of his taking Mrs. Dyson to her house one night in 1874.