CHAPTER CII.
DOMESTIC SQUABBLES—BILL RAWTON PAYS A VISIT TO THE EVELINA-ROAD.
Peace’s house in the Evelina-road, to which Mrs. Bourne had paid a visit, has attained a considerable share of notoriety. It is most remarkable how he contrived to live there so long and carry on his lawless practices in the surrounding districts without being discovered. A glance at his house would, at first sight, have suggested the impossibility of his going on for so long a time without being brought to justice.
In the front of him was a row of houses, to the rear were the backs of a whole roadful of dwellings, in which the windows seemed so many eyes looking down into the Peace establishment.
On the railway side he was safe enough, as the embankment was high, and the trains passed within a few yards of his dwelling, but high above his roof. Yet it does seem, looking from the street, as if he must have been observed sometimes by the people in the bedrooms to the rear of that road.
If we take a glance at the back we shall soon find out why Peace managed to escape observation.
The tenant of No. 5 neglected nothing. He had a microscopic eye for what people foolishly call “little things.” A master of detail, he made the stable serve two purposes—to house his pony and to conceal his doings.
It was constructed so as to shut off all prospect from the rear. The stable was placed and covered in so cleverly that nothing short of the power to pierce through wooden boards could have enabled anyone to see anything.
To make assurance doubly sure, he had, all round the back, a wooden partition put up—even on the side next the railway, where there was only the hedge to guard against. Timber of fine quality was used for this purpose, and the workmanship was creditable to the carpenter—Peace himself.
A neighbour remonstrated with him once for using such good wood for what seemed to be so common and trivial a purpose.