“A canting, whining old hypocrite,” said the sergeant to me; “and as for his face, why he was so ugly I cannot understand why any woman would look at him, much less live in the same house with him.
“He was the ugliest, vilest-looking little wretch you would meet in a long day’s walk.”
When Peace refused to give his name he was over-cunning. The police suspected that a man who would give no name must have unusual reasons for his silence.
So they set their wits to work to find out who and what he was.
When he did give the name of “John Ward” they were not disposed to accept it. The warders of the principal prisons were sent for to see if they could identify him.
When the warder of Millbank appeared Peace was asked if he knew him.
“Oh, no!” replied the prisoner, with an affectation of great innocence and ignorance. “I never saw his face before. Who is he?” He was informed.
“Ah!” continued Peace, “he never saw me before; I never was in such a prison before. This is the first time I was in such a place,” and he looked wearily round his cell with the air of an injured innocent. It was the same with all the other warders who came to look at him.
Peace’s old audacity returned to his assistance. He stood up when called, and relying upon his changed appearance—the shaving of his head, the dyeing with walnut juice, and the like—he confronted them with as much confidence as could be put on by an old convict in the presence of those who had been his gaolers.
He succeeded in deceiving all those experienced officers, but just in proportion to the success of his deception was the desire of the authorities to get behind the mask, and they did so at last—not by any sudden revelation, or undetected discovery, but simply by the capacity for taking pains in putting together the many “trifles” which at length connected the burglar Ward with the murderer Peace.