She said, however, at this time that she did not care anything about him, “if she only knew where he was.”
She took to advertising in the newspapers. These brought no response.
She found, on her return, that the old woman had gone away with the boy, and taken with her two boxes filled with valuables.
She instantly took precautions to secure the rest, which she stored away in her own name in a house at Peckham—all except the articles we have already described as having been left elsewhere.
She stayed with Mrs. Long, to whom she first told the story that her husband had gone off to America with another woman, and that she would never see him more.
Her stay extended over ten days, and then, chancing to get a hint somehow as to her husband’s whereabouts, she left, telling Mrs. Long that she should write and send her address.
Mrs. Long never heard from her afterwards, but believed in her still, and trusted in the information she had given us she might not do “the poor woman any evil turn.”
Two days after Peace disappeared, Mrs. Thompson went to Mrs. Cleaves, a greengrocer a few doors off, whose husband had identified some of the property, and asked her as a great favour to come into the house with her.
She said Mrs. Ward had gone as well as her husband, and there were several boxes, saying, “I am afraid to open them myself. I don’t know what he may have been up to. I can’t open them unless somebody will help me, because the old devil may have killed somebody, and have packed their bodies in these boxes.”
Mrs. Cleaves did not relish the ghastly suggestion, and declined to have anything to do with Mrs. Thompson’s boxes, which were ultimately obtained by the police, who had no scruples about searching the contents.