“You will know all about that in my testimony at Bow-street, when Mrs. Peace was under examination. I am an inventor, a geographical engineer. I make maps. You know Donald McKenzie, who has gone to Africa to make surveys for letting the ocean flow into the Sahara?
“That is my project. This is the map I exhibited at the Mansion House. (Mr. Brion unrolled a map 20 feet by 12 feet, whereon was delineated very broadly the Continent of Africa and on which was shown, in red dotted lines below the Canary Islands, a kind of gutter through which the ocean is to flow inland and flood the Sahara.)
“Mrs. Thompson went away from here on Monday. I know where she is, but I cannot tell you of her whereabouts. That has all been arranged with the police. She came here with the full knowledge of the police, and all the goods in Peace’s house were brought here by their direction and consent.
“The police are aware of everything I can tell them about Peace. I have spent three months in the interest of the public to bring this man to justice, and I was promised by the police that I should have my expenses paid, but here have I been during all that time running around the country and living at hotels, and spending money for the sake of getting at evidence, and now they refuse to pay me anything.
“I have done with the police, although they know all that I have done, and now I have a memorial to the Treasury on the subject.
“I am disgusted with the whole business, and annoyed that for any length of time I should have been associated in whatever degree with such a scoundrel as Peace.
“He was a very interesting man, full of general information, and had acquired a great amount of ability in mechanics. He had an inventive faculty, and could readily understand anything in mechanism.
“He was working away at this idea of his for lifting ships from the sea bottom, and it is now plain that he could not have obtained a patent himself.
“As with all these men of smirched reputation, he had to look around for some one to assist him, and he fastened upon me.
“I used to see him in the mornings, afternoons, and at nights, and he was always pleasant enough, and I never suspected he was what he is.