“His left hand was always bare when I saw it, but when he went to Whitechapel he was accustomed to cover it and pretend that it was injured.
“Whitechapel was where he went with his booty. I expended a considerable sum in my experiments with Peace on his invention.
“I found that he had the idea of raising ships by air force, but that the appliance was faulty, and that no patent would be given for an idea.
“I have a plan of my own for raising ships, and I have offered it to the Admiralty. They have not accepted it, and I intend to raise the ‘Vanguard,’ and sell it on my own account. The police are aware of everything that Mrs. Thompson has to say.
“They have been cognisant of her movements from first to last, and they knew of her departure from this house, and where she has gone.”
The reader will be at no loss to understand that the police were tolerably well informed as to the movements and whereabouts of Mrs. Peace. This is plainly evidenced by her arrest, the examination at the police-courts that followed, and her trial and acquittal at the Central Criminal Court.
After this they confined their attentions to the convicted man who was at this time incarcerated in Newgate, and their chief aim was to prove him to be the murderer of Mr. Dyson.
The capture and conviction of Peace was the universal topic of town talk. Never surely did a criminal create a greater amount of excitement both in the metropolis and the provinces.
Officers were despatched both to Nottingham and Sheffield. The constabulary received information from the Park-road station of the K Division. It was put forth that the prisoner in Newgate was a man apparently about fifty years of age, dark, clean shaved, hair grey, large mouth, large scar on the side of the left leg, and the back of the thigh, three fingers on the left hand deficient, dress overcoat, with velvet collar, and black under coat.
He wore a brown leather belt, low boots, and a brown felt hat.