However, I knew there had come up to London by the morning train a Sheffield constable whose errand was to see the man “Ward,” and that officer was one who had been on the most intimate terms with Charles Peace.
He had seen the murderer daily for months before the commission of the crime, had had him in his house, and had further confided to him some of the “family troubles” of Peace.
The officer was Police-constable (222) David Morris, of the Attercliffe division, and it is due to him that Peace has at length been identified beyond dispute.
The police authorities of the metropolis are true to their word and traditions in this, that if they gain their information with difficulty they hold it with tenacity when they have obtained it. They appear to mistake reporters for Ishmaelites.
After further trouble I succeeded in finding out that at about one o’clock a detective from Scotland-yard would be at the Old Bailey, otherwise well known as Newgate Gaol, and that he would there ask Morris if he could pick out the so-called Peace from a number of men.
How to get it was the question, but I also thought it might be possible for me to identify him if I could see him, and so, with a little help from a friend, I got permission from the authorities to go inside and witness.
The approaches to the Old Bailey are of a forbidding character, dark and repulsive. Even the inquiry door has massive iron spikes projecting from the top of it, and as you have to make your applications either through the spikes or over them, you stand a chance of having your chin perforated.
On getting inside there are apparently nothing but bars and big doors, but over one of the doors on the shelf there are conspicuously displayed plaster casts of heads.
These casts are the official representations of all the murderers who have interviewed the hangman within the walls of the prison, and a hideous-looking crew they are.
Seeing that another candidate for the “long drop” has next to be interviewed the effect is not pleasing.