The convict was not at all averse to the notoriety which he had recently achieved. But when his life is carefully scanned from the day that he first enlisted in the “Devil’s Regiment of the Line” until sentence of death was passed upon him, it is abundantly evident that the way of the transgressor was hard.
Charles Peace commenced his criminal career before he was fourteen. He was not yet fifty, but already there was unambiguous evidence that premature old age was stealing over him.
Though devoted to crime, Peace never consorted with criminals. This peculiarity in his career constituted his safety. It is mainly because the haunts and habits of criminals are known that they are detected.
The impunity with which, for a very considerable period, Peace was enabled to commit the Blackheath burglaries arose from the air of mystery with which he was surrounded.
It must not, however, be assumed that there was anything heroic in the kind of housebreaking with which he was identified.
Houses in the district that formed the scene of his depredations afford every facility to the “cracksman.” But the good fortune which had so often favoured Peace in this region at length deserted him.
A constable whom a revolver could not scare mastered the burglar.
When he was condemned to penal servitude, it was discovered that the culprit had been guilty of a more serious crime. “Information received” enabled the authorities to connect the Blackheath burglar with the Bannercross murder.
That crime was fast fading from the memory of even those amongst whom it had been committed, and every hope of arresting the murderer had been abandoned.
Mr. Dyson’s widow was in America, and Peace, who knew this, thought himself safe.