Reference has previously been made to the long screws which formed part of Peace’s burglarious implements. It will be remembered that he used these to secure himself from intrusion while ransacking a room, and he also employed them to prevent pursuers from cutting off his retreat.
On one occasion he showed his confidence in them in a remarkable manner. It was night time, and he selected one of a row of houses in a main street at Brixton. He went to the front door and fastened it with a screw.
On going to the back he saw two doors, one of which opened to the lawn. He secured both of them in the same way. He then climbed a spout and entered the house by a bedroom window.
The door of the room he so fastened with a screw that it could not be opened from the outside, and then proceeded leisurely to ransack the drawers. He was just upon the point of forcing open the desk when a servant came to the door, and when she could not open it she began to scream.
There was a rush to both back and front doors, but it was impossible to open them. Peace remained in the room until he had broken open the desk and abstracted it contents, and then he left the house as he had entered it and escaped.
The “specials” of many newspapers drew the long bow very considerably when they began to pile on the agony in describing Peace’s appearance when sentenced to death. There was talk among them about fierce scowls, and convulsive twitchings of the mouth, and a pallor that extended to his very lips.
Others descended still lower, and described the tremblings of his limbs, and spoke of him as if carried out in something like a swoon. There was a great deal in all this as imaginary as Dr. Potter’s “trembling like an aspen leaf.” As the judge pronounced sentence Peace sat with one leg crossed over the other knee, without the symptoms of even a passing tremour.
And as for his face, it was almost expressionless. He had seemed the whole day to be in a sort of lethargy; if there was any change at the end it amounted only to an increase of stupor.
We wonder where Dr. Potter picked up his story about the convict having broken his aged mother’s heart? Possibly from the unreliable source whence many of the other fictions promulgated from St. Luke’s pulpit came.
We mean no disrespect to the ancient lady who was wont to hawk tapes and ribbons about the outskirts of the town, but her heart took an uncommon lot of breaking.