But it was not in his nature to earn a respectable living for long without having recourse to his evil courses.
He became straitened in circumstances, and once more he essayed to replenish his exchequer by his midnight excursions.
Since the disastrous affair at Oakfield House he had made up his mind to carry on business on his own account.
He would have no accomplices. None should know of his depredations save the girl Bessie, in whom he had implicit confidence.
And it is but justice to her to note that whatever may have been her faults she never betrayed Charles Peace.
He was for the first time made up as a one-arm man. He had for a long time contemplated disguising himself in this way, and the better to carry out his purpose had moulded a piece of gutta-percha, to which a hook was attached, his hand, when drawn up, fitting into the socket of the gutta-percha.
When this instrument—if it can be so termed—was on no person in the world would have guessed that he was anything else but a one-armed man.
Disguising himself after this fashion, and staining his face so as to represent a mulatto, he one night started upon one of his lawless expeditions.
He passed quickly out of the town of Bradford, and made direct for a small but handsomely-built house, just on the outskirts of Dudley-hill.
The house, which was built of stone, with bay windows and a handsome portico in front, was in the occupation of a wealthy gentleman, who was a retired mill-owner.