About two o'clock in the morning of October 10, 1878, a police constable, Robinson by name, saw a light appear suddenly in a window at the back of a house in St. John's Park, Blackheath, the residence of a Mr. Burness. Had the looked-for opportunity arrived? Was the mysterious visitor, the disturber of the peace of Blackheath, at his burglarious employment? Without delay Robinson summoned to his aid two of his colleagues. One of them went round to the front of the house and rang the bell, the other waited in the road outside, while Robinson stayed in the garden at the back. No sooner had the bell rung than Robinson saw a man come from the dining-room window which opened on to the garden, and make quickly down the path. Robinson followed him. The man turned; "Keep back!" he said, "or by God I'll shoot you!" Robinson came on. The man fired three shots from a revolver, all of which passed close to the officer's head. Robinson made another rush for him, the man fired another shot. It missed its mark. The constable closed with his would-be assassin, and struck him in the face. "I'll settle you this time," cried the man, and fired a fifth shot, which went through Robinson's arm just above the elbow. But, in spite of his wound, the valiant officer held his prisoner, succeeded in flinging him to the ground, and catching hold of the revolver that hung round the burglar's wrist, hit him on the head with it. Immediately after the other two constables came to the help of their colleague, and the struggling desperado was secured.
Little did the police as they searched their battered and moaning prisoner realise the importance of their capture. When next morning Peace appeared before the magistrate at Greenwich Police Court he was not described by name—he had refused to give any—but as a half-caste about sixty years of age, of repellant aspect. He was remanded for a week. The first clue to the identity of their prisoner was afforded by a letter which Peace, unable apparently to endure the loneliness and suspense of prison any longer, wrote to his co-inventor Mr. Brion. It is dated November 2, and is signed "John Ward." Peace was disturbed at the absence of all news from his family. Immediately after his arrest, the home in Peckham had been broken up. Mrs. Thompson and Mrs. Peace, taking with them some large boxes, had gone first to the house of a sister of Mrs. Thompson's in Nottingham, and a day or two later Mrs. Peace had left Nottingham for Sheffield. There she went to a house in Hazel Road, occupied by her son-in-law Bolsover, a working collier.(10)
(10) Later, Mrs. Peace was arrested and charged with being in possession
of stolen property. She was taken to London and tried at the Old Bailey
before Mr. Commissioner Kerr, but acquitted on the ground of her having
acted under the compulsion of her husband.
It was no doubt to get news of his family that Peace wrote to Brion. But the letters are sufficiently ingenious. Peace represents himself as a truly penitent sinner who has got himself into a most unfortunate and unexpected "mess" by giving way to drink. The spelling of the letters is exaggeratedly illiterate. He asks Mr. Brion to take pity on him and not despise him as "his own famery has don," to write him a letter to "hease his trobel hart," if possible to come and see him. Mr. Brion complied with the request of the mysterious "John Ward," and on arriving at Newgate where Peace was awaiting trial, found himself in the presence of his friend and colleague, Mr. Thompson.
In the meantime the police were getting hot on the scent of the identity of "John Ward" with the great criminal who in spite of all their efforts had eluded them for two years. The honour and profit of putting the police on the right scent were claimed by Mrs. Thompson. To her Peace had contrived to get a letter conveyed about the same time that he wrote to Mr. Brion. It is addressed to his "dearly beloved wife." He asks pardon for the "drunken madness" that has involved him in his present trouble, and gives her the names of certain witnesses whom he would wish to be called to prove his independent means and his dealings in musical instruments. It is, he writes, his first offence, and as he has "never been in prison before," begs her not to feel it a disgrace to come and see him there. But Peace was leaning on a broken reed. Loyalty does not appear to have been Susan Thompson's strong point. In her own words she "was not of the sentimental sort." The "traitress Sue," as she is called by chroniclers of the time, had fallen a victim to the wiles of the police. Since, after Peace's arrest, she had been in possession of a certain amount of stolen property, it was easier no doubt to persuade her to be frank.
In any case, we find that on February 5, 1879, the day after Peace had been sentenced to death for the murder of Dyson, Mrs. Thompson appealed to the Treasury for the reward of L100 offered for Peace's conviction. She based her application on information which she said she had supplied to the police officers in charge of the case on November 5 in the previous year, the very day on which Peace had first written to her from Newgate. In reply to her letter the Treasury referred "Mrs. S. Bailey, alias Thompson," to the Home Office, but whether she received from that office the price of blood history does not relate.
The police scouted the idea that any revelation of hers had assisted them to identify "John Ward" with Charles Peace. They said that it was information given them in Peckham, no doubt by Mr. Brion, who, on learning the deplorable character of his coadjutor, had placed himself unreservedly in their hands, which first set them on the track. From Peckham they went to Nottingham, where they no doubt came across Sue Thompson, and thence to Sheffield, where on November 6 they visited the house in Hazel Road, occupied by Mrs. Peace and her daughter, Mrs. Bolsover. There they found two of the boxes which Mrs. Peace had brought with her from Peckham. Besides stolen property, these boxes contained evidence of the identity of Ward with Peace. A constable who had known Peace well in Sheffield was sent to Newgate, and taken into the yard where the prisoners awaiting trial were exercising. As they passed round, the constable pointed to the fifth man: "That's Peace," he said, "I'd know him anywhere." The man left the ranks and, coming up to the constable, asked earnestly, "What do you want me for?" but the Governor ordered him to go on with his walk.
It was as John Ward, alias Charles Peace, that Peace, on November 19, 1878, was put on his trial for burglary and the attempted murder of Police Constable Robinson, at the Old Bailey before Mr. Justice Hawkins. His age was given in the calendar as sixty, though Peace was actually forty-six. The evidence against the prisoner was clear enough. All Mr. Montagu Williams could urge in his defence was that Peace had never intended to kill the officer, merely to frighten him. The jury found Peace guilty of attempted murder. Asked if he had anything to say why judgment should not be passed upon him, he addressed the Judge. He protested that he had not been fairly dealt with, that he never intended to kill the prosecutor, that the pistol was one that went off very easily, and that the last shot had been fired by accident. "I really did not know," he said, "that the pistol was loaded, and I hope, my lord, that you will have mercy on me. I feel that I have disgraced myself, I am not fit either to live or die. I am not prepared to meet my God, but still I feel that my career has been made to appear much worse than it really is. Oh, my lord, do have mercy on me; do give me one chance of repenting and of preparing to meet my God. Do, my lord, have mercy on me; and I assure you that you shall never repent it. As you hope for mercy yourself at the hands of the great God, do have mercy on me, and give me a chance of redeeming my character and preparing myself to meet my God. I pray, and beseech you to have mercy upon me."
Peace's assumption of pitiable senility, sustained throughout the trial, though it imposed on Sir Henry Hawkins, failed to melt his heart. He told Peace that he did not believe his statement that he had fired the pistol merely to frighten the constable; had not Robinson guarded his head with his arm he would have been wounded fatally, and Peace condemned to death. He did not consider it necessary, he said, to make an inquiry into Peace's antecedents; he was a desperate burglar, and there was an end of the matter. Notwithstanding his age, Mr. Justice Hawkins felt it his duty to sentence him to penal servitude for life. The severity of the sentence was undoubtedly a painful surprise to Peace; to a man of sixty years of age it would be no doubt less terrible, but to a man of forty-six it was crushing.
Not that Peace was fated to serve any great part of his sentence.