His depredation involved him in no
suspicion; his changing features rendered recognition impossible. When
the exercise of his trade compelled him to shoot a policeman at Whalley
Range, another was sentenced for the crime; and had he not encountered
Mrs. Dyson, who knows but he might have practised his art in prosperous
obscurity until claimed by a coward's death? But a stormy love-passage
with Mrs. Dyson led to the unworthy killing of the woman's husband--a
crime unnecessary and in no sense consonant to the burglar's craft; and
Charles Peace was an outlaw, with a reward set upon his head.
And now came a period of true splendour. Like Fielding, like Cervantes,
like Sterne, Peace reserved his veritable masterpiece for the certainty
of middle-life. His last two years were nothing less than a march of
triumph. If you remember his constant danger, you will realise the
grandeur of the scheme. From the moment that Peace left Bannercross with
Dyson's blood upon his hands, he was a hunted man. His capture was worth
five hundred pounds; his features were familiar to a hundred hungry
detectives. Had he been less than a man of genius, he might have taken
an unavailing refuge in flight or concealment. But, content with no
safety unattended by affluence, he devised a surer plan: he became a
householder. Now, a semi-detached villa is an impregnable stronghold.
Respectability oozes from the dusky mortar of its bricks, and escapes in
clouds of smoke from its soot-grimed chimneys.
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