had erected in the garden. Though all living in the same house,
Mrs. Peace, who passed as Mrs. Ward, and her son, Willie,
inhabited the basement, while Peace and Mrs. Thompson
occupied the best rooms on the ground floor. The house was
fitted with Venetian blinds. In the drawing-room stood a good
walnut suite of furniture; a Turkey carpet, gilded mirrors, a
piano, an inlaid Spanish guitar, and, by the side of an elegant
table, the beaded slippers of the good master of the house
completed the elegance of the apartment. Everything confirmed
Mr. Thompson's description of himself as a gentleman of
independent means with a taste for scientific inventions. In
association with a person of the name of Brion, Peace did, as a
fact, patent an invention for raising sunken vessels, and it is
said that in pursuing their project, the two men had obtained an
interview with Mr. Plimsoll at the House of Commons. In any
case, the Patent Gazette records the following grant:


"2635 Henry Fersey Brion, 22 Philip Road, Peckham Rye, London,
S.E., and John Thompson, 5 East Terrace, Evelina Road, Peckham
Rye, London, S.E., for an invention for raising sunken vessels by
the displacement of water within the vessels by air and gases."


At the time of his final capture Peace was engaged on other
inventions, among them a smoke helmet for firemen, an improved
brush for washing railway carriages, and a form of hydraulic
tank. To the anxious policeman who, seeing a light in Mr.
Thompson's house in the small hours of the morning, rang the bell
to warn the old gentleman of the possible presence of burglars,