His audacity was such that at the time his name was on everybody's lips, and Scotland Yard was full of him, he visited the Yard disguised as a clergyman and asked a number of questions about himself!
His false arm was a unique idea. He was minus the fore-finger of the left hand, and after he left Sheffield on 29th November, 1876, his description was posted at every police-station in the country. So he made himself this arm which he placed in his sleeve, hanging his violin on the hook when engaged in walking about and taking stock of "crackable" residences, and screwing in a fork in the place of the hook for use at meals. So for something like two years the irrepressible Peace walked this earth short of a _hand_, whilst the police were looking for a man short of a _finger_!
[Illustration: PEACE'S SPECTACLES AND DUMMY ARM.]
[_The following is an absolutely true narrative of actual facts, and was written down from Mr. Lees' dictation, the loss of both his hands, of course, precluding him from writing._]
On Christmas morning, 1886, I started about ten o'clock from Indian Head, Manitoba, Canada, with Her Majesty's mail, to travel forty miles. It was a very cold morning, and blowing 30° below zero. I had been on my journey about an hour, when I began to feel very sleepy, through the intense cold, and so got out to walk for a time. The storm increased so that I could not see twenty yards before me, but I still kept the trail till something happened to the harness. I threw my gloves into the sleigh while I put it right, hanging the reins on the front board.
When I went back to get in, the ponies bolted, leaving me without gloves. I ran some distance, when the cold seemed to make me faint; I lay down an hour before I could recover myself sufficiently to start again; when I did, both hands were frozen stiff.
The blizzard cleared, and when I had thawed my eyes (which were frozen up with the drifting snow) I could see a shanty about a mile off the trail. I started to it, but bad luck attended me. When I reached it, it was uninhabited, and my hands were so frozen that I could not move a finger to get in, so sat down in a shed to consider what would be best to do.
Feeling perished as my feet began to freeze, I was obliged to walk on. I saw another place I knew across the prairie, about two miles from where I stood, and started for it as well as I could get along, but still worse luck attended me. I had gone only half my journey when the blizzard increased, so that it froze my eyes up and nearly choked me. I turned my back to the storm and tried to retrace my footsteps, but the snow had completely swept them out; and I was lost, as I thought, for ever.