"There now! Who'd ever think of that?" said Bunting. "I should say
that man 'ud got something on his conscience, wouldn't you?"

"Well, I needn't stay now," said Joe's good-natured friend. "You
show your friends round, Chandler. You knows the place nearly as
well as I do, don't you?"

He smiled at Joe's visitors, as if to say good-bye, but it seemed
that he could not tear himself away after all.

"Look here," he said to Bunting. "In this here little case are the
tools of Charles Peace. I expect you've heard of him."

"I should think I have!" cried Bunting eagerly.

"Many gents as comes here thinks this case the most interesting of
all. Peace was such a wonderful man! A great inventor they say he
would have been, had he been put in the way of it. Here's his
ladder; you see it folds up quite compactly, and makes a nice little
bundle--just like a bundle of old sticks any man might have been
seen carrying about London in those days without attracting any
attention. Why, it probably helped him to look like an honest
working man time and time again, for on being arrested he declared
most solemnly he'd always carried that ladder openly under his arm."

"The daring of that!" cried Bunting.

"Yes, and when the ladder was opened out it could reach from the
ground to the second storey of any old house. And, oh! how clever
he was! Just open one section, and you see the other sections open
automatically; so Peace could stand on the ground and force the
thing quietly up to any window he wished to reach. Then he'd go
away again, having done his job, with a mere bundle of old wood
under his arm! My word, he was artful! I wonder if you've heard
the tale of how Peace once lost a finger. Well, he guessed the
constables were instructed to look out for a man missing a finger;
so what did he do?"

"Put on a false finger," suggested Bunting.

"No, indeed! Peace made up his mind just to do without a hand
altogether. Here's his false stump: you see, it's made of wood
--wood and black felt? Well, that just held his hand nicely.
Why, we considers that one of the most ingenious contrivances in
the whole museum."

Meanwhile, Daisy had let go her hold of her father. With Chandler
in delighted attendance, she had moved away to the farther end of
the great room, and now she was bending over yet another glass case.
"Whatever are those little bottles for?" she asked wonderingly.

There were five small phials, filled with varying quantitie