Mr. Henry Fowler, seated in a dark recess of the taproom at the lunch hour, showed every sign of agitation. He bit his lip, he twisted his glass in his hands, and he could hardly bring himself to look into the eyes of his friend Edward Pierce. "I do not know how to begin," he said. "It is a most embarrassing circumstance."
"You are assured of my fullest confidence," Pierce said, raising his glass.
"I thank you," Fowler said. "You see," he began, then faltered. "You see, it is"-- he broke off, and shook his head-- "most dreadfully embarrassing."
"Then speak of it forthrightly," Pierce advised, "as one man to another."
Fowler gulped his drink, and set the glass back on the table with a sharp clink. "Very well. Plainly, the long and the short of it is that I have the French malady."
"Oh, dear," Pierce said.
"I fear I have overindulged," said Fowler sadly, "and now I must pay the price. It is altogether most wretched and vexing." In those days, venereal disease was thought to be the consequence of sexual overactivity. There were few cures, and fewer doctors willing to treat a patient with the illness. Most hospitals made no provision for gonorrhea and syphilis at all. A respectable man who contracted these diseases became an easy target for blackmail; thus Mr. Fowler's reticence.
"How may I help you?" Pierce asked, already knowing the answer.
"I maintained the hope-- not falsely, I pray-- that as a bachelor, you might have knowledge-- ah, that you might make an introduction on my behalf to a fresh girl, a country girl."
Pierce frowned. "It is no longer so easy as it once was."
"I know that, I know that," Fowler said, his voice rising heatedly. He checked himself, and spoke more quietly. "I understand the difficulty. But I was hoping…"
Pierce nodded. "There is a woman in the Haymarket," he said, "who often has a fresh or two. I can make discreet inquiries."
"Oh, please," said Mr. Fowler, his voice tremulous. And he added, "It is most painful."
"All I can do is inquire," Pierce said.
"I should be forever in your debt," Mr. Fowler said. "It is most painful."
"I shall inquire," Pierce said. "You may expect a communication from me in a day or so. In the meanwhile, do not lose cheer."
"Oh, thank you, thank you," Fowler said, and called for another drink.
"It may be expensive," Pierce warned.
"Damn the expense, man. I swear I will pay anything!" Then he seemed to reconsider this comment. "How much do you suppose?"
"A hundred guineas, if one is to be assured of a true fresh."
"A hundred guineas?" He looked unhappy.
"Indeed, and only if I am fortunate enough to strike a favorable bargain. They are much in demand, you know."
"Well, then, it shall be," Mr. Fowler said, gulping another drink. "Whatever it is, it shall be."
____________________
Two days later, Mr. Fowler received by the newly instituted penny post a letter addressed to him at his offices at the Huddleston amp; Bradford Bank. Mr. Fowler was much reassured by the excellent quality of the stationery, and the fine penmanship displayed by the mistakably feminine hand.
Nov. 11, 1854
Sir,
Our mutual acquaintance, Mr. P., has requested that I inform you when next I knew of any lady-- fresh. I am pleased to recommend to you a very pretty fair young girl, just come from the country, and I think you will like her very much. If it is convenient for you, you may meet her in four days' time at Lichfield Street, at the bottom of St. Martin's Lane, at eight o'clock. She shall be there waiting for you, and suitable arrangements for private quarterings have been made nearby.
I remain, Sir, your most obedient humble servant,
M.B.
South Moulton Street
There was no mention of the price of the girl, but Mr. Fowler hardly cared. His private parts were now swollen and extremely tender, so much so, in fact, that he could think of nothing else as he sat at his desk and tried to conduct the business of the day. He looked again at the letter and again felt reassured by the excellent impression it made. In every aspect, it smacked of the utmost reliability, and that was important. Fowler knew that many virgins were nothing of the sort, but rather young girls initiated a score of times over, with their "demure state" freshly renewed by the application of a small seamstress's stitch in a strategic place.
He also knew that intercourse with a virgin was not uniformly accepted as a cure for venereal disease. Many men swore the experience produced a cure; others rejected the idea. It was often argued that the failures resulted from the fact that the girl was not genuinely fresh. Thus Mr. Fowler looked at the stationery and the penmanship, and found there the reassurance he hoped to find. He sent off a quick note of vague thanks to his friend Pierce for his assistance in this matter.
On the same day that Mr. Fowler was writing a letter of thanks to Mr. Pierce, Mr. Pierce was preparing to crack the mansion of Mr. Trent. Involved in this plan were five people: Pierce, who had some inside knowledge of the layout of the house; Agar, who would make the wax impression of the key; Agar's woman, who would act as "crow," or lookout; and Barlow who would be a "stall," providing diversion.
There was also the mysterious Miss Miriam. She was essential to the planned housebreak, for she would carry out what was called "the carriage fakement" This was one of the most clever methods of breaking into a house. For its effect, the carriage fakement relied upon a solid social custom of the day-- the tipping of servants.
In Victorian England, roughly 10 percent of the entire population was "in service," and nearly all were poorly paid. The poorest paid were those whose tasks brought them in contact with visitors and house guests: the butler and the hall porter relied on tips for most of their annual income. Thus the notorious disdain of the porter for insubstantial callers-- and thus, too, the "carriage fakement "
By nine o'clock on the evening of November 12, 1854, Pierce had his confederates in their places. The crow, Agar's woman, lounged across the street from the Trent mansion. Barlow, the stall, had slipped down the alley toward the tradesman's entrance and the dog pens at the back of the house. Pierce and Agar were concealed in shrubbery right next to the front door. When all was in readiness, an elegant closed carriage drew up to the curb in front of the house, and the bell was rung.
The Trent household's hall porter heard the ring, and opened the door. He saw the carriage drawn up at the curb. Dignified and conscious of tips, the porter was certainly not going to stand in the doorway and shout into the night to inquire what was wanted. When, after a moment, no one emerged from the carriage, he went down the steps to the curb to see if he could be of service.
Inside the carriage he saw a handsome, refined woman who asked if this was the residence of Mr. Robert Jenkins. The porter said it was not, but he knew of Mr. Jenkins; the house was around the corner, and he gave directions.
While this was happening, Pierce and Agar slipped into the house through the open front door. They proceeded directly to the cellar door. This door was locked, but Agar employed a twirl, or picklock, and had it open in a moment. The two men were inside the cellar, with the door closed behind them, by the time the porter received his shilling from the lady in the carriage. The porter tossed the coin in the air, caught it, walked back to the house, and locked up the door once more, never suspecting he had been tricked.
That was the carriage fakement.
____________________
In the light of a narrow-beam lantern, Pierce checked his watch. It was 9:04. That gave them an hour to find the key before Barlow provided his diversion to cover their escape.
Pierce and Agar moved stealthily down the creaking stairs into the depths of the cellar. They saw the wine racks, locked behind iron gratings. These new locks yielded easily to Agar's attentions. At 9:11, they swung the grating door open and entered the wine cellar proper. They immediately began the search for the key.
There was no way to be clever about the search. It was a slow and painstaking business. Pierce could make only one assumption about the hiding place: since Mr. Trent's wife was the person who usually went into the cellar, and since Mr. Trent did not want her coming across the key by accident, the banker probably hid his key at some inconveniently high location. They first searched the tops of the racks, feeling with their fingers. It was dusty, and there was soon a good deal of dust in the air.
Agar, with his bad lungs, had difficulty suppressing his cough. Several times his stifled grunts were sufficiently loud to alarm Pierce, but the Trent household never heard them.
Soon it was 9:30. Now, Pierce knew, time was beginning to work against them. Pierce searched more frantically and became impatient, hissing his complaints to Agar, who wielded the spot of light from the hot shaded lantern.
Ten more minutes passed, and Pierce began to sweat. And then, with startling suddenness, his fingers felt something cold on the top of the wine-rack crossbars. The object fell to the ground with a metallic clink. A few moments of scrambling around on the earthern floor of the cellar, and they had the key. It was 9:45.
Pierce held it into the spot from the lantern. In darkness, Agar groaned.
"What is it?" Pierce whispered.
"That's not it."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean it's not the ruddy key, it's the wrong one."
Pierce turned the key over in his hands. "Are you sure?" he whispered, but even as he spoke he knew Agar was right. The key was dusty and old; there was grime in the crevices of the prongs. Agar spoke his thoughts.
"Nobody's touched her in ten years."
Pierce swore, and continued his search, while Agar held the lantern. Agar looked at the key critically.
"Damn me but she's odd," he whispered. "I never seen the likes of it. Small as she is, delicate-like, could be a lady's twirl to some female trifle, you ask me--"
"--Shut up," Pierce hissed.
Agar fell silent. Pierce searched, feeling his heart thump in his chest, not looking at his clock, not wanting to know the time. Then his fingers again felt cold metal. He brought it into the light.
It was a shiny key.
"That's for a safe," Agar said when he saw it.
"Right," Pierce said, sighing. He took the lantern and held it for Agar. Agar fished two wax blanks from his pockets. He held them in his hands to warm them a moment, and then he pressed the key into them, first one side, then the other.
"Time?" he whispered.
"Nine-fifty-one," Pierce said.
"I'll do another," Agar said, and repeated the process with a second set of blanks. This was common practice among the most adept screwsmen, for one never knew when a blank might be later injured after a break-in. When he had two sets, Pierce returned the key to its hiding place.
"Nine-fifty-seven."
"Crikey, it's close."
They left the wine cellar, locking it behind them, and slipped up the stairs to the basement door. Then they waited.
Barlow, lurking in the shadows near the servants' quarters, checked his own pocket watch and saw it was ten o'clock. He had a moment of hesitation. On the one hand, every minute his accomplices spent inside the Trent household was dangerous; on the other hand, they might not have finished their work, despite the planned schedule. He had no wish to be the villain, greeted by the spectacle of their angry faces when they made their escape.
Finally he muttered to himself, "Ten is ten," and, carrying a bag, he moved back to the dog kennels. Three dogs were there, including the new gift of a made dog from Mr. Pierce. Barlow bent over the run and pushed four squeaking rats out of the bag and into the enclosure. Immediately, the dogs began to yelp and bark, raising a terrible din.
Barlow slipped off into the shadows as he saw the lights come on in one window after another in the servants' quarters.
____________________
Pierce and Agar, hearing the commotion, opened the cellar door and moved into the hallway, locking that door behind them. There was the sound of running footsteps at the back of the house. They unfastened the locks and bolts of the front door, let themselves out, and disappeared into the night.
They left behind their only one sign of their visit: the unlocked front door. They knew that in the morning the hall porter, being first to arise, would come upon the front door and find the locks open. But the porter would remember the incident of the carriage the night before, and would assume that he had forgotten to lock up afterward. He might secretly suspect a housebreak, but as the day went on and nothing was discovered missing, he would forget all about it.
In any case, no burglary of the Trent residence was, ever reported to authorities. The mysterious commotion of the dogs was explained by the bodies of the dead rats in the kennel. There was some discussion of how the rats had found their way into the dog run, but the Trent household was large and busy, and there was no time for idle speculation on trivial matters.
Thus, by dawn of November 13, 1854, Edward Pierce had the first of the four keys he needed. He immediately directed his attention to obtaining the second key.
Mr. Henry Fowler could scarcely believe his eyes. There, in the faint glow of the street gas lamp, was a delicate creature, rosy-cheeked and wonderfully young. She could not be much past the age of consent of twelve, and her very posture, bearing, and timid manner bespoke her tender and uninitiated state.
He approached her; she replied softly, halting, with downcast eyes, and led him to a brothel lodging house not far distant. Mr. Fowler eyed the establishment with some trepidation, for the exterior was not particularly prepossessing. Thus it was a pleasant surprise when the child's gentle knock at the door received an answer from an exceedingly beautiful woman, whom the child called "Miss Miriam." Standing in the hallway, Fowler saw that this accommodation house was not one of those crude establishments where beds rented for five shillings an hour and the proprietor came round and rapped on the door with a stick when the time was due; on the contrary, here the furnishings were plush velvet, with rich drapings, fine Persian carpets, and appointments of taste and quality. Miss Miriam comported herself with extraordinary dignity as she requested one hundred and fifty pounds; her manner was so wellborn that Fowler paid without a quibble, and he proceeded directly to an upstairs room with the little girl, whose name was Sarah.
Sarah explained that she had lately come from Derbyshire, that her parents were dead, that she had an older brother off in the Crimea, and a younger brother in the poorhouse. She talked of all these events almost gaily as they ascended the stairs. Fowler thought he detected a certain overexcited quality to her speech; no doubt the poor child was nervous at her first experience, and he reminded himself to be gentle.
The room they entered was as superbly furnished as the downstairs sitting room; it was red and elegant, and the air was softly perfumed with the scent of jasmine. He looked about briefly, for a man could never be too careful. Then he bolted the door and turned to face the girl.
"Well, now," he said.
"Sir?" she said.
"Well, now," he said. "Shall, we, ah…"
"Oh, yes, of course, sir," she said, and the simple child began to undress him. He found it extraordinary, to stand in the midst of this elegant-- very nearly decadent-- room and have a little child who stood barely to his waist reach up with her little fingers and pluck at his buttons, undressing him. Altogether, it was so remarkable he submitted passively, and soon was naked, although she was still attired.
"What is this?" she asked, touching a key around his neck on a silver chain.
"Just a-- ah-- key," he replied.
"You'd best take it off," she said, "it may harm me."
He took it off. She dimmed the gaslights, and then disrobed. The next hour or two was magical to Henry Fowler, an experience so incredible, so astounding he quite forgot his painful condition. And he certainly did not notice that a stealthy hand slipped around one of the heavy red velvet drapes and plucked away the key from atop his clothing; nor did he notice when, a short time later, the key was returned.
"Oh, sir," she cried, at the vital moment. "Oh, sir!"
And Henry Fowler was, for a brief instant, more filled with life and excitement than he could ever remember in all his forty-seven years.
The ease with which Pierce and his fellow conspirators obtained the first two keys gave them a sense of confidence that was soon to prove false. Almost immediately after obtaining Fowler's key, they ran into difficulties from an unexpected quarter: the South Eastern Railway changed its routine for the dispatcher's offices in London Bridge Station.
The gang employed Miss Miriam to watch the routine of the offices, and in late December, 1854, she returned with bad news. At a meeting in Pierces house, she told both Pierce and Agar that the railway company had hired a jack who now guarded the premises at night.
Since they had been planning to break in at night, this was sour news indeed. But according to Agar, Pierce covered his disappointment quickly. "What's his rig?" he asked.
"He comes on duty at lock-up each night, at seven sharp," Miss Miriam said.
"And what manner of fellow is he?"
"He's a ream escop," she replied, meaning a real policeman. "He's forty or so; square-rigged, fat. But I'll wager he doesn't sleep on the job, and he's no lushington."
"Is he armed?"
"He is," she said, nodding.
"Where's he lurk, then?" Agar said.
"Right at the door. Sits up at the top of the steps by the door, and does not move at all. He has a small paper bag at his side, which I think is his supper." Miss Miriam could not be sure of that, because she dared not remain watching the station office too late in the day for fear of arousing suspicion.
"Crikey," Agar said in disgust. "Sits right by the door? He's coopered that ken."
"I wonder why they put on a night guard," Pierce said.
"Maybe they knew we were giving it the yack," Agar said, for they had kept the office under surveillance, off and on, for a period of months, and someone might have noticed.
Pierce sighed.
"No gammon now," Agar said.
"There's always a gammon," Pierce said.
"It's coopered for sure," Agar said.
"Not coopered," Pierce said, "just a little more difficult is all."
"How you going to knock it over, then?" Agar said.
"At the dinner hour," he said.
"In broad daylight?" Agar said, aghast.
"Why not?" Pierce said.
The following day, Pierce and Agar watched the midday routine of the office. At one o'clock, the London Bridge Station was crowded with passengers coming and going; porters hauling luggage behind elegant travelers on their way to coaches; hawkers shouting refreshments for sale; and three or four policemen moving around, keeping order and watching for buzzers-- pickpockets-- since train stations were becoming their new favorite haunt. The dipper would nail his quarry as he boarded the train, and the victim would not discover the robbery until he was well out of London.
The association of pickpockets with train stations became so notorious that when William Frith painted one of the most famous pictures of his generation, "The Railway Station," in 1862, the chief focus of the composition was two detectives pinching a thief.
Now the London Bridge Station had several Metropolitan Police constables. And the railway companies had private guards as well.
"It's fair aswarm with miltonians," Agar said unhappily, looking around the station platforms.
"Never mind that," Pierce said. He watched the railway office.
At one o'clock, the clerks clambered down the iron stairs, chattering among themselves, off to lunch. The traffic manager, a stern gentleman in muttonchop whiskers, remained inside. The clerks were back at two o'clock, and the office routine resumed.
The next day, the manager went to lunch but two of the clerks remained behind, skipping lunch.
By the third day, they knew the pattern: one or more of the men in the office went to lunch for an hour at one o'clock, but the office was never left unattended. The conclusion was clear.
"No daylight gammon," Agar said.
"Perhaps Sunday," Pierce said, thinking aloud.
In those days-- and indeed to the present day-- the British railway system strongly resisted operations on the Sabbath. It was considered unnecessary and unseemly for any company to do business on Sunday, and the railways in particular had always shown an oddly moralistic bent. For example, smoking on railway carriages was forbidden long after smoking became a widespread custom in society; a gentleman who wished to enjoy a cigar was obliged to tip the railroad porter-- another forbidden act-- and this state of affairs continued, despite the intense pressure of public opinion, until 1868, when Parliament finally passed a law forcing the railroads to allow passengers to smoke.
Similarly, although everyone agreed that the most God-fearing men sometimes needed to travel on the Sabbath, and although the popular custom of weekend excursions provided ever more pressure for Sunday schedules, the railroads fought stubbornly against this trend. In 1854, the South Eastern Railway ran only four trains on Sunday, and the other line that used London Bridge, the London amp; Greenwich Railway, ran only six trains, less than half the usual number.
Pierce and Agar checked the station the following Sunday, and found a double guard posted outside the traffic manager's office; one jack stationed himself near the door, and the second was positioned near the foot of the stairs.
"Why?" Pierce asked when he saw the two guards. "Why, in God's name, why?"
In later courtroom testimony, it emerged that the South Eastern Railway management changed hands in the fall of 1854. Its new owner, Mr. Willard Perkins, was a gentleman of philanthropic bent whose concern for the lower classes was such that he introduced a policy of employing more people at all positions on the line, "in order to provide honest work for those who might otherwise be tempted into lawlessness and improvident promiscuity." The extra personnel were hired for this reason alone; the railway never suspected a robbery, and indeed Mr. Perkins was greatly shocked when his line was eventually robbed.
It is also true that at this time the South Eastern Railway was trying to build new access lines into downtown London, and this caused the displacement of many families and the destruction of their houses. Thus this philanthropic endeavor had a certain public relations aspect in the minds of the railway owners.
"No gammon on Sunday," Agar said, looking at the two guards. "Perhaps Christmas?"
Pierce shook his head. It was possible that security might be relaxed on Christmas Day, but they could not depend on that. "We need something routine," he said.
"There's nothing to be done by day"
"Yes," Pierce said. "But we don't know the full night routine. We never had an all-night watch." At night the station was deserted, and loiterers and tramps were briskly ordered off by the policemen making their rounds.
"They'll shoo away a canary," Agar said. "And perhaps collar him as well."
"I was thinking of a canary in a lurk," Pierce said. A concealed man could remain all night in the station.
"Clean Willy? "
"No," Pierce said. "Clean Willy is a mouth and a flat, without a downy bone in his body. He's glocky."
"It's true he's glocky," Agar said.
Clean Willy, dead at the time of the trial, was noted in courtroom testimony to be of "diminished faculties of reasoning"; this was reported by several witnesses. Pierce himself said, "We felt we could not trust him to do the surveillance. If he were apprehended, he would put down on us-- reveal our plans-- and never know the difference."
"Who shall we have instead?" Agar said, looking around the station.
"I was thinking of a skipper," Pierce said.
"A skipper?" Agar said, in surprise.
"Yes," Pierce said. "I think a skipper would do nicely. Do you happen to know of a bone skipper?"
"I can find one. But what's the lurk, then?"
"We'll pack him in a crate," Pierce said.
Pierce then arranged for a packing crate to be built and delivered to his residence. Agar obtained, by his own accounting, "a very reliable skipper," and arrangements were made to send the crate to the railway station.
The skipper, named Henson, was never found, nor was there much attempt to track him down; he was a very minor figure in the entire scheme, and by his very nature was somebody not worth bothering with. For the term "skipper" did not imply an occupation, but rather a way of life, and more specifically away of spending the night.
During the mid-century, London's population was growing at the rate of 20 percent per decade. The number of people in the city was increasing by more than a thousand per day, and even with massive building programs and densely crowded slums, a sizable fraction of the population lacked both shelter and the means to pay for it. Such people spent their nights outdoors, wherever the police with the dreaded bull's-eye lanterns would leave them alone. The favorite places were the so-called "Dry-Arch Hotels," meaning the arches of railway bridges, but there were other haunts: ruined buildings, shop doorways, boiler rooms, omnibus depots, empty market stalls, under hedges, any place that provided a kip. "Skippers" were people who routinely sought another kind of shelter: barns and outhouses. At this time even rather elegant households frequently lacked indoor plumbing; the outhouse was a fixture among all classes, and it was increasingly found in public places as well. The skipper would wedge himself into these narrow confines and sleep away the night.
At his trial, Agar spoke proudly of the way he had procured a reliable skipper. Most of the night people were muck-snipes or tramps, wholly down and out; skippers were a little more enterprising than most, but they were still at the bottom of the social order. And they were often soaks; no doubt their intoxication helped them tolerate their fragrant resting places.
The reason Pierce wanted a skipper, of course, was obtain someone who could tolerate cramped quarters for many hours. The man Henson was reported to have found his shipping crate "ever so wide" as he was nailed into it.
This crate was placed strategically within London Bridge Station. Through the slats, Henson was able to watch the behavior of the night guard. After the first night, the crate was hauled away; painted another color, and returned to the station again. This routine was followed three nights in succession. Then Henson reported his findings. None of the thieves was encouraged.
"The jack's solid," he told Pierce. "Regular as this very clock." He held up the stopwatch Pierce had given him to time the activities. "Comes on at seven prompt, with his little paper bag of supper. Sits on the steps, always alert, never a snooze, greeting the crusher on his rounds."
"What are the rounds?"
"First crusher works to midnight, goes every eleven minutes round the station. Sometimes he goes twelve, and once or twice thirteen minutes, but regular, it's eleven for him. Second crusher works midnight to the dawn. He's a flummut crusher, keeps to no beat but goes this way and that, popping up here and there like a jack-in-a-box, with a wary eye in all directions. And he's got himself two barkers at his belt."
"What about the jack who sits by the offce door?" Pierce said.
"Solid, like I say, ream solid. Comes at seven, chats with the first crusher-- he don't care for the second crusher, he cools him with a steady eye, he does. But the first crusher he likes, chats now and again with him, but never a stop in the crusher's rounds, just a little chat."
"Does he ever leave his place?" Pierce said.
"No," the skipper said. "He sits right there, and then he hears the bells of Saint Falsworth ringing the hour, and each time they ring he cocks his head and listens. Now at eleven o'clock, he opens his bag, and eats his tightener, always at the ringing of the clock. Now he eats for maybe ten, fifteen minutes, and he has a bottle of reeb"-- Beer-- "and then the crusher comes around again. Now the jack sits back, taking his ease, and he waits until the crusher comes once more. Now it's half past eleven or thereabouts. And then the crusher passes him by, and the jack goes to the loo."
"Then he does leave his place," Pierce said.
"Only for the pisser."
"And how long is he gone?"
"I was thinking you might want to know," Henson said, "so I clocked it proper. He's gone sixty-four seconds one night, and sixty-eight the next night, and sixty-four the third night. Always at the same time of the night, near about eleven-thirty. And he's back to his post when the guard makes the last round, quarter to midnight, and then the other crusher comes on to the beat."
"He did this every night?"
"Every night. It's the reeb does it. Reeb makes a man have a powerful urge."
"Yes," Pierce said, "beer does have that effect. Now does he leave his post at any other time?"
"Not to my eye."
"And you never slept?"
"What? When I'm sleeping here all the day through on your nice bed, here in your lodgings, and you ask if I kip the night away?"
"You must tell me the truth," Pierce said, but without any great sense of urgency.
(Agar later testified: "Pierce asks him the questions, see, but he shows no interest in the matter, he plays like a flimp or a dub buzzer, or a mutcher, no interest or importance, and this because he don't want the skipper to granny that a bone lay is afoot. Now the skipper should have done, we went to a lot of trouble on his account, and he could have put down on us to the miltonians, and for a pretty penny, too, but he hasn't the sense, otherwise why'd he be a skipper, eh?"
(This statement put the court into an uproar. When His Lordship requested an explanation, Agar said with an expression of surprise that he had just explained it as best he could. It required several minutes of interrogation to make it clear that Agar meant that Pierce had pretended to be a "flimp or dub buzzer"-- that is, a snatch-pickpocket or a low-grade thief, or a "mutcher," a man who rolled drunks-- in order to deceive the skipper, so that the skipper would not comprehend that a good criminal plan was being worked out. Agar also said that the skipper should have figured it out for himself and "put down" on them-- that is, squealed to the police-- but he lacked the sense to do so. This was only one of several instances in which incomprehensible criminal slang halted courtroom proceedings.)
"I swear, Mr. Pierce," the skipper said. "I swear I never slept a bit."
"And the jack never left except that one time each night?"
"Aye, and every night the same. He's regular as this jerry"-- he held up his stopwatch-- "that jack is."
Pierce thanked the skipper, paid him a half-crown for his troubles, allowed himself to be whined and cajoled into paying an additional half-crown, and sent the man on his way. As the door closed on the skipper, Pierce told Barlow to "worry" the man; Barlow, nodded and left the house by another exit
When Pierce returned to Agar, he said, "Well? Is it a coopered ken?"
"Sixty-four seconds," Agar said, shaking his head. "That's not your kinchin lay"-- not exactly robbing children.
"I never said it was," Pierce said. "But you keep telling me you're the best screwsman in the country, and here's a fitting challenge for your talents: is it a coopered ken?"
"Maybe," Agar said. "I got to practice the lay. And I need to cool it close up. Can we pay a visit?"
"Certainly," Pierce said.
"Of recent weeks," wrote the Illustrated London News on December 21, 1854, "the incidence of bold and brutal street banditry has reached alarming proportions, particularly of an evening. It would appear that the faith Mr. Wilson placed in street gas lighting as a deterrent to blackguard acts has been unjustified, for the villains are ever bolder, preying upon an unsuspecting populace with the utmost audacity. Only yesterday a constable, Peter Farrell, was lured into an alley, whereupon a band of common thugs fell upon him, beating him and taking all of his possessions and even his very uniform. Nor must we forget that just a fortnight past, Mr. Parkington, M.P., was viciously assaulted in an open, well-lighted place while walking from Parliament to his club. This epidemic of garrotting must receive the prompt attention of authorities in the near future."
The article went on to describe the condition of Constable Farrell, who was "faring no better than could be expected." The policeman gave the story that he had been called by a well-dressed woman who was arguing with her cabdriver, "a surly thug of a fellow with a white scar across the forehead." When the policeman interceded in the dispute, the cabby fell on him, swearing and cursing and beating him with a neddy, or blackjack; and when the unfortunate policeman came to his senses, he discovered he had been stripped of his clothing.
In 1854, many urban-dwelling Victorians were concerned over what was viewed as an upsurge in street crime. Later periodic "epidemics" of street violence finally culminated in a pedestrian panic during the years 1862 and 1863, and the passage of the "Garrotting Act" by Parliament. This legislation provided unusually stiff penalties for offenders, including flogging in installments-- to allow the prisoners to recover before their next scheduled beating-- and hanging. Indeed, more people were hanged in England in 1863 than in any year since 1838.
Brutal street crime was the lowest form of underworld activity. Rampsmen and footpads were frequently despised by their fellow criminals, who abhorred crude lays and acts of violence. The usual method of footpadding called for a victim, preferably drunk, to be lured into a corner by an accomplice, preferably a woman, whereupon the footpad would "bear up" on the victim, beat him with a cudgel and rob him, leaving him, in the gutter. It was not an elegant way to make a living.
The lurid details of a footpadder bearing up on his hapless quarry were the ordinary fare of news reporting. Apparently, no one ever stopped to think how strange the attack on Constable Farrell really was. In fact, it made very little sense. Then, as now, criminals tried wherever possible to avoid confrontations with the police. To "prop a crusher" was merely asking for an all-out manhunt through the rookeries until the culprits were apprehended, for the police took a special interest in attacks on their own kind.
Nor was there any sensible reason to attack a policeman. He was more capable than most victims of defending himself, and he never carried much money; often he had no money at all.
And, finally, there was absolutely no point in stripping a policeman. In those days, stripping was a common crime, usually the work of old women who lured children into alleys and then took all their clothing to sell at a secondhand shop. But you could not take the down off a crusher's dunnage; that is, you could not disguise a policeman's uniform so that it would have resale value. Secondhand shops were always under surveillance, and always accused of taking stolen goods; no "translator" would ever accept a police uniform. It was perhaps the only kind of clothing in all London that had no resale value at all.
Thus the attack on Constable Farrell was not merely dangerous but pointless, and any thoughtful observer would have been led to ponder why it had occurred at all.
Sometime in late December, 1854, Pierce met a man named Andrew Taggert in the King's Arms publican house, off Regent Street. Taggert was by then nearly sixty, and a well-known character in the neighborhood. He had survived a long and varied career, which is worth briefly recounting, for he is one of the few participants in The Great Train Robbery whose background is known.
Taggert was born around 1790 outside Liverpool, and came to London near the turn of the century with his unmarried mother, a prostitute. By the age of ten, he was employed in "the resurrection trade," the business of digging up fresh corpses from graveyards to sell to medical schools. He soon acquired a reputation for uncommon daring; it was said that he once transported a stiff through London streets in daylight, with the man propped up in his cart like a passenger.
The Anatomy Act of 1838 ended the business in corpses, and Andrew Taggert shifted to the smasher's job of "ringing the changes"-- disposing of counterfeit money. In this maneuver, a genuine coin would be offered to a shopkeeper for some purchase, and then the smasher would fumble in his purse, saying that he thought he had correct change, and take the original coin back. After a while, he would say, "No, I don't have it, after all," and hand over a counterfeit coin in place of the original. This was petty work, and Taggert soon tired of it. He moved on to a variety of con games, becoming a full-fledged magsman by the middle 1840s. He was apparently very successful in his work; he took a respectable flat in Camden Town, which was not a wholly respectable area. (Charles Dickens had lived there some fifteen years earlier, while his father was in prison.) Taggert also took a wife, one Mary Maxwell, a widow, and it is one of those minor ironies that the master magsman should himself be conned. Mary Maxwell was a coiner specializing in small silver coins. This bit-faker had served time in prison on several occasions, and knew something of the law, which her new husband apparently did not, for she had not married idly.
A woman's legal position was already the subject of active attempts at reform; but at this time women did not have the right to vote, to own property, or to make wills, and the earnings of any married woman who was separated from her husband were still legally the property of her husband. Although the law treated women as near idiots and appeared overwhelmingly to favor men, there were some odd quirks, as Taggert discovered soon enough.
In 1847, the police raided Mary Maxwell Taggert's coining operation, catching her red-handed in the midst of stamping out sixpence pieces. She greeted the raid with equanimity, announced pleasantly that she was married and told the police the whereabouts of her husband.
By law, a husband was responsible for any criminal activities of his wife. It was assumed that such activity must be the result of the husband's planning and execution, in which the wife was a mere-- and perhaps unwilling-- participant.
In July, 1847, Andrew Taggert was arrested and convicted of counterfeiting currency and sentenced to eight years in Bridewell Prison; Mary Maxwell was released without so much as a reprimand. She is said to have displayed "a roistering, bantering demeanour" in the courtroom at the time of her husband's sentencing.
Taggert served three years, and was given a ticket-of-leave and allowed to depart. Afterward it was said the steel had gone out of him, a common consequence of a prison term; he no longer had the energy or the confidence to be a magsman, and turned to hoof-snafffing, or horse stealing. By 1854, he was a familiar face in the flash sporting pubs frequented by turfites; he was said to have been involved in the scandal of 1853 in which a four-year-old was passed off as a three-year-old in the Derby. No one was certain but, as a known prad prig, he was thought to have engineered the theft of the most famous prad of recent years: Silver Whistle, a three-year-old from Derbyshire.
Pierce met him in the King's Arms with a most peculiar suggestion, and Taggert gulped his gin as he said, "You want to snaffle a what?"
"A leopard," Pierce said.
"Now, where's an honest man like me to find a leopard?" Taggert said.
"I wouldn't know," Pierce said.
"Never in my life," Taggert said, "would I know of any leopard, excepting the bestiaries here and there, which have all manner of beasts."
"That's so," Pierce said calmly.
"Is it to be christened?"
Now this was a particularly difficult problem. Taggert was an expert christener-- a man who could conceal the fact that goods were stolen. He could disguise the markings of a horse so that even its owner would not recognize it. But christening a leopard might be harder.
"No," Pierce said. "I can take it as you have it."
"Won't gull nobody."
"It doesn't have to."
"What's it for, then?"
Pierce gave Taggert a particularly severe look and did not reply.
"No harm in asking," Taggert said. "It's not every day a man gets asked to snaffle a leopard, so I ask why-- no harm intended."
"It is a present," Pierce said, "for a lady."
"Ah, a lady."
"On the Continent"
"Ah, on the Continent"
"In Paris."
"Ah."
Taggert looked him up and down. Pierce was well dressed. "You could buy one right enough," he said. "Cost you just as dear as buying from me."
"I made you a business proposition."
"So you did, and a proper one, too, but you didn't mention the joeys for me. You just mention you want a knapped leopard."
"I'll pay you twenty guineas."
"Cor, you'll pay me forty and count yourself lucky."
"I'll pay you twenty-five and you'll count yourself lucky," Pierce said.
Taggert looked unhappy. He twisted his gin glass in his hands. "All right, then," he said. "When's it to be?"
"Never you mind," Pierce said. "You find the animal and set the lay, and you'll hear from me soon enough." And he dropped a gold guinea on the counter.
Taggert picked it up, bit it, nodded, and touched his cap. "Good day to you, sir," he said.
"Good day," Pierce said
The twentieth-century urban dweller's attitude of fear or indifference to a crime in progress would have astounded the Victorians. In those days, any person being robbed or mugged immediately raised a hue and cry, and the victim both expected and got an immediate response from law-abiding citizens around him, who joined in the fray with alacrity in an attempt to catch the bolting villain. Even ladies of breeding were known, upon occasion, to participate in a fracas with enthusiasm.
There were several reasons for the willingness of the populace to get involved in a crime. In the first place, an organized police force was still relatively new; London's Metropolitan Police was the best in England, but it was only twenty-five years old, and people did not yet believe that crime was "something for the police to take care of." Second, firearms were rare, and remain so to the present day in England; there was little likelihood of a bystander stopping a charge by pursuing a thief. And finally, the majority of criminals were children, often extremely young children, and adults were not hesitant to go after them.
In any case, an adept thief took great care to conduct his business undetected, for if any alarm was raised, the chances were that he would be caught. For this very reason thieves often worked in gangs, with several members acting as "stalls" to create confusion in any alarm. Criminals of the day also utilized the fracas-- as a staged event-- to cover illegal activities, and this maneuver was known as a "jolly gaff."
A good jolly gaff required careful planning and timing, for it was, as the name implied, a form of theatre. On the morning of January 9, 1855, Pierce looked around the cavernous, echoing interior of the London Bridge Station and saw that all his players were in position.
Pierce himself would perform the most crucial role, that of the "beefer." He was dressed as a traveler, as was Miss Miriam alongside him. She would be the "plant."
A few yards distant was the "culprit," a chavy nine years old, scruffy and noticeably (should anyone care to observe it, too noticeably) out of place among the crowd of first-class passengers. Pierce had himself selected the chavy from among a dozen children in the Holy Land; the criterion was speed, pure and simple.
Farther away still was the "crusher," Barlow, wearing a constable's uniform with the hat pulled down to conceal the white scar across his forehead. Barlow would permit the child to elude him as the gaff progressed.
Finally, not far from the steps to the railway dispatcher's office was the whole point of the ploy: Agar, dressed out of twig-- disguised-- in his finest gentleman's clothing.
As it came time for the London amp; Greenwich eleven-o'clock train to depart, Pierce scratched his neck with his left hand. Immediately, the child came up and brushed rather abruptly against Miss Miriam's right side, rustling her purple velvet dress. Miss Miriam cried, "I've been robbed, John!"
Pierce raised his beef: "Stop, thief!" he shouted, and raced after the bolting chavy. "Stop, thief!"
Startled bystanders immediately grabbed at the youngster, but he was quick and slippery, and soon tore free of the crowd and ran toward the back of the station.
There Barlow in his policeman's uniform came forward menacingly. Agar, as a civic-spirited gentleman, also joined in the pursuit. The child was trapped; his only escape lay in a desperate scramble up the stairs leading to the railway office, and he ran hard, with Barlow, Agar, and Pierce fast on his heels.
The little boy's instructions had been explicit: he was to get up the stairs, into the offce, past the desks of the clerks, and back to a high rear window opening out onto the roof of the station. He was to break this window in an apparent attempt to escape. Then,Barlow would apprehend him. But he was to struggle valiantly until Barlow cuffed him; this was his signal that the gaff had ended.
The child burst into the South Eastern Railway office, startling the clerks. Pierce dashed in immediately afterward: "Stop him, he's a thief!" Pierce shouted and, in his own pursuit, knocked over one of the clerks. The child was scrambling for the window. Then Barlow, the constable, came in.
"I'll handle this," Barlow said, in an authoritative and tough voice, but he clumsily knocked one of the desks over and sent papers flying.
"Catch him! Catch him!" Agar called, entering the offices.
By now the child was scrambling up onto the station dispatcher's desk, going toward a narrow high window; he cracked the glass with his small fist, cutting himself. The station dispatcher kept saying "Oh, dear, oh, dear," over and over.
"I am an officer of the law, make way!" Barlow shouted
"Stop him!" Pierce screamed, allowing himself to become quite hysterical. "Stop him, he's getting away!"
Glass fragments from the window fell on the floor, and Barlow and the child rolled on the ground in an uneven struggle that took rather longer to resolve itself than one might expect. The clerks and the dispatchers watched in considerable confusion.
No one noticed that Agar had turned his back on the commotion and picked the lock on the door to the office, trying several of his jangling ring of bettys until he found one that worked the mechanism. Nor did anyone notice when Agar then moved to the side wall cabinet, also fitted with a lock, which he also picked with one key after another until he found one that worked.
Three or four minutes passed before the young ruffian-- who kept slipping from the hands of the redfaced constable-- was finally caught by Pierce, who held him firmly. At last the constable gave the little villain a good boxing on the ears, and the lad ceased to struggle and handed up the purse he had stolen. He was carted away by the constable. Pierce dusted himself off, looked around the wreckage of the office, and apologized to the clerks and the dispatcher.
Then the other gentleman who had joined in the pursuit said, "I fear, sir, that you have missed your train."
"By God, I have," Pierce said. "Damn the little rascal."
And the two gentlemen departed-- the one thanking the other for helping corner the thief, and the other saying it was nothing-- leaving the clerks to clean up the mess.
It was, Pierce later reflected, a nearly perfect jolly gaff.
When Clean Willy Williams, the snakesman, arrived at Pierces house late in the afternoon of January 9, 1855, he found himself confronted by a very strange spectacle in the drawing room.
Pierce, wearing a red velvet smoking jacket, lounged in an easy chair, smoking a cigar, utterly relaxed, a stopwatch in his hands.
In contrast, Agar, in shirtsleeves, stood in the center of the room. Agar was bent into a kind of half-crouch; he was watching Pierce and panting slightly.
"Are you ready?" Pierce said.
Agar nodded.
"Go!" Pierce said, and flicked the stopwatch.
To Clean Willy's amazement, Agar dashed across the room to the fireplace, where he began to jog in place, counting to himself, his lips moving, in a low whisper, "…seven…eight…nine…"
"That's it," Pierce said. "Door!"
"Door!" Agar said and, in pantomime, turned the handle on an unseen door. He then took three steps to the right, and reached up to shoulder height, touching something in the air.
"Cabinet," Pierce said.
"Cabinet…"
Now Agar fished two wax flats out of his pocket, and pretended to make an impression of a key. "Time?" he asked.
"Thirty-one," Pierce said.
Agar proceeded to make a second impression, on a second set of flats, all the while counting to himself. "Thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five…"
Again, he reached into the air, with both hands, as if closing something.
"Cabinet shut," he said, and took three paces back across the room. "Door!"
"Fifty-four," Pierce said.
"Steps!" Agar said, and ran in place once more, and then sprinted across the room to halt beside Pierces chair. "Done!" he cried.
Pierce looked at the watch and shook his head. "Sixty-nine." He puffed on his cigar.
"Well," Agar said, in a wounded tone, "it's better than it was. What was the last time?"
"Your last time was seventy-three."
"Well, it's better--"
"--But not good enough. Maybe if you don't close the cabinet. And don't hang up the keys, either. Willy can do that."
"Do what?" Willy said, watching.
"Open and close the cabinet," Pierce said.
Agar went back to his starting position.
"Ready?" Pierce said.
"Ready," Agar said.
Once again, this odd charade was repeated, with Agar sprinting across the room, jogging in place, pretending to open a door, taking three steps, making two wax impressions, taking three steps, closing a door, jogging in place, and then running across the room.
"Time?"
Pierce smiled. "Sixty-three," he said
Agar grinned, gasping for breath.
"Once more," Pierce said, "just to be certain."
Later in the afternoon, Clean Willy was given the lay.
"It'll be tonight," Pierce said. "Once it's dark, you'll go up to London Bridge, and get onto the roof of the station. That a problem?"
Clean Willy shook his head. "What then?"
"When you're on the roof, cross to a window that is broken. You'll see it; it's the window to the dispatcher's office. Little window, barely a foot square."
"What then?"
"Get into the office."
"Through the window?"
"Yes."
"What then?"
"Then you will see a cabinet, painted green, mounted on the wall." Pierce looked at the little snakesman. "You'll have to stand on a chair to reach it. Be very quiet; there's a jack posted outside the office, on the steps."
Clean Willy frowned.
"Unlock the cabinet," Pierce said, "with this key." He nodded to Agar, who gave Willy the first of the picklocks. "Unlock the cabinet, and open it up, and wait."
"What for?"
"Around ten-thirty, there'll be a bit of a shindy. A soak will be coming into the station to chat up the jack."
"What then?"
"Then you unlock the main door to the office, using this key here"-- Agar gave him the second key-- "and then you wait."
"What for?"
"For eleven-thirty, or thereabouts, when the jack goes to the W.C. Then, Agar comes up the steps, through the door you've unlocked, and he makes his waxes. He leaves, and you lock the first door right away. By now, the jack is back from the loo. You lock the cabinets, put the chair back, and go out the window, quiet-like."
"That's the lay?" Clean Willy said doubtfully.
"That's the lay."
"You popped me out of Newgate for this?" Clean Willy said. "This is no shakes, to knock over a deadlurk."
"It's a deadlurk with a jack posted at the door, and it's quiet, you'll have to be quiet-like, all the time."
Clean Willy grinned. "Those keys mean a sharp vamp. You've planned."
"Just do the lay," Pierce said, "and quiet."
"Piece of cake," Clean Willy said.
"Keep those dubs handy," Agar said, pointing to the keys, "and have the doors ready and open when I come in, or it's nommus for all of us, and we're likely ribbed by the crusher."
"Don't want to be nibbed," Willy said.
"Then look sharp, and be ready."
Clean Willy nodded "What's for dinner?" he said.
On the evening of January 9th, a characteristic London "pea soup" fog, heavily mixed with soot, blanketed the town. Clean Willy Williams, easing down Tooley Street, one eye to the facade of London Bridge Station, was not sure he liked the fog. It made his movements on the ground less noticeable, but it was so dense that he could not see the second story of the terminus building, and he was worried about access to the roof. It wouldn't do to make the climb halfway, only to discover it was a dead end.
But Clean Willy knew a lot about the way buildings were constructed, and after an hour of maneuvering around the station he found his spot. By climbing onto a porter's luggage cart, he was able to jump to a drainpipe, and from there to the sill of the second-story windows. Here a lip of stone ran the length of the second story; he inched along it until he reached a corner in the facade. Then he climbed up the corner, his back to the wall, in the same way that he had escaped from Newgate Prison. He would leave marks, of course; in those days nearly every downtown London building was soot-covered, and Clean Willy's climb left an odd pattern of whitish scrapes going up the corner.
By eight o'clock at night he was standing on the broad roof of the terminus. The main portion of the station was roofed in slate; over the tracks the roofing was glass, and he avoided that. Clean Willy weighed sixty-eight pounds, but he was heavy enough to break the glass roofing.
Moving cautiously through the fog, he edged around the building until he found the broken window Pierce had mentioned. Looking in, he saw the dispatcher's office. He was surprised to notice that it was in some disarray, as if there had been a struggle in the office during the day and the damage only partially corrected.
He reached through the jagged hole in the glass, turned the transom lock, and raised the window. It was a widow of rectangular shape, perhaps nine by sixteen inches. He wriggled through it easily, stepped down onto a desk top, and paused.
He had not been told the walls of the office were glass.
Through the glass, he could see down to the deserted tracks and platforms of the station below. He could also see the jack on the stairs, near the door, a paper bag containing his dinner at his side.
Carefully, Clean Willy climbed down off the desk. His foot crunched on a shard of broken glass; he froze. But if the guard heard it, he gave no sign. After a moment, Willy crossed the office, lifted a chair, and set it next to the high cabinet. He stepped onto the chair, plucked the twirl Agar had given him from his pocket, and picked the cabinet lock. Then he sat down to wait, hearing distant church bells toll the hour of nine o'clock.
Agar, lurking in the deep shadows of the station, also heard the church bells. He sighed. Another two and a half hours, and he had been wedged into a cramped corner for two hours already. He knew how stiff and painful his legs would be when he finally made his sprint for the stairs.
From his hiding place, he could see Clean Willy make an entrance into the office behind the guard; and he could see Willy's head-- when he stood on the chair and worked the cabinet lock. Then Willy disappeared.
Agar sighed again. He wondered, for the thousandth time, what Pierce intended to do with these keys. All he knew was that it must be a devilish flash pull. A few years earlier, Agar had been in on a Brighton warehouse pull. There had been nine keys involved: one for an outer gate, two for an inner gate, three for the main door, two for an office door, and one for a storeroom. The pogue had been ten thousand quid in B. of E. notes, and the putter-up had spent four months arranging the lay.
Yet here was Pierce, flush if ever a cracksman was, spending eight months now to get four keys, two from bankers, and two from a railway office. It had all cost a pretty penny, Agar was certain of that, and it meant the pogue was well worth having.
But what was it? Why were they breaking this drum now? The question preoccupied him more than the mechanics of timing a sixty-four-second smash and grab. He was a professional; he was cool; he had prepared well and was fully confident. His heart beat evenly as he stared across the station at the jack on the stairs, as the crusher made his rounds.
The crusher said to the jack, "Yon know there's a P.R. on?" A P.R. was a prize-ring event.
"No," said the jack. "Who's it to be?"
"Stunning Bill Hampton and Edgar Moxley."
"Where's it to be, then?" the jack said.
"I hear Leicester," the crusher said.
"Where's your money?"
"Stunning Bill, for my gambit."
"He's a good one," the jack said. "He's tough, is Bill."
"Aye," the crusher said, "I've got a half-crown or two on him says he's tough."
And the crusher went on, making his rounds.
Agar smirked in the darkness. A copper talking big of a five-shilling bet. Agar bet ten quid on the last P.R., between the Lancaster Dervish, John Boynton, and the gummy Kid Ballew. Agar had come off well on that one: odds were two to one; he'd done a bit of winning there.
He tensed the muscles in his cramped legs, trying to get the circulation going, and then he relaxed. He had a long wait ahead of him. He thought of his dolly-mop. Whenever he was working, he thought of his dolly's quim; it was a natural thing-- tension turned a man randy. Then his thoughts drifted back to Pierce, and the question that Agar had puzzled over for nearly a year now: what was the damn pull?
____________________
The drunken Irishman with the red beard and slouch hat stumbled through the deserted station singing "Molly Malone." With his shuffling, flatfooted gait, he was a true soak, and as he walked along, it appeared he was so lost in his song that he might not notice the guard on the stairs.
But he did, and he eyed the guard's paper bag suspiciously before making an elaborate and wobbly bow.
"And a good evenin' to you, sir," the drunk said
"Evening," the guard said.
"And what, may I inquire," said the drunk, standing stiffer, "is your business up there, eh? Up to no good, are you?"
"I'm guarding these premises here," the guard said.
The drunk hiccuped. "So you say, my good fellow, but many a rascal has said as much."
"Here, now--"
"I think," the drunk said, waving an accusatory finger in the air, trying to point it at the guard but unable to aim accurately, "I think, sir, we shall have the police to look you over, so that we shall know if you are up to no good."
"Now, look here," the guard said.
"You look here, and lively, too," the drunk said, and abruptly began to shout, "Police! Po-lice!"
"Here, now," the guard said, coming down the stairs. "Get a grip on yourself, you scurvy soak."
"Scurvy soak?" the drunk said, raising an eyebrow and shaking his fist. "I am a Dubliner, sir."
"I palled that, right enough," the guard snorted.
At that moment, the constable came running around the corner, drawn by the shouts of the drunk.
"Ah, a criminal, officer," said the drunk. "Arrest that scoundrel," he said, pointing to the guard, who had now moved to the bottom of the stairs. "He is up to no good."
The drunk hiccuped.
The constable and the guard exchanged glances, and then open smiles.
"You find this a laughing matter, sir?" said the drunk, turning to the copper. "I see nothing risible. The man is plainly up to no good."
"Come along, now," the constable said, "or I'll have you in lumber for creatin' a nuisance."
"A nuisance?" the drunk said, twisting free of the constable's arm. "I think you and this blackguard are in cahoots, sir."
"That's enough," the constable said. "Come along smartly."
The drunk allowed himself to be led away by the copper. He was last heard to say, "You wouldn't be havin' a daffy of reeb, would you, now?" and the constable assured him he had no drink on his person.
"Dublin," the guard said, sighing, and he climbed back up the stairs to eat his dinner. The distant chimes rang eleven o'clock.
Agar had seen it all, and while he was amused by Pierces performance, he worried whether Clean Willy had taken the opportunity to open the office door. There was no way to know until he made his own mad dash, in less than half an hour now.
He looked at his watch, he looked at the door to the office, and he waited.
____________________
For Pierce, the most delicate part of his performance was the conclusion, when he was led by the constable out onto Tooley Street. Pierce did not want to disrupt the policeman's regular rhythm on the beat, so he had to disengage himself rather rapidly.
As they came into the foggy night air, he breathed deeply. "Ah," he said, "and it's a lovely evening, brisk and invigorating."
The copper looked round at the gloomy fog. "Chill enough for me," he said.
"Well, my dear fellow," Pierce said, dusting himself off and making a show of straightening up, as if the night air had sobered him, "I am most grateful for your ministrations upon this occasion, and I can assure you that I can carry on well from here."
"You're not going to be creating another nuisance?"
"My dear sir," Pierce said, standing still straighter, "what do you take me for?"
The copper looked back at the London Bridge Station. It was his business to stay on the beat; a drunk wandering in was not his responsibility once he was ejected from the premises. And London was full of drunks, especially Irish ones who talked too much.
"Stay clear of trouble, then," the cop said, and let him go.
"A good evening to you, officer," Pierce said, and bowed to the departing crusher. Then he wandered out into the fog, singing "Molly Malone."
Pierce went no farther than the end of Tooley Street, less than a block from the station entrance. There, hidden in the fog, was a cab. He looked up at the driver.
"How'd it carry off?" Barlow asked.
"Smart and tidy," Pierce said. "I gave Willy two or three minutes; it should have been enough."
"Willy's a bit glocky."
"All he has to do," Pierce said, "is twirl two locks, and he's not too glocky to bring that off." He glanced at his watch. "Well, we'll know soon enough."
And he slipped away, in the fog, back toward the station.
____________________
At eleven-thirty, Pierce had taken up a position where he could see the dispatch office stairs and the guard. The copper made his round; he waved to the jack, who waved back. The copper went on; the jack yawned, stood, and stretched.
Pierce took a breath and poised his finger on the stopwatch button.
The guard came down the stairs, yawning again, and moved off toward the W.C. He walked several paces, and then was out of sight, around a corner.
Pierce hit the button, and counted softly, "One… two… three…"
He saw Agar appear, running hard, barefooted to make no sound, and dashing up the stairs to the door.
"Four… five… six…".
Agar reached the door, twisted the knob; the door opened and Agar was inside. The door closed.
"Seven… eight… nine…"
____________________
"Ten," Agar said, panting, looking around the office. Clean Willy, grinning in the shadows in the corner, took up the count.
"Eleven… twelve… thirteen…"
Agar crossed to the already opened cabinet. He removed the first of the wax blanks from his pocket, and then looked at the keys in the cabinet.
"Crikey!" he whispered.
"Fourteen… fifteen… sixteen…"
Dozens of keys hung in the cabinet, keys of all sorts, large and small, labeled and unlabeled, all hanging on hooks. He broke into a sweat in an instant.
"Crikey!"
"Seventeen… eighteen… nineteen…"
Agar was going to fall behind. He knew it with sickening suddenness: he was already behind on the count. He stared helplessly at the keys. He could not wax them all; which were the ones to do?
"Twenty… twenty-one… twenty-two…"
Clean Willy's droning voice infuriated him; Agar wanted to run across the room and strangle the little bastard. He stared at the cabinet in a rising panic. He remembered what the other two keys looked like; perhaps these two keys were similar. He peered close at the cabinet, squinting, straining: the light in the office was bad.
"Twenty-three… twenty-four… twenty-five…"
"It's no bloody use," he whispered to himself. And then he realized something odd: each hook had only one key, except for a single hook, which had two. He quickly lifted them off. They looked like the others he had done.
"Twenty-six… twenty-seven… twenty-eight…"
He set out the first blank, and pressed one side of the first key into the blank, holding it neatly, plucking it out with his fingernail; the nail on the little finger was long, one of the hallmarks of a screwsman.
"Twenty-nine… thirty… thirty-one…"
He took the second blank, flipped the key over, and pressed it into the wax to get the other side. He held it firmly, then scooped it out.
"Thirty-two… thirty-three… thirty-four…"
Now Agar's professionalism came into play. He was falling behind-- at least five seconds off his count now, maybe more-- but he knew that at all costs he must avoid confusing the keys. It was common enough for a screwsman under pressure to make two impressions of the same side of a single key; with two keys, the chance of confusion was doubled. Quickly but carefully, he hung up the first finished key.
"Thirty-five… thirty-six… thirty-seven, Lordy," Clean Willy said. Clean Willy was looking out the glass windows, down to where the guard would be returning in less than thirty seconds.
"Thirty-eight… thirty-nine… forty…"
Swiftly, Agar pressed the second key into his third blank. He held it there just an instant, then lifted it out. There was a decent impression.
"Forty-one… forty-two… forty-three…"
Agar pocketed the blank, and plucked up his fourth wax plate. He pressed the other side of the key into the soft material.
"Forty-four… forty-five… forty-six… forty-seven…"
Abruptly, while Agar was peeling the key free of the wax, the blank cracked in two.
"Damn!"
"Forty-eight… forty-nine… fifty…"
He fished in his pocket for another blank. His fingers were steady, but there was sweat dripping from his forehead.
"Fifty-one… fifty-two… fifty-three…"
He drew out a fresh blank and did the second side again.
"Fifty-four… fifty-five…"
He plucked the key out, hung it up, and dashed for the door, still holding the final blank in his fingers. He left the office without another look at Willy.
"Fifty-six," Willy said, immediately moving to the door to lock it up.
Pierce saw Agar exit, behind schedule by five full seconds. His face was flushed with exertion.
"Fifty-seven… fifty-eight…"
Agar sprinted down the stairs, three at a time.
"Fifty-nine… sixty… sixty-one…"
Agar streaked across the station to his hiding place.
"Sixty-two… sixty-three…"
Agar was hidden.
The guard, yawning, came around the corner, still buttoning up his trousers. He walked toward the steps.
"Sixty-four," Pierce said, and flicked his watch.
The guard took up his post at the stairs. After a moment, he began humming to himself, very softly, and it was awhile until Pierce realized it was "Molly Malone."
"The distinction between base avarice and honest ambition may be exceeding fine," warned the Reverend Noel Blackwell in his 1853 treatise, On the Moral Improvement of the Human Race. No one knew the truth of his words better than Pierce, who arranged his next meeting at the Casino de Venise, on Windmill Street. This was a large and lively dance hall, brightly lit by myriad gas lamps. Young men spun and wheeled girls colorfully dressed and gay in their manner. Indeed, the total impression was one of fashionable splendor, which belied a reputation as a wicked and notorious place of assignation for whores and their clientele.
Pierce went directly to the bar, where a burly man in a blue uniform with silver lapel markings sat hunched over a drink. The man appeared distinctly uncomfortable in the casino. "Have you been here before?" Pierce asked.
The man turned. "You Mr. Simms?"
"That's right."
The burly man looked around the room, at the women, the finery, the bright lights. "No," he said, "never been before."
"Lively, don't you think?"
The man shrugged. "Bit above me," he said finally, and turned back to stare at his glass.
"And expensive," Pierce said.
The man raised his drink. "Two shillings a daffy? Aye, it's expensive."
"Let me buy you another," Pierce said, raising a gray-gloved hand to beckon the bartender. "Where do you live, Mr. Burgess?"
"I got a room on Moresby Road," the burly man said.
"I hear the air is bad there:"
Burgess shrugged. "It'll do."
"You married?"
"Aye."
The bartender came, and Pierce indicated two more drinks. "What's your wife do?"
"She sews." Burgess showed a flash of impatience. "What's this all about, then?"
"Just a little conversation," Pierce said, "to see if you want to make more money."
"Only a fool doesn't," Burgess said shortly.
"You work the Mary Blaine," Pierce said.
Burgess, with still more impatience, nodded and flicked the silver SER letters on his collar: the insignia of the South Eastern Railway.
Pierce was not asking these questions to obtain information; he already knew a good deal about Richard Burgess, a Mary Blaine scrob, or guard on the railway. He knew where Burgess lived; he knew what his wife did; he knew that they had two children, aged two and four, and he knew that the four-year-old was sickly and needed the frequent attentions of a doctor, which Burgess and his wife could not afford. He knew that their room on Moresby Road was a sgualid, peeling, narrow chamber that was ventilated by the sulfurous fumes of an adjacent gasworks.
He knew that Burgess fell into the lowest-paid category of railway employee. An engine driver was paid 35 shillings a week; a conductor 25 shillings; a coachman 20 or 21; but a guard was paid 15 shillings a week and counted himself lucky it was not a good deal less.
Burgess's wife made ten shillings a week, which meant that the family lived on a total of about sixty-five pounds a year. Out of this came certain expenses-- Burgess had to provide his own uniforms-- so that the true income was probably closer to fifty-five pounds a year, and for a family of four it was a very rough go.
Many Victorians had incomes at that level, but most contrived supplements of one sort or another: extra work, tips, and a child in industry were the most common. The Burgess household had none of these. They were compelled to live on their income, and it was little wonder that Burgess felt uncomfortable in a place that charged two shillings a drink. It was very far beyond his means.
"What's it to be?" Burgess said, not looking at Pierce.
"I was wondering about your vision."
"My vision?"
"Yes, your eyesight."
"My eyes are good enough."
"I wonder," Pierce said, "what it would take for them to go bad."
Burgess sighed, and did not speak for a moment. Finally he said in a weary voice, "I done a stretch in Newgate a few years back. I'm not wanting to see the cockchafer again."
"Perfectly sensible," Pierce said. "And I don't want anybody to blow my lay. We both have our fears."
Burgess gulped his drink. "What's the sweetener?"
"Two hundred quid," Pierce said.
Burgess coughed, and pounded his chest with a thick fist. "Two hundred quid," he repeated.
"That's right," Pierce said. "Here's ten now, on faith." He removed his wallet and took out two fivepound notes; he held the wallet in such a way that Burgess could not fail to notice it was bulging. He set the money on the bar top.
"Pretty a sight as a hot nancy," Burgess said, but he did not touch it. "What's the lay?"
"You needn't worry over the lay. All you need to do is worry over your eyesight."
"What is it I'm not to see, then?"
"Nothing that will get you into trouble. You'll never see the inside of a lockup again, I promise you that."
Burgess turned stubborn. "Speak plain," he said.
Pierce sighed. He reached for the money. "I'm sorry," he said,. "I fear I must take my business elsewhere."
Burgess caught his hand. "Not overquick," he said. "I'm just asking."
"I can't tell you."
"You think I'll blow on you to the crushers?"
"Such things," Pierce said, "have been known to happen."
"I wouldn't blow."
Pierce shrugged.
There was a moment of silence. Finally, Burgess reached over with his other hand and plucked away the two five-pound notes. "Tell me what I do," he said.
"It's very simple," Pierce said. "Soon you will be approached by a man who will ask you whether your wife sews your uniforms. When you meet that man, you simply… look away."
"That's all?"
"That's all."
"For two hundred quid?"
"For two hundred quid."
Burgess frowned for a moment, and then began to laugh.
"What's funny?" Pierce said.
"You'll never pull it," Burgess said. "It's not to be done, that one. There's no cracking those safes, wherever I look. Few months past, there's a kid, works into the baggage car, wants to do those safes. Have a go, I says to him, and he has a go for half an hour, and he gets no further than the tip of my nose. Then I threw him off smartly, bounced him on his noggin."
"I know that," Pierce said. "I was watching."
Burgess stopped laughing.
Pierce withdrew two gold guineas from his pocket and dropped them on the counter. "There's a dolly-mop in the corner-- pretty thing, wearing pink. I believe she's waiting for you," Pierce said, and then he got up and walked off.
Economists of the mid-Victorian period note that increasing numbers of people made their living by what was then called "dealing," an inclusive term that referred to supplying goods and services to the burgeoning middle class. England was then the richest nation on earth, and the richest in history. The demand for all kinds of consumer goods was insatiable, and the response was specialization in manufacture, distribution, and sale of goods. It is in Victorian England that one first hears of cabinetmakers who made only the joints of cabinets, and of shops that sold only certain kinds of cabinets.
The increasing specialization was apparent in the underworld as well, and nowhere more peculiar than in the figure of the "eel-skinner." An eel-skinner was usually a metalworker gone bad, or one too old to keep up with the furious pace of legitimate production. In either case, he disappeared from honest circles, re-emerging as a specialized supplier of metal goods to criminals. Sometimes the eel-skinner was a coiner who could not get the stamps to turn out coins.
Whatever his background, his principal business was making eel-skins, or coshes. The earliest eel-skins were sausage-like canvas bags filled with sand, which rampsmen and gonophs-- muggers and thieves-- could carry up their sleeves until the time came to wield them on their victims. Later, eel-skins were filled with lead shot, and they served the same purpose.
An eel-skinner also made other articles. A "neddy" was a cudgel, sometimes a simple iron bar, sometimes a bar with a knob at one end. The "sack" was a two-pound iron shot placed in a strong stocking. A "whippler" was a shot with an attached cord, and was used to disable a victim head on; the attacker held the shot in his hand and flung it at the victim's face, "like a horrible yo-yo." A few blows from these weapons were certain to take the starch out of any quarry, and the robbery proceeded without further resistance:
As firearms became more common, eel-skinners turned to making bullets. A few skilled eel-skinners also manufactured sets of bettys, or picklocks, but this was demanding work, and most stuck to simpler tasks.
In early January, 1855, a Manchester eel-skinner named Harkins was visited by a gentleman with a red beard who said he wanted to purchase a quantity of LC shot.
"Easy enough done," the skinner said. "I make all manner of shot, and I can make LC right enough. How much will you have?"
"Five thousand," the gentleman said.
"I beg pardon?"
"I said, I will have five thousand LC shot"
The eel-skinner blinked. "Five thousand-- that's a quantity. That's-- let's see-- six LC to the ounce. Now, then…" He stared up at the ceiling and plucked at his lower lip. "And sixteen… now, that makes it… Bless me, that's more'n fifty pounds of shot all in."
"I believe so," the gentleman said.
"You want fifty pounds of LC shot?"
"I want five thousand, yes."
"Well, fifty pounds of lead, that'll take some doing, and the casting-- well, that'll take some doing. That'll take some time, five thousand LC shot will, sometime indeed."
"I need it in a month," the gentleman said.
"A month, a month… Let's see, now… casting at a hundred a mold… Yes, well…" The eel-skinner nodded. "Right enough, you shall have five thousand within a month. You'll be collecting it?"
"I will," the gentleman said, and then he leaned closer, in a conspiratorial fashion. "It's for Scotland, you know."
"Scotland, eh?"
"Yes, Scotland."
"Oh, well, yes, I see that plain enough," the eel-skinner said, though the reverse was clearly true. The red-bearded man put down a deposit and departed, leaving the eel-skinner in a state of marked perplexity. He would have been even more perplexed to know that this gentleman had visited skinners in Newcastler-on-Tyne, Birmingham, Liverpool, and London, and placed identical orders with each of them, so that he was ordering a total of two hundred and fifty pounds of lead shot. What use could anyone have for that?
London at the mid-century had six morning newspapers, three evening newspapers, and twenty influential weeklies. This period marked the beginning of an organized press with enough power to mold public opinion and, ultimately, political events. The unpredictability of that power was highlighted in January, 1855.
On the one hand, the first war correspondent in history, William Howard Russell, was in Russia with the Crimean troops, and his dispatches to the Times had aroused furious indignation at home. The charge of the light Brigade, the bungling of the Balaclava campaign, the devastating winter when British troops, lacking food and medical supplies, suffered a 50 percent mortality-- these were all reported in the press to an increasingly angry public.
By January, however, the commander of British forces, Lord Raglan, was severely ill, and Lord Cardigan-- "haughty, rich, selfish and stupid," the man who had bravely led his Light Brigade to utter disaster, and then returned to his yacht to drink champagne and sleep-- Lord Cardigan had returned home, and the press everywhere hailed him as a great national hero. It was a role he was only too happy to play. Dressed in the uniform he had worn at Balaclava, he was mobbed by crowds in every city; hairs from his horse's tail were plucked for souvenirs. London shops copied the woolen jacket he had worn in the Crimea-- called a "Cardigan"-- and thousands were sold.
The man known to his own troops as "the dangerous ass" went about the country delivering speeches recounting his prowess in leading the charge; and as the months passed, he spoke with more and more emotion, and was often forced to pause and revive himself. The press never ceased to cheer him on; there was no sense of the chastisement that later historians have richly accorded him.
But if the press was fickle, public tastes were even more so. Despite all the provocative news from Russia, the dispatches which most intrigued Londoners in January concerned a man-eating leopard that menaced Naini Tal in northern India, not far from the Burmese border. The "Panar man-eater" was said to have killed than four hundred natives, and accounts were remarkable for their vivid, even lurid detail. "The vicious Panar beast," wrote one correspondent, "kills for the sake of killing and not for any food. It rarely eats any portion of the body of its victims, although two weeks past it ate the upper torso of an infant after stealing it from its crib. Indeed, the majority of its victims have been children under the age of ten who are unfortunate enough to stray from the center of the village after nightfall: Adult victims are generally mauled and later die of suppurating wounds; Mr. Redby, a hunter of the region, says these infections are caused by rotten flesh lodged in the beast's claws. The Panar killer is exceedingly strong, and has been seen to carry off a fully grown female adult in its jaws, while the victim struggles and cries out most piteously."
These and other stories became the delicious talk of dining rooms among company given to raciness; women colored and tittered and exclaimed, while men --especially Company men who had spent time in India-- spoke knowledgeably about the habits of such a beast, and its nature. An interesting working model of a tiger devouring an Englishman, owned by the East India Company, was visited by fascinated crowds. (The model can still be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum.)
And when, on February 17, 1855, a caged, fully grown leopard arrived at London Bridge Terminus, it created a considerable stir-- much more than the arrival, a short time previously, of armed guards carrying strongboxes of gold, which were loaded into the SER luggage van.
Here was a full-sized, snarling beast, which roared and charged the bars of its cage as it was loaded onto the same luggage van of the London-Folkestone train. The animal's keeper accompanied the beast, in order, to look after the leopard's welfare, and to protect the luggage-van guard in the event of any unforeseen mishap.
Meanwhile, before the train departed the station, the keeper explained to the crowd of curious onlookers and children that the beast ate raw meat, that it was a female four years old, and that it was destined for the Continent, where it would be a present to a wellborn lady.
The train pulled out of the station shortly after eight o'clock, and the guard on the luggage van closed the sliding side door. There was a short silence while the leopard stalked its cage, and growled intermittently; finally the railway guard said, "What do you feed her?"
The animal's attendant turned to the guard. "Does your wife sew your uniforms?" he asked.
Burgess laughed. "You mean it's to be you?"
The attendant did not answer. Instead, he opened a small leather satchel and removed a jar of grease, several keys, and a collection of files of varied shapes and sizes.
He went immediately to the two Chubb safes, coated the four locks with grease, and began fitting his keys. Burgess watched with only vague interest in the process: he knew that rough-copied wax keys would not work on a finely made safe without polishing and refining. But he was also impressed; he never thought it would be carried off with such boldness.
"Where'd you make the impressions?" he said.
"Here and there," Agar replied, fitting and filing.
"They keep those keys separate."
"Do they," Agar said.
"Aye, they do. How'd you pull them?"
"That's no matter to you," Agar said, still working.
Burgess watched him for a time, and then he watched the leopard. "How much does he weigh?"
"Ask him," Agar said irritably.
"Are you taking the gold today, then?" Burgess asked as Agar managed to get one of the safe doors open. Agar did not answer; he stared transfixed for a moment at the strongboxes inside. "I say, are you taking the gold today?"
Agar shut the door. "No," he said. "Now stop your voker."
Burgess fell silent.
For the next hour, while the morning passenger train chugged from London to Folkestone, Agar worked on his keys. Ultimately, he had opened and closed both safes. When he was finished, he wiped the grease from the locks. Then he cleaned the locks with alcohol and dried them with a cloth. Finally he took his four keys, placed them carefully in his pocket, and sat down to await the arrival of the train at the Folkestone station.
Pierce met him at the station and helped to unload the leopard.
"How was it?" he asked.
"The finishing touches are done," Agar said, and then he grinned. "It's the gold, isn't it? The Crimean gold-- that's the flash pull."
"Yes," Pierce said.
"When?"
"Next month," Pierce said.
The leopard snarled.