The robbers originally intended to take the gold during the next Crimean shipment. The plan was extremely simple. Pierce and Agar were to board the train in London, each checking several heavy satchels onto the baggage van. The satchels would be filled with sewn packets of lead shot.
Agar would again ride in the van, and while Burgess looked away Agar would open the safes, remove the gold, and replace it with lead shot. These satchels would be thrown from the train at a predetermined point, and collected by Barlow. Barlow would then drive on to Folkestone, where he would meet Pierce and Agar.
Meanwhile, the gold strongboxes-- still convincingly heavy-- would be transferred to the steamer going to Ostend, where the theft would be discovered by the French authorities hours later. By then, enough people would have been involved in the transportation process that there would be no particular reason to fix suspicion on Burgess; and in any case, British-French relations were at a low level because of the Crimean War, and it would be natural that the French would assume the English had carried out the thefts, and vice versa. The robbers could count on plenty of confusion to muddy the waters for the police.
The plan seemed utterly foolproof, and the robbers prepared to carry it out on the next gold shipment, scheduled for March 14, 1855.
On March 2nd, "that fiend in human shape," Czar Nicholas I of Russia, died suddenly. News of his death caused considerable confusion in business and financial circles. For several days the reports were doubted, and when his death was finally confirmed, the stock markets of Paris and London responded with large gains. But as a result of the general uncertainty the gold shipment was delayed until March 27th. By then, Agar, who had sunk into a kind of depression after the fourteenth, was desperately ill with an exacerbation of his chest condition, and so the opportunity was missed.
The firm of Huddleston amp; Bradford was making gold shipments once a month; there were now only 11,000 English troops in the Crimea, as opposed to 78,000 French, and most of the money was paid out directly from Paris. Thus Pierce and his compatriots were obliged to wait until April.
The next shipment was set for April 19th. The robbers at this time were getting their information on shipment schedules from a tart named Susan Lang, a favorite of Henry Fowler's. Mr. Fowler liked to impress the simple girl with episodes reflecting his importance to the world of banking and commerce, and for her part, the poor girl-- who could hardly have understood a word he said-- seemed endlessly fascinated by everything he told her.
Susan Lang was hardly simple, but somehow she got her facts wrong: the gold went out on April 18th, and when Pierce and Agar arrived at London Bridge Station in time to board the April 19th train, Burgess informed them of their error. To maintain appearances, Pierce and Agar made the trip anyway, but Agar testified in court that Pierce was in "very ugly humor, indeed" during the journey.
The next shipment was scheduled for May 22nd. In order to prevent any further snags, Pierce took the rather risky step of opening a line of communication between Agar and Burgess. Burgess could reach Agar at any time through an intermediary, a betting-shop proprietor named Smashing Billy Banks; and Burgess was to get in touch with Banks if there was any change in the planned routine. Agar would check with Banks daily.
On May 10th, Agar returned to Pierce with a piece of ghastly news-- the two safes had been removed from the South Eastern Railway's luggage van and returned to the manufacturer, Chubb, for "overhaul."
"Overhaul?" Fierce said. "What do you mean, overhaul?"
Agar shrugged. "That was the cant"
"Those are the finest safes in the world," Pierce said. "They don't go back for an overhaul." He frowned. "What's wrong with them?"
Agar shrugged.
"You bastard," Pierce said, "did you scratch the locks when you put on your finishing touches? I swear, if someone's cooled your scratches-"
"I greased her lovely,".Agar said. "I know they look as a routine for scratches. I tell you, she had nary a tickle on her."
Agar's calm demeanor convinced Pierce that the screwsman was telling the truth. Pierce sighed. "Then why?"
"I don't know," Agar said. "You know a man who will blow on the doings at Chubb?"
"No," Pierce said. "And I wouldn't want to try a cross. They're not gulled at Chubb's." The safemaker's firm was unusually careful about its employees. Men were hired and fired only with reluctance, and they were continually warned to look for underworld figures who might try to bribe them.
"A little magging, then?" Agar suggested, meaning some conning.
Pierce shook his head. "Not me," he said. "They're just too careful; I'd never be able to slip it to them…"
He stared into the distance thoughtfully.
"What is it?" Agar asked.
"I was thinking," Pierce said, "that they would never suspect a lady."
What Rolls-Royce would become to automobiles, and Otis to elevators, Chubb's had long since been to safes. The head of that venerable firm, Mr. Laurence Chubb, Jr., did not later remember-- or pretended not to remember-- a visit by a handsome young woman in May, 1855. But an employee of the company was sufficiently impressed by the lady's beauty to recall her in great detail.
She arrived in a handsome coach, with liveried footmen, and swept imperiously into the firm unattended by any escort. She was extremely well dressed and spoke with a commanding manner; she demanded to see Mr. Chubb himself, and immediately.
When Mr. Chubb appeared a few moments later, the woman announced that she was Lady Charlotte Simms; that she and her invalid husband maintained a country estate in the Midlands, and that recent episodes of thievery in the neighborhood had convinced her that she and her husband needed a safe.
"Then you have come to the best shop in Christendom," said Mr. Chubb.
"So I have been previously informed," Lady Charlotte said, as if not at all convinced.
"Indeed, Madam, we manufacture the finest safes in the world, and in all sizes and varieties, and these excel even the best of the Hamburg German safes."
"I see."
"What is it, specifically, that Madam requires?"
Here Lady Charlotte, for all her imperiousness, seemed to falter. She gestured with her hands. "Why, just some manner of, ah, large safe, you know."
"Madam," said Mr. Chubb severely, "we manufacture single-thickness and double-thickness safes; steel safes and iron safes; lock safes and throwbolt safes; portable safes and fixed safes; safes with a capacity of six cubic inches and safes with a capacity of twelve cubic yards; safes mounted with single locks and double locks-- and triple locks, should the customer require it."
This recitation seemed to put Lady Charlotte even further off her form. She appeared nearly helpless-- quite the ordinary way of a female when asked to deal with technical matters. "Well," she said,. "I, ah, I don't know…"
"Perhaps if Madam looks through our catalogue, which is illustrated, and denotes the various aspects and features of our different models."
"Yes, excellent, that would be fine."
"This way, please." Mr. Chubb led her into his office and seated her by his desk. He drew out the catalogue and opened it to the first page. The woman hardly looked at it.
"They seem rather small."
"These are only pictures, Madam. Yon will notice that the true dimensions are stated beside each. For example, here--"
"Mr. Chubb," she interrupted, in an earnest tone, "I must beg your assistance. The fact is that my husband is recently ill, or he should be conducting this business for himself. In truth, I know nothing of these matters, and should press my own brother into my assistance were he not at this very minute abroad on business. I am quite at a loss and I can tell nothing from pictures. Can you perhaps show me some of your safes?"
"Madam, forgive me," Mr. Chubb said, rushing around the desk to help her to her feet. "Absolutely, of course. We maintain no showroom, as you might imagine, but if you will follow me into the workrooms-- and I heartily apologize for any dust, noise, or commotion you may suffer-- I can show you the various safes we make."
He led Lady Charlotte back into the long workroom behind the offices. Here a dozen men were busy hammering, fitting, welding, and soldering. The noise was so loud that Mr. Chubb had to shout for Lady Charlotte to hear, and the good woman herself fairly winced from the din.
"Now, this version here," he said, "has a one-cubic-foot capacity, and is double-layered, sixteenth-inch tempered steel, with an insulating layer of dried brick dust of Cornish origin. It is an excellent intermediate safe for many purposes."
"It is too small."
"Very good, Madam, too small. Now, this one here" --he moved down the line-- "is one of our most recent creations. It is a single layer of eighth-inch steel with an inner hinge and a capacity of--" He turned to the workman: "What is the capacity?"
"This'un here's two and a half," the workman said.
"Two and a half cubic feet," Mr. Chubb said.
"Still too small."
"Very good, Madam. If you will come this way;" and he led,her deeper into the workroom. Lady Charlotte coughed delicately in a cloud of brick dust.
"Now, this model here" Mr. Chubb began.
"There!" said Lady Charlotte, pointing across the room. "That's the size I want."
"You mean those two safes over there?"
"Yes, those."
They crossed the room. "These safes," said Mr. Chubb, "represent the finest examples of our workmanship. They are owned by the Huddleston amp; Bradford Bank, and are employed in the Crimean gold shipments, where naturally security is of the utmost. However, these are generally sold to institutions, and not to private individuals. I naturally thought--"
"This is the safe I want," she said; and then looked at them suspiciously. "They don't appear very new."
"Oh, no, Madam, they are nearly two years old now."
This seemed to alarm Lady Charlotte. "Two years old. Why are they back? Have they some defect?"
"No, indeed. A Chubb safe has no defects. They have merely been returned for replacement of the undercarriage mounting pins. Two of them have sheared. You see, they travel on the railway, and the vibration from the roadbed works on the bolts which anchor the safes to the luggage-van floor." He shrugged. "These details need not concern you. There is nothing wrong with the safes, and we are making no alterations. We are merely replacing the anchor bolts."
"Now I see these have double locks."
"Yes, Madam, the banking firm requested doublelock mechanisms. As I believe I mentioned, we also install triple locks if the customer requires it."
Lady Charlotte peered at the locks. "Three seems excessive. It must be rather a bore to turn three locks just to open a safe. These locks are burglarproof?"
"Oh, absolutely. So much so that in two years no villain has ever even attempted to break these locks. It would be quite hopeless, in any case. These safes are double-layered eighth-inch tempered steel. There is no breaking these."
Lady Charlotte peered thoughtfully at the safes for some moments, and finally nodded. "Very well," she said, "I shall take one. Please have it loaded into my carriage outside."
"I beg pardon?"
"I said I shall take one safe such as these I see here. It is precisely what I need."
"Madam," Mr. Chubb said patiently, "we must construct the safe to your order."
"You mean you have none for sale?"
"None already built, no, Madam, I am very sorry. Each safe is specially built to the customer's specifications."
Lady Charlotte appeared quite irritated. "Well, can I have one tomorrow morning?"
Mr. Chubb gulped. "Tomorrow morning-- um, well, as a rule, Madam, we require six weeks to construct a safe. On occasion we can manufacture one as quickly, as four weeks, but--"
"Four weeks? That is a month."
"Yes, Madam."
"I wish to purchase a safe today"
"Yes, Madam, quite. But as I have attempted to explain, each safe must be built, and the shortest time--"
"Mr. Chubb, you must think me an utter fool. Well, I shall disabuse you of the notion. I have come here for the purpose of buying a safe, and now I discover you have none to sell--"
"Madam, please--"
"--but on the contrary will construct one for me in only a month's time. Within a month the brigands of the neighborhood will very probably have come and gone, and your safe will not in the least interest me, or my husband. I shall take my business elsewhere. Good day to you, sir, and thank you for your time."
With that, Lady Charlotte swept out of the firm of Chubb's. And Mr. Laurence Chubb, Jr, was heard to mutter in a low voice, "Women."
It was in this fashion that Pierce and Agar learned that the overhaul did not include changing the locks on the safes. That was, of course, all they cared about, and so they made their final preparations for the robbery, which they would carry out on May 22, 1855.
One week later, their plans were thrown into still further disarray. On May 17, 1855, a letter was delivered to Pierce. Written in a graceful and educated hand, it read:
My dear Sir:
I should be most greatly obliged if you could contrive to meet with me at the Palace, Sydenham, this afternoon at four o'clock, for the purpose of discussing some matters of mutual interest.
Most respectfully, I am,
William Williams, Esq.
Pierce looked at the letter in consternation. He showed it to Agar; but Agar could not read, so Pierce read the contents aloud. Agar stared at the penmanship.
"Clean Willy's got himself a screever for this one," he said.
"Obviously," Pierce said. "But why?"
"Perhaps he's touching you up."
"If that's all it is, I'd be happy," Pierce said.
"You going to meet him?"
"Absolutely. Will you crow for me?"'
Agar nodded. "You want Barlow? A good cosh could save a mighty trouble."
"No," Pierce said. "That'll set them hounding for sure, a cosh would."
"Right, then," Agar said, "a simple crow. 'Twon't be easy in the Palace."
"I'm sure Willy knows that," Pierce said gloomily.
____________________
A word should be said about the Crystal Palace, that magical structure which came to symbolize the Victorian mid-century. An enormous three-story glass building covering nineteen acres, it was erected in 1851 in Hyde Park, to house the Great Exhibition of that year, and it impressed every visitor who saw it. Indeed, even in drawings the Crystal Palace is stunning to the modern eye, and to see more than a million square feet of glass shimmering in the afternoon light must have been a remarkable sight for anyone. It is not surprising that the Palace soon represented the forward-looking, technological aesthetic of the new industrial Victorian society.
But this fabulous structure had a comfortingly haphazard origin. Led by Prince Albert himself, plans for the Great Exhibition began in 1850, and soon ran into arguments about the proposed Exhibition Hall itself, and its location.
Obviously the building would have to be very large. But what kind of building, and where? A competition in 1850 attracted more than two hundred designs, but no winner. Thus the Building Committee drew up a plan of its own for a dreadful brick monstrosity; the structure would be four times as long as Westminster Abbey and boast a dome even larger than that of St. Peter's. It would be located in Hyde Park.
The public balked at the destruction of trees, the inconvenience to riders, the general ruin of the pleasant neighborhood, and so on. Parliament seemed reluctant to permit Hyde Park to be used as the building site.
In the meantime, the Building Committee discovered that their plans required nineteen million bricks. By the summer of 1850, there was insufficient time to make all these bricks and build the Great Hall in time for the exhibition's opening. There was even some dark talk that the exhibition would have to be canceled, or at least postponed.
It was at this point that the Duke of Devonshire's gardener, Joseph Paxton, came forward with the idea of erecting a large greenhouse to serve as the Exhibition Hall. His original plan for the committee, drawn up on a piece of blotting paper, was eventually accepted for its several virtues.
First, it saved the trees of Hyde Park; second, its chief material, glass, could be manufactured quickly; and third, it could be taken down after the exhibition and reinstalled elsewhere. The committee accepted a bid of ?79,800 from a contractor to erect the giant structure, which was completed in only seven months, and was later the focal point of almost universal acclaim.
Thus the reputation of a nation and an empire was saved by a gardener; and thus a gardener was eventually knighted.*
* There was only one unforeseen problem with the Crystal Palace. The building contained trees, and the trees contained sparrows, and the sparrows were not housebroken. It was really no laughing matter, especially as the birds couldn't be shot, and they ignored traps set for them. Finally the Queen herself was consulted, and she said, "Send for the Duke of Wellington:" The Duke was informed of the problem. "Try sparrow hawks, Ma'am," he suggested, and he was once more victorious.
After the exhibition, the Great Hall was taken down and moved to Sydenham, in South-East London. In those days, Sydenham was a pleasant suburban area of fine homes and open fields, and the Crystal Palace made an excellent addition to the neighborhood. Shortly before four o'clock, Edward Pierce entered the vast structure to meet Clean Willy Williams.
The giant hall held several permanent exhibits, the most impressive being full-scale reproductions of the huge Egyptian statues of Ramses II at Abu Simbel. But Pierce paid no attention to these attractions, or to the lily ponds and pools of water everywhere about.
A brass band concert was in progress; Pierce saw Clean Willy sitting in one of the rows to the left. He also saw Agar, disguised as a retired army officer, apparently snoozing in another corner. The band played loudly. Pierce slipped into the seat alongside Willy.
"What is it?" Pierce said, in a low voice, He looked at the band, and thought idly that he despised band music.
"I'm needing a turn," Willy said.
"You've been paid."
"I'm needing more," Willy said.
Pierce shot him a glance. Willy was sweating, and he was edgy, but he did not look nervously around as an ordinary nervous man would do.
"You been working, Willy?"
"No."
"You been touched, Willy?"
"No, I swear it, no."
"Willy," Pierce said, "if you've turned nose on me, I'll put you in lavender."
"I swear it," Willy said. "It's no flam-- a finny or two is what I need, and that's the end of it."
The band, in a moment of patriotic support for England's allies, struck up the "Marseillaise." A few listeners had the ill grace to boo the selection.
Pierce said, "You're sweating, Willy."
"Please, sir, a finny or two and that'll be the end of it"
Pierce reached into his wallet and withdrew two five-pound notes. "Don't blow on me," Pierce said, "or I'll do what must be done."
"Thank you, sir, thank you," Willy said, and quickly pocketed the money. "Thank you, sir."
Pierce left him there. As he exited the Palace and came out into the park, he walked quickly to Harleigh Road. There he paused to adjust his top hat. The gesture was seen by Barlow, whose cab was drawn up at the end of the street.
Then Pierce walked slowly down Harleigh Road, moving with all appearances of casualness, as a relaxed gent taking the air. His thoughts, whatever they might have been, were interrupted by the wail of a railroad whistle, and a nearby chugging sound. Looking over the trees and roofs of mansions, he saw black smoke puffing into the air. Automatically, he checked his watch: it was the mid-afternoon train of the South Eastern Railway, coming back from Folkestone, going toward London Bridge Station.
The train continued on toward London, and so did Mr. Pierce. At the end of Harleigh Road, near St. Martin's Church, he hailed a cab and rode it into town to Regent Street, where he got out.
Pierce walked along Regent Street casually, never once glancing over his shoulder, but pausing frequently to look in the shopwindows along the street, and to watch the reflections in the glass.
He did not like what he saw, but he was wholly unprepared for what he next heard as a familiar voice cried out, "Edward, dear Edward!"
Groaning inwardly, Pierce turned to see Elizabeth Trent. She was shopping, accompanied by a livery boy, who carried brightly wrapped packages. Elizabeth Trent colored deeply. "I-- why, I must say, this is an extraordinary surprise."
"I am so pleased to see you," Pierce said, bowing and kissing her hand.
"I-- yes, I--"She snatched her hand away and rubbed it with her other. "Edward," she said, taking a deep breath. "Edward, I did not know what had become of you."
"I must apologize," Pierce said smoothly. "I was very suddenly called abroad on business, and I am sure my letter from Paris was inadequate to your injured sensibilities."
"Paris?" she said, frowning.
"Yes. Did you not receive my letter from Paris?"
"Why, no."
"Damn!" Pierce said, and then immediately apologized for his strong language. "It is the French," he said; "they are so ghastly inefficient. If only I had known, but I never suspected-- and when you did not reply to me in Paris, I assumed that you were angry…"
"I? Angry? Edward, I assure you," she began, and broke off. "But when did you return?"
"Just three days past," Pierce said.
"How strange," Elizabeth Trent said, with a sudden look of unfeminine shrewdness, "for Mr. Fowler was to dinner a fortnight past, and spoke of seeing you."
"I do not wish to contradict a business associate of your father's, but Henry has the deplorable habit of mixing his dates. I've not seen him for nearly three months." Pierce quickly added: "And how is your father?"
"My father? Oh, my father is well, thank you." Her shrewdness was replaced by a look of hurt confusion. "Edward, I-- My father, in truth, spoke some rather unflattering words concerning your character."
"Did he?"
"Yes. He called you a cad." She sighed. "And worse."
"I wholly understand, given the circumstances, but--"
"But now," Elizabeth Trent said, with a sudden determination, "since you are returned to England, I trust we shall be seeing you at the house once more."
Here it was Pierces turn to be greatly discomfited. "My dear Elizabeth," he said, stammering. "I do not know how to say this," and he broke off, shaking his head. It seemed that tears were welling up in his eyes. "When I did not hear from you in Paris, I naturally assumed that you were displeased with me, and… well, as time passed…" Pierce suddenly straightened. "I regret to inform you that I am betrothed."
Elizabeth Trent stared. Her mouth fell open.
"Yes," Pierce said, "it is true. I have given my word."
"But to whom?"
"To a French lady."
"A French lady?"
"Yes, I fear it is true, all true. I was most desperately unhappy, you see."
"I do see, sir," she snapped, and turned abruptly on her heel and walked away. Pierce remained standing on the sidewalk, trying to appear as abject as possible, until she had climbed into her carriage and driven off. Then he continued down Regent Street.
Anyone who observed him might have noticed that at the bottom of Regent Street there was nothing about his manner or carriage that indicated the least remorse. He boarded a cab to Windmill Street, where he entered an accommodation house that was a known dolly-mop's lurk, but one of the better class of such establishments.
In the plush velvet hallway, Miss Miriam said, "He's upstairs. Third door on the right."
Pierce went upstairs and entered a room to find Agar seated, chewing a mint. "Bit late," Agar said. "Trouble?"
"I ran into an old acquaintance."
Agar nodded vaguely.
"What did you see?" Pierce said.
"I cooled two," Agar said. "Both riding your tail nice-like. One's a crusher in disguise; the other's dressed as a square-rigged sport. Followed you all the way down Harleigh, and took a cab when you climbed aboard."
Pierce nodded. "I saw the same two in Regent Street."
"Probably lurking outside now," Agar said. "How's Willy?"
"Willy looks to be turning nose," Pierce said.
"Must have done a job."
Pierce shrugged.
"What's to be done with Willy, then?"
"He'll be getting what any gammy trasseno gets."
"I'd bump him," Agar said.
"I don't know about bumping," Pierce said, "but he won't have another chance to blow on us."
"What'll you do with the officers?"
"Nothing for the moment," Pierce said. "I've got to think a bit." And he sat back, lit a cigar, and puffed in silence.
The planned robbery was only five days away, and the police were on to him. If Willy had sung, and loudly, then the police would know that Pierces gang had broken into the London Bridge Terminus offices.
"I need a new lay," he said, and stared at the ceiling, "A proper flash lay for the miltonians to discover." He watched the cigar smoke curl upward, and frowned.
The institutions of any society are interrelated, even those which appear to have completely opposite goals. Gladstone himself observed: "There is often, in the course of this wayward and bewildered life, exterior opposition, and sincere and even violent condemnation, between persons and bodies who are nevertheless profoundly associated by ties and relations that they know not of."
Perhaps the most famous example of this, and one well-recognized by Victorians, was the bitter rivalry between the temperance societies and the pubs. These two institutions in fact served similar ends, and ultimately were seen to adopt the same attractions: the pubs acquired organs, hymn singing, and soft drinks, and the temperance meetings had professional entertainers and a new, raucous liveliness. By the time the temperance groups began buying pubs in order to turn them dry, the intermixture of these two hostile forces became pronounced indeed.
Victorians also witnessed another rivalry, centering around a new social institution-- the organized police force. Almost immediately, the new force began to form relationships with its avowed enemy, the criminal class. These relationships were much debated in the nineteenth century, and they continue to be debated to the present day. The similarity in methods of police and criminals, as well as the fact that many policemen were former criminals-- and the reverse-- were features not overlooked by thinkers of the day. And it was also noted by Sir James Wheatstone that there was a logical problem inherent in a law-enforcement institution, "for, should the police actually succeed in eliminating all crime, they will simultaneously succeed in eliminating themselves as a necessary adjunct to society, and no organized force or power will ever eliminate itself willingly."
In London, the Metropolitan Police, founded by Sir Robert Peel in 1829, was headquartered in a district known as Scotland Yard. Scotland Yard was originally, a geographical term, denoting an area of Whitehall that contained many government buildings. These buildings included the official residence of the surveyor of works to the crown, which was occupied by Inigo Jones, and later by Sir Christopher Wren. John Milton lived in Scotland Yard when he was working for Oliver Cromwell from 1649 to 1651, and it is apparently from this association that a slang reference for police, two hundred years later, was "miltonian."
When Sir Robert Peel located the new Metropolitan Police in Whitehall, the correct address, for the headquarters was No. 4 Whitehall Place, but the police station there had an entrance from Scotland Yard proper, and the press always referred to the police as Scotland Yard, until the term became synonymous with the force itself.
Scotland Yard grew rapidly in its early years; in 1829 the total force was 1,000, but a decade later it was 3,350, and by 1850 it was more than 6,000, and would increase to 10,000 by 1870. The task of the Yard was extraordinary: it was called upon to policy crime in an area of nearly seven hundred square miles, containing a population of two and a half million people.
From the beginning, the Yard adopted a posture of deference and modesty in its manner of solving crimes; the official explanations always mentioned lucky breaks of one sort or another-- an anonymous informant, a jealous mistress, a surprise encounter-- to a degree that was hard to believe. In fact, the Yard employed informers and plainclothesmen, and these agents were the subject of heated debate for the now familiar reason that many in the public feared that an agent might easily provoke a crime and then arrest the participants. Entrapment was a hot political issue of the day, and the Yard was at pains to defend itself.
In 1855, the principal figure in the Yard was Richard Mayne, "a sensible lawyer," who had done much to improve the public attitude toward the Metropolitan Police. Directly under him was Mr. Edward Harranby, and it was Harranby who oversaw the ticklish business of working with undercover agents and informers. Usually Mr. Harranby kept irregular hours; he avoided contact with the press, and from his office could be seen strange figures coming and going, often at night.
In the late afternoon of May 17th, Harranby lead a conversation with his assistant, Mr. Jonathan Sharp. Mr. Harranby reconstructed the conversation in his memoirs, Days on the Force, published in 1879. The conversation must be taken with some reservations, for in that volume Harranby was attempting to explain why he did not succeed in thwarting Pierce's robbery plans before they were carried out.
Sharp said to him, "The snakesman blew, and we have had a look at our man."
"What sort is he?" Harranby said.
"He appears a gentleman. Probably a cracksman or a swell mobsman. The snakesman says he's from Manchester, but he lives in a fine house in London."
"Does he know where?"
"He says he's been there, but he doesn't know the exact location. Somewhere in Mayfair."
"We can't go knocking on doors in Mayfair," Harranby said. "Can we assist his powers of memory?"
Sharp sighed. "Possibly."
"Bring him in. I'll have a talk with him. Do we know the intended crime?"
Sharp shook his head. "The snakesman says he doesn't know. He's afraid of being mizzled, you know, he's reluctant to blow all he knows. He says this fellow's planning a flash pull."
Harranby turned irritable. "That is of remarkably little value to me," he said. "What, exactly, is the crime? There's our question, and it begs a proper answer. Who is on this gentleman now?"
"Cramer and Benton, sir."
"They're good men. Keep them on his trail, and let's have the nose in my office, and quickly."
"I'll see to it myself, sir," the assistant said.
Harranby later wrote in his memoirs: "There are times in any professional's life when the elements requisite for the deductive process seem almost within one's grasp, and yet they elude the touch. These are the times of greatest frustration, and such was the case of the Robbery of 1855."
Clean Willy, very nervous, was drinking at the Hound's Tooth pub. He left there about six and headed straight for the Holy Land. He moved swiftly through the evening crowds, then ducked into an alley; he jumped a fence, slipped into a basement, crossed it, crawled through a passage into an adjoining building, climbed up the stairs, came out onto a narrow street, walked half a block, and disappeared into another house, a reeking nethersken.
Here he ascended the stairs to the second floor, climbed out onto the roof, jumped to an adjacent roof, scrambled up a drainpipe to the third floor of a lodging house, crawled in through a window, and went down the stairs to the basement.
Once in the basement, he crawled through a tunnel that brought him out on the opposite side of the street, where he came up into a narrow mews. By a side door, he entered a pub house, the Golden Arms, looked around, and exited from the front door.
He walked to the end of the street, and then turned in to the entrance of another lodging house. Immediately he knew that something was wrong; normally there were children yelling and scrambling all over the stairs, but now the entrance and stairs were deserted silent. He paused at the doorway, and was just about to turn and flee when a rope snaked out and twisted around his neck, yanking him into a dark corner.
Clean Willy had a look at Barlow, with the white scar across his forehead, as Barlow strained on the garrotting rope. Willy coughed, and struggled, but Barlow's strength was such that the little snakesman was literally lifted off the floor, his feet kicking in the air, his hands pulling at the rope.
This struggle continued for the better part of a minute, and then Clean Willy's face was blue, and his tongue protruded gray, and his eyes bulged. He urinated down his pants leg, and then his body sagged.
Barlow let him drop to the floor. He unwound the rope from his neck, removed the two five-pound notes from the snakesman's pocket, and slipped away into the street. Clean Willy's body lay huddled in a corner and did not move. Many minutes passed before the first of the children reemerged, and approached the corpse cautiously. Then the children stole the snakesman's shoes, and all his clothing, and scampered away.
Sitting in the third-floor room of the accommodation house with Agar, Pierce finished his cigar and sat up in his chair. "We are very lucky," he said finally.
"Lucky? Lucky to have jacks on our nancy five days before the pull?"
"Yes, lucky," Pierce said. "What if Willy blew?' He'd tell them we knocked over the London Bridge Terminus."
"I doubt he'd blow so much, right off. He'd likely tickle them for a bigger push." An informant was in the habit of letting out information bit by bit, with a bribe from the police at each step.
"Yes," Pierce said, "but we must take the chance that he did. Now, that's why we are lucky."
"Where's the luck, then?" Agar said.
"In the fact that London Bridge is the only station in the city with two lines operating from it. The South Eastern, and the London amp; Greenwich."
"Aye, that's so," Agar said, with a puzzled look.
"We need a bone nose to blow on us," Pierce said.
"You giving the crushers a slum?"
"They must have something to keep them busy," Pierce said. "In five days' time, we'll pull the peters on that train, and I don't want the crushers around to watch."
"Where do you want them?"
"I was thinking of Greenwich," Pierce said. "It would be pleasant if they were in Greenwich."
"So you're needing a bone nose to pass them the slang."
"Yes," Pierce said.
Agar thought for a moment. "There's a dolly-mop, Lucinda, in Seven Dials. They say she knows one or two miltonians-- dabs it up with them whenever they pinch her, which is often, seeing as how they like the dabbing."
"No," Pierce said. "They wouldn't believe a woman; it'll look like a feed to them."
"Well, there's Black Dick, the turfite. Know him? He's a Jew, to be found about the Queen's Crown of an evening."
"I know him," Pierce nodded. "Black Dick's a lushington, too fond of his gin. I need a true bone nose, a man of the family."
"A man of the family? Then Chokee Bill will do you proper."
"Chokee Bill? That old mick?"
Agar nodded. "Aye, he's a lag, did a stretch in Newgate. But not for long."
"Oh, yes?" Pierce was suddenly interested. A shortened prison sentence often implied that the man had made a deal to turn nose, to become an informer. "Got his ticket-of-leave early, did he?"
"Uncommon early," Agar said. "And the crushers gave him his broker's license quick-like, too. Very odd, seeing as he's a mick." Pawnbrokers were licensed by the police, who shared the usual prejudice against Irishmen.
"So he's in the uncle trade now?" Pierce said.
"Aye," Agar said. "But they say he deals barkers now and again. And they say he's a blower."
Pierce considered this at length, and finally nodded. "Where is Bill now?"
"His uncling shop is in Battersea, on Ridgeby Way."
"I'll see him now," Pierce said, getting to his feet. "I'll have a go at plucking the pigeon."
"Don't make it too easy," Agar warned.
Pierce smiled. "It will take all their best efforts." He went to the door.
"Here, now," Agar called to him, with a sudden thought. "It just came to me mind: what's there for a flash pull in Greenwich, of all places?"
"That," Pierce said, "is the very question the crushers will be asking themselves."
"But is there a pull?"
"Of course."
"A flash pull?"
"Of course."
"But what is it, then?"
Pierce shook his head. He grinned at Agar's perplexed look and left the room.
When Pierce came out of the accommodation house, it was twilight. He immediately saw the two crushers lurking at opposite corners of the street. He made a show of looking nervously about, then walked to the end of the block, where he hailed a cab.
He rode the cab several blocks, then jumped out quickly at a busy part of Regent Street, crossed the thoroughfare, and took a hansom going in the opposite direction. To all appearances, he was operating with the utmost cunning. In fact, Pierce would never bother with the crossover fakement to dodge a tail; it was a glocky ploy that rarely worked, and when he glanced out of the small back window of the hansom cab, he saw that he had not thrown off his pursuers.
He rode to the Regency Arms pub house, a notorious place. He entered it, exited from a side door (which was in plain view of the street), and crossed over to New Oxford Street, where he caught another cab. In the process, he lost one of the crushers, but the other was still with him. Now he proceeded directly across the Thames, to Battersea, to see Chokee Bill.
____________________
The image of Edward Pierce, a respectable and well-dressed gentleman, entering the dingy premises of a Battersea pawnbroker may seem incongruous from a modern perspective. At the time, it was not at all uncommon, for the pawnbroker served more than the lower classes, and whomever he served, his function was essentially the same: to act as a sort of impromptu bank, operating more cheaply than established banking concerns. A person could buy an expensive article, such as a coat, and hock it one week to pay the rent; reclaim it a few days later, for wearing on Sunday; hock it again on Monday, for a smaller loan; and so on until there was no further need for the broker's services.
The pawnbroker thus filled an important niche in the the society, and the number of licensed pawnshops doubled during the mid-Victorian period. Middle-class people were drawn to the broker more for the anonymity of the loan than the cheapness of it; many a respectable household did not wish it known that some of their silver was uncled for cash. This was, after all, an era when many people equated economic prosperity and good fiscal management with moral behavior; and conversely, to be in need of a loan implied some kind of misdeed.
The pawnshops themselves were not really very shady, although they had that reputation. Criminals seeking fences usually turned to unlicensed, second-hand goods "translators," who were not regulated by the police and were less likely to be under surveillance. Thus, Pierce entered the door beneath the three balls with impunity.
He found Chokee Bill, a red-faced Irishman whose complexion gave the appearance of perpetual near strangulation, sitting in a back corner. Chokee Bill jumped to his feet quickly, recognizing the dress and manner of a gentleman.
"Evening, sir," Bill said.
"Good evening," Pierce said.
"How may I be serving you, sir?"
Pierce looked around the shop. "Are we alone?"
"We are, sir, as my name is Bill, sir." But Chokee Bill got a guarded look in his eyes.
"I am looking to make a certain purchase," Pierce said. As he spoke, he adopted a broad Liverpool dockyard accent, though ordinarily he had no trace of it.
"A certain purchase…"
"Some items you may have at hand," Pierce said.
"You see my shop; sir," Chokee Bill said, with a wave of his arm. "All is before you."
"This is all?"
"Aye, sir, whatever you may see."
Pierce shrugged. "I must have been told wrongly. Good evening to you." And he headed for the door.
He was almost there when Chokee Bill coughed. "What is it you were told, sir?"
Pierce looked back at him. "I need certain rare items."
"Rare items," Chokee Bill repeated. "What manner, of rare items, sir?"
"Objects of metal," Pierce said, looking directly at the pawnbroker. He found all this circumspection tedious, but it was necessary to convincthe genuineness of his transaction.
"Metal, you say?"
Pierce made a deprecating gesture with his hands. "It is a question of defense, you see.
"Defense."
"I have valuables, property, articles of worth… And therefore I need defense. Do you take my meaning?"
"I take your meaning," Bill said. "And I may have v such a thing as you require."
"Actually," Pierce said, looking around the shop again, as if to reassure himself that he was truly alone with the proprietor, "actually, I need five."
"Five barkers?" Chokee Bill's eyes widened in astonishment.
Now that his secret was out, Pierce became very nervous. "That's right," he said, glancing this way and that, "five is what I need."
"Five's a goodly number," Bill said, frowning.
Pierce immediately edged toward the door. "Well, if you can't snaffle them--"
"Wait, now," Bill said, "I'm not saying can't. You never heard me say can't. All's I said is five is a goodly number, which it is, right enough."
"I was told you had them at hand," Pierce said, still nervous.
"I may."
"Well, then, I should like to purchase them at once."
Chokee Bill sighed. "They're not here, sir-- you can count on that-- a man doesn't keep barkers about in an uncle shop, no, sir."
"How quickly can you get them?"
As Pierce became more agitated, Chokee Bill became more calm, more appraising. Pierce could almost see his mind working, thinking over the meaning of a request for five pistols. It implied a major crime, and no mistake. As a blower, he might make a penny or two if he knew the details.
"It would be some days, sir, and that's the truth," Bill said.
"I cannot have them now?"
"No, sir, you'd have to give me a space of time, and then I'll have them for you, right enough."
"How much time?"
There followed a long silence. Bill went so far as to mumble to himself, and tick off the days on his fingers. "A fortnight would be safe."
"A fortnight!"
"Eight days, then."
"Impossible," Pierce said, talking aloud to himself. "In eight days, I must be in Greenw--" He broke off. "No," he said. "Eight days is too long."
"Seven?" Bill asked.
"Seven," Pierce said, staring at the ceiling. "Seven, seven… seven days… Seven days is Thursday next?"
"Aye, Sir"
At what hour on Thursday next?"
"A question of timing, is it?" Bill asked, with a casualness that was wholly unconvincing.
Pierce just stared at him.
"I don't mean to pry, sir," Bill said quickly.
"Then see you do not. What hour on Thursday?"
"Noon."
Pierce shook his head. "We will never come to terms. It is impossible and I--"
"Here, now-- here, now. What hour Thursday must it be?"
"No later than ten o'clock in the morning."
Chokee Bill reflected. "Ten o'clock here?"
"Yes."
"And no later?"
"Not a minute later."
"Will you be coming yourself, then, to collect them?"
Once again, Pierce gave him a stern look. "That hardly need concern you. Can you supply the pieces or not?"
"I can," Bill said. "But there's an added expense for the quick service."
"That will not matter," Pierce said, and gave him ten gold guineas. "You may have this on account"
Chokee Bill looked at the coins, turned them over in his palm. "I reckon this is the half of it."
"So be it."
"And the rest will be paid in kind?"
"In gold, yes."
Bill nodded. "Will you be needing shot as well?"
"What pieces are they?"
"Webley 48-bore, rim-fire, holster models, if my guess is right."
"Then I will need shot."
"Another three guineas for shot," Chokee Bill said blandly.
"Done," Pierce said. He went to the door, and paused. "A final consideration," he said. "If, when I arrive Thursday next, the pieces are not waiting, it shall go hard with you."
"I'm reliable, sir."
"It will go very hard," Pierce said again, "if you are not. Think on it" And he left.
____________________
It was not quite dark; the street was dimly lit by gas lamps. He did not see the lurking crusher but knew he was there somewhere. He took a cab and drove to Leicester Square, where the crowds were gathering for the evening's theatrical productions. He entered one throng, bought a ticket for a showing of She Stoops to Conquer, and then lost himself in the lobby. He was home an hour later, after three cab changes and four duckings in and out of pubs. He was quite certain he had not been followed.
The morning of May 18th was uncommonly warn and sunny, but Mr. Harranby took no pleasure in the weather. Things were going very badly, and he had treated his assistant, Mr. Sharp, with notable ill temper when he was informed of the death of the snakesman Clean Willy in a nethersken in Seven Dials. When he was later informed that his tails had lost the gentleman in the theatre crowd-- a man they knew only as Mr. Simms, with a house in Mayfair-- Mr. Harranby had flown into a rage, and complained vigorously about the ineptitude of his subordinates, including Mr. Sharp.
But Mr. Harranby's rage was now controlled, for the Yard's only remaining clue was sitting before him, perspiring profusely, wringing his hands, and looking very red-faced. Harranby frowned at Chokee Bill.
"Now, Bill," Harranby said, "this is a most serious matter."
"I know it, sir, indeed I do," Bill said.
"Five barkers tells me there is something afoot, and I mean to know the truth behind it."
"He was tight with his words, he was."
"I've no doubt," Harranby said heavily. He fished a gold guinea out of his pocket and dropped it on his desk before him. "Try to recall," he said.
"It was late in the day, sir, with all respects, and I was not at my best," Bill said, staring pointedly at the gold piece.
Harranby would be damned if he'd give the fellow another. "Many a memory improves on the cockchafer, in my experience," he said.
"I've done no wrong," Bill protested. "I'm honest as the day is long, sir, and I'd keep nothing from you. There's no call to put me in the stir."
"Then try to remember," Harranby said, "and be quick about it."
Bill twisted his hands in his lap. "He comes into the shop near six, he does. Dressed proper, with good manner, but he speaks a wave lag from Liverpool, and he can voker romeny."
Harranby glanced at Sharp, in the corner. From time to time, even Harranby needed some help in translation.
"He had a Liverpool sailor's accent and he spoke criminal jargon," Sharp said.
"Aye, sir, that's so," Bill said, nodding. "He's in the family, and that's for sure. Wants me to snaffle five barkers, and I say five's a goodly number, and he says he wants them quick-like, and he's nervous, and in a hurry, and he's showing plenty of ream thickers to pay up on the spot."
"What did you tell him?" Harranby said, keeping his eyes fixed on Bill. A skilled informant like Chokee Bill was not above playing each side against the other, and Bill could lie like an adept.
"I says to him, five's a goodly number but I can do it in time. And he says how much time, and I says a fortnight. This makes him cool the cockum for a bit, and then he says he needs it quicker than a fortnight. I says eight days. He says eight days is too long, and he starts to say he's off to Greenwich in eight days, but then he catches himself, like."
"Greenwich," Harranby said, frowning.
"Aye, sir, Greenwich was on the tip of his tongue, but he stops down and says it's too long. So I says how long? And he says seven days. So I says I can translate in seven days. And he says what time of the day? I say noontime. And he says noontime's too late. He says no later than ten o'clock."
"Seven days," Harranby said, "meaning Friday next?"
"No, sir. Thursday next. Seven days from yesterday it was."
"Go on."
"So I says, after a hem and a haw, I says I can have his pieces on Thursday at ten o'clock. And he says that's fly enough, but he's no flat, this one, and he says any gammy cockum and it will go hard on me."
Harranby looked at Sharp again. Sharp said, "The gentleman is no fool and warned that if the guns were not ready at the arranged time, it would be hard on Bill."
"And what did you say, Bill?" Harranby inquired.
"I says I can do it, and I promise him. And he gives me ten gold pushes, and I granny they're ream, and he takes his leave and says he'll be back Thursday next."
"What else?" Harranby said.
"That's the lot," Bill said.
There was a long silence. Finally Harranby said, "What do you make of this, Bill?"
"It's a flash pull and no mistake. He's no muck-snipe, this gent, but a hykey bloke who knows his business."
Harranby tugged at an earlobe, a nervous habit. "What in Greenwich has the makings of a proper flash pull?"
"Damn me if I know," Chokee Bill said.
"What have you heard?" Harranby said.
"I keep my lills to the ground, but I heard nothing of a pull in Greenwich, I swear."
Harranby paused. "There's another guinea. in it for you if you can say."
A fleeting look of agony passed across Chokee Bill's face. "I wish I could be helping you, sir, but I heard nothing. It's God's own truth, sir."
"I'm sure it is," Harranby said. He waited awhile longer, and finally dismissed the pawnbroker, who snatched up the guinea and departed.
When Harranby was alone with Sharp, he said again, "What's in Greenwich?"
"Damn me if I know," Sharp said.
"You want a gold guinea, too?"
Sharp said nothing. He was accustomed to Harranby's sour moods; there was nothing to do except ride them out. He sat in the corner and watched his superior light a cigarette and puff on it reflectively. Sharp regarded cigarettes as silly, insubstantial little things. They had been introduced the year before by a London shopkeeper, and were mostly favored by troops returning from the Crimea. Sharp himself liked a good cigar, and nothing less.
"Now, then," Harranby said. "Let us begin from the beginning. We know this fellow Simms has been working for months on something, and we can assume he's clever."
Sharp nodded.
"The snakesman was killed yesterday. Does that mean they know we're on the stalk?"
"Perhaps."
"Perhaps, perhaps," Harranby said irritably. "Perhaps is not enough. We must decide, and we must do so according to principles of deductive logic. Guesswork has no place in our thinking. Let us stick to the facts of the matter, and follow them wherever they lead. Now, then, what else do we know?"
The question was rhetorical, and Sharp said nothing.
"We know," Harranby said, "that, this fellow Simms, after months of preparation, suddenly finds himself, on the eve of his big pull, in desperate need of five barkers. He has had months to obtain them quietly, one at a time, creating no stir. But he postpones it to the last minute. Why?"
"You think he's playing us for a pigeon?"
"We must entertain the thought, however distasteful," Harranby said. "Is it well known that Bill's a nose?"
"Perhaps."
"Damn your perhapses. Is it known or not?"
"Surely there are suspicions about!'
"Indeed," Harranby said. "And yet our clever Mr. Simms chooses this very person to arrange for his five barkers. I say it smells of a fakement " He stared moodily at the glowing tip of his cigarette. "This Mr. Simms is deliberately leading us astray, and we must not follow."
"I am sure you are right," Sharp said, hoping his boss's disposition would improve.
"Without question," Harranby said. "We are being led a merry chase."
There was a long pause. Harranby drummed his fingers on the desk. "I don't like it. We are being too clever. We're giving this Simms fellow too much credit. We must assume he is really planning on Greenwich. But what in the name of God is there in Greenwich to steal?"
Sharp shook his head. Greenwich was a seaport town, but it had not grown as rapidly as the larger ports of England. It was chiefly known for its naval observatory, which 'maintained the standard of time-- Greenwich Mean Time-- for the nautical world.
Harranby began opening drawers in his desk, rummaging. "Where is the damned thing?"
"What, sir?"
"The schedule, the schedule," Harranby said. "Ah, here it is." He brought out a small printed folder. "London amp; Greenwich Railway… Thursdays… Ah. Thursdays there is a train leaving London Bridge Terminus for Greenwich at eleven-fifteen in the morning. Now, what does that suggest?"
Sharp looked suddenly bright-eyed. "Our man wants his guns by ten, so that he will have time to get to the station and make the train."
"Precisely," Harranby said. "All logic points to the fact that he is, indeed, going to Greenwich on Thursday. And we also know he cannot go later than Thursday."
Sharp said, "What about the guns? Buying five at once."
"Well, now," Harranby said, warming to his subject, "you see, by a process of deduction we can conclude that his need for the guns is genuine, and his postponing the purchase to the last minute-- on the surface, a most suspicious business-- springs from some logical situation. One can surmise several. His plans for obtaining the guns by other means may have been thwarted. Or perhaps he regards the purchase of guns as dangerous-- which is certainly the case; everyone knows we pay well for information about who is buying barkers-- so he postpones it to the last moment. There may be other reasons we cannot guess at. The exact reason does not matter. What matters is that he needs those guns for some criminal activity in Greenwich."
"Bravo," Sharp said, with a show of enthusiasm.
Harranby shot him a nasty look. "Don't be a fool," he said, "we are little better off than when we began. The principal question still stands before us. What is there to steal in Greenwich?"
Sharp said nothing. He stared at his feet. He heard the scratch of a match as Harranby lit another cigarette.
"All is not lost," Harranby said. "The principles of deductive logic can still aid us. For example, the crime is probably a robbery. If it has been planned for many months, it must figure around some stable situation which is predictable months in advance. This is no casual, off-the-cuff snatch."
Sharp continued to stare at his feet.
"No, indeed," Harranby said. "There is nothing casual about it. Furthermore, we may deduce that this lengthy planning is directed toward a goal of some magnitude, a major crime with high stakes. In addition, we know our man is a seafaring person, so we may suspect his crime has something to do with the ocean, or dockyard activities in some way. Thus we may limit our inquiry to whatever exists in the town of Greenwich that fits our--"
Sharp coughed.
Harranby frowned at him. "Do you have something to say?"
"I was only thinking, sir," Sharp said, "that if it is Greenwich, it's out of our jurisdiction. Perhaps we ought to telegraph the local police and warn them."
"Perhaps, perhaps. When will you learn to do without that word? If we were to cable Greenwich, what would we tell them? Eh? What would we say in our cable?"
"I was only thinking--"
"Good God," Harranby said, standing up behind his desk. "Of course! The cable!"
"The cable?"
"Yes, of course, the cable. The cable is in Greenwich, even as we speak."
"Do you mean the Atlantic cable?" Sharp asked.
"Certainly," Harranby said, rubbing his hands together. "Oh, it fits perfectly. Perfectly! "
Sharp remained puzzled. He knew, of course, that the proposed transatlantic telegraph cable was being manufactured in Greenwich; the project had been underway for more than a year, and represented one of most considerable technological efforts of the time. There were already undersea cables in the Channel, linking England to the Continent. But these were nothing compared to the twenty-five hundred miles of cable being constructed to join England to New York.
"But surely," Sharp said, "there is no purpose in stealing a cable--"
"Not the cable," Harranby said. "The payroll for the firm. What is it? Glass, Elliot amp; Company, or some such. An enormous project, and the payroll must be equal to the undertaking. That's our man's objective. And if he is in a hurry to leave on Thursday, he wishes to be there on Friday--"
"Payday!" Sharp cried.
"Exactly," Harranby said. "It is entirely logical. Yon see the process of deduction carried to its most accurate conclusion."
"Congratulations," Sharp said cautiously.
"A trifle," Harranby said. He was still very excited, and clapped his hands together. "Oh, he is a bold one, our friend Simms. To steal the cable payroll-- what an audacious crime! And we shall have him red-handed. Come along, Mr. Sharp. We must journey to Greenwich, and apprise ourselves of the situation at first hand."
"And then?" Pierce said.
Miriam shrugged. "They boarded the train."
"How many of them were there?"
"Four altogether."
"And they took the Greenwich train?"
Miriam nodded. "In great haste. The leader was a squarish man with whiskers, and his lackey was clean-shaven. There were two others, jacks in blue."
Pierce smiled. "Harranby," he said. "He must be very proud of himself. He's such a clever man." He turned to Agar. "And you?"
"Fat Eye Lewis, the magsman, is in the Regency Arms asking about a cracker's lay in Greenwich-- wants to join in, he says."
"So the word is out?" Pierce said.
Agar nodded.
"Feed it," he said.
"Who shall I say is in?"
"Spring Heel Jack, for one."
"What if the miltonians find him?" Agar said.
"I doubt that they will," Pierce said…
"Jack's under, is he?"
"So I have heard."
"Then I'll mention him."
"Make Fat Eye pay," Pierce said. "This is valuable information."
Agar grinned. "It'll come to him dear, I promise you."
Agar departed, and Pierce was alone with Miriam.
"Congratulations," she said, smiling at him. "Nothing can go wrong now."
Pierce sat back in a chair. "Something can always go wrong," he said, but he was smiling.
"In four days?" she asked.
"Even in the space of an hour."
Later, in his courtroom testimony, Pierce admitted he was astounded at how prophetic his own words were, for enormous difficulties lay ahead-- and they would come from the most unlikely source.
Henry Mayhew, the great observer, reformer, and classifier of Victorian society, once listed the various types of criminals in England. The list had five major categories, twenty subheadings, and more than a hundred separate entries. To the modern eye, the list is remarkable for the absence of any consideration of what is now called "white-collar crime."
Of course, such crime existed at that time, and there were some flagrant examples of embezzlement, forgery, false accounting, bond manipulation, and other illegal practices that came to light during the mid-century. In 1850, an insurance clerk named Walter Watts was caught after he embezzled more than ?70,000, and there were several crimes much larger: Leopold Redpath's ?150,000 in forgeries on the Great Northern Railway Company, and Beaumont Smith's ?350,000 in counterfeit exchequer bonds, to name two examples.
Then, as now, white-collar crime involved the largest sums of money, was the least likely to be detected, and was punished most leniently if the participants were ever apprehended. Yet Mayhew's list of criminals ignores this sector of crime entirely. For Mayhew, along with the majority of his contemporaries, was firmly committed to the belief that crime the product of "the dangerous classes," and that criminal behavior sprang from poverty, injustice, oppression, and lack of education. It was almost a matter of definition: a person who was not from the criminal class could not be committing a crime. Persons of a better station were merely "breaking the law." Several factors unique to the Victorian attitude toward upper-class crime contributed to this belief.
First, in a newly capitalistic society, with. thousands of emerging businesses, the principles of honest accounting were not firmly established, and accounting methods were understood to be even more variable they are today. A man might, with a fairly clear conscience, blur the distinction between fraud and "sharp business practices."
Second, the modern watchdog of all Western capitalist countries, the government, was nowhere near so vigilant then. Personal incomes below ?150 annually were not taxed, and the great majority of citizens fell beneath this limit. Those who were taxed got off lightly by modern standards, and although people grumbled about the cost of government, there was no hint yet of the modern citizen's frantic scramble to arrange his finances in such a way as to avoid as much tax as possible. (In 1870, taxes amounted to 9 percent of the gross national product of England; in 1961, they were 38 percent.)
Furthermore, the Victorians of all classes accepted a kind of ruthlessness in their dealings with one another that seems outrageous today. To take an example, when Sir John Hall, the physician in charge of the Crimean troops, decided to get rid of Florence Nightingale, he elected to starve her out by ordering that her food rations be halted. Such vicious maneuvers, were considered ordinary by everyone; Miss Nightingale anticipated it, and carried her own supplies of food, and even Lytton Strachey, who was hardly disposed to view the Victorians kindly, dismissed this incident as "a trick."
If this is only a trick, it is easy to see why middleclass observers were reluctant to label many kinds of wrongdoing as "crimes"; and the higher an individual's standing within the community, the greater the reluctance.
A case in point is Sir John Alderston and his crate of wine.
____________________
Captain John Alderston was knighted after Waterloo, in 1815, and in subsequent years he became a prosperous London citizen. He was one of the owners of the South Eastern Railway from the inception of the line, and had large financial holdings in several coal mines in Newcastle as well. He was, according to all accounts, a portly, tart-spoken gentleman who maintained a military bearing all his life, barking out terse commands in a manner that was increasingly ludicrous as his waistline spread with the passing years.
Alderston's single vice was a passion for card games, acquired during his army days, and his outstanding eccentricity was that he refused to gamble for money, preferring to wager personal articles and belongings instead of hard cash. Apparently this was his way of viewing card-playing as a gentlemanly pastime, and not a vice. The story of his crate of wine, which figures so prominently in The Great Train Robbery of 1855, never came to light until 1914, some forty years after Alderston's death. At that time, his family commissioned an official biography by an author named William Shawn. The relevant passage reads:
____________________
Sir John at all times had a highly developed sense of conscience, which only once caused him any personal qualms. A family member recalls that he returned home one evening, after an outing for card-playing, in a mood of great distress. When asked the cause, he replied: "I cannot bear it."
Upon further inquiry, it emerged that Sir John had been playing cards with several associates, these being amen who also owned a share of the railway. In his play, Sir John had lost a case of Madeira, twelve years old, and he was exceedingly reluctant to part with it. Yet he had promised to put it aboard the Folkestone train, for delivery to the winner, who resided in that coastal town, where he oversaw the operation of the railway at its most distant terminus.
Sir John fretted and fussed for three days, condemning the gentleman who had won, and suspecting aloud that the man had cheated in clandestine fashion. With each passing day, he became more convinced of the man's trickery, although there was no evidence for such a belief.
Finally he instructed his manservant to load the crate of wine on the train, placing it in the luggage van with a deal of ceremony and filling-in of forms; the wine was, in fact, insured against loss or injury during the journey.
When the train arrived in Folkestone, the crate was discovered to be empty, and a robbery of the precious wine was presumed. This provided no small commotion among the railway employees. The guard in the van was dismissed and changes in procedures were adopted. Sir John paid his wager with the funds from the insurance.
Many years later, he admitted to his family that he had loaded an empty crate onto the train, for he could not, he said, bear parting with his precious Madeira. Yet he was overcome with guilt, especially for the discharged railway employee, to whom he contrived to pay an anonymous annual stipend over a period of many years, such that the sum paid was vastly in excess of the value of his wine.
Yet to the last, he felt no remorse for the creditor, one John Banks. On the contrary, during the last days of his mortal existence, when he lay in his bed delirious with fevers, he was often heard to say, "That blasted Banks is no gentleman, and I'll be damned if he'll get my Madeira, do you hear?"
Mr. Banks at this time had been deceased some years. It has been said that many of Sir John's closest associates suspected that he had had a hand in the mysterious disappearance of the wine, but no one dared accuse him. Instead, certain changes were made in the railway security procedures (partly at the behest of the insuring agency). And when, soon after, a consignment of gold was stolen from the railroad, everyone forgot the matter of Sir John's crate of wine, excepting the man himself, for his conscience tormented him to his final days. Thus was the strength of this great man's character.
On the evening of May 21st, just a few hours before the robbery, Pierce dined with his mistress, Miriam, in his house in Mayfair.
Shortly before nine-thirty that night, their meal was interrupted by the sudden arrival of Agar, who looked very distraught. He came storming into the dining room, making no apologies for his abrupt entrance.
"What is it?" Pierce said calmly.
"Burgess," Agar said, in a breathless voice. "Burgess: he's downstairs."
Pierce frowned. "You brought him here?"
"I had to do," Agar said. "Wait until you hear."
Pierce left the table and went downstairs to the smoking room. Burgess was standing there, twitching his blue guard's cap in his hands. He was obviously, as nervous as Agar.
"What's the trouble?" Pierce said.
"It's the line," Burgess said. "They've changed it all, and just today-- changed everything."
"What have they changed?" Pierce said
Burgess spoke in a headlong torrent: "I first came to know this morning, you see, I come to work proper at seven sharp, and there's a cooper working on me van, hammering and pounding. And there's a smith as well, and some gentlemen standing about to watch the work. And that's how I find they've changed all manner of things, and just today, changed it all. I mean the running of the car the way that we do, all changed, and I didn't know-"
"What, exactly, have they changed?" Pierce said.
Burgess took a breath. "The line," he said. "The manner of things, the way we do, all fresh changed."
Pierce frowned impatiently. "Tell me what is changed," he said.
Burgess squeezed his hat in his hands until his knuckles were pale. "For one, they have a new jack the line's put on, started today-- a new bloke, young one."
"He rides with you in the baggage van?"
"No, sir," Burgess said. "He only works the platform at the station. Stays at the station, he does."
Pierce shot a glance at Agar. It didn't matter if there were more guards at the platform. There could be a dozen guards, for all Pierce cared "VVhat of it?" he said.
"Well, it's the new rule, you see."
"What new rule?"
"Nobody rides in the baggage car, save me as guard," Burgess said. "That's the new rule, and there's this new jack to keep it proper."
"I see," Pierce said. That was indeed a change.
"There's more," Agar said gloomily.
"Yes?"
Burgess nodded. "They've gone and fitted a lock to the luggage-van door. Outside lock, it is. Now they lock up in London Bridge, and unlock in Folkestone."
"Damn," Pierce said. He began to pace back and forth in the room. "What about the other stops? That train stops in Redhill, and at--"
"They've changed the rules," Burgess said. "That van is never unlocked till Folkestone."
Pierce continued to pace. "Why have they changed the routine?"
"It's on account of the afternoon fast train," Burgess explained. "There's two fast trains, morning train and afternoon train. Seems the afternoon van was robbed last week. Gentleman was robbed of a valuable parcel somehow-- collection of rare wine, I hear it to be. Anyhow, he puts a claim to the line or some such. The other guard's been fired, and there's all bloody hell to pay. Dispatcher his very self called me in this morning and dressed me down proper, warning me of this and that. Near cuffed me, he did. And the new jack at the platform's the station dispatcher's nephew. He's the one locks up in London Bridge, just before the train pulls out."
"Rare wines," Pierce said. "God in heaven, rare wines. Can we get Agar aboard in a trunk?"
Burgess shook his head "Not if they do like today. Today, this nephew, his name's McPherson, he's a Scotsman and eager-- badly wanting a job, as I look at it-- this McPherson makes the passengers open every trunk or parcel large enough to hold a man. Caused a considerable fray, I'll say. This nephew is a stickler. New to the work, you see, and wanting to do it all proper, and that's the way it is."
"Can we distract him and slip Agar in while he's not looking--"
"Not looking? Never's he not looking. He looks like a starved rat after a flake of cheese, looks here and there and everywhere. And when all the baggage's loaded, he climbs in, pokes about in all the corners seeing there's no lurkers. Then he climbs off and lock up."
Pierce plucked his pocket watch from his waistcoat. It was now ten o'clock at night. They had ten hours before the Folkestone train left the next morning. Pierce could think of a dozen clever ways to get Agar past a watchful Scotsman, but nothing that could be quickly arranged.
Agar, whose face was the very picture of gloom, must have been thinking the same thing. "Shall we put off until next month, then?"
"No," Pierce said. He immediately shifted to his next problem. "Now, this lock they've installed on the luggage-van door. Can it be worked from inside?"
Burgess shook his head. "It's a padlock-- hooks through a bolt and iron latch, outside."
Pierce was still pacing. "Could it be unlocked during one of the stops-- say, Redhill-- and then locked again at Tonbridge, further down the line?"
"Be a risk," Burgess said. "She's a fat lock, big as, your fist, and it might be noticed."
Pierce continued to pace. For a long time, his footsteps on the carpet and the ticking of the clock on the mantel were the only sounds in the room. Agar and Burgess watched him. Finally Pierce said, "If the van door is locked, how do you get ventilation?"
Burgess, looking a little confused, said, "Oh, there's air enough. That van's shoddy made, and when the train gets to speed, the breeze whistles through the cracks and chinks loud enough to pain your ears."
"I meant," Pierce said, "is there any apparatus for ventilation of the van?"
"Well, there's the slappers in the roof…"
"What're they?" Pierce said.
"Slappers? Slappers-- well, to speak true, they're not your proper slappers, on account of the lack of hinging. Many's the time I was wishing they were true slappers, I mean a slapper fit with hinging, and all the more when it rains-- then it's a cold puddle inside, I can tell you--"
"What is a slapper?" Pierce interrupted. "Time is short."
"A slapper? A slapper's what your railway folks call a manner of trap. She's a hinged door up in the roof, mounted center, and inside you've a rod to open or shut the slapper. Some of your slappers-- I mean proper slappers-- they fit two to a coach, facing opposite ways. That's so's one is always away from the wind. Now, other coaches, they've their slappers mounted both the same, but it's a bother in the yards, you see, for it means the coach must be clamped with the slappers backward, and--"
"And you have two of these slappers in the luggage van?"
"Aye, that's true," Burgess said, "but they're not proper, because they're fixed open, you see, no hinging on the van slappers, and so when it rains there I be, soaked through--"
"The slappers give access directly to the interior of the luggage van?"
"They do, direct down." Burgess paused. "But if you're thinking of slipping a bloke through, it can't be done. They're no more than a hand's breadth square, and--"
"I'm not," Pierce said. "Now, you say you have two slappers? Where are they located?"
"On the roof, like I said, center of the roof, and--"
"Where in relation to the length of the car?" Pierce said. His pacing back and forth, and his brusque, irritable manner left Burgess, who was nervous and trying to be helpful, at a complete loss.
"Where… in relation…" His voice trailed off.
Agar said, "I don't know what you're thinking, but my knee pains me-- my left knee here-- and that's always a bad sign. I say, quit the lay for a deadly flummut, and be done."
"Shut up," Pierce said, with a sudden flaring anger that made Agar take a step backward. Pierce turned to Burgess. "Now I am asking," he said, "if you look at the van from the side, you see it as a kind of box, a large box. And on the top of this box are the slappers. Now, where are they?"
"Not proper set, and that's God's truth," Burgess said. "A proper slapper's near the ends of the coach, one at each end, so's to allow air to pass end to end, one slapper to the next. That's the way to arrange it,for the best--"
"Where are the slappers on the luggage van?" Pierce laid, glancing again at his watch. "I care only about the van."
"That's the hell of it,". Burgess said. "They're near center, and no more than three paces separate. And they've no hinge. Now when it rains, down comes the water, direct to the center of the van, and there's one great puddle, straightaway in the center."
"You say the slappers are separated by three paces?"
"Three, four, thereabouts," Burgess said. "I never cared to know for certain, but it's certain I hate the damn things, and that's--"
"All right," Pierce said, "you've told me what I need to know."
"I'm glad of that," Burgess said, with a sort of confused relief, "but I swear, there's no way a man or even a chavy can slip down that hole, and once they lock me in--"
Pierce cut him off with a wave of his hand and turned to Agar. "This padlock on the outside. Is it hard to pick?"
"I don't know it," Agar said, "but a padlock's no trick. They're made strong, but they have fat tumblers, on account of their size. Some a man can use his little finger for the betty, and tickle her broke open in a flash."
"Could I?" Pierce said.
Agar stared at him. "Easy enough, but you might take a minute or two." He frowned. "But you heard what he said, you don't dare break her at the station stops, so why--"
Pierce turned back to Burgess. "How many second-class coaches are there on the morning train?"
"I don't know exact. Six, as often as not. Seven near the weekend. Sometimes, midweek they run five, but lately there's six. Now, first class, that's--"
"I don't care about first class," Pierce said.
Burgess fell silent, hopelessly confused. Pierce looked at Agar: Agar had figured it out. The screwsman shook his head. "Mother of God," Agar said, "you've lost your mind, you've gone flat debeno, sure as I stand here. What do you think, you're Mr. Coolidge?" Coolidge was a well-known mountaineer.
"I know who I am," Pierce said tersely. He turned back to Burgess, whose confusion had steadily increased during the last few minutes until he was now nearly immobilized, his face blank and expressionless, having lost even the quality of bewilderment.
"Is your name Coolidge, then?" Burgess asked. "You Said Simms…"
"It's Simms," Pierce said. "Our friend here is only making a joke. I want you to go home now, and sleep, and get up tomorrow and go to work as usual. Just carry on as usual, no matter what happens. Just do your regular day of work, and don't worry about anything."
Burgess glanced at Agar, then back to Pierce. "Will you pull tomorrow, then?"
"Yes," Pierce said. "Now go home and sleep."
____________________
When the two men were alone, Agar exploded in anxious fury. "Damn me if I'll voker flams at this dead hour. This is no simple kynchin lay tomorrow. Is that not plain?" Agar threw up hands. "Make an end to it, I say. Next month, I say."
Pierce remained quiet for a moment. "I've waited a year," he said finally, "and it will be tomorrow."
"You're puckering," Agar said, "just talk, with no dense."
"It can be done," Pierce insisted.
"Done?" Agar exploded again. "Done how? Look here, I know you for a clever one, but I'm no flat, and there's no gammoning me. That lay is coopered. It's too damn sad the wine was snaffled, but so it was, and we must know it." Agar was red-faced and frantic; he swung his arms through the air in agitation.
In contrast, Pierce was almost unnaturally still. His eyes surveyed Agar steadily. "There is a bone lay," Pierce said.
"As God is my witness, how?" Agar watched as Pierce calmly went to a sideboard and poured two glasses of brandy. "You'll not put enough of that in me to cloud my eyes," he said. "Now, look plain."
Agar held up his hand, and ticked the points off on his fingers. "I am to ride in the van, you say. But I cannot get in-- an eager jack of a Scotsman stands sharp at the door. You heard as much yourself. But fair enough: I trust you to get me in. Now."
He ticked off another forger. "Now, there I be in the van. The Scotsman locks up from the outside. I've no way to touch that lock, so even if I make the switch, I can't open the door and toss out the pogue. I'm locked in proper, all the way to Folkestone."
"Unless I open the door for you," Pierce said. He gave Agar a snifter of brandy.
Agar swallowed it in a single gulp. "Aye, and there's a likely turn. You come back over all those coaches, tripping light over the rooftops, and swing down like Mr. Coolidge over the side of the van to pick the lock and break the drum. I'll see God in heaven first, no mistake."
Pierce said, "I know Mr. Coolidge."
Agar blinked. "No gull?"
"I met him on the Continent last year. I climbed with him in Switzerland-- three peaks in all-- and I learned what he knows."
Agar was speechless. He stared at Pierce for any sign of deception, scanning the cracksman's face. Mountaineering was a new sport, only three or four years old, but it had captured the popular attention, and the most notable of the English practitioners, such as A. E. Coolidge, had become famous.
"No gull?" Agar said again.
"I have the ropes and tackle up in the closet," Pierce said. "No gull."
"I'll have another daffy," Agar said, holding out his empty glass. Pierce immediately filled it, and Agar immediately gulped it down.
"Well then," he said. "Let's say you can betty the lock, hanging on a rope, and break the drum, and then lock up again, with nobody the wiser. How do I get on in the first place, past the Scots jack, with his sharp cool?"
"There is a way," Pierce said. "It's not pleasant, but there is a way."
Agar appeared unconvinced. "Say you put me on in some trunk. He's bound he'll open it and have a see, and there I am. What then?"
"I intend for him to open it and see you," Pierce said.
"You intend?"
"I think so, and it will go smoothly enough, if you can take a bit of odor."
"What manner of odor?"
"The smell of a dead dog, or cat," Pierce said. "Dead some days. Do you think you can manage that?"
Agar said, "I swear, I don't get the lay. Let's settle the down with another daffy or two," and he extended his glass.
"That's enough," Pierce said. "There are things for you to do. Go to your lodgings, and come back with your best dunnage, the finest you have, and quickly."
Agar sighed.
"Go now," Pierce said. "And trust me."
____________________
When Agar had departed, he sent for Barlow, his cabby.
"Do we have any rope?" Pierce said.
"Rope, sir? You mean hempen rope?"
"Precisely. Do we have any in the house?"
"No, sir. Could you make do with bridle leather?
"No," Pierce said He considered a moment. "Hitch up the horse to the flat carriage and get ready for a night's work. We have a few items to obtain."
Barlow nodded and left. Pierce returned to the dining room, where Miriam was still sitting, patient and calm.
"There's trouble?" she said.
"Nothing beyond repair," Pierce said. "Do you have a black dress? I am thinking of a frock of cheap quality, such as a maid might wear."
"I think so, yes."
"Good," he said. "Set it out, you will wear it tomorrow morning."
"Whatever for?" she asked.
Pierce smiled. "To show your respect for the dead," he said.
On the morning of May 22nd, when the Scottish guard McPherson arrived at the platform of the London Bridge Station to begin the day's work, he was greeted by a most unexpected sight. There alongside the luggage van of the Folkestone train stood a woman in black-- a servant, by the look of her, but handsome enough, and sobbing most piteously.
The object of her grief was not hard to discover, for near the poor girl, set onto a flat baggage cart, was a plain wooden casket. Although cheap and unadorned, the casket had several ventholes drilled in the sides. And mounted on the lid of the casket was a kind of miniature belfry, containing a small bell, with a cord running from the clapper down through a hole to the innards of the coffin.
Although the sight was unexpected, it was not in the least mysterious to McPherson-- or, indeed, to any Victorian of the day. Nor was he surprised, as he approached the coffin, to detect the reeking odor of advanced corporeal decay emanating from the ventholes, and suggesting that the present occupant had been dead for some time. This, too, was wholly understandable.
During the nineteenth century, both in England and in the United States, there arose a peculiar preoccupation with the idea of premature burial. All that remains of this bizarre concern is the macabre literature of Edgar Allan Poe and others, in which premature burial in some form or another appears as a frequent motif. To modern thinking, it is all exaggerated and fanciful; it is difficult now to recognize that for the Victorians, premature burial was a genuine, palpable fear shared by nearly all members of society the most superstitious worker to the best-educated professional man.
Nor was this widespread fear a simply neurotic obsession. Quite the contrary: there was plenty of evidence to lead a sensible man to believe that premature burials did occur, and that such ghastly happenings were only prevented by some fortuitous event. A case in 1853 in Wales, involving an apparently drowned ten-year-old boy, received wide publicity: "While the coffin lay in the open grave, and the first earth was shovelled upon it, a most frightful noise and kicking ensued from within. The sextons ceased their labors, and caused the coffin to be opened, whereupon the lad stepped out, and called for his parents. Yet the same lad had been pronounced dead many hours past, and the doctor said that he had no respirations nor any detectable pulse, and the skin was cold and gray. Upon sighting the lad, his mother fell into a swoon, and did not revive for some length of time."
Most cases of premature burial involved victims ostensibly drowned, or electrocuted, but there were other instances where a person might lapse into a state of "apparent death, or suspended animation."
In fact, the whole question of when a person was dead was very much in doubt-- as it would be again, a century later, when doctors struggled with the ethics of organ transplantation. But it is worth remembering that physicians did not understand that cardiac arrest was wholly reversible until 1950; and in 1850 there was plenty of reason to be skeptical about the reliability of any indicator of death.
Victorians dealt with their uncertainty in two ways. The first was to delay interment for several days-- a week was not uncommon-- and await the unmistakable olfactory evidence of the beloved one's departure rom this world. Indeed, the Victorian willingness to postpone burial sometimes reached extremes. When the Duke of Wellington died, in 1852, there was public debate about the way his state funeral should be conducted; the Iron Duke simply had to wait until these disagreements were settled, and he was not actually buried until more than two months after his death.
The second method for avoiding premature burial was technological; the Victorians contrived an elaborate series of warning and signaling devices to enable a dead person to make known his resuscitation. A. wealthy individual might be buried with a length of iron pipe connecting his casket to the ground above, and a trusted family servant would be required to remain at the cemetery, day and night, for a month or more, on the chance that the deceased would suddenly awake and begin to call for help. Persons buried above-ground, in family vaults, were often placed in patented, spring-loaded caskets, with a complex maze of wires attached to arms and legs, so that the slightest movement of the body would throw open the coffin lid. Many considered this method preferable to any other, for it was believed that individuals often returned from a state of suspended animation in a mute or partially paralyzed condition.
The fact that these spring-loaded coffins popped open months or even years later (undoubtedly the result of some external vibration or deterioration in the spring mechanism) only heightened the widespread uncertainty about how long a person might lie dead before coming back to life, even for a moment.
Most signaling devices were costly, and available only to the wealthy classes. Poor people adopted the simpler tactic of burying relatives with some implement-- a crowbar, or a shovel-- on the vague assumption that if they revived, they could dig themselves out of their predicament.
There was clearly a market for an inexpensive alarm system, and in 1852 George Bateson applied for, and received, a patent for the Bateson Life Revival Device, described as "a most economical, ingenious, and trustworthy mechanism, superior to any other method, and promoting peace of mind amongst the bereaved at all stations of life. Constructed of the finest materials throughout." And there is an additional comment: "A device of proven efficacy, in countless instances in this country and abroad."
"Bateson's belfry," as it was ordinarily known, was a plain iron bell mounted on the lid of the casket, over the deceased's head, and connected by a cord or wire through the coffin to the dead person's hand, "such that the least tremor shall directly sound the alarum." Bateson's belfries attained instant popularity, and within a few years a substantial proportion of coffins were fitted with these bells. During this period, three thousand people died daily in London alone, and Bateson's business was brisk; he was soon a wealthy man and respected as well: in 1859, Victoria, awarded him an O.B.E. for his efforts.
As a kind of odd footnote to the story, Bateson himself lived in mortal terror of being buried alive, and caused his workshop to fabricate increasingly complex alarm systems for installation on his own coffin after he died. By 1867, his preoccupation left him quite insane, and he rewrote his will, directing his family to cremate him at his death. However, suspecting that his instructions would not be followed, in the spring of 1868 he doused himself with linseed oil in his workshop, set himself aflame, and died by self-immolation.
On the morning of May 22nd, McPherson had more important things to worry about than the weeping servant girl and the coffin with its belfry, for he knew that today the gold shipment from Huddleston amp; Bradford would be loaded upon the railway van at any moment.
Through the open door of the van, he saw the guard, Burgess. McPherson waved, and Burgess responded with a nervous, rather reserved greeting. McPherson knew that his uncle, the dispatcher, had yesterday given Burgess a good deal of sharp talk; Burgess was no doubt worried to keep his job, especially as the other guard had been dismissed. McPherson asssumed that this accounted for Burgess's tension.
Or perhaps it was the sobbing woman. It would not be the first time a stout man had been put off his mark by a female's piteous cries. McPherson turned to the young girl and proffered his handkerchief.
"There, now, Missy," he said. "There, now…" He sniffed the air. Standing close to the coffin, he noticed that the odor seeping out of the ventholes was certainly rank. But he was not so overcome by the smell that he failed to observe the girl was attractive, even in her grief. "There, now," he said again.
"Oh, please, sir," the girl cried, taking his handkerchief and sniffling into it. "Oh, please, can you help me? The man is a heartless beast, he is."
"What man is that?" McPherson demanded, in a burst of outrage.
"Oh, please, sir, that guard upon the line. He will not let me set my dear brother here upon the train, for he says I must await another guard. Oh, I am most wretched," she finished, and dissolved into tears once more.
"Why, the unfeeling rogue, he would not let your brother be put aboard?"
Through sobs and sniffles, the girl said something about rules.
"Rules?" he said. "A pox on rules, I say." He noticed her heaving bosom, and her pretty, narrow waist.
"Please, sir, he is most firm about the other guard--"
"Missy," he said, "I am the other guard, standing here before you, and I'll see your dear brother on the train with no delay, and never you mind that blackguard."
"Oh, sir, I am in your debt," she said, managing a smile through her tears.
McPherson was overwhelmed: he was a young man, and it was springtime, and the girl was pretty, and soon to be in his debt. At the same instant, he felt the greatest compassion and tenderness for her distress. Altogether, he was set spinning with the emotions of the moment.
"Just you wait," he promised, and turned to chastise Burgess for his heartless and overzealous adherence to the rules. But before he could make known his opinion, he saw the first of the gray-uniformed, armed guards of Huddleston amp; Bradford, bringing the bullion consignment down the platform toward them.
The loading was carried out with sharp precision. First, two guards carne down the platform, entered the van, and made a quick search of the interior. Then eight more guards arrived, in neat formation around two flatcarts, each pushed by a gang of grunting, sweating porters-- and each piled high with rectangular, sealed strongboxes.
At the van, a ramp was swung down, and the porters joined together to push first one, and then the other, of the laden flatcarts up into the van, to the waiting safes.
Next an official of the bank, a well-rigged gent with an air of authority, appeared with two keys in his hand. Soon after, McPherson's uncle, the dispatcher, arrived with a second pair of keys. His uncle and the bank's man inserted their keys in the safes and opened them.
The bullion strongboxes were loaded into the safes, and the doors were shut with a massive metal clang that echoed in the interior of the luggage van. The keys were twisted in the locks; the safes were secured.
The man from the bank took his keys and departed. McPherson's uncle pocketed his keys and came over to his nephew.
"Mind your work this morning," he said. "Open every parcel large enough to hold a knave, and no exception." He sniffed the air. "What's that ungodly stink?"
McPherson nodded over his shoulder to the girl and the coffin, a short distance away. It was a pitiful sight but his uncle frowned with no trace of compassion. "Scheduled for the morning train, is it?"
"Yes, Uncle."
"See that you open it,". the dispatcher said, and turned away.
"But, Uncle--" McPherson began, thinking he would lose his newly gained favor with the girl by insisting on such a thing.
The dispatcher stopped. "No stomach for it? Dear God, you're a delicate one." He scanned the youth's agonized face, misinterpreting his discomfiture. "All right, then. I'm near enough to death that it holds no terrors for me. Ill see to it myself." And the dispatcher strode off toward the weeping girl and her coffin. McPherson trailed reluctantly behind.
It was at that moment that they heard an electrifying, ghastly sound: the ringing of Mr. Bateson's patented bell.
____________________
In later courtroom testimony, Pierce explained the psychology behind the plan. "Any guard watches for certain happenings, which he suspects at any moment, and lies in wait for. I knew the railway guard suspected some fakement to smuggle a living body onto the van. Now, a vigilant guard will know a coffin can easily hold a body; he will suspect it less, because it seems such a poor trick for smuggling. It is too obvious.
"Yet, he will likely wonder if the body is truly dead, and if he is vigilant he will call to have the box opened, and spend some moments making a thorough examination of the body to insure that it is dead. He may feel the pulse, or the warmth of the flesh, or he may stick a pin here or there. Now, no living soul scan pass such an examination without detection.
"But how different it is if all believe that the body is not dead, but alive, and wrongly incarcerated. Now all emotions are reversed: instead of suspicion, there is hope the body is vital. Instead of a solemn and respectful opening of the casket, there is a frantic rush to break it free, and in this the relatives join in willingly, sure proof there is nothing to hide.
"And then, when the lid is raised and the decomposed remains come to light, how different is the response of the spectators. Their desperate hopes are dashed in an instant; the cruel and ghastly truth is immediately apparent at a moment's glance, and warrants no prolonged investigation. The relatives are bitterly disappointed and wildly distraught. The lid is quickly closed-- and all because of reversed expectations. This is simple human nature, as evidenced in every ordinary man."
____________________
At the sound of the bell, which rang only once, and briefly, the sobbing girl let out a shriek. At the same instant, the dispatcher and his nephew broke into a run, quickly covering the short distance to the coffin.
By then the girl was in a state of profound hysteria, clawing at the coffin lid with her fingers, mindless that her efforts were ineffectual. "Oh, my dear brother-- oh, Richard, dear Richard-- oh, God, he lives…" Her fingers scrabbled at the wooden surface, and her tugging rocked the coffin so that the bell rang continuously.
The dispatcher and his nephew instantly caught the girl's frantic anxiety, but they were able to proceed with more sense. The lid was closed with a series of metal latches, and they opened them one after another. Apparently it never occurred to either man, in the heat of the moment, that this coffin had more latches than any three others. And certainly the process of opening was more prolonged as the poor girl, in her agony, somehow impeded their efforts with her own.
In a few moments, the men were at a fever pitch of intensity. And all the while, the girl cried, "Oh, Richard-- dear God, make haste, he's alive-- please, dear God, he lives, praise God…" And all the while, the bell rang from the rocking of the coffin.
The commotion drew a crowd of some size, which stood a few paces back on the platform, taking in the bizarre spectacle.
"Oh, hurry, hurry, lest we are too late," the girl cried, and the men worked frantically at the latches. Indeed, only when they were at the final two latches did the dispatcher hear the girl cry, "Oh, I knew it was not cholera, he was a quack to say it. Oh, I knew…"
The dispatcher froze, his hand on the latch. "Cholera?" he said.
"Oh, hurry, hurry," the girl cried. "It is five days now I have waited to hear the bell…"
"You say cholera?" the dispatcher repeated. "Five days?"
But the nephew, who had not stopped throwing off the latches, now flung the coffin lid wide.
"Thank God!" cried the girl, and threw herself down upon the body inside, as if to hug her brother. But she halted in mid-gesture, which was perfectly understandable. With the raising of the lid, a most hideous, fetid, foul stench rolled forth in a near palpable wave, and its source was not hard to determine; the body lying within, dressed in his best Sunday clothes, hands folded across the chest, was already in a state of obvious decomposition.
The exposed flesh at the face and hands was bloated and puffed, a repellent gray-green color. The lips were black, and so was the partially protruding tongue. The dispatcher and his nephew hardly saw more of that horrific spectacle before the feverish girl, with a final scream of heart-wrenching agony, swooned on the spot. The nephew instantly leapt to attend her, and the dispatcher, with no less alacrity, closed the lid and began shutting the latches wit onsiderably more haste than he had displayed in opening them.
The watching crowd, when it heard that the man had died of cholera, dissipated with the same swiftness. In a moment, the station platform was nearly deserted.
Soon the servant girl recovered from her swoon, but she remained in a state of profound distress. She kept asking softly, "How can it be? I heard the bell. Did you not hear the bell? I heard it plain, did you not? The bell rang."
McPherson did his best to comfort her, saying that it must have been some earth tremor or sudden gust of wind that had caused the bell to ring.
The station dispatcher, seeing that his nephew was occupied with the poor child, took it upon himself to supervise the loading of luggage into the van of the Folkestone train. He did this with as much diligence as he could muster after such a distressing experience. Two well-dressed ladies had large trunks and, despite their haughty protests, he insisted that both be unlocked an opened for his inspection. There was only one further incident, when a portly gentleman placed a parrot-- or some such multicolored bird-- on the van, and then demanded that his manservant be permitted to ride with the bird and look after its needs. The dispatcher refused, explaining the new rules of the railway. The gentleman became abusive, and then offered the dispatcher "a sensible gratuity," but the dispatcher-- who viewed the proffered ten shillings with somewhat more interest than he cared to admit, even to himself-- was aware that he was being watched by Burgess, the same guard whom he had admonished the day before. Thus the dispatcher was forced to turn down the bribe, to his own displeasure and also that of the gentleman, who stomped off muttering a litany, of stinging profanity.
These incidents did nothing to improve the dispatcher's mood, and when at last the malodorous coffin was loaded into the van, the dispatcher took a certain delight in warning Burgess, in tones of great solicitousness, to look after his health, since his fellow passenger had fallen victim to King Cholera.
To this, Burgess made no response at all, except to look nervous and out of sorts-- which had been his appearance prior to the admonition. Feeling vaguely dissatisfied, the dispatcher barked a final order to his nephew to get on with the job and lock up the van. Then he returned to his office.
With embarrassment, the dispatcher later testified that he had no recollection of any red-bearded gentleman in the station that day at all.
In fact, Pierce had been among the crowd that witnessed the dreadful episode of the opened coffin. He saw that the episode proceeded precisely as he had intended, and that Agar, in his hideous make-up, had escaped detection.
When the crowd dissipated, Pierce moved forward to the van, with Barlow at his side. Barlow was carrying some rather odd luggage on a porter's trolley, and Pierce had a moment of disquiet when he saw the dispatcher himself take up the job of supervising the loading of the van. For if anyone considered it, Pierces behavior was distinctly odd.
To all appearances, he was a prosperous gentleman. But his luggage was unusual, to say the least: five identical satchels of leather. These satchels were hardly the sort of items considered agreeable by gentlemen. The leather was coarse and the stitching at the seams was crude and obvious. If the satchels were unquestionably sturdy, they were also unmistakably ugly.
Yet none was very large, and Pierce could easily have stowed them in the overhead luggage racks of his carriage compartment, instead of the luggage van. The van was ordinarily considered a nuisance, since it meant delays at both the start and the conclusion of the journey.
Finally, Pierces manservant-- he did not employ a railway porter-- loaded the bags onto the luggage van separately. Although the servant was a burly character of evident strength, he was clearly straining under the weight of each satchel.
In short, a thoughtful man might wonder why a gentleman of quality traveled with five small, ugly, extremely heavy, and identical bags. Pierce watched the dispatcher's face while the bags were loaded, one after another. The dispatcher, somewhat pale, never noticed the bags at all, and indeed did not emerge from his distracted state until another gentleman arrived with a parrot, and an argument ensued.
Pierce drifted away, but did not board the train. Instead, he remained near the far end of the platform, apparently curious about the recovery of the woman who had fainted. In fact, he was lingering in the hope of seeing the padlock that he would soon be attempting to pick. When the dispatcher left, with a final sharp rebuke to his nephew, the young woman made her way toward the coaches. Pierce fell into step beside her.
"Are you fully recovered, Miss?" he asked.
"I trust so," she said.
They merged with the boarding crowd at the coaches. Pierce said, "Perhaps you will join me in my compartment for the duration of the journey?"
"You are kind," the girl said, with a slight nod.
"Get rid of him," Pierce whispered to her. "I don't care how, just do it."
Miriam had a puzzled look for only a moment, and then a hearty voice boomed out, "Edward! Edward, my dear fellow!" A man was pushing toward them through the crowd.
Pierce waved a delighted greeting. "Henry," he called. "Henry Fowler, what an extraordinary surprise.
Fowler came over and shook Pierce's hand. "Fancy meeting you here," he said. "Are you on this train? Yes? Why, so am I, the fact of the matter-- ah…" His voice trailed off as he noticed the girl at Pierce's side. He displayed some discomfiture, for in terms of Henry Fowler's social world all the signals were mixed. Here was Pierce, dressed handsomely and showing his usual polish, standing with a girl who was, God knew, pretty enough, but by her dress and manner a very common sort.
Pierce was a bachelor and a blood, and he might travel openly with a mistress for a holiday by the sea, but such a girl would certainly be dressed with gentility, which this girl was not. And contrariwise, were this creature a servant in his household, he would hardly have her out and about in so public a place as a train station unless there was some particular reason for it, but Fowler could not imagine a reason.
Then, too, he perceived that the girl had been weeping; her eyes were red and there were streaks upon her cheeks, and so it was all most perplexing and unusual, and--
Pierce put Fowler out of his misery. "Forgive me," he said, turning to the girl. "I should introduce you, but I do not know your name. This is Mr. Henry Fowler."
The girl, giving him a demure smile, said, "I am Brigid Lawson. How'd you do, sir."
Fowler nodded a vaguely polite greeting, struggling to assume the correct stance toward an obvious servant girl (and therefore not an equal) and a female in distress (and therefore deserving of gentlemanly conduct, so long as her distress sprang from some morally acceptable exigency). Pierce made the situation clearer.
"Miss, ah, Lawson, has just had a most trying encounter," Pierce said. "She is traveling to accompany her deceased brother, who is now situated in the van. But a few moments past, the bell rang, and there was hope of revival and the casket was opened--"
"I see, I see," Fowler said, "most distressing--"
"--but it was a false alarm," Pierce said.
"And thus doubly painful, I am certain," Fowler said.
"I offered to accompany her on the journey," Pierce laid.
"And indeed I should do the same," Fowler said, "were I in your place. In fact…" He hesitated. "Would it seem an imposition if I joined you both?"
Pierce did not hesitate. "By all means," he said cheerfully. "That is, unless Miss Lawson…"
"You are ever so kind, you two are," the girl said,;with a brave but grateful smile.
"Well, it's settled, then," Fowler said, also smiling. Pierce saw that he was looking at the girl with interest. "But would you like to come with me? My compartment is just a short way forward." He pointed up the line of first-class coaches.
Pierce, of course, intended to sit in the last compartment of the final first-class coach. From there, he would have the shortest distance to travel, over the tops of the cars, to reach the luggage van at the rear.
"Actually," Pierce said, "I've my own compartment down there." He pointed toward the back of the train. "My bags are already there, and I've paid the porter, and so on."
"My dear Edward," Fowler said, "How did you get yourself way back there? The choice compartments are all toward the front, where the noise is minified. Come along: I assure you, you'll find a forward compartment more to your liking, and particularly if Miss Lawson feels poorly…" He shrugged as if to suggest the conclusion was obvious.
"Nothing would delight me more," Pierce said, "but in truth I have selected my compartment on the advice of my physician, after experiencing certain distress on railway journeys. This he has attributed to the effects of vibrations originating in the engine, and therefore he's warned me to sit as far back from the source as possible." Pierce gave a short laugh. "He said, in fact, that I should sit second class, but I cannot bring myself to it."
"And little wonder," Fowler said. "There is a limit to healthy living, though you cannot expect a physician to know it. My own once advised me to quit wine-- can you imagine the temerity? Very well, then, we shall all ride in your compartment.
Pierce said, "Perhaps Miss Lawson feels, as you do, that a forward carriage would be preferable."
Before the girl could speak, Fowler said, "What? And steal her away from you, leaving you solitary upon the journey? I would not think of it. Come, come, the train will soon leave. Where is your compartment?"
They walked the length of the train to Pierces compartment. Fowler was in unshakable good spirits, and chattered at length about physicians and their foibles. They stepped into Pierce's compartment and closed the door. Pierce glanced at his watch: it was six minutes to eight. The train did not always leave precisely on schedule, but even so, time was short.
Pierce had to get rid of Fowler. He could not climb out of his compartment onto the roof of the train if there were any strangers-- and certainly anyone from the bank-- in his compartment. But at the same time, he had to get rid of Fowler in such a way that no suspicion would be aroused; for in the aftermath of the robbery Mr. Fowler would search his memory-- and probably be questioned by the authorities-- to uncover the least hint of irregularity that might explain who the robbers were.
Mr. Fowler was still talking, but his focus was directed toward the girl, who gave every appearance of rapt and fascinated attention. "It's the most extraordinary luck, running across Edward today. Do you travel this route often, Edward? I myself do it no more than once a month. And you, Miss Lawson?"
"I been on a train before," the girl said, "but I never gone first class; only my mistress, this time she buys me a first ticket, seeing as how, you know…"
"Oh, quite, quite," Fowler said, in a hearty, chin-up manner. "One must do all one can for one in times of stress. I must confess, I am under no little stress myself this morning. Now, Edward here, he may have guessed the reason for my travel, and therefore my stress. Eh, Edward? Have you a guess?"
Pierce had not been listening. He was staring out the window, considering how to get rid of Fowler in the remaining few minutes. He looked over at Fowler. "Do you think your bags are safe?" he said.
"My bags? Bags? What-- Oh, in my compartment? I have no bags, Edward. I carry not so much as a ease of briefs, for once in Folkestone, I shall remain there just two hours, hardly the space of time to take a meal, or some refreshments, or smoke a cigar, before I am back on the train, homeward bound."
Smoke a cigar, Pierce thought. Of course. He reached into his coat pocket, and withdrew a long cigar, which he lit.
"Now, then, dear girl," Fowler said, "our friend Edward here shall surely have surmised the purpose of my journey, but I fancy you are still in the dark."
The girl was, in fact, staring at Mr. Fowler with her mouth slightly open.
"The truth is that this is no ordinary train, and I am no ordinary passenger. On the contrary, I am the general manager of the banking firm of Huddleston amp; Bradford, Westminster, and today, aboard this very train-- not two hundred paces from us as we sit here-- my firm has stored a quantity of gold bullion for shipment overseas to our brave troops. Can you imagine how much? No? Well, then-- it is a quantity in excess of twelve thousand pounds, my dear child."
"Cor!" the girl exclaimed. "And you're in charge of all that?"
"I am indeed." Henry Fowler was looking plainly self-satisfied, and with reason. He had obviously overwhelmed the simple girl with his words, and she now regarded him with dizzy admiration. And perhaps more? She appeared to have entirely forgotten Pierce.
That is, until Pierce's cigar smoke billowed in gray clouds within the compartment. Now the girl coughed in a delicate, suggestive fashion, as she had no doubt observed her mistress to do. Pierce, staring out the window, did not seem to notice.
The girl coughed again, more insistently. When Pierce still made no response, Fowler took it upon himself to speak. "Are you feeling well?" he inquired.
"I was, but I'm faint…" The girl made a vague gesture toward the smoke.
"Edward," Fowler said. "I believe your tobacco causes Miss Lawson some distress, Edward."
Pierce looked at him and said, "What?"
"I say, would you mind--" Fowler began.
The girl bent forward and said, "I feel quite faint, I fear, please," and she extended a hand toward the door, as if to open it.
"Just look, now," Fowler said to Pierce. Fowler opened the door and helped the girl-- who leaned rather heavily upon his arm-- into the fresh air.
"I had no idea," Pierce protested. "Believe me, had I but known--"
"You might have inquired before lighting your diabolical contraption," Fowler said, with the girl leaning against him, weak-kneed, so that much of her bosom pressed against his chest.
"I'm most dreadfully sorry," Pierce said. He started to get out himself, to lend assistance.
The last thing Fowler wanted was assistance. "You shouldn't smoke anyway, if your doctor has warned you that trains are hazardous to your health," he snapped. "Come, my dear," he said to the girl, "my compartment is just this way, and we can continue our conversation with no danger of noxious fumes." The girl went willingly.
"Dreadfully sorry," Pierce said again, but neither of them looked back.
A moment later, the whistle blew and the engine began to chug. Pierce stepped into his compartment, shut the door, and watched London Bridge Station slide away past his window as the morning train to Folkestone began to gather speed.