The Great Train Robbery - Crichton Michael - Страница 32

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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.

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