The Great Train Robbery (23 page)

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 police 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 had 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, the Golden Arms, looked around, and left by 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 and 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 & 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, in 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 public house, a notorious place. He entered it, left 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.