The Great Train Robbery (24 page)

The pawnbroker thus filled an important niche in 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, secondhand 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 convince Bill of the 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 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 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 warm 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 the 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 to 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 a while 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?”