The Great Train Robbery (7 page)

Such a squalid, malodorous and dangerous tenement was no place for a gentleman, particularly after nightfall on a foggy summer evening. Yet in late July, 1854, a red-bearded man in fashionable attire walked fearlessly through the smoke-filled, cramped and narrow lanes. The loiterers and vagrants watching him no doubt observed that his silver-headed cane looked ominously heavy, and might conceal a blade. There was also a bulge about the trousers that implied a barker tucked in the waistband. And the very boldness of such a foolhardy incursion probably intimidated many of those who might be tempted to waylay him.

Pierce himself later said, “It is the demeanor which is respected among these people. They know the look of fear, and likewise its absence and any man who is not afraid makes them afraid in turn.”

Pierce went from street to stinking street, inquiring after a certain woman. Finally he found a lounging soak who knew her.

“It’s Maggie you want? Little Maggie?” the man
asked, leaning against a yellow gas lamppost, his face deep shadows in the fog.

“She’s a judy, Clean Willy’s doll.”

“I know of her. Pinches laundry, doesn’t she? Aye, she does a bit of snow, I’m sure of it.” Here the man paused significantly, squinting.

Pierce gave him a coin. “Where shall I find her?”

“First passing up, first door to yer right,” the man said.

Pierce continued on.

“But it’s no use your bothering,” the man called after him. “Willy’s in the stir now—in Newgate, no less—and he has only the cockchafer on his mind.”

Pierce did not look back. He walked down the street, passing vague shadows in the fog, and here and there a woman whose clothing glowed in the night—matchstick dippers with patches of phosphorous on their garments. Dogs barked; children cried; whispers and groans and laughter were conveyed to him through the fog. Finally he arrived at the nethersken, with its bright rectangle of yellow light at the entrance, shining on a crudely hand-painted sign which read:

Pierce glanced at the sign, then entered the building, pushing his way past the throng of dirty, ragged children clustered about the stairs; he cuffed one briskly, to show them there was to be no plucking at his pockets. He climbed the creaking stairs to the second floor, and asked after the woman named Maggie. He was told she was in the kitchen, and so he descended again, to the basement.

The kitchen was the center of every lodging house, and at this hour it was a warm and friendly place, a focus of heat and rich smells, while the fog curled gray
and cold outside the windows. A half-dozen men stood by the fire, talking and drinking; at a side table, several men and women played cards while others sipped bowls of steaming soup; tucked away in the corners were musical instruments, beggars’ crutches, hawkers’ baskets, and peddlers’ boxes. He found Maggie, a dirty child of twelve, and drew her to one side. He gave her a gold guinea, which she bit. She flashed a half-smile.

“What is it, then, guv?” She looked appraisingly at his fine clothes, a calculating glance far beyond her years. “A bit of a tickle for you?”

Pierce ignored the suggestion. “You dab it up with Clean Willy?”

She shrugged. “I did. Willy’s in.”

“Newgate?”

“Aye.”

“You see him?”

“I do, once and again. I goes as his sister, see.”

Pierce pointed to the coin she clutched in her hand. “There’s another one of those if you can downy him a message.”

For a moment, the girl’s eyes glowed with interest. Then they went blank again. “What’s the lay?”

“Tell Willy, he should break at the next topping. It’s to be Emma Barnes, the murderess. They’ll hang her in public for sure. Tell him: break at the topping.”

She laughed. It was an odd laugh, harsh and rough. “Willy’s in Newgate,” she said, “and there’s no breaks from Newgate—topping or no.”

“Tell him
he
can,” Pierce said. “Tell him to go to the house where he first met John Simms, and all will be well enough.”

“Are you John Simms?”

“I am a friend,” Pierce said. “Tell him the next topping and he’s over the side, or he’s not Clean Willy.”

She shook her head. “How can he break from Newgate?”

“Just tell him,” Pierce said, and turned to leave.

At the door to the kitchen, he looked back at her, a skinny child, stoop-shouldered in a ragged secondhand dress spattered with mud, her hair matted and filthy.

“I’ll tell,” she said, and slipped the gold coin into her shoe. He turned away from her and retraced his steps, leaving the Holy Land. He came out of a narrow alley, turned into Leicester Square, and joined the crowd in front of the Mayberry Theatre, blending in, disappearing.

Respectable London was quiet at night. In the era before the internal combustion engine, the business and financial districts at the center of the town were deserted and silent except for the quiet footsteps of the Metropolitan Police constables making their twenty-minute rounds.

As dawn came, the silence was broken by the crowing of roosters and the mooing of cows, barnyard sounds incongruous in an urban setting. But in those days there was plenty of livestock in the central city, and animal husbandry was still a major London industry—and indeed, during the day, a major source of traffic congestion. It was not uncommon for a fine gentleman to be delayed in his coach by a shepherd with his flock moving through the streets of the city. London was the largest urban concentration in the
world at that time, but by modern standards the division between city and country life was blurred.

Blurred, that is, until the Horse Guards clock chimed seven o’clock, and the first of that peculiarly urban phenomenon—commuters—appeared on their way to work, conveyed by “the Marrowbone stage”; that is, on foot. These were the armies of women and girls employed as seamstresses in the sweatshops of West End dress factories, where they worked twelve hours a day for a few shillings a week.

At eight o’clock, the shops along the great thoroughfares took down their shutters; apprentices and assistants dressed the windows in preparation for the day’s commerce, setting out what one sarcastic observer called “the innumerable whim-whams and fribble-frabble of fashion.”

Between eight and nine o’clock was rush hour, and the streets became crowded with men. Everyone from government clerks to bank cashiers, from stockbrokers to sugar-bakers and soap-boilers, made their way to work on foot, in omnibuses, tandems, dogcarts—altogether a rattling, noisy, thickly jammed traffic of vehicles and drivers who cursed and swore and lashed at their horses.

In the midst of this, the street sweepers began their day’s labors. In the ammonia-rich air, they collected the first droppings of horse dung, dashing among the carts and omnibuses. And they were busy: an ordinary London horse, according to Henry Mayhew, deposited six tons of dung on the streets each year, and there were at least a million horses in the city.

Gliding through the midst of this confusion, a few elegant broughams, with gleaming dark polished wood carriages and delicately sprung, lacy-spoked wheels, conveyed their substantial citizens in utter comfort to the day’s employment.

Pierce and Agar, crouched on a rooftop overlooking the imposing façade of the Huddleston & Bradford
Bank across the way, watched as one such brougham came down the street toward them.

“There he is now,” Agar said.

Pierce nodded. “Well, we shall know soon enough.” He checked his watch. “Eight twenty-nine. Punctual, as usual.”

Pierce and Agar had been on the rooftop since dawn. They had watched the early arrival of the tellers and clerks; they had seen the traffic in the street and on the pavements grow more brisk and hurried with each passing minute.

Now the brougham pulled up to the door of the bank, and the driver jumped down to open the door. The senior partner of Huddleston & Bradford stepped down to the pavement. He was near sixty, his beard was gray, and he had a considerable paunch; whether he was balding or not, Pierce could not discern, for a high top hat covered his head.

“He’s a fat one, isn’t he,” Agar said.

“Watch, now,” Pierce said.

At the very moment Mr. Trent stepped to the ground, a well-dressed young man jostled him roughly, muttered a brief apology over his shoulder, and moved on in the rush-hour crowd. Mr. Trent ignored the incident. He walked the few steps forward to the impressive oak doors of the bank.

Then he stopped, halting in mid-stride.

“He’s realized,” Pierce said.

On the street below, Trent looked after the well-dressed young man, and immediately patted his side coat pocket, feeling for some article. Apparently, what he sought was still in its place; his shoulders dropped in relief, and he continued on into the bank.

The brougham clattered off; the bank doors swung shut.

Pierce grinned and turned to Agar. “Well,” he said, “that’s that.”

“That’s what?” Agar said.

“That’s what we need to know.”

“What do we need to know, then?” Agar said.

“We need to know,” Pierce said slowly, “that Mr. Trent brought his key with him today, for this is the day of—” He broke off abruptly. He had not yet informed Agar of the plan, and he saw no reason to do so until the last minute. A man with a tendency to be a soak, like Agar, could loosen his tongue at an unlikely time. But no drunk could split what he did not know.

“The day of what?” Agar persisted.

“The day of reckoning,” Pierce said.

“You’re a tight one,” Agar said. And then he added, “Wasn’t that Teddy Burke, trying a pull?”

“Who’s Teddy Burke?” Pierce said.

“A swell, works the Strand.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Pierce said, and the two men left the rooftop.

“Cor, you’re a tight one,” Agar said again. “That
was
Teddy Burke.”

Pierce just smiled.

In the coming weeks, Pierce learned a great deal about Mr. Edgar Trent and his daily routine. Mr. Trent was a rather severe and devout gentleman; he rarely drank, never smoked or played at cards. He was the father of five children; his first wife had died in childbirth some years before and his second wife, Emily, was thirty years his junior and an acknowledged beauty, but she was as severe in disposition as her husband.

The Trent family resided at No. 17 Brook Street, Mayfair, in a large Georgian mansion with twenty-three rooms, not including servants’ quarters. Altogether, twelve servants were employed: a coach driver, two liverymen, a gardener, a doorman, a butler, a cook and two kitchen assistants, and three maids. There was also a governess for the three youngest children.

The children ranged in age from a four-year-old son to a twenty-nine-year-old daughter. All lived in the house. The youngest child had a tendency to somnambulation, so that there were often commotions at night that roused the entire household.

Mr. Trent kept two bulldogs, which were walked twice a day, at seven in the morning and at eight-fifteen at night, by the cook’s assistants. The dogs were penned in a run at the back of the house, not far from the tradesmen’s entrance.

Mr. Trent himself followed a rigid routine. Each day, he arose at 7 a.m., breakfasted at 7:30, and departed for work at 8:10, arriving at 8:29. He invariably lunched at Simpson’s at one o’clock, for one hour. He left the bank promptly at 7 p.m., returning home no later than 7:20. Although he was a member of several clubs in town, he rarely frequented them. Mr. Trent and his wife went out of an evening twice in the course of a week; they generally gave a dinner once a week and occasionally a large party. On such evenings, an extra maid and manservant would be laid on, but these people were obtained from adjacent households; they were very reliable and could not be bribed.

The tradesmen who came each day to the side entrance of the house worked the entire street, and they were careful never to associate with a potential thief. For a fruit or vegetable hawker, a “polite street” was not easily come by, and they were all a close-mouthed lot.

A chimney sweep named Marks worked the same area. He was known to inform the police of any approach by a lurker seeking information. The sweep’s boy was a simpleton; nothing could be got from him.

The constable patrolling the street, Lewis, made his rounds once every seventeen minutes. The shift changed at midnight; the night man, Howell, made his rounds
once every sixteen minutes. Both men were highly reliable, never sick or drunk, and not susceptible to bribes.

The servants were content. None had been recently hired, nor had any been recently discharged; they were all well-treated and loyal to the household, particularly to Mrs. Trent. The coach driver was married to the cook; one of the liverymen was sleeping with one of the upstairs maids; the other two maids were comely and did not, apparently, lack for male companionship—they had found lovers among the serving staff of nearby households.

The Trent family took an annual seaside holiday during the month of August, but they would not do so this year, for Mr. Trent’s business obligations were such that he was required to remain in town the whole of the summer. The family occasionally weekended in the country at the home of Mrs. Trent’s parents, but during these outings most of the servants remained in the mansion. At no time, it seemed, were there fewer than eight people residing in the house.