The Man Who Was Jekyll and Hyde (8 page)

Then there were his two most expensive obligations: a pair of mistresses (see chapter 2) and their broods who required keeping in the manner to which they had become accustomed. That meant an expectation that when rents and food threatened to be unpayable he would be standing ready to bear his (what a word for him) responsibility.

Despite his business going relatively well, with his privileged access to council work and high demand from wealthy private clients, it began to dawn on him that his after-hours lifestyle could not be maintained on what he could earn legally, even with the help of his fast-diminishing inheritance, and that something would inevitably have to give.

The process would, of course, take time, the aforementioned factors gradually combining over something like six years with other negatives – huge gaming debts, a taste for late-night drinking and out-of-bounds women – to create the perfect financial storm. Though unable or unwilling to tame himself, he finally saw that his new life could only end one way, and, with his double personality working overtime, his ‘respectable’ side could not abide the thought of bankruptcy. By 1786 he had decided that a new tack was urgently needed, and it would have to be about generating enough income. This was the catalytic acceptance that marked the birth of William Brodie’s active criminal half.

In many ways his life had been already divided into two, as contrasting as night and day: the neat, tidy and superficially charming man who walked and talked his way around the city’s transparent daytime world of hearty greetings, respectable social contact, deals and dealmakers and his opposing night-time world of flickering street lanterns, dark closes, drunken trysts, dubious motivations, violence and shady contacts.

Though it was at first a secret only to himself, this darker half that he feigned to struggle with but really relished was about to take over his life. It had occurred to him in the course of his legitimate work – the making of cabinets with doors and house or office doors themselves – that if he had not fitted them himself, he had exclusive access to some clients’ keys, having a whole selection either directly to hand or being able to find and copy them. And while the conclusion of this thought was fully forming, a double opportunity was presenting itself. The council had decided, with the inclusion of his vote, to clear away the ancient cobbles of the High Street and lower its overall level, with the attendant need to replace doors (often with new locks) – which was, almost literally, just up Brodie’s street. So many keys! So many chances to access other people’s premises! It was more than such an easily tempted man could resist.

There is no record of whether the Deacon battled with his conscience at this point, but one suspects not; if he had such a thing, he might have paid it lip service, but all the evidence suggests he was romantically excited about his new ‘naughty’ choice of direction; that he saw it as a kind of (nicely lucrative) sport. And so it all began, the long series of sinister house and shop break-ins that suddenly gripped the city centre and deeply puzzled it too. Some places were entered with so little disturbance and damage that many people began to think there was some supernatural power at work.

For Brodie the delicious irony of it all was that – while making all the right shocked noises to the victims and acquaintances about such ‘outrageous’ thefts – he himself was benefiting from alarmed property-owners asking for increased security in the form of stronger doors and better locks.

So what were the offending incidents? Not considering earlier events suspected of being his work, such as the daylight robbery of an old lady and that of Thomson’s tobacconist shop just after his father died in 1780 (see the previous chapter), the main series happened some six years later. This consisted of eleven break-ins in all, the first perpetrated by Brodie himself who, on such expeditions, always carried a shaded lantern and sometimes a pistol (or two), and dressed in a crepe mask and dark clothes. He made his first mistake when he began to work with three dubious accomplices.

First to be recruited – as a daytime locksmith for the Brodie workshop as well as an aide in nocturnal projects – was a Berkshire refugee called George Smith, who had come to Scotland with his wife and horse-drawn cart in mid-1786 and taken shelter at the Grassmarket stables of Michael Henderson, which accommodated not just horses and fighting cocks but (according to one historian) ‘the lower order of travellers’.

Being around there a lot to cheer on his feathered friends, William Brodie soon made Smith’s acquaintance and noted not just his dire circumstances but also his professed skills as a locksmith. With his physical and financial health going rapidly downhill, the Englishman had had to sell his horse and cart to pay his rent, so – Brodie reckoned – he would no doubt be open to ‘ideas’ to improve his lot. Having accordingly groomed him with friendly conversation, Brodie eventually broached the possibility of ‘something being done to advantage, provided a due degree of caution is exercised’ – and did not have to ask twice. The ‘doing of something’ was clearly nothing new or particularly daunting to Smith, who, having had his expertise with locks well tested by Brodie, was quickly brought on board – and just as quickly improved his lot by setting up home and a suitable ‘front’ as small grocery shop in the Cowgate. He often accompanied his boss to his favourite den of iniquity, Clark’s gambling house in Fleshmarket Close, where, over well-lubricated card games, they both befriended the other two recruits: Andrew Ainslie, sometime shoemaker in Edinburgh, and another Englishman-on-the-run, John Brown, who often called himself Humphrey Moore. They occupied a lodging together at the foot of Burnet’s Close.

Two Scots and two Englishmen, stretching across several strata of society. But what they had in common was the fact that each was a misfit in one way or another. Such a motley little army needed a little general, and, after doing the first ‘job’ himself, Brodie began to revel in that role as project-planning became increasingly precise and sophisticated. Indeed, the job description for Smith should have included ‘opportunities to travel’ for part of the operation became fencing off certain acquired articles – such as the proceeds from goldsmith John Tapp’s house and the silver mace from the university – as far away as was practicable. This meant getting to Chesterfield where ‘expelled’ Scot John Tasker (alias Murray) was the only-too-willing receiver of such goods for selling at his Bird in Hand shop. And it meant at least one long Brodie-funded coach trip back to his homeland for George Smith, who must have thought – perversely – that he had come up in the world since crossing the border with his horse and cart so relatively recently.

The timeline of their misdeeds – or their crimeline, if you like – began in mid-1786 and went like this:

12 August
: The outer door of Messrs Johnston and Smith, bankers in the Royal Exchange, is opened – presumably by a counterfeit key – and over £800 taken from the drawers. Most notes are from the big three banks of the time, Bank of Scotland, Royal Bank and British Linen. Messrs Johnston and Smith resolve to fight for the money’s recovery, denouncing the ‘wicked persons’ responsible and announcing, through the
Edinburgh Evening Courant
, that a good reward is being offered – £5 for every £100 recovered with the help of any informer. This need not be an involved party, it is suggested, ‘as some smith may very innocently have made an impression of clay or wax, such smith giving information, so as the person who got the key may be discovered, shall be handsomely rewarded’.

9 October
: The Parliament Close shop of goldsmith James Wemyss loses fifty gold and diamond rings, brooches and earrings, also a whole variety of valuable spoons. In reporting the story, the
Courant
issues a warning to other such shopkeepers, writing: ‘As the public, as well as the private party, are greatly interested that this daring robbery be discovered, it is requested that all Goldsmiths, Merchants and other Traders throughout Scotland, may be attentive in case any goods answering to those above-mentioned shall be offered for sale.’ A ten-guinea reward offered by the Incorporation of Goldsmiths ‘upon conviction of the offender or offenders’ attracts no interest and is assumed (too late) to have been too modest.

November
: Bridge Street hardware merchants McKain’s has clearly been broken into – the lock that should have kept out intruders has been breached – and loses seventeen steel watch-chains in what is later revealed by Smith to have been a practice run for the real thing a fortnight later. This is thwarted in mid-burglary by Smith hearing ‘a person in the room immediately below rise out of his bed’ causing him to run ‘straight into the street’ and be off with a waiting Brodie, so nothing appears to have been stolen.

8 December
: The shop of John Law, tobacconist in the Exchange, is broken into, and a canister containing between £10 and £12 carried off. This robbery, though not confessed to later by any of their gang, is probably the work of Smith and Brodie.

Christmas Eve
: From their shop at the corner of Bridge Street and High Street – just opened, with a new door and lock fitted – a distressed John and Andrew Bruce report that several gold and silver watches and rings worth £350 have gone missing in the night. This has been a solo job by Smith, unable to prise its setter-up Brodie away from a gambling winning streak. Press reports, telling of a twenty-guinea reward for information, point out that all the rings bear the shop’s mark, so it is perhaps surprising that Brodie’s acceptance of some token items from the haul should include two rings. It is agreed between the two that Smith should go to Chesterfield to dispose of the goods to their fence, banished Scot John Tasker, and Brodie gives five and a half guineas to pay the fare.

Christmas Day
: Another reason for a trip down south: Goldsmith John Tapp is relieved of valuable items from his broken-into home while being detained at his Parliament Close shop by a bottle-wielding John Brown on the pretext of having a merry seasonable drink. Items taken by Brodie and the others include eighteen guinea notes, a 20
s
note, a silver watch, some rings, his pocket book and the well-hidden gold frame of a gentleman’s picture belonging to his wife. Some reports say that, on being confronted by her, Brodie talks his way out of the situation by saying he knows the sex-hungry man in the picture and wouldn’t her husband like to know him too …

(Note that most of this was happening around the same Old Town area, but in an unexpected geographic change, the next job took place in Leith. This was apparently instigated by Smith, who had been ‘feeling the pinch’ after a pause in their programme caused by a shaken Brodie’s sudden reversal into a period of respectability and only legitimate business.)

August 1787
: Grocer John Carnegie of Leith loses a huge quantity of fine black tea and, oddly, some of it is recovered when tea-packed parcels are found along the length of the road from Leith to Edinburgh. It is assumed that the burglars, not being in the prime of fitness, have found the weight of the goods, combined with the distance of the walk back to the city, literally too much to bear.

29 October
: The burglars return to their comfort zone in the heart of the city with a raid on a fashionable shoemaker’s shop in Royal Exchange. Losses may have been light as they are not recorded.

30 October
: Recovering their taste for the audacious, the Brodie gang is responsible for the disappearance of the college mace – a three-century-old silver masterpiece – from the library in the quad of Edinburgh University. While this much-lamented precious symbol also makes its way to Chesterfield, another appeal goes out to the criminal fraternity: ‘A reward of ten guineas, to be paid by the City Chamberlain, is hereby offered for the discovery of all or any of the persons responsible.’

9 January 1788
: The silk shop of Messrs Inglis and Horner loses £500 worth of cambrics, satins and silks. The Procurator Fiscal puts up £100 reward, later increased to £150, and promises a free pardon for any accomplice turning king’s evidence. His offer reads:

Whereas, upon the night of the 8th or morning of the 9th of January instant, the shop of Messrs Inglis Horner & co, Silk Mercers in Edinburgh, was broke into, and articles taken therefrom amounting to upwards of £300 value; and as the persons guilty of this robbery have not as yet been discovered, notwithstanding every exertion that has been made, and the offer of £100 of reward for that purpose, his Majesty’s most gracious pardon is hereby offered to an accomplice, if there was more than one concerned, who shall, within six months from this date, give such information to William Scott, Procurator-Fiscal for the shire of Edinburgh, as shall be the means of apprehending and securing all or any of the persons guilty of or accessory to the said crime.

5 March 1788
is to be a fateful date with destiny, however; the night of the botched final job that starts the downfall of the man who thought he could cheat people, justice and even death. The target is nothing less than Scotland’s General Excise Office …

***

Was it something to sing about? Now things were getting deadly serious. This was the most audacious criminal enterprise tried in Scotland so far, by this gang or any other: an attack on the very revenues of the nation. And a tipsy Brodie came thoroughly equipped – an hour late – to the gang’s rendezvous at Smith’s house. He wore an old-fashioned dark greatcoat, a black cocked hat and a black wig. He carried a dark lantern, a rope to tie up the old watchman who might get in their way, crepe masks for all four of them, a whistle for Ainslie as sentinel to communicate ‘danger’ in codes and a key that would fit the heavy main door.

Where and how did he get his hands on that? Having once visited the Excise Office with a friend from Stirling – a Mr Corbett who wanted to withdraw some money – Brodie had taken note of the layout of the place and was, inevitably, interested in the fact that it held an endless store of good citizens’ cash; so much so that he resolved to know it even better and made several more visits as if doing business there – once with George Smith. That was when he saw the key of the outer door hanging on a nail and had Smith create a diversion while he quickly produced a handful of putty to make an impression of it. The resulting replica was successfully tested on a trial break-in a few nights before the scheduled Big Night.