Michael Crichton - The Great Train Robbery

"Oh, dear," said Mrs. Trent, turning quite pale.

Mr. Trent cleared his throat. "Remarkable."

"How quaint," said Miss Trent bravely, with a quivering voice.

"You really must excuse me," said Mrs. Trent, rising.

"My dear," Mr. Trent said.

"Madam, I hope I have not distressed you," said Mr. Pierce, also rising.

"Your tales are quite remarkable," Mrs. Trent said, turning to leave.

"My dear," Mr. Trent said again, and hastened after her.

Thus Mr. Edward Pierce and Miss Elizabeth Trent were briefly alone on the back lawn of the mansion; and they were seen to exchange a few words. The content of their conversation is not known. But Miss Trent later admitted to a servant that she found Mr. Pierce "quite fascinating in a rough-and-ready way," and it was generally agreed in the Trent household that young Elizabeth was now in possession of that most valuable of all acquisitions, a "prospect."

The execution of the notorious axe murderess Emma Barnes on August 28, 1854, was a well-publicized affair. On the evening prior to the execution, the first of the crowds began to gather outside the high granite walls of Newgate Prison, where they would spend the night in order to be assured of a good view of the spectacle the following morning. That same evening, the gallows was brought out and assembled by the executioner's assistants. The sound of hammering would continue long into the night.

The owners of nearby rooming houses that overlooked Newgate square were pleased to rent their rooms for the evening to the better class of ladies and gents eager to get a room with a good view over the site for a "hanging party." Mrs. Edna Molloy, a virtuous widow, knew perfectly well the value of her rooms, and when a well spoken gentleman named Pierce asked to hire the best of them for the night, she struck a hard bargain: twenty-five guineas for a single evening.

That was a considerable sum of money. Mrs. Molloy could live comfortably for a year on that amount, but she did not let the fact influence her, for she knew what it was worth to Mr. Pierce himself-- the cost of a butler for six months, or the price of one or two good ladies' dresses, and nothing more substantial than that. The very proof of his indifference lay in the ready way he paid her, on the spot, in gold guineas. Mrs. Molloy did not wish to risk offending him by biting the coins in front of him, but she would bite them as soon as she was alone. One couldn't be too careful with gold guineas, and she had been fooled more than once, even by gentlemen.

The coins were genuine, and she was much relieved. Thus she paid little attention when, later in the day, Mr. Pierce and his party filed upstairs to the hired room. The party consisted of two other men and two women, all smartly turned out in good clothes. She could tell by their accents that the men were not gentlemen, and the women were no better than they looked, despite the wicker baskets and bottles of wine they carried.

When the party entered the room and closed the door behind them, she did not bother to listen at the keyhole. She'd have no trouble from them, she was sure of it.

____________________

Pierce stepped to the window and looked down at the crowd, which gathered size with each passing minute. The square was dark, lit only by the glare of torches around the scaffolding; by that hot, baleful light he could see the crossbar and trap taking shape.

"Never make it," Agar said behind him.

Pierce turned. "He has to make it, laddie."

"He's the best snakesman in the business, the best anybody ever heard speak of, but he can't get out of there," Agar said, jerking his thumb toward Newgate Prison.

The second man now spoke. The second man was Barlow, a stocky, rugged man with a white knife scar across his forehead, which he usually concealed beneath the brim of his hat. Barlow was a reformed buzzer turned rampsman-- a pickpocket who had degenerated to plain mugging-- whom Pierce had hired, some years back, as a buck cabby. All rampsmen were thugs at heart, and that was precisely what a cracksman like Pierce wanted for a buck cabby, a man holding the reins to the cab, ready to make the getaway-- or ready for a bit of a shindy, if it came to that. And Barlow was loyal; he had worked for Pierce for nearly five years now.

Barlow frowned and said, "If it can be done, he'll do it. Clean Willy can do it if it can be done." He spoke slowly, and gave the impression of a man who formed his thoughts with slowness. Pierce knew he could be quick in action, however.

Pierce looked at the women. They were the mistresses of Agar and Barlow, which meant they were also their accomplices. He did not know their names and he did not want to know. He regretted the very idea that they must be present at this occasion-- in five years, he had never seen Barlow's woman-- but there was no way to avoid it. Barlow's woman was an obvious soak; you could smell the gin breath across the room. Agar's woman was little better, but at least she was sober.

"Did you bring the trimmings?" Pierce asked.

Agar's woman opened a picnic basket. In it, he saw a sponge, medicinal powders, and bandages. There was also a carefully folded dress. "All I was told, sir."

"The dress is small?"

"Aye, sir. Barely more'n a child's frock, sir."

"Well enough," Pierce said, and turned back to look at the square once more. He paid no attention to the gallows or the swelling crowd. Instead he stared at the walls of Newgate Prison.

"Here's the supper, sir," said Barlow's woman. Pierce looked back at the supplies of cold fowl, jars of pickled onion, lobster claws, and a packet of dark cigars.

"Very food, very good," he said.

Agar said, "Are you playing the noble, sir?" This was a reference to a well-known magsman's con. It was said sarcastically, and Agar later testified that Pierce didn't care for the comment. He turned back with his long coat open at the waist to reveal a revolver jammed into the waistband of his trousers.

"If any of you steps aside," he said, "you'll have a barker up your nose, and I'll see you in lavender." He smiled thinly. "There are worse things, you know, than transportation to Australia."

"No offense," Agar said, looking at the gun. "No offense at all, no offense-- it was only in the manner of a joke."

Barlow said, "Why'd we need a snakesman?"

Pierce was not sidetracked. "Bear my words carefully," he said. "Any of you steps aside and you'll stop a shot before you can say Jack Robin. I mean every word." He sat down at the table. "Now then," he said, "I'll have a leg of that chicken, and we shall disport ourselves as best we can while we wait."

____________________

Pierce slept part of the night; he was awakened at daybreak by the crowd that jammed the square below. The crowd had now swollen to more than fifteen thousand noisy, rough people, and Pierce knew that the streets would be filled with ten or fifteen thousand more, making their way to see the hanging on their route to work. Employers hardly bothered to keep up a pretense of strictness on any Monday morning when there was a hanging; it was an accepted fact that everybody would be late to work, and especially today, with a woman to be hanged.

The gallows itself was now finished; the rope dangled in the air above the trap. Pierce glanced at his pocketwatch. It was 7:45, just a short time before the execution itself.

In the square below, the crowd began to chant: "Oh, my, think I'm going to die! Oh, my, think I'm going to die!" There was a good deal of laughter and shouting and stamping of feet. One or two fights broke out, but they could not be sustained in the tightly packed crush of the crowd.

They all went to the window to watch.

Agar said, "When do you think he'll make his move?"