Michael Crichton - The Great Train Robbery

But Clean Willy knew a lot about the way buildings were constructed, and after an hour of maneuvering around the station he found his spot. By climbing onto a porter's luggage cart, he was able to jump to a drainpipe, and from there to the sill of the second-story windows. Here a lip of stone ran the length of the second story; he inched along it until he reached a corner in the facade. Then he climbed up the corner, his back to the wall, in the same way that he had escaped from Newgate Prison. He would leave marks, of course; in those days nearly every downtown London building was soot-covered, and Clean Willy's climb left an odd pattern of whitish scrapes going up the corner.

By eight o'clock at night he was standing on the broad roof of the terminus. The main portion of the station was roofed in slate; over the tracks the roofing was glass, and he avoided that. Clean Willy weighed sixty-eight pounds, but he was heavy enough to break the glass roofing.

Moving cautiously through the fog, he edged around the building until he found the broken window Pierce had mentioned. Looking in, he saw the dispatcher's office. He was surprised to notice that it was in some disarray, as if there had been a struggle in the office during the day and the damage only partially corrected.

He reached through the jagged hole in the glass, turned the transom lock, and raised the window. It was a widow of rectangular shape, perhaps nine by sixteen inches. He wriggled through it easily, stepped down onto a desk top, and paused.

He had not been told the walls of the office were glass.

Through the glass, he could see down to the deserted tracks and platforms of the station below. He could also see the jack on the stairs, near the door, a paper bag containing his dinner at his side.

Carefully, Clean Willy climbed down off the desk. His foot crunched on a shard of broken glass; he froze. But if the guard heard it, he gave no sign. After a moment, Willy crossed the office, lifted a chair, and set it next to the high cabinet. He stepped onto the chair, plucked the twirl Agar had given him from his pocket, and picked the cabinet lock. Then he sat down to wait, hearing distant church bells toll the hour of nine o'clock.

Agar, lurking in the deep shadows of the station, also heard the church bells. He sighed. Another two and a half hours, and he had been wedged into a cramped corner for two hours already. He knew how stiff and painful his legs would be when he finally made his sprint for the stairs.

From his hiding place, he could see Clean Willy make an entrance into the office behind the guard; and he could see Willy's head-- when he stood on the chair and worked the cabinet lock. Then Willy disappeared.

Agar sighed again. He wondered, for the thousandth time, what Pierce intended to do with these keys. All he knew was that it must be a devilish flash pull. A few years earlier, Agar had been in on a Brighton warehouse pull. There had been nine keys involved: one for an outer gate, two for an inner gate, three for the main door, two for an office door, and one for a storeroom. The pogue had been ten thousand quid in B. of E. notes, and the putter-up had spent four months arranging the lay.

Yet here was Pierce, flush if ever a cracksman was, spending eight months now to get four keys, two from bankers, and two from a railway office. It had all cost a pretty penny, Agar was certain of that, and it meant the pogue was well worth having.

But what was it? Why were they breaking this drum now? The question preoccupied him more than the mechanics of timing a sixty-four-second smash and grab. He was a professional; he was cool; he had prepared well and was fully confident. His heart beat evenly as he stared across the station at the jack on the stairs, as the crusher made his rounds.

The crusher said to the jack, "Yon know there's a P.R. on?" A P.R. was a prize-ring event.

"No," said the jack. "Who's it to be?"

"Stunning Bill Hampton and Edgar Moxley."

"Where's it to be, then?" the jack said.

"I hear Leicester," the crusher said.

"Where's your money?"

"Stunning Bill, for my gambit."

"He's a good one," the jack said. "He's tough, is Bill."

"Aye," the crusher said, "I've got a half-crown or two on him says he's tough."

And the crusher went on, making his rounds.

Agar smirked in the darkness. A copper talking big of a five-shilling bet. Agar bet ten quid on the last P.R., between the Lancaster Dervish, John Boynton, and the gummy Kid Ballew. Agar had come off well on that one: odds were two to one; he'd done a bit of winning there.

He tensed the muscles in his cramped legs, trying to get the circulation going, and then he relaxed. He had a long wait ahead of him. He thought of his dolly-mop. Whenever he was working, he thought of his dolly's quim; it was a natural thing-- tension turned a man randy. Then his thoughts drifted back to Pierce, and the question that Agar had puzzled over for nearly a year now: what was the damn pull?

____________________

The drunken Irishman with the red beard and slouch hat stumbled through the deserted station singing "Molly Malone." With his shuffling, flatfooted gait, he was a true soak, and as he walked along, it appeared he was so lost in his song that he might not notice the guard on the stairs.

But he did, and he eyed the guard's paper bag suspiciously before making an elaborate and wobbly bow.

"And a good evenin' to you, sir," the drunk said

"Evening," the guard said.

"And what, may I inquire," said the drunk, standing stiffer, "is your business up there, eh? Up to no good, are you?"

"I'm guarding these premises here," the guard said.

The drunk hiccuped. "So you say, my good fellow, but many a rascal has said as much."

"Here, now--"

"I think," the drunk said, waving an accusatory finger in the air, trying to point it at the guard but unable to aim accurately, "I think, sir, we shall have the police to look you over, so that we shall know if you are up to no good."

"Now, look here," the guard said.

"You look here, and lively, too," the drunk said, and abruptly began to shout, "Police! Po-lice!"

"Here, now," the guard said, coming down the stairs. "Get a grip on yourself, you scurvy soak."

"Scurvy soak?" the drunk said, raising an eyebrow and shaking his fist. "I am a Dubliner, sir."

"I palled that, right enough," the guard snorted.

At that moment, the constable came running around the corner, drawn by the shouts of the drunk.

"Ah, a criminal, officer," said the drunk. "Arrest that scoundrel," he said, pointing to the guard, who had now moved to the bottom of the stairs. "He is up to no good."

The drunk hiccuped.

The constable and the guard exchanged glances, and then open smiles.

"You find this a laughing matter, sir?" said the drunk, turning to the copper. "I see nothing risible. The man is plainly up to no good."

"Come along, now," the constable said, "or I'll have you in lumber for creatin' a nuisance."

"A nuisance?" the drunk said, twisting free of the constable's arm. "I think you and this blackguard are in cahoots, sir."

"That's enough," the constable said. "Come along smartly."

The drunk allowed himself to be led away by the copper. He was last heard to say, "You wouldn't be havin' a daffy of reeb, would you, now?" and the constable assured him he had no drink on his person.

"Dublin," the guard said, sighing, and he climbed back up the stairs to eat his dinner. The distant chimes rang eleven o'clock.

Agar had seen it all, and while he was amused by Pierces performance, he worried whether Clean Willy had taken the opportunity to open the office door. There was no way to know until he made his own mad dash, in less than half an hour now.

He looked at his watch, he looked at the door to the office, and he waited.