Michael Crichton - The Great Train Robbery

But Agar was greatly agitated. Plainly, he did not want to leave England. Seeing this, Harranby was encouraged. He stood.

"That will be all for now," he said. "If in the next day or so you feel that you have something you wish to tell me, just inform the guards at Newgate."

Agar was ushered out of the room. Harranby sat back at his desk. Sharp came over.

"What were you reading?" he asked.

Harranby picked up the sheet of paper from his desk. "A notification from the Buildings Committee," he said, "to the effect that carriages are no longer to be parked in the courtyard."

____________________

After three days, Agar informed the Newgate guards that he would like another audience with Mr. Harranby. On November 13th, Agar told Harranby everything he knew about the robbery, in exchange for the promise of lenient treatment and the vague possibility that one of the institutions involved-- the bank or the railway or even the government itself-- might see fit to present him with a stipend from the still-outstanding offers of reward for information.

Agar did not know where the money was kept. He said that Pierce had been paying him a monthly stipend in paper currency. The criminals had previously agreed that they would divide the profits two years after the crime, in May of the following year, 1857.

Agar did, however, know the location of Pierces house. On the night of November 13th, the forces of the Yard surrounded the mansion of Edward Pierce, or John Simms, and entered it with barkers at the ready. But the owner was not at home; the frightened servants explained that he had left town to attend the P.R. spectacle the following day in Manchester.

Technically, boxing matches in England were illegal, but they were held throughout the nineteenth century, and drew an enormous, loyal following. The necessity to elude authorities meant that a big match might be shifted from town to town at the last minute, with vast crowds of pugilistic enthusiasts and sporting bloods following all over the countryside.

The match on November 19th between Smashing Tim Revels, the Fighting Quaker, and the challenger, Neddy Singleton, was moved from Liverpool to a small town called Eagle Welles, and eventually to Barrington, outside Manchester. The fight was attended by more than twenty thousand supporters, who found the spectacle unsatisfactory.

In those days, the P.R., or prize ring, had rules that would make the event almost unrecognizable to modern eyes. Fighting was done bare-fisted by the combatants, who were careful to regulate their blows in order to avoid injury to their own hands and wrists; a man who broke his knuckles or wrists early in a contest was almost certain to lose. Rounds were of variable duration, and the fights had no prearranged length. They often went fifty or even eighty rounds, thus lasting the better part of a day. The object of the sport was for each man slowly and methodically to injure his opponent with a succession of small cuts and welts; knockouts were not sought. On the contrary, the proper fighter literally battered his opponent into submission.

Neddy Singleton was hopelessly outclassed by Smashing Tim from the start. Early in the fight, Neddy adopted the ruse of dropping to one knee whenever he was struck, in order to halt the fight and allow him to catch his breath. The spectators hissed and booed this ungentlemanly trick, but nothing could be done to prevent it, especially as the referee-- charged with giving the count of ten-- called out the numbers with a slowness that demonstrated he'd been paid off smartly by Neddy's backers. The indignation of the fans was tempered, at least, by the recognition that this chicanery had the side affect of prolonging the bloody spectacle they had all come to witness.

With thousands of spectators standing about, including every manner of coarse and brutal ruffian, the men of the Yard were at some pains to operate unobtrusively. Agar, with a revolver at his spine, pointed out Pierce and the guard Burgess from a distance. The two men were than apprehended with great adroitness: a barker was pressed to each man's side, with whispered suggestion that they come along quietly or take a bit of lead for their trouble.

Pierce greeted Agar amiably. "Turned nose, did you?" he asked with a smile.

Agar could not meet his eyes.

"Doesn't matter," Pierce said. "I've thought of this as well, you know."

"I had no choice," Agar blurted out.

"You'll lose your share," Pierce said calmly.

At the periphery of the P.R. crowd, Pierce was brought before Mr. Harranby of the Yard.

"Are you Edward Pierce, also known as John Simms?"

"I am," the man replied.

"You are under arrest on a charge of robbery," Mr. Harranby said.

To this Pierce replied, "You'll never hold me."

"I fancy that I will, sir," Mr. Harranby said.

By nightfall on November 19th, both Pierce and Burgess were, along with Agar, in Newgate

Prison. Harranby quietly informed government officials of his success, but there was no announcement to the press, for Harranby wanted to apprehend the woman known as Miriam, and the cabby Barlow, both still at large. He also wanted to recover the money.

On November 22nd, Mr. Harranby interrogated Pierce for the first time. The diary of his assistant, Jonathan Sharp, records that "H. arrived in office early, most carefully attired and looking his best. Had cup of coffee instead of usual tea. Comments on how best to deal with Pierce, etc., etc. Said that he suspected nothing could be got from Pierce without softening up."

In fact, the interview was remarkably brief. At nine o'clock in the morning, Pierce was ushered into the office and asked to sit in a chair, isolated in the middle of the room. Harranby, from behind his desk, directed his first question with customary abruptness.

"Do you know the man called Barlow?"

"Yes," Pierce said.

"Where is he now?" "I don't know."

"Where is the woman called Miriam?"

"I don't know."

"Where," said Mr. Harranby, "is the money?"

"I don't know."

"It seems that there is a good deal you don't know."

"Yes," Pierce said.

Harranby appraised him for a moment. There was a short silence. "Perhaps," Harranby said, "a time in the Steel will strengthen your powers of memory."

"I doubt it," Pierce said, with no sign of anxiety. Soon after, he was taken from the room.

Alone with Sharp, Harranby said, "I shall break him, you may be sure of that." The same day, Harranby arranged for Pierce to be transferred from Newgate Prison to the House of Correction at Coldbath Fields, also called the Bastille. "The Steel" was not ordinarily a holding place for accused criminals awaiting trial. But it was a frequent ruse for police to send a man there if some information had to be "winkled out" of him before the trial.

The Steel was the most dreaded of all English prisons. In a visit in 1853, Henry Mayhew described its features. Chief among them, of course, were the cockchafers, narrow boxes in a row with "the appearance of the stalls in a public urinal," where prisoners remained for fifteen-minute intervals, treading down a wheel of twenty-four steps. A warder explained the virtues of the cockchafer in this way: "You see the men can get no firm tread like, from the steps always sinking away from under their feet and that makes it very tiring. Again the compartments are small, and the air becomes very hot, so that the heat at the end of a quarter of an hour renders it difficult to breathe."

Even less pleasant was shot-drill, an exercise so rigorous that men over forty-five were usually exempted. In this, the prisoners formed a circle with three paces separating each. At a signal, each man picked up a twenty-four-pound cannonball, carried it to his neighbor's place, dropped it, and returned to his original position where another shot awaited him. The drill went on for an hour at a time.