Status Updates From The Great Train Robbery

Ch. 44 I combined the round trip (spread over two chapters) into one narration. BOOM!

There are several factors Pierce had not considered in his makeshift plan. He’s going to have to work fast and improvise to avoid suspicion. He barely makes it back to his car and he has to run along three to make it before being seen at the train station. He has an accomplish retrieving that bags that were thrown out. He has a lot of trust in that guy. The gold bags are replaced by leadshot bags.

Ch. 43 Pierce has a lot of audacity. There was a phenomenon of trains called “sway” and he believed it was caused by forces that create a bit of a vacuum that would suck him to the top of the train. Each car has a “slapper” at the top to vent air and he attached a rope. He managed to climb out carrying the rope with him and crawl across seven cars to the luggage car. He and Agar dump out the five bags.

Ch. 42 This chapter is a testimony to Pierce’s effort to compartmentalize information. Burgess had no idea of the identity of the rotting, stinking “corpse” in the coffin. It was pretty funny!

Fowler makes some false assumptions about the maid that are somewhat true. He’s such a pig. The three sit together and Pierce finds a hilarious way to get rid of them. Miss Miriam has no problem picking up on his cues. The bombastic fool says too much. Doesn’t he know that “loose lips sink ships.”

Ch. 41 Pierce leaves and helps Burgess load the five small bags that look exactly the same and our extremely heavy. It’s very suspicious but the dispatcher is so shaken from the dead body that might have choraela that he overlooks it. He and Burgess do their part. Pierce pretends to see how the poor maid is doing. The worst thing happens: he bumps in the Fowler who remembers hime, of course!

19

Ms. Miriam dresses as a poor servant girl escorting her brother’s coffin on the train. A ringing bell (false alarm) creates the distraction they need. Agar is painted up like a dead guy and there’s a dead animal in the coffin to seal the deal. Everyone plays their parts and the guards and bank people are totally distracted. Well-played. The game is afoot.

Ch. 40 Back in the day, people were buried alive. It happened sometimes to drowning victimes and people struck by lightning. People did things to make sure a person buried alive could let the world know. One had a bell outside the coffin attached to strings tied to a dead person’s finger. The guy who invented it became so obsessed about being buried alive that he went crazy and burnt himself to death as prevention.

His plan involves a dead dog and a black mourning dress. He does not want to waste the year he spent planning. He tells Agar to go home and get a good night sleep.

Ch. 39 Pierce and Miriam are eating dinner and they are interrupted by Agar and the railway guard with terrible news. The theft of the wine has caused in a complete change in procedure. Pierce is angry until he learns the gravity of the situation. He grills the guard to wring out every possible detail and then he hits on a plan. After the guard leaves, he tells Agar that the robbery is on.

He worked for the railway and he put his shipment on the train and had it insured. When it showed up, the case was empty and everyone was up in arms about the theft. It could not be overlooked because of the insurers. The guard got fired but was anonymously paid a stipend for the rest of his life. After Sir John died, it came out that he shipped an empty box.

Captain John Alderson (sp) was knighted in 1815 based on his heroism during Waterloo. He lived a respectable life based on all accounts but he did have a taste for gambling. He did not see it as a moral failing because he never gambled for money. He gambled for things. In 1855, he lost against a guy he despised and he owed the guy a bottle of 12yo Madeira and that burned his chaps. He promised to ship it by train.

Florence Nightingale is an excellent example. During the Crimean War, the general thought she was a nuisance so he cut off her food supply. She didn’t put up a fuss because she expected it! She found her own resources and nobody didn’t think anything of it. It was how you played the game. The author shares a humorous example that affected Pierce et al but I don’t think it is real, but it is entertaining.

Ch. 38 Victorians were concerned about blue-collar crime but a lot of white-collar crime was overlooked. They believed the blue-collar crime was born out of ignorance and poverty. They tolerated white-collar crime, but for reasons we might not understand. First, accounting did not have standard processes and has more room for creative thinking. Think tax loopholes on steroids. Second, they approved of sharp dealing.

Ch. 37 Pierce and Miriam congratulate themselves for the Scotland Yard detectives were spotted taking a train to Greenwich at the most convenient time for their operation. He warns her that anything can go wrong and it did!

Ch. 36 The pawn broker pays a visit to Scotland Yards and makes a fast buck by spilling what he knows in bits and pieces. The “Miltonians” (Scotland Yard detectives) throw about various ideas. They finally decide to use deductive reasoning and determine that Sims (Pierce’s real name?) wants to go after payday money for a company working on the transatlantic cable. LOVE IT. They go to Greenwich (ahem, Zulu time).

He puts his acting skills to good use, acting so nervous that he almost bolted at one point. He’s asking for five pistols and, in the conversation, lets details about timing and location out as if by accident. They make an agreement and then Pierce goes to great length to shake a tail on the way home. He even sees “She Stoops to Conquer.” LOVE IT! He reaches home in the wee hourse of the morning and is not tracked.

Ch. 35 Pierce has many different kinds of informants and he chooses a pawn shop. Even when people with money struggled to make ends meet, they could hock something, take it back for an event, and hock it again. Many did this sort of thing until the financial crisis eased up. He dresses well but uses a rough accent to make it seem like he worked to move up in life and has fallen on hard times.