The Great Train Robbery (Page 39)

"Seven… eight… nine…"

"Ten," Agar said, panting, looking around the office. Clean Willy, grinning in the shadows in the corner, took up the count.

"Eleven… twelve… thirteen…"

Agar crossed to the already opened cabinet. He removed the first of the wax blanks from his pocket, and then looked at the keys in the cabinet.

"Crikey!" he whispered.

"Fourteen… fifteen… sixteen…"

Dozens of keys hung in the cabinet, keys of all sorts, large and small, labeled and unlabeled, all hanging on hooks. He broke into a sweat in an instant.

"Crikey!"

"Seventeen… eighteen . . . nineteen.."

Agar was going to fall behind. He knew it with sickening suddenness: he was already behind on the count. He stared helplessly at the keys. He could not wax them all; which were the ones to do?

"Twenty… twenty-one… twenty-two…"

Clean Willy’s droning voice infuriated him; Agar wanted to run across the room and strangle the little bastard. He stared at the cabinet in a rising panic. He remembered what the other two keys looked like; perhaps these two keys were similar. He peered close at the cabinet, squinting, straining: the light in the office was bad.

"Twenty-three… twenty-four… twenty-five…"

"It’s no bloody use," he whispered to himself. And then he realized something odd: each hook had only one key, except for a single hook, which had two. He quickly lifted them off. They looked like the others he had done.

"Twenty-six… twenty-seven… twenty-eight…"

He set out the first blank, and pressed one side of the first key into the blank, holding it neatly, plucking it out with his fingernail; the nail on the little finger was long, one of the hallmarks of a screwsman.

"Twenty-nine… thirty… thirty-one…"

He took the second blank, flipped the key over, and pressed it into the wax to get the other side. He held it firmly, then scooped it out.

"Thirty-two… thirty-three… thirty-four…"

Now Agar’s professionalism came into play. He was falling behind— at least five seconds off his count now, maybe more— but he knew that at all costs he must avoid confusing the keys. It was common enough for a screwsman under pressure to make two impressions of the same side of a single key; with two keys, the chance of confusion was doubled. Quickly but carefully, he hung up the first finished key.

"Thirty-five… thirty-six… thirty-seven, Lordy," Clean Willy said. Clean Willy was looking out the glass windows, down to where the guard would be returning in less than thirty seconds.

"Thirty-eight… thirty-nine… forty…"

Swiftly, Agar pressed the second key into his third blank. He held it there just an instant, then lifted it out. There was a decent impression.

"Forty-one… forty-two… forty-three…"

Agar pocketed the blank, and plucked up his fourth wax plate. He pressed the other side of the key into the soft material.

"Forty-four… forty-five… forty-six… forty-seven…"

Abruptly, while Agar was peeling the key free of the wax, the blank cracked in two.

"Damn!"

"Forty-eight… forty-nine… fifty…"

He fished in his pocket for another blank. His fingers were steady, but there was sweat dripping from his forehead.

"Fifty-one… fifty-two… fifty-three…"

He drew out a fresh blank and did the second side again.

"Fifty-four… fifty-five…"

He plucked the key out, hung it up, and dashed for the door, still holding the final blank in his fingers. He left the office without another look at Willy.

"Fifty-six," Willy said, immediately moving to the door to lock it up.

Pierce saw Agar exit, behind schedule by five full seconds. His face was flushed with exertion.

"Fifty-seven… fifty-eight…"

Agar sprinted down the stairs, three at a time.

"Fifty-nine… sixty… sixty-one…"

Agar streaked across the station to his hiding place.

"Sixty-two… sixty-three…"

Agar was hidden.

The guard, yawning, came around the corner, still buttoning up his trousers. He walked toward the steps.

"Sixty-four," Pierce said, and flicked his watch.

The guard took up his post at the stairs. After a moment, he began humming to himself, very softly, and it was awhile until Pierce realized it was "Molly Malone."

Chapter 26 Crossing the Mary Blaine Scrob

"The distinction between base avarice and honest ambition may be exceeding fine," warned the Reverend Noel Blackwell in his 1853 treatise, On the Moral Improvement of the Human Race. No one knew the truth of his words better than Pierce, who arranged his next meeting at the Casino de Venise, on Windmill Street. This was a large and lively dance hall, brightly lit by myriad gas lamps. Young men spun and wheeled girls colorfully dressed and gay in their manner. Indeed, the total impression was one of fashionable splendor, which belied a reputation as a wicked and notorious place of assignation for whores and their clientele.

Pierce went directly to the bar, where a burly man in a blue uniform with silver lapel markings sat hunched over a drink. The man appeared distinctly uncomfortable in the casino. "Have you been here before?" Pierce asked.

The man turned. "You Mr. Simms?"

"That’s right."

The burly man looked around the room, at the women, the finery, the bright lights. "No," he said, "never been before."

"Lively, don’t you think?"

The man shrugged. "Bit above me," he said finally, and turned back to stare at his glass.

"And expensive," Pierce said.