Status Updates From The Great Train Robbery

Then they find the right key. It’s a good thing because the dust makes Agar cough because of his lungs. He quickly makes two sets of wax impressions, meaning a total of four imprints. The next trick is getting out of there without getting caught. That’s where releasing rats in the back yard created a commotion with the dogs.

Ch. 18 Pierce’s team has five people. Miss Miriam rides in a carriage and stops at the Trent’s house, asking for directions to distract the porter. One of the wives is the crow (on the lookout). The men sneak downstairs to look for the key. It took awhile. They deduce correctly that it is up on a high shelf so that his wife will not find it. They find a key covered in dust which is not it.

Fowler is is running around on his wife. Now he’s fouled himself with an STD. He’s going to try the quack “cure” of ensnaring a “fresh.” Since Pierce is single, Fowler turns to him for help in procuring one. Pierce, of course, is eager to help. However, there is this trick in those days of providing a stale “fresh” and the lech is fooled by the work of a seamstress. Gross. Fowler wonders how much he’ll have to pay.

Pt. 2 Ch. 17 Telling a Victorian crime story without allusion to the seedy aspects of London would be wrong, especially in a book marketed to an adult. I appreciate that Crichton alludes to these incidents without going into all the gory details. I’m so glad when authors do not imagine dark scenes for us. Some readers prefer keeping their eyes closed! LOL At the end of Fowler’s dinner party, he made a crude remark.

He tenderly squeezes her hand and says it’s the happiest day of his life. She’s so very happy, bless her heart.

She bores her friends to death talking about Mr. Edward Pierce. She begs her father for new dress, sometimes wearing two different dresses in a day. He is very tender and acts attentive, but later testifies he could only remember one conversaation with her. She talked about her father’s anxiety on days when Crimean War gold shipments were sent. He went to the basement for a drink, all by himself, to calm his nerves.

Ch. 16 Pierce and Miss Trent bump into each other on an equestrian trail called Robbery Row. It’s a real place in Hyde Park and the wealthy really did ride there. The first meeting is accidental. After that, it is intentional. She falls for him while he, of course, sees her as a means to an end. A match made in Hell. She never wonders why a charming, good-looking wealthy young man would see her as a prospect.

His previous flame had moved on so he found a new one. She steals laundry to feed herself. He doesn’t talk about how he escapes because he does not want to jeopardize his job with Pierce. They live in lodging (a house) that holds a hundred people, twenty to a room! I can see why Jane Eyre chose Lowood over being poor. Their living conditions are unfathomable, yet still exist today. No wonder disease was prevalent.

Ch. 15 Willie didn’t really die. He stayed at Pierce’s place for awhile so that his wounds could heal and his hair could grow out long enough to no longer look like an escaped convict. The opium for the pain also helped him to stay put. Pierce’s mistress and accomplice, “Miss Miriam,” took care of him when she wasn’t busy with her own mysterious errands during the day. Once better, Willie went back to the Holy Land.

Ch. 14 The Victorians hated the Georgian style of architecture but could not afford to tear it down. Critics blamed the architecture of Newgate for Willie’s escape. Police searched for all the rookeries in London and could not find him. After about a month, they tagged a floating body in the Thames with Willi’es name. As if!

Fortunately, his hands are completely calloused from being a chimney sweep as a child. He does cut himself and he bleeds but nobody notices him during the hanging. When he arrives in the room, the Pierce gang drugs him to numb the pain and wake him up. They tend his wounds and the wives dress him in women’s clothing. They lack Victorian modesty. They act like he’s a woman who has fainted and they carry him out.

Hangings are not an exact science and usually the person swings for an hour before they are dead and hauled off in a coffin. The crowd is loud, jeering, and singing raucous songs during a haning. This one is no exception. Willie, who has been a model prisoner and would have been granted parole early for good behavior, makes his escape during the hanging. He cuts his hands up terribly because of the spikes.

A woman named Emma Barnes is going to be hung outside Newgate Prison. The poor schleps have to stand in a crowded square to watch, but people with money can rent a room that overlooks the square to get a better view. Pierce, his accomplices, and their wives take advantage of the situation. They come with bandages, drugs, and woman’s clothing, especially a bonnet. The hanging is the perfect distraction.

Ch. 13 We moderns think we aren’t so barbaric as medieval folks with their hears on a pike, the Elizabethans with their bear baiting, and the Victorians watching a good old-fashioned hanging. There is so much violence on display in MA television shows and rated R movies that we have become desensitized to it. And, now with cameras everywhere, people can look up horrific crimes that happened in real life.

Then he says some outlandish, disgusting things about buffalo hunters and raw intestines. Mrs. Trent looks peaky and leaves and Mr. Trent goes after her. Nobody hears what is said between Pierce and Elizabeth when they are alone. Clearly, he surveilled the situation long enough to have known how it would go. The daughter is glad because now she has a prospect.

It isn’t revealed about other siblings. She’s probably a burden to her parents. Pierce is masterful--just minding his own business and trying to help someone buy a made dog. He acts like he had no idea that Trent had a daughter. He goes to shake her hand and blushes. Blech. At tea, he talks about his travels in America and what he knows about buffalo hunting. He pretends to be deferent to the delicate ladies.

CM was 12 yo at the time of this chapter. She was in this predicament. Her parents were educated but not wealthy. She went to school in her teens, knowing she would have to become a teacher because that was one of the few respectable job for women who were not lower class. Edgar Trent’s daughter sounds like Mary Bennet--not the most desirable catch--and, with the lack of eligible me, she didn’t have any prospects.

Ch. 12 Each chapter ends with a little nagging question being dangled and it’s usually answered in the next chapter. At the end of the last chapter, Pierce says that he’s single but always on the lookout for prospects (ha, ha--gold). Clearly, he has done his homework because Trent has an unmarried daughter in her late twenties. I did a little digging and the Edgar Trent subplot is fiction, but fun, nonetheless.

They compare notes and then Pierce offers to find him a made dog. In the conversation, he lets Trent know that he is single, even though he hopes to marry. He also acts like he’s rich without a care in the world.

After an obscure announcement is made, some go to another room with their dogs. Another announcement tells the crowd they have until a certain tie to decide what to do (place bets). Several dogs compete to determine which one can kill the most rats before the bell rings. An announcer narrates the action to the crowd. Pierce uses this chance to talk with Trent whose dog does not win.

Ch. 11 I remember reading in a Wodehouse that folks in England will bet on almost anything. While animal fighting had lost its luster, three forms of dog fight sports still existed: dog on dog, dog on badgers in chains, and dogs on rats. Training and selling dogs to fight was illegal in the Victorian Era, therefore these sports were popular. Trent takes his dog to a pub where dogs are welcome.