Status Updates From The Great Train Robbery

Ch. 50 The detective questions Pierce who is unbreakable. He sent Pierce to a terrible prison (think Soviet salt mines in Siberia) and he still did not break. Pierce was there again for months and nada. He even wished the detective a merry Christmas. Then someone leaked the arrests to the press and demands were made for a trial since he was being held unlawfully. Still no sign of the accomplices.

Ch. 49 In Manchester there were PR fights held and illegal gambling was part of the deal. A lot of detail was shared but the point is the Agar, with a pistol shoved in his back, pointed out Pierce and the guard Burgess. They were quietly arrested and put in Newgate. It was kept quiet because there are more accomplices to find.

He tries to negotiate for some of the reward money. LOL Nice try. They go to arrest Pierce but he is in Manchester for the night.

Ch. 49 Agar is the first to crack because the guard rattled him. He threatened to deport him to Australia (most criminals would prefer this over jail), but not Agar. The guard pushed him over the edge by reading a list of crimes from his rap sheet. He had no idea it was simply a notice about carriage parking. Agar told all except the location of the gold. He is given a monthly stipend in paper money to keep quiet.

She tried one thing after another and everything failed. She tried to bribe him with 10 guineas, an enormous amount of money compared to his paltry pay. She kept upping it to 100 guineas but he did not believe her. Then she told him that she knew where was one of the train robbers were. He thought it was a trick to follow her but she refused to go where he was because Agar was in Newgate. That seemed plausable.

Ch. 47 A young woman got picked up by a policeman for trying to pick the pocket of a drunk guy. The Victorians made it impossible to do a search on a woman so the officer questioned her. Even though it was the middle of the4 night, he called for a female guard to come to search her person. While waiting for the guard to arrive, the young woman tempted him in different ways, not unlike most cross awaiting arrest.

Many wild ideas were presented and nothing every panned out. Eventually interest died out because it seemed like the case could not be solved. Life went back to normal and public interest turned to new cases that cropped up.

The manufacturers took apart the safes and it is clear that the safes had been tampered with, most likely on the English end. Suspicions feel on the guard Burgess so he and his wife and two children disappeared overnight. Then they figured out which line and where it probably ahppened but they could not collect any evidence to pinpoint the criminals. No witness offered information.

Ch. 46 At first, the English thought it was some cosmic mixup because the telegram was brief unclear. They thought it would be wrapped up by tea time. When they understood that the bags were opened and they were filled with lead shot, they freaked out a little but blamed the incompetent frogs (French). Tensions are tight between the two nations. After a month of bumbling, they sent the safes to the manufacturers.

Ch. 45 They all got away before the robbery was noticed. Pierce could not avoid the foul one, and it was only through sheer dumb luck that his appearance did not provoke suspicion. It wasn’t until the bags reached France that anyone noticed that the bags were full of lead shot. By then, the criminals were long gone. I hope to see that Fowler will get nailed. I can’t stand the man. LOL

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.