In 1855, the principal figure in the Yard was Richard Mayne, "a sensible lawyer," who had done much to improve the public attitude toward the Metropolitan Police. Directly under him was Mr. Edward Harranby, and it was Harranby who oversaw the ticklish business of working with undercover agents and informers. Usually Mr. Harranby kept irregular hours; he avoided contact with the press, and from his office could be seen strange figures coming and going, often at night.
In the late afternoon of May 17th, Harranby lead a conversation with his assistant, Mr. Jonathan Sharp. Mr. Harranby reconstructed the conversation in his memoirs, Days on the Force, published in 1879. The conversation must be taken with some reservations, for in that volume Harranby was attempting to explain why he did not succeed in thwarting Pierce's robbery plans before they were carried out.
Sharp said to him, "The snakesman blew, and we have had a look at our man."
"What sort is he?" Harranby said.
"He appears a gentleman. Probably a cracksman or a swell mobsman. The snakesman says he's from Manchester, but he lives in a fine house in London."
"Does he know where?"
"He says he's been there, but he doesn't know the exact location. Somewhere in Mayfair."
"We can't go knocking on doors in Mayfair," Harranby said. "Can we assist his powers of memory?"
Sharp sighed. "Possibly."
"Bring him in. I'll have a talk with him. Do we know the intended crime?"
Sharp shook his head. "The snakesman says he doesn't know. He's afraid of being mizzled, you know, he's reluctant to blow all he knows. He says this fellow's planning a flash pull."
Harranby turned irritable. "That is of remarkably little value to me," he said. "What, exactly, is the crime? There's our question, and it begs a proper answer. Who is on this gentleman now?"
"Cramer and Benton, sir."
"They're good men. Keep them on his trail, and let's have the nose in my office, and quickly."
"I'll see to it myself, sir," the assistant said.
Harranby later wrote in his memoirs: "There are times in any professional's life when the elements requisite for the deductive process seem almost within one's grasp, and yet they elude the touch. These are the times of greatest frustration, and such was the case of the Robbery of 1855."
Chapter 34 The Nose Is Crapped
Clean Willy, very nervous, was drinking at the Hound's Tooth pub. He left there about six and headed straight for the Holy Land. He moved swiftly through the evening crowds, then ducked into an alley; he jumped a fence, slipped into a basement, crossed it, crawled through a passage into an adjoining building, climbed up the stairs, came out onto a narrow street, walked half a block, and disappeared into another house, a reeking nethersken.
Here he ascended the stairs to the second floor, climbed out onto the roof, jumped to an adjacent roof, scrambled up a drainpipe to the third floor of a lodging house, crawled in through a window, and went down the stairs to the basement.
Once in the basement, he crawled through a tunnel that brought him out on the opposite side of the street, where he came up into a narrow mews. By a side door, he entered a pub house, the Golden Arms, looked around, and exited from the front door.
He walked to the end of the street, and then turned in to the entrance of another lodging house. Immediately he knew that something was wrong; normally there were children yelling and scrambling all over the stairs, but now the entrance and stairs were deserted silent. He paused at the doorway, and was just about to turn and flee when a rope snaked out and twisted around his neck, yanking him into a dark corner.
Clean Willy had a look at Barlow, with the white scar across his forehead, as Barlow strained on the garrotting rope. Willy coughed, and struggled, but Barlow's strength was such that the little snakesman was literally lifted off the floor, his feet kicking in the air, his hands pulling at the rope.
This struggle continued for the better part of a minute, and then Clean Willy's face was blue, and his tongue protruded gray, and his eyes bulged. He urinated down his pants leg, and then his body sagged.
Barlow let him drop to the floor. He unwound the rope from his neck, removed the two five-pound notes from the snakesman's pocket, and slipped away into the street. Clean Willy's body lay huddled in a corner and did not move. Many minutes passed before the first of the children reemerged, and approached the corpse cautiously. Then the children stole the snakesman's shoes, and all his clothing, and scampered away.
Chapter 35 Plucking the Pigeon
Sitting in the third-floor room of the accommodation house with Agar, Pierce finished his cigar and sat up in his chair. "We are very lucky," he said finally.
"Lucky? Lucky to have jacks on our nancy five days before the pull?"
"Yes, lucky," Pierce said. "What if Willy blew?' He'd tell them we knocked over the London Bridge Terminus."
"I doubt he'd blow so much, right off. He'd likely tickle them for a bigger push." An informant was in the habit of letting out information bit by bit, with a bribe from the police at each step.
"Yes," Pierce said, "but we must take the chance that he did. Now, that's why we are lucky."
"Where's the luck, then?" Agar said.
"In the fact that London Bridge is the only station in the city with two lines operating from it. The South Eastern, and the London & Greenwich."
"Aye, that's so," Agar said, with a puzzled look.
"We need a bone nose to blow on us," Pierce said.
"You giving the crushers a slum?"
"They must have something to keep them busy," Pierce said. "In five days' time, we'll pull the peters on that train, and I don't want the crushers around to watch."