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"Unless I open the door for you," Pierce said. He gave Agar a snifter of brandy.
Agar swallowed it in a single gulp. "Aye, and there's a likely turn. You come back over all those coaches, tripping light over the rooftops, and swing down like Mr. Coolidge over the side of the van to pick the lock and break the drum. I'll see God in heaven first, no mistake."
Pierce said, "I know Mr. Coolidge."
Agar blinked. "No gull?"
"I met him on the Continent last year. I climbed with him in Switzerland-- three peaks in all-- and I learned what he knows."
Agar was speechless. He stared at Pierce for any sign of deception, sca
"No gull?" Agar said again.
"I have the ropes and tackle up in the closet," Pierce said. "No gull."
"I'll have another daffy," Agar said, holding out his empty glass. Pierce immediately filled it, and Agar immediately gulped it down.
"Well then," he said. "Let's say you can betty the lock, hanging on a rope, and break the drum, and then lock up again, with nobody the wiser. How do I get on in the first place, past the Scots jack, with his sharp cool?"
"There is a way," Pierce said. "It's not pleasant, but there is a way."
Agar appeared unconvinced. "Say you put me on in some trunk. He's bound he'll open it and have a see, and there I am. What then?"
"I intend for him to open it and see you," Pierce said.
"You intend?"
"I think so, and it will go smoothly enough, if you can take a bit of odor."
"What ma
"The smell of a dead dog, or cat," Pierce said. "Dead some days. Do you think you can manage that?"
Agar said, "I swear, I don't get the lay. Let's settle the down with another daffy or two," and he extended his glass.
"That's enough," Pierce said. "There are things for you to do. Go to your lodgings, and come back with your best du
Agar sighed.
"Go now," Pierce said. "And trust me."
____________________
When Agar had departed, he sent for Barlow, his cabby.
"Do we have any rope?" Pierce said.
"Rope, sir? You mean hempen rope?"
"Precisely. Do we have any in the house?"
"No, sir. Could you make do with bridle leather?
"No," Pierce said He considered a moment. "Hitch up the horse to the flat carriage and get ready for a night's work. We have a few items to obtain."
Barlow nodded and left. Pierce returned to the dining room, where Miriam was still sitting, patient and calm.
"There's trouble?" she said.
"Nothing beyond repair," Pierce said. "Do you have a black dress? I am thinking of a frock of cheap quality, such as a maid might wear."
"I think so, yes."
"Good," he said. "Set it out, you will wear it tomorrow morning."
"Whatever for?" she asked.
Pierce smiled. "To show your respect for the dead," he said.
CHAPTER 40
A FALSE ALARM
On the morning of May 22nd, when the Scottish guard McPherson arrived at the platform of the London Bridge Station to begin the day's work, he was greeted by a most unexpected sight. There alongside the luggage van of the Folkestone train stood a woman in black-- a servant, by the look of her, but handsome enough, and sobbing most piteously.
The object of her grief was not hard to discover, for near the poor girl, set onto a flat baggage cart, was a plain wooden casket. Although cheap and unadorned, the casket had several ventholes drilled in the sides. And mounted on the lid of the casket was a kind of miniature belfry, containing a small bell, with a cord ru
Although the sight was unexpected, it was not in the least mysterious to McPherson-- or, indeed, to any Victorian of the day. Nor was he surprised, as he approached the coffin, to detect the reeking odor of advanced corporeal decay emanating from the ventholes, and suggesting that the present occupant had been dead for some time. This, too, was wholly understandable.
During the nineteenth century, both in England and in the United States, there arose a peculiar preoccupation with the idea of premature burial. All that remains of this bizarre concern is the macabre literature of Edgar Allan Poe and others, in which premature burial in some form or another appears as a frequent motif. To modern thinking, it is all exaggerated and fanciful; it is difficult now to recognize that for the Victorians, premature burial was a genuine, palpable fear shared by nearly all members of society the most superstitious worker to the best-educated professional man.
Nor was this widespread fear a simply neurotic obsession. Quite the contrary: there was plenty of evidence to lead a sensible man to believe that premature burials did occur, and that such ghastly happenings were only prevented by some fortuitous event. A case in 1853 in Wales, involving an apparently drowned ten-year-old boy, received wide publicity: "While the coffin lay in the open grave, and the first earth was shovelled upon it, a most frightful noise and kicking ensued from within. The sextons ceased their labors, and caused the coffin to be opened, whereupon the lad stepped out, and called for his parents. Yet the same lad had been pronounced dead many hours past, and the doctor said that he had no respirations nor any detectable pulse, and the skin was cold and gray. Upon sighting the lad, his mother fell into a swoon, and did not revive for some length of time."
Most cases of premature burial involved victims ostensibly drowned, or electrocuted, but there were other instances where a person might lapse into a state of "apparent death, or suspended animation."
In fact, the whole question of when a person was dead was very much in doubt-- as it would be again, a century later, when doctors struggled with the ethics of organ transplantation. But it is worth remembering that physicians did not understand that cardiac arrest was wholly reversible until 1950; and in 1850 there was plenty of reason to be skeptical about the reliability of any indicator of death.
Victorians dealt with their uncertainty in two ways. The first was to delay interment for several days-- a week was not uncommon-- and await the unmistakable olfactory evidence of the beloved one's departure rom this world. Indeed, the Victorian willingness to postpone burial sometimes reached extremes. When the Duke of Wellington died, in 1852, there was public debate about the way his state funeral should be conducted; the Iron Duke simply had to wait until these disagreements were settled, and he was not actually buried until more than two months after his death.
The second method for avoiding premature burial was technological; the Victorians contrived an elaborate series of warning and signaling devices to enable a dead person to make known his resuscitation. A. wealthy individual might be buried with a length of iron pipe co
The fact that these spring-loaded coffins popped open months or even years later (undoubtedly the result of some external vibration or deterioration in the spring mechanism) only heightened the widespread uncertainty about how long a person might lie dead before coming back to life, even for a moment.
Most signaling devices were costly, and available only to the wealthy classes. Poor people adopted the simpler tactic of burying relatives with some implement-- a crowbar, or a shovel-- on the vague assumption that if they revived, they could dig themselves out of their predicament.
There was clearly a market for an inexpensive alarm system, and in 1852 George Bateson applied for, and received, a patent for the Bateson Life Revival Device, described as "a most economical, ingenious, and trustworthy mechanism, superior to any other method, and promoting peace of mind amongst the bereaved at all stations of life. Constructed of the finest materials throughout." And there is an additional comment: "A device of proven efficacy, in countless instances in this country and abroad."
"Bateson's belfry," as it was ordinarily known, was a plain iron bell mounted on the lid of the casket, over the deceased's head, and co
As a kind of odd footnote to the story, Bateson himself lived in mortal terror of being buried alive, and caused his workshop to fabricate increasingly complex alarm systems for installation on his own coffin after he died. By 1867, his preoccupation left him quite insane, and he rewrote his will, directing his family to cremate him at his death. However, suspecting that his instructions would not be followed, in the spring of 1868 he doused himself with linseed oil in his workshop, set himself aflame, and died by self-immolation.
On the morning of May 22nd, McPherson had more important things to worry about than the weeping servant girl and the coffin with its belfry, for he knew that today the gold shipment from Huddleston amp; Bradford would be loaded upon the railway van at any moment.
Through the open door of the van, he saw the guard, Burgess. McPherson waved, and Burgess responded with a nervous, rather reserved greeting. McPherson knew that his uncle, the dispatcher, had yesterday given Burgess a good deal of sharp talk; Burgess was no doubt worried to keep his job, especially as the other guard had been dismissed. McPherson asssumed that this accounted for Burgess's tension.