Author of the world-famous Jurassic Park, Michael Chrichton penned the novel The Great Train Robbery, a true story about an infamous 1855 heist. This was a major event in England for several reasons. Firstly, the trains were a new technology in Victorian England, and nobody had thought to make such a daring robbery on a train line. Secondly, the plan was well thought out and spanned a period of over a year in preparations. Finally, it took nearly another year of detective work to track down the mastermind of the event.
Chrichton did his research well on this event and presented a narrative of the event from the perspective of the criminals, in a style similar to what Capote had done in the Kansas crime novel, In Cold Blood. The leader, Edward Pierce, was continually described as ‘the red bearded man.’ He had the appearance of a gentleman and few suspected him to be a criminal, as most believed Victorian criminals were of the lower class. Pierce created a master plan to rob the London train heading to the coast with a load of gold intended to pay troops in the Crimean War. While he collected information, he also rounded up necessary men and women to aid the heist. As he hired the men he needed, he told none of them of the impending robbery details, just what their particular job would be. He hired Robert Agar as a lockpicker early in the preparations and left him in the dark as they worked together to bring the plan together.
The robbery entailed robbing the trains on-the-go. In a special guarded and locked car sat two state-of-the-art Stubb’s safes, which had two locks apiece, requiring four keys to get in. The four keys seemed to be the most difficult part of the preparations. Two were locked in a cupboard in a guarded office, and the two others were each held by managers of the bank who were employed to supply the gold shipments. One man was seduced by a young prostitute to obtain the key, the other was burglarized at home during the night, the key found hidden in his wine cellar. The other two keys in the guarded office took an elaborate scheme. Pierce hired a boy to act as a thief, who ran into the office and broke a ceiling window in a failed attempt to escape. Pierce’s cab driver, a large brute with a noticeable white scar on his forehead, acted as a policeman to chase the boy and take him away safely without any real repercussions. Later that night, a man Pierce had hired for his climbing ability and agility climbed through the broken window and into the room to unlock the door. Agar then waited until the guard went to the bathroom and ran into the unlocked room and made wax copies of the keys, returning to his hiding place on the platform before the guard returned. Several months later, after careful planning, Agar and Pierce were ready for the big day. Agar was disguised as a corpse in a coffin to be loaded into the guarded car. Agar had met the guard a few months before as he practiced unlocking the safes and the guard had been paid off and was believed to be no threat to the operation. Pierce boarded the train in the second-class cars and had one all to himself. During the route, he climbed onto the roof of the speeding train and walked across to the guarded car, where he unlocked the door from the outside. The gold was bagged and thrown off the train to Pierce’s cab driver. Bags of lead shot replaced the weight of the gold and the safes were locked up again, and everyone returned to their original places as well. The train delivered the safes to a ferry crossing the English Channel, then they were transported to Paris to pay the troops. It was in Paris the guards discovered that something was amiss. The train blamed the Parisian government, the ferry blamed the train, and the British and French governments blamed each other. After such careful planning, nearly everything went according to plan.
Over a year later, a lady friend of Agar’s was caught robbing a drunk man and when begging and bribing didn’t get her out of police custody, she gave up information on Agar’s involvement in the robbery. Agar was apprehended, which led police to the train guard and then to Pierce. The trial was a national event, however, it was overshadowed by the Indian uprising against British troops on the Indian peninsula. Pierce was cool, calm and collected the entire trial, explaining in detail his plan and the execution of the robbery. After the sentencing, Pierce was taken into a police cab to be taken to jail. The guards woke up and reported that they don’t remember anything but a large man with a white scar on his forehead beating them. Pierce, his mistress (who was involved in the robbery) and the cab driver made a clean escape and were never heard from again.
Rating: 9/10
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