Chapter 37 Further Congratulations
"And then?" Pierce said.
Miriam shrugged. "They boarded the train."
"How many of them were there?"
"Four altogether."
"And they took the Greenwich train?"
Miriam nodded. "In great haste. The leader was a squarish man with whiskers, and his lackey was clean-shaven. There were two others, jacks in blue."
Pierce smiled. "Harranby," he said. "He must be very proud of himself. He's such a clever man." He turned to Agar. "And you?"
"Fat Eye Lewis, the magsman, is in the Regency Arms asking about a cracker's lay in Greenwich--- wants to join in, he says."
"So the word is out?" Pierce said.
Agar nodded.
"Feed it," he said.
"Who shall I say is in?"
"Spring Heel Jack, for one."
"What if the miltonians find him?" Agar said.
"I doubt that they will," Pierce said..
"Jack's under, is he?"
"So I have heard."
"Then I'll mention him."
"Make Fat Eye pay," Pierce said. "This is valuable information."
Agar grinned. "It'll come to him dear, I promise you."
Agar departed, and Pierce was alone with Miriam.
"Congratulations," she said, smiling at him. "Nothing can go wrong now."
Pierce sat back in a chair. "Something can always go wrong," he said, but he was smiling.
"In four days?" she asked.
"Even in the space of an hour."
Later, in his courtroom testimony, Pierce admitted he was astounded at how prophetic his own words were, for enormous difficulties lay ahead--- and they would come from the most unlikely source.
Chapter 38 A Sharp Business Practice
Henry Mayhew, the great observer, reformer, and classifier of Victorian society, once listed the various types of criminals in England. The list had five major categories, twenty subheadings, and more than a hundred separate entries. To the modern eye, the list is remarkable for the absence of any consideration of what is now called "white-collar crime."
Of course, such crime existed at that time, and there were some flagrant examples of embezzlement, forgery, false accounting, bond manipulation, and other illegal practices that came to light during the mid-century. In 1850, an insurance clerk named Walter Watts was caught after he embezzled more than
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