Agar goes for the box, and it is delivered to him by Chapman, who opens the safe with a key which he takes from a cupboard. Thus Agar learns where the second key is kept. Now, how are they to obtain an impression of the key? Two months have elapsed since they got the impression of key No. 1. This is October, and they are still without No. 2. But they are not disheartened. Pierce and Agar go to Dover, and put up at the ‘Dover Castle;’ they walk over to Folkestone, and arrive just when the train is coming in. In the confusion of an arrival the attendants leave the office for a few minutes. Pierce goes boldly in, opens the cupboard which contains the key of the iron safe, hands it to Agar, who takes an impression, and then replaces it. Thus five months after their reconnoissance at Folkestone they have surmounted the first difficulty which suggested itself to the reflective mind of Agar. They have obtained wax impressions of the keys; everything else remains to be done.
The next thing, of course, was to make keys from the impressions. For that purpose lodgings are taken in Lambeth and Kennington. Pierce disguises himself in a black wig, and the next two months are spent in filing keys. When the keys were completed to a probable similarity with the rough wax impressions--no easy task, it would seem, for two inexpert operators with common files--it was necessary to try them. Agar went down several times in the van with Burgess, the guard. They did not fit at first, but they fitted more nearly every time he went. At last they fitted completely, and the deed was resolved on. Of course, after nearly a year’s labour, it was not worth their while to fly at any paltry game--they would wait till a large sum was to be sent. Two chests would hold about £12,000, and they heard that £12,000 was shortly to be sent.
They then buy shot to replace the gold. Agar and Pierce are admitted into the van by Burgess, and on May 15, 1855, twelve months after the deed was planned, the boxes of Messrs. Spielman, Bult, and Abell are securely rifled. Nineteen months after the crime was committed, and more than two years and a half after it was planned, justice overtook the delinquents. No sentence was passed upon the informer Agar, who was remitted back to prison under the sentence he had incurred by an act of forgery; but Burgess and Tester were sentenced to transportation for fourteen years, while Pierce, through a technicality, got off with only two years’ imprisonment: and so ends this romantic case.