mornings.
It was a Sunday when, with the help of a respectable but shocked cousin – concerned about the family honour – he stole secretly out of the city and country fearing the game was nearly up. And it was a Sunday too when one of his earliest robberies took place, when an old lady of his acquaintance (who should have been at church but had given it a miss) was politely relieved of her money.
That incident could be seen as part of a small series of experimental forays before his full shocking campaign was launched. For there were several embryonic cases of errant behaviour and downright theft that were, with hindsight, surely perpetrated by him, but – until that major robbery spree began in August, 1786 – were not linked together by the authorities or even by the gossip-mongers to nip his activities in the bud. Despite plenty of reasons for suspicions.
The almost unbelievable audacity of the Sunday-morning robbing of that older woman was perhaps forced upon him by the realisation that, in what he thought would be an empty house, he was being watched. But it almost set a style for his being caught red-handed, in that the essential part of his disguise – the crepe mask – would create doubt in the victim’s mind about the identity they suspected (‘but it just couldn’t have been him!’) and the exercise was followed through so coolly that they might imagine they had been dreaming.
In any case, unable to go to church that day as she was feeling under the weather, the lady in question was also alone in her house, as her servant was absent on divine worship (as Brodie had calculated). She was suddenly awakened from a daydream and into what seemed like a bad dream – shocked by the entrance of a masked man into the room where she sat. Her mouth fell open in disbelief as he nodded to her, smiled and picked up a set of keys lying on the table in front of her. He then walked over to her bureau, opened a few drawers and relieved it of a ‘considerable sum of money’ (she later told a friend) that had been hidden away for safekeeping. Panic-stricken and paralysed during the whole incident, she was sure she recognised the housebreaker and her eyes were wide with a mixture of fear and disbelief as, after relocking the desk, he moved back over to her to replace the keys on the table. He then made a low bow, smiled again as a kind of polite thank you, and took his leave as calmly as he had entered. When he was gone and she calmed down, she exclaimed to herself, ‘Surely that was Deacon Brodie!’ But not even her closest friend would believe that someone of his respectability could have ever stooped so low as to turn burglar. The victim, for fear of embarrassment, never mentioned it again – until, presumably, the Deacon’s crimes came fully to light.
These included another such early incident which brings to mind the comment of Robert Louis Stevenson that ‘many a citizen was proud to welcome the Deacon to supper, and dismissed him with regret at a timeous hour, who would have been vastly disconcerted had he known how soon, and in what guise, his visitor returned’.
The story, as told by Stevenson, went like this. A friend of Brodie, who lived ‘some way towards heaven’ in one of the city’s great lands (high buildings) had told him, during one such convivial supper, that he was intending to go out into the country and would be absent for some time. As it happened, however, his trip was delayed by his having to attend to some unexpected business, so he was still in town on the first night that he should have been absent. The business matters must have been rather complex and worrying, for he lay awake far into the small hours, according to the Tron church bell. And then …! Was he finally dreaming? He suddenly heard a creak and saw a faint light. Jumping as silently out of bed as he could, he dashed over to a false window that looked on to another room – and there he was sure he saw, illuminated by a
It was a Sunday when, with the help of a respectable but shocked cousin – concerned about the family honour – he stole secretly out of the city and country fearing the game was nearly up. And it was a Sunday too when one of his earliest robberies took place, when an old lady of his acquaintance (who should have been at church but had given it a miss) was politely relieved of her money.
That incident could be seen as part of a small series of experimental forays before his full shocking campaign was launched. For there were several embryonic cases of errant behaviour and downright theft that were, with hindsight, surely perpetrated by him, but – until that major robbery spree began in August, 1786 – were not linked together by the authorities or even by the gossip-mongers to nip his activities in the bud. Despite plenty of reasons for suspicions.
The almost unbelievable audacity of the Sunday-morning robbing of that older woman was perhaps forced upon him by the realisation that, in what he thought would be an empty house, he was being watched. But it almost set a style for his being caught red-handed, in that the essential part of his disguise – the crepe mask – would create doubt in the victim’s mind about the identity they suspected (‘but it just couldn’t have been him!’) and the exercise was followed through so coolly that they might imagine they had been dreaming.
In any case, unable to go to church that day as she was feeling under the weather, the lady in question was also alone in her house, as her servant was absent on divine worship (as Brodie had calculated). She was suddenly awakened from a daydream and into what seemed like a bad dream – shocked by the entrance of a masked man into the room where she sat. Her mouth fell open in disbelief as he nodded to her, smiled and picked up a set of keys lying on the table in front of her. He then walked over to her bureau, opened a few drawers and relieved it of a ‘considerable sum of money’ (she later told a friend) that had been hidden away for safekeeping. Panic-stricken and paralysed during the whole incident, she was sure she recognised the housebreaker and her eyes were wide with a mixture of fear and disbelief as, after relocking the desk, he moved back over to her to replace the keys on the table. He then made a low bow, smiled again as a kind of polite thank you, and took his leave as calmly as he had entered. When he was gone and she calmed down, she exclaimed to herself, ‘Surely that was Deacon Brodie!’ But not even her closest friend would believe that someone of his respectability could have ever stooped so low as to turn burglar. The victim, for fear of embarrassment, never mentioned it again – until, presumably, the Deacon’s crimes came fully to light.
These included another such early incident which brings to mind the comment of Robert Louis Stevenson that ‘many a citizen was proud to welcome the Deacon to supper, and dismissed him with regret at a timeous hour, who would have been vastly disconcerted had he known how soon, and in what guise, his visitor returned’.
The story, as told by Stevenson, went like this. A friend of Brodie, who lived ‘some way towards heaven’ in one of the city’s great lands (high buildings) had told him, during one such convivial supper, that he was intending to go out into the country and would be absent for some time. As it happened, however, his trip was delayed by his having to attend to some unexpected business, so he was still in town on the first night that he should have been absent. The business matters must have been rather complex and worrying, for he lay awake far into the small hours, according to the Tron church bell. And then …! Was he finally dreaming? He suddenly heard a creak and saw a faint light. Jumping as silently out of bed as he could, he dashed over to a false window that looked on to another room – and there he was sure he saw, illuminated by a
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