# The Thief, the Jewels, and the Dublin Castle Conspiracy

An episode of [Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1484511465), 19 Jun 2026, 42 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdrl.fm/18db03/tracking.swap.fm/track/SxlTEPDY7xDg35RXkASs/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/c0ae8c6e-22f0-4e9b-ac1c-ae390037ac53/b3465343-ddbd-41b8-b2ee-b46d010dcb33/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=7f5a4714-6b10-4ccf-a424-ae390037ac70

In the early 1900s, Sir Arthur Vickers keeps the magnificent Irish Crown Jewels safe under lock and key at Dublin Castle. When the jewels disappear, the King rages, the police investigate, and even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gets involved. No one is ever charged and no jewels are ever recovered. Except, we have a very good idea of who took them, and why the truth has stayed buried. For a list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:15] Speaker 1: Pushkin. Tim here with an exciting announcement about the Cautionary Club,
[0:22] Speaker 1: our Patreon community for Cautionary Tales listeners. So many of
[0:26] Speaker 1: you joined our live table read earlier this year that
[0:30] Speaker 1: we're doing it again. Join me and I production team
[0:33] Speaker 1: for a live reading of an unreleased episode about the
[0:37] Speaker 1: people who almost invented the iPhone fifteen years early and
[0:43] Speaker 1: the surprising reasons they failed. This will be a chance
[0:46] Speaker 1: for you to see how the stories we tell are
[0:49] Speaker 1: developed in real time and ask your burning questions about
[0:53] Speaker 1: cautionary Tales. It's on the eighth of July at five
[0:57] Speaker 1: pm UK or noon Eastern. If you join the Patreon
[1:01] Speaker 1: before then, or if you're already a member, you'll get
[1:03] Speaker 1: your exclusive invitation. Head to Patreon dot com slash Cautionary Club.
[1:10] Speaker 1: That's Patreon, p A T R e O N dot
[1:14] Speaker 1: com slash Cautionary Club. Dublin Castle nineteen oh three, the
[1:23] Speaker 1: seat of government in Ireland, then still ruled by Britain.
[1:28] Speaker 1: Workman dragging a heavy safe across a hallway. It's three
[1:34] Speaker 1: feet wide, made from sturdy steel by the prestigious ratner
[1:39] Speaker 1: company thief Proof, or so it says inside the safe.
[1:46] Speaker 1: The Irish Crown jewels, exquisitely crafted, ostentatiously made from diamonds,
[1:54] Speaker 1: emeralds and rubies. When the King of the United Kingdom
[2:00] Speaker 1: of Great Britain and Ireland came to Ireland for some
[2:03] Speaker 1: grand ceremonial occasion, these jewels would be worn. They were worth,
[2:08] Speaker 1: in today's money, several million dollars. The workers are heaving
[2:14] Speaker 1: the safe towards the strong room. They've just built an
[2:18] Speaker 1: extra layer of protection for the safe and the jewels,
[2:22] Speaker 1: along with various other valuables and documents. The walls to
[2:26] Speaker 1: the strong room are thick and reinforced. The door is
[2:31] Speaker 1: made from steel, two tons of it. Now time to
[2:35] Speaker 1: put the safe in the strong room. Ah, the safe
[2:41] Speaker 1: doesn't quite fit through the doorway, at least this way around.
[2:45] Speaker 1: Let's try swiveling it ninety degrees hmm, not that way either,
[2:53] Speaker 1: maybe at an angle. Well, this is embarrassing. The plans
[3:02] Speaker 1: for the strong room are unfolded, and with some trepidation,
[3:08] Speaker 1: the door is measured. But it's exactly the width that's
[3:12] Speaker 1: supposed to be. No mistake there. Apparently nobody thought to
[3:17] Speaker 1: measure the safe before drawing up the plans, or what
[3:22] Speaker 1: might have been even more sensible to put the safe
[3:25] Speaker 1: in the space that would become the strong room and
[3:28] Speaker 1: build the walls around it. The man in charge, Sir
[3:32] Speaker 1: Arthur Vickers, considers his options. They could take down a wall,
[3:40] Speaker 1: and they've only just put them up. They could buy
[3:42] Speaker 1: a narrower safe, but they've already spent a fortune on
[3:46] Speaker 1: this refurbishment. Maybe they could just leave the safe in
[3:50] Speaker 1: another room, the library, over the hallway from the strong Room.
[3:55] Speaker 1: The safe is thief proof after all, and the only
[3:59] Speaker 1: people who come into this part of the castle are
[4:01] Speaker 1: the colleagues and friends of Sir Arthur Vickers. It'll be fine.
[4:09] Speaker 1: Sir Arthur Vickers has some grand titles. He's the Ulster
[4:15] Speaker 1: King of Arms, the Registrar and night Attendant of the
[4:19] Speaker 1: most Illustrious Order of Saint Patrick. Two years after the
[4:24] Speaker 1: strong Room door debarcle in nineteen oh five, Vickers is
[4:28] Speaker 1: making some amendments to the Statute of the Order of
[4:32] Speaker 1: Saint Patrick, which formally sets out the responsibilities of his role,
[4:39] Speaker 1: among them to ensure the crown jewels are deposited for
[4:44] Speaker 1: safe keeping in a steel safe in the Strong Room.
[4:48] Speaker 1: That had been written when the strong Room was being built.
[4:51] Speaker 1: The safe is still very much not in the strong room,
[4:55] Speaker 1: so mightn't it be wise to strike out those words
[4:59] Speaker 1: from his actual job description. No need, he decides it'll
[5:04] Speaker 1: be fine. Two years after that in nineteen ohight seven,
[5:10] Speaker 1: Well you can probably guess what happens. Then. I'm Tim
[5:17] Speaker 1: Harford and you're listening to cautionary tales. Arthur Vickers was
[5:48] Speaker 1: fascinated by the genealogy of aristocratic Irish families, an arcane
[5:54] Speaker 1: subject to find fascinating, perhaps, but his enthusiasm landed him
[5:58] Speaker 1: a comfortable job as Ulster, King of Arms, Night Attendant
[6:02] Speaker 1: and Registrar of the Order of Saint Patrick. Vickers reported
[6:07] Speaker 1: directly to his Majesty the King, and the job was
[6:10] Speaker 1: his for life, provided he didn't do anything stupid enough
[6:15] Speaker 1: to force the King to reconsider. The salary wasn't huge,
[6:19] Speaker 1: but enough to allow Vickers to lease a grand looking townhouse,
[6:24] Speaker 1: an employer, cook, a coachman, and a manservant. At forty
[6:29] Speaker 1: four years old, Vickers was very much the established bachelor,
[6:34] Speaker 1: which is to say Vickers was widely rumored to be gay.
[6:39] Speaker 1: He also had a housemate, another bachelor, Although the young
[6:43] Speaker 1: man spent a lot of time in London on business.
[6:47] Speaker 1: Vicker's job. He was in charge of tracing family trees
[6:52] Speaker 1: and deciding who qualified for what privileges in the labyrinthine
[6:56] Speaker 1: world of Irish gentry, the lords and ladies, earls and barons.
[7:02] Speaker 1: Who was merely an honorable who got to be a
[7:06] Speaker 1: right honorable or a most honorable? Who was allowed to
[7:11] Speaker 1: use a coronet on their family's heraldic crest. Important stuff.
[7:17] Speaker 1: Vickers was deeply conscious of what distinguished a Knight of
[7:21] Speaker 1: the Garter from a Knight of the Order of the
[7:24] Speaker 1: Bath or a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order.
[7:29] Speaker 1: That's what Vickers was himself and proud of it. When
[7:35] Speaker 1: the King visited the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, who governed
[7:39] Speaker 1: on Britain's behalf, it was Vickers who made sure all
[7:43] Speaker 1: the ceremonial aspects of the visit ran smoothly. Oh and
[7:49] Speaker 1: of course he had to make sure that the crown
[7:52] Speaker 1: jewels were kept in a steel safe in the strong room.
[7:56] Speaker 1: It doesn't sound too onerous, and Vickers rarely rolled up
[8:01] Speaker 1: at his suite of rooms in Dublin Castle before eleven am.
[8:05] Speaker 1: Those rooms included his own office, the strong room, and
[8:09] Speaker 1: the library. That's where the safe was. The library also
[8:14] Speaker 1: served as an antechamber for visitors, so people were often
[8:18] Speaker 1: in and out, not ideal for a room containing the
[8:23] Speaker 1: Crown jewels, but the office messenger, mister Styvey, sat right
[8:28] Speaker 1: outside in the hallway. Admittedly, Styvey couldn't actually see the
[8:34] Speaker 1: safe from where he sat or one of the two
[8:37] Speaker 1: doors into the library, and he wasn't always there, but
[8:41] Speaker 1: still it'd be fine. The first sign of trouble came
[8:48] Speaker 1: on a Wednesday in July nineteen oh seven, one week
[8:53] Speaker 1: before the King was due to visit on an important matter,
[8:57] Speaker 1: investing a new lord as a Knight of Saint Patrick.
[9:01] Speaker 1: It was the kind of occasion for which Vickers had
[9:04] Speaker 1: to be on top of all the MINUTIAI, such as
[9:07] Speaker 1: making sure the engraving was up to date on the
[9:10] Speaker 1: gold collars worn by the Knights of the Order of
[9:13] Speaker 1: Saint Patrick. Vickers had a lot on his mind. Vickers
[9:19] Speaker 1: arrived at his usual leisurely hour and was accosted by
[9:23] Speaker 1: a worried mister Stivee. He'd been talking to the cleaning
[9:27] Speaker 1: lady when she had arrived that morning. She was always
[9:31] Speaker 1: the first she had found that the front door into
[9:34] Speaker 1: the office building hadn't been locked, Vickers absently replied, did
[9:41] Speaker 1: you Yes, said Stivee, but Vickers did not appear concerned.
[9:48] Speaker 1: Stivee was nonplussed. He'd expected his boss to alert the
[9:52] Speaker 1: police and investigate if anything had been taken, but Stivee
[9:58] Speaker 1: was an ex navy man who understood chains of command.
[10:03] Speaker 1: He'd told his boss it was up to the boss
[10:05] Speaker 1: to decide what, if anything, to do with that information.
[10:10] Speaker 1: Three days later, four days before the King's visit, the
[10:14] Speaker 1: cleaning lady had an even bigger shock. This time she
[10:19] Speaker 1: arrived to find that the huge steel door to the
[10:22] Speaker 1: strong room was hanging open once again. She informed Styvee.
[10:29] Speaker 1: When Vickers turned up, Styvey passed on the alarming news,
[10:35] Speaker 1: or at least Styvey thought it was alarming. Vickers, though,
[10:39] Speaker 1: seemed distracted. That's so he said, and went straight into
[10:45] Speaker 1: his office. It was Saturday. Styvee always left early on
[10:51] Speaker 1: a Saturday, but not before checking if Vickers had any
[10:54] Speaker 1: last job that needed doing. Can you put this in
[10:59] Speaker 1: the safe, says Vickers. He hands Stivey one of the
[11:02] Speaker 1: newly engraved golden collars of the Order of Saint Patrick
[11:07] Speaker 1: just received back from a low called jewler. He also
[11:10] Speaker 1: hands him the key to the safe. Stivey is surprised.
[11:16] Speaker 1: He's never before been asked to open the safe. He
[11:20] Speaker 1: goes into the library, slides the key into the lock
[11:25] Speaker 1: and tries to turn it. It doesn't move. Hmm. He
[11:32] Speaker 1: tries the other way, and now the key turns. He
[11:36] Speaker 1: pulls the handle, the door doesn't open. He understands he
[11:44] Speaker 1: hasn't just unlocked the safe, He's just locked it. Stivey
[11:53] Speaker 1: rushes back to tell Vickers that the safe had been
[11:55] Speaker 1: unlocked this time. Vickers pays attention, what do you mean.
[12:02] Speaker 1: Vickers hurries to the safe, unlocks it and pulls the
[12:06] Speaker 1: door open. My god, he says, they're gone. The jewels
[12:13] Speaker 1: are gone. When the police arrived to investigate, Vickers tells
[12:20] Speaker 1: them he has no idea how this could have happened.
[12:23] Speaker 1: He never lets the keys out of sight, well except
[12:27] Speaker 1: when they're in his coat pocket and he takes his
[12:30] Speaker 1: coat off and leaves it somewhere, Or that one time
[12:33] Speaker 1: he forgot his keys at home and his coachman brought
[12:36] Speaker 1: them in for him. He doesn't mention what's later reported
[12:40] Speaker 1: to have happened one night a few months earlier, at
[12:44] Speaker 1: one of the after hours parties he sometimes threw in
[12:48] Speaker 1: his office for other young men. Vickers passed out drunk
[12:53] Speaker 1: and one of the men proposed a practical joke. They
[12:58] Speaker 1: took vickers keys from his pocket, removed the Crown jewels
[13:02] Speaker 1: from the safe and put the keys back. The next morning,
[13:08] Speaker 1: a hung over a Vicars received a parcel through the
[13:11] Speaker 1: post and opened it to find, to his astonishment, the
[13:18] Speaker 1: Crown jewels. No, he doesn't mention that to the police,
[13:24] Speaker 1: but he does say hopefully I would not be a
[13:27] Speaker 1: bit surprised that they would be returned to my house
[13:30] Speaker 1: by parcel post tomorrow morning. Well maybe, Sir Arthur, maybe
[13:39] Speaker 1: cautionary tales will be back after the break. Sir Arthur
[13:48] Speaker 1: Vickers was widely rumored to be gay, not that gay
[13:53] Speaker 1: had its current meaning in nineteen oh seven. Even the
[13:56] Speaker 1: word homosexual wasn't widely used. Whatever you called it, consensual
[14:02] Speaker 1: sex between adult men was very much against the law.
[14:06] Speaker 1: A generation earlier, in eighteen eighty four, Sir Arthur's own
[14:10] Speaker 1: workplace had been the center of the Dublin Castle scandal.
[14:15] Speaker 1: A senior official and army captain were among a group
[14:19] Speaker 1: of men who stood criminal trial for their homosexual activities.
[14:24] Speaker 1: The scandal rocked the British administration. Dublin Castle was portrayed
[14:30] Speaker 1: as a hotbed of this terrible vice, this crime that
[14:35] Speaker 1: was loathsome, impure and revolting the lowest depth of detestable depravity.
[14:43] Speaker 1: A decade later, in eighteen ninety five, the celebrated Irish
[14:48] Speaker 1: playwright Oscar Wilde was convicted in London of gross indecency
[14:54] Speaker 1: and sentenced to two years hard labor. And yet Sir
[15:00] Speaker 1: Arthur Vickers shared his house with another man who was
[15:04] Speaker 1: well known to be gay. He employed servants who has
[15:08] Speaker 1: served do knew exactly what was happening. So Arthur frequently
[15:13] Speaker 1: held after work drinks in his office with more gay men.
[15:18] Speaker 1: Wasn't he taking a terrible risk? Well, yes and no.
[15:25] Speaker 1: The sociologist Ari Addut points out that homosexuality norms were
[15:30] Speaker 1: only rarely and reluctantly enforced. For many years before Oscar
[15:36] Speaker 1: Wilde's trial, it was common knowledge that he was gay.
[15:40] Speaker 1: He hardly tried to hide it with his flamboyant dress
[15:44] Speaker 1: and green carnation buttonniere public flirting and waxing lyrical about
[15:50] Speaker 1: male beauty and Socratic love. Yet his plays were wildly popular,
[15:56] Speaker 1: and he moved in the most fashionable high society circles.
[16:01] Speaker 1: As a adute says, on the face of it, that's
[16:04] Speaker 1: a puzzle. Why would audiences and authorities a commodate those
[16:09] Speaker 1: who are widely known to commit a transgression deemed repulsive
[16:14] Speaker 1: by society and criminal by law. Allow me to set
[16:20] Speaker 1: that puzzle aside for later, and invite you first to
[16:24] Speaker 1: spend some time with one of Oscar Wilde's great friends,
[16:28] Speaker 1: Lord Ronald Gower, an inspiration for Wilde's character Lord Henry
[16:34] Speaker 1: Wootton in his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Lord
[16:39] Speaker 1: Ronald Gower made some attempt to be discreet about his
[16:43] Speaker 1: homosexuality by legally adopting his much younger lover to give
[16:48] Speaker 1: them an ostensible reason for living together. At his country house.
[16:53] Speaker 1: Gower and his adopted son through weekend parties for his
[16:58] Speaker 1: close friends, mostly men, though a wealthy widow was also
[17:03] Speaker 1: a much loved fixture. Lord Ronald Gower was a sculptor.
[17:09] Speaker 1: He labored for twelve years on an installation that still
[17:13] Speaker 1: overlooks the river in Stratford upon avon bronze sculptures of
[17:18] Speaker 1: William Shakespeare and four of his major characters. Gower didn't
[17:23] Speaker 1: get paid for this. He financed it himself. He could
[17:27] Speaker 1: do that because he was an aristocrat and very rich.
[17:31] Speaker 1: At least he was very rich until he met Frank Shackleton.
[17:39] Speaker 1: Francis Frank Shackleton was the brother of the famous Antarctic explorer,
[17:45] Speaker 1: Sir Ernest Shackleton. Thirty years younger than Gower, Frank was
[17:51] Speaker 1: an irishman who spent a lot of time in London.
[17:54] Speaker 1: He did something finance related in the city and frequented
[17:58] Speaker 1: all the fashionable London clubs. One who knew him described
[18:02] Speaker 1: Shackleton as extremely good looking and extremely Depravedackleton became part
[18:10] Speaker 1: of Lord Gower's intimate circle, a regular at his weekend parties.
[18:16] Speaker 1: Gower became so close to Shackleton that he bestowed upon
[18:20] Speaker 1: him a pet nickname, My Old Foozle. In nineteen oh seven,
[18:28] Speaker 1: Gower's investment manager died. He asked his Old Foozle to
[18:33] Speaker 1: take over. Why not, young Shackleton, it seemed was good
[18:37] Speaker 1: at business. Gower's wealthy widow friend also entrusted Shackleton with
[18:42] Speaker 1: her money. She had taken a shine to him. Dear
[18:46] Speaker 1: little Francis, she writes in one letter, you are very
[18:50] Speaker 1: dear to me. She later said she thought she and
[18:53] Speaker 1: Shackleton enjoyed a relationship akin to mother and son. Much
[19:01] Speaker 1: of their money, many millions in today's terms, was invested
[19:05] Speaker 1: in railway shares. It gave a steady income, But Shackleton said,
[19:11] Speaker 1: what about the rise of the motor car? They trusted
[19:15] Speaker 1: Shackleton to invest in something better instead. Gower found money
[19:20] Speaker 1: matters tedious, so he gave Shackleton power of attorney. That
[19:25] Speaker 1: way he wouldn't have the hassle of approving every last transaction.
[19:32] Speaker 1: Frank Shackleton had a secret. He'd risked all his own
[19:38] Speaker 1: money on a tract of land in Mexico. He was
[19:41] Speaker 1: sure it had the resources to make him rich, but
[19:44] Speaker 1: it needed more upfront investment, more than Shackleton himself could raise.
[19:51] Speaker 1: He put Gower's and the widow's money into an elaborate
[19:54] Speaker 1: scheme of worthless shell companies to try to convince his
[19:58] Speaker 1: bank and brokers to keep extending his credit and underwriting
[20:03] Speaker 1: his risks. Lord Gower had no idea he was back
[20:09] Speaker 1: rolling Shackleton's Mexican adventure until in nineteen ten he received
[20:14] Speaker 1: a summons for unpaid debts. Shackleton had mortgaged Gower's properties.
[20:21] Speaker 1: He had been intercepting Gower's mail to stop him finding out.
[20:26] Speaker 1: Soon after Shackleton's brokers pulled the plug, Gower's adopted son
[20:33] Speaker 1: and wealthy widow friend went to Shackleton's bankruptcy hearings. If
[20:38] Speaker 1: they'd expected contrition, they were in for a shock. Shackleton
[20:43] Speaker 1: walked up to them and grinned. The adopted son was furious.
[20:50] Speaker 1: He yelled at Shackleton, thief. Before anyone could sue Shackleton
[20:55] Speaker 1: for defrauding them, he skipped the country. Frank Shackleton then suave, plausible,
[21:05] Speaker 1: secretly desperate for money, and utterly without moral scruples. Oh
[21:12] Speaker 1: and one other thing about Shackleton. Back in nineteen oh seven,
[21:18] Speaker 1: he used to split his time between London and Dublin,
[21:23] Speaker 1: where he shared the lease on a grand looking townhouse
[21:26] Speaker 1: with his good friend, Sir Arthur Vickers. Sir Arthur Vickers
[21:35] Speaker 1: waited anxiously for the arrival of the parcel post Alas
[21:40] Speaker 1: it did not contain the Irish Crown jewels, the local
[21:45] Speaker 1: police continued their investigation. They asked Vickers when was the
[21:50] Speaker 1: last time he had opened the safe? Just over three
[21:54] Speaker 1: weeks earlier, he worked out the jewels could have been
[21:58] Speaker 1: taken at any point in that time. The police brought
[22:02] Speaker 1: in experts to examine the locks on the safe and
[22:06] Speaker 1: the strong room door. They said if the locks had
[22:10] Speaker 1: been picked there'd be telltale scratches. There were none that
[22:15] Speaker 1: meant they'd been opened with a key. Only one man
[22:20] Speaker 1: possessed the original keys to the safe, Sir Arthur Vickers.
[22:27] Speaker 1: There were two ways one might make a copy of
[22:30] Speaker 1: a key. You could quickly make a wax impression of
[22:34] Speaker 1: the original, or you could take the original to a
[22:36] Speaker 1: locksmith and have them take their time about it. If
[22:41] Speaker 1: the safe had been opened by the kind of crude
[22:43] Speaker 1: copy you might get from a wax impression, they'd again
[22:47] Speaker 1: be telltale signs. There were none. Whoever had opened the
[22:52] Speaker 1: safe had either used an original key, or at some
[22:56] Speaker 1: point had gained possession of an original for long enough
[23:00] Speaker 1: to make a perfect copy. Who might that be? Vickers
[23:06] Speaker 1: thought for a moment, and unwise suggested his coachman, After
[23:12] Speaker 1: all that one time he did have access to the keys.
[23:15] Speaker 1: When Vickers forgot them at home, police interrogated the coachman,
[23:21] Speaker 1: who was outraged that his boss had accused him. They
[23:25] Speaker 1: found nothing to suggest the coachman had done it. But
[23:28] Speaker 1: the coachman did tell them lots of interesting information about
[23:33] Speaker 1: the comings and goings of men in the vicar's Shackleton household.
[23:40] Speaker 1: The British Government sent in an inspector from Scotland Yard,
[23:45] Speaker 1: their top crime investigation agency. He quickly zeroed in on
[23:50] Speaker 1: another suggestive piece of evidence. What had been left behind
[23:56] Speaker 1: in the safe. A ribbon was there. It had been
[24:00] Speaker 1: attached to the Crown jewels and would have taken quite
[24:03] Speaker 1: some time to remove. Several gold collars were also stuff
[24:09] Speaker 1: and from the safe. They had been wrapped in tissue
[24:12] Speaker 1: paper and stored in boxes, and the boxes and tissue
[24:17] Speaker 1: paper had been neatly put back. Whoever took the jewels
[24:22] Speaker 1: clearly hadn't been in a rush. This was no opportunistic heist,
[24:29] Speaker 1: said the inspector. Any regular thief would swipe the valuables
[24:33] Speaker 1: and get away. Whoever took the jewels was not only
[24:38] Speaker 1: close enough to Vickers to have access to his keys,
[24:42] Speaker 1: but also comfortable enough in Dublin Castle to take their time.
[24:49] Speaker 1: It had to be one of vickers colleagues or friends
[24:55] Speaker 1: or housemate. Cautionary tales will be back in a moment.
[25:09] Speaker 1: Sociologist Ariy Adute posed a puzzle, why did London high
[25:14] Speaker 1: society accept and celebrate Oscar Wilde when everyone knew he
[25:19] Speaker 1: was gay? That puzzle has a flip side. After years
[25:25] Speaker 1: of acceptance, why was wild suddenly punished so harshly for
[25:30] Speaker 1: something that everyone already knew about? In eighteen ninety five,
[25:35] Speaker 1: the father of one of Wilde's lovers publicly called him
[25:39] Speaker 1: a sodomite. Wild chose to sue for libel. He thought
[25:44] Speaker 1: the allegation would be hard to prove. He lost. That
[25:50] Speaker 1: put pressure on the government to put wild on criminal trial.
[25:55] Speaker 1: They didn't want to. The Prime Minister at the time
[25:58] Speaker 1: was thought to be gay, who knew what embarrassing details
[26:02] Speaker 1: might come out. They quietly encouraged wild to leave the
[26:07] Speaker 1: country in the hope that it all blow over. Wild
[26:11] Speaker 1: refused and ended up in prison. Our Adute used Wilde's
[26:18] Speaker 1: case to develop a general theory of scandal. It's one
[26:23] Speaker 1: thing for a transgression, such as being gay in the
[26:27] Speaker 1: eighteen nineties, to be commonly known. It's another thing for
[26:31] Speaker 1: the transgression to be actively publicized. Publicity creates costs for others.
[26:38] Speaker 1: It makes the authorities look weak. If they don't act,
[26:41] Speaker 1: but if they do act, perhaps some inconvenient information will
[26:46] Speaker 1: end up being exposed. A Dute defines scandal as the
[26:52] Speaker 1: disruptive publicity of transgression. His theory helps to explain why
[26:58] Speaker 1: well connected individuals can behave transgressively for years in ways
[27:03] Speaker 1: that are hardly a secret. Then something happens to trigger publicity,
[27:09] Speaker 1: and suddenly there's a scandal with fallout that can be
[27:12] Speaker 1: hard to control. The week before the King's visit to
[27:18] Speaker 1: Dublin in nineteen oh seven, Frank Shackleton was at a
[27:22] Speaker 1: high society dinner party in London. So Arthur Vickers came
[27:27] Speaker 1: up in conversation and the Irish Crown Jewels were mentioned.
[27:32] Speaker 1: Shackleton chipped in, I should never be surprised to hear
[27:36] Speaker 1: that they were stolen someday. What makes you say that, Frank,
[27:42] Speaker 1: I have never considered them safe and what do you know?
[27:47] Speaker 1: Just a couple of days later, the Crown Jewels were
[27:51] Speaker 1: reported stolen with hindsight. Shackleton's remark raised some eyebrows. Back
[28:01] Speaker 1: in Dublin, Shackleton was happy to expand on what it
[28:04] Speaker 1: had meant. At a private inquiry into vickers security measures.
[28:10] Speaker 1: He was his usual urbane and confident self. Certainly I
[28:16] Speaker 1: could have gone into his room when he was in
[28:18] Speaker 1: the bath and taken those keys. I could have walked
[28:21] Speaker 1: away with that key and replaced it quite easily. Anyone
[28:24] Speaker 1: could have done that. He explained why he thought security
[28:29] Speaker 1: was lax at Dublin Castle. Often he'd gone to visit
[28:33] Speaker 1: Sir Arthur and walked into the suite of rooms unnoticed
[28:38] Speaker 1: as mister Stivey wasn't there. One could then sneak down
[28:42] Speaker 1: to the cellar to hide, sift through the contents of
[28:46] Speaker 1: the safe at one's leisure overnight, and simply walk out
[28:50] Speaker 1: again the next daytime. Provided your face was familiar, no
[28:55] Speaker 1: one would suspect a thing, Shackleton added, with a disarming smile.
[29:03] Speaker 1: I don't want to pile up a case against myself.
[29:08] Speaker 1: Not that Shackleton himself could be accused. He had alibis
[29:13] Speaker 1: before the jewels were stolen. He had been in England
[29:17] Speaker 1: for weeks. As the police investigation continued, Sir Arthur Vickers
[29:25] Speaker 1: asked if he could borrow the safe key back. He
[29:29] Speaker 1: explained that he had received an interesting message from a psychic.
[29:34] Speaker 1: She'd been having visions about the Crown Jewels if she
[29:39] Speaker 1: could touch something related to the case, she said she
[29:44] Speaker 1: might be able to locate them. As Sir Arthur later
[29:48] Speaker 1: mentioned that he had been discussing the case with a relative,
[29:51] Speaker 1: another Irish Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the famous author of
[29:58] Speaker 1: the Sherlock Holmes mysteries and a great believer in supernatural phenomena.
[30:04] Speaker 1: The mystic came to vickers home, held the key and
[30:09] Speaker 1: heard into a trance state, and announced the missing jewels
[30:15] Speaker 1: are hidden near a tombstone, not far from the entrance
[30:21] Speaker 1: to an old and disused churchyard in the direction of Clonsilla.
[30:29] Speaker 1: The next day, the police accompanied Vickers on the road
[30:33] Speaker 1: to Clonsilla, a village outside Dublin. They passed two churchyards
[30:39] Speaker 1: which might fit the psychic's description, and spent the whole
[30:43] Speaker 1: day searching in vain for any signs of recent digging.
[30:49] Speaker 1: A newspaper described this line of inquiry as an outrageous
[30:55] Speaker 1: display of utter stupidity. While the local police were exploring tombstones,
[31:04] Speaker 1: the inspector from Scotland Yard was writing up his report, said, well,
[31:11] Speaker 1: we don't know what it said because the report was
[31:14] Speaker 1: never made public. The inspector never talked about it, and
[31:19] Speaker 1: no copies exist, the jewels were never found. Nobody was
[31:26] Speaker 1: ever brought to trial. Historians still debate who did it.
[31:32] Speaker 1: Some think the heist was related to politics. The Irish
[31:35] Speaker 1: Nationalists were pushing for home rule, the Unionists determined to
[31:40] Speaker 1: keep Ireland ruled from Britain. Various motives are conceivable, but
[31:46] Speaker 1: others inclined to the theory that seems most obvious. It
[31:52] Speaker 1: was Frank Shackleton, the man who was later revealed to
[31:56] Speaker 1: be in desperate financial straits and a moral enough to
[32:01] Speaker 1: steal from a wealthy widow who loved him like a son.
[32:07] Speaker 1: But hold on, how did Shackleton do it? If he
[32:12] Speaker 1: was in London. Shackleton had a lover, an army officer.
[32:20] Speaker 1: Both were reportedly present at that drinks party in Vicker's office,
[32:25] Speaker 1: where another man had played the prank of taking Vicker's keys,
[32:30] Speaker 1: removing the jewels from the safe and sending them back
[32:33] Speaker 1: through parcel post. The lover was well known around Dublin Castle.
[32:40] Speaker 1: He'd have attracted no attention, slipping in and out of
[32:44] Speaker 1: vickers rooms and hiding out in the cellar overnight, just
[32:49] Speaker 1: as Shackleton himself had brazenly described. This theory would explain
[32:55] Speaker 1: the otherwise curious detail of the unlocked doors. Shackleton was
[33:02] Speaker 1: due to travel back to Dublin for the King's visit.
[33:06] Speaker 1: The theft of the jewels had to be discovered while
[33:10] Speaker 1: Shackleton was still in London, so he'd be above suspicion.
[33:15] Speaker 1: When Vickers initially failed to notice the theft, the lover
[33:20] Speaker 1: slipped back in to unlock the front door. Surely that
[33:24] Speaker 1: would precipitate a search that would reveal the jewels were missing.
[33:29] Speaker 1: When it didn't, he left a more obvious hint by
[33:33] Speaker 1: opening the strong room door. Do we have proof that
[33:37] Speaker 1: the lover did it well? He did confess years later,
[33:43] Speaker 1: although that's perhaps not as conclusive as it might seem,
[33:47] Speaker 1: as he was by then a wreck an alcoholic in
[33:52] Speaker 1: prison for killing a policeman. The most seductive evidence for
[33:58] Speaker 1: Shackleton's guilt is aary Adut's theory of scandal. If Shackleton
[34:05] Speaker 1: stood trial for stealing the jewels, what in embarrassing details
[34:10] Speaker 1: might come out? Well, For a start, the identity of
[34:15] Speaker 1: the man at the drinks party who played the practical
[34:19] Speaker 1: joke of borrowing the jewels. He was none other than
[34:23] Speaker 1: the son of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He was
[34:27] Speaker 1: widely rumored to be gay. The Lord Lieutenant didn't want
[34:32] Speaker 1: that to be actively publicized. That was awkward. The King
[34:37] Speaker 1: was furious about the theft. He wanted answers. The Lord
[34:42] Speaker 1: Lieutenant explained the King about Shackleton and those intimate weekend
[34:49] Speaker 1: gatherings at Lord Ronald Gower's house, and who else regularly attended.
[34:57] Speaker 1: The King's brother in law. King Edward is reported to
[35:02] Speaker 1: have digested the implications, then banged the table and yelled,
[35:07] Speaker 1: I will have no scandal. The investigation into the jewel
[35:14] Speaker 1: heist quietly went nowhere. It reveals an ironic twist in
[35:20] Speaker 1: the theory of scandal. Transgressive behavior can make you vulnerable,
[35:25] Speaker 1: as Oscar Wilde discovered, but if you're well enough connected,
[35:29] Speaker 1: those very transgressions can sometimes become a source of protection too.
[35:36] Speaker 1: There had to be some kind of consequence, and it
[35:40] Speaker 1: fell on Sir Arthur Vickers. The King had him sacked
[35:45] Speaker 1: for failing to fulfill the very clear duty in his
[35:50] Speaker 1: job description of keeping the jewels in a safe in
[35:55] Speaker 1: the strong room. In nineteen ten, when Frank Shackleton's brokers
[36:03] Speaker 1: informed him they would no longer underwrite his Mexican investments.
[36:09] Speaker 1: They gave an intriguing reason, owing to a variety of circumstances,
[36:15] Speaker 1: of which the death of King Edward was by no
[36:18] Speaker 1: means the least. Had the King quietly let it be
[36:23] Speaker 1: known in the city that he wanted Shackleton to be protected,
[36:27] Speaker 1: then once the king died, they cut him loose. Shackleton
[36:34] Speaker 1: fled the country, but was tracked down to Portuguese West
[36:38] Speaker 1: Africa what's now Angola, and brought back to stand trial
[36:44] Speaker 1: for fraud. The judge wandered aloud what his nickname Fosele meant,
[36:50] Speaker 1: a golfing term it seemed. He dryly remarked that maybe
[36:55] Speaker 1: someone who takes another's property would be a better definition.
[37:01] Speaker 1: Shackleton served fifteen months in prison, changed his name not
[37:07] Speaker 1: to mister Fozle, moved to a genteel English seaside town
[37:13] Speaker 1: and opened an antique shop. Sir Arthur Vickers never got
[37:21] Speaker 1: over his bitterness. He retired to a family property in
[37:25] Speaker 1: rural County Kerry, and at the age of fifty three,
[37:30] Speaker 1: surprised everyone by marrying an old friend called Gertrude. After
[37:36] Speaker 1: the First World War, as the battle for Irish home
[37:40] Speaker 1: rule turned violent, Vickers was either brave or foolish enough
[37:45] Speaker 1: to take a stand against the local armed nationalists. He
[37:50] Speaker 1: was dragged from his bed and shot. Vickers left a
[37:58] Speaker 1: will in which he disposed of his worldly goods and remarked,
[38:05] Speaker 1: I might have had more to dispose of had it
[38:08] Speaker 1: not been for the out rageous way in which I
[38:10] Speaker 1: was treated Over the loss of the Irish Crown jewels.
[38:14] Speaker 1: I was made a scapegoat. They shielded the real culprit
[38:18] Speaker 1: and thief, Francis R. Shackleton. My whole life and work
[38:24] Speaker 1: was ruined by the wicked and blaggedly acts of the
[38:26] Speaker 1: Irish government. In nineteen oh eight, a new Sherlock Holmes
[38:35] Speaker 1: short story appeared in print. The Adventure of the Bruce
[38:40] Speaker 1: Partington plans a handsome, plausible protagonist secretly in debt copies
[38:48] Speaker 1: the keys of an intimate to steal something valuable from
[38:52] Speaker 1: a government office. Where could that plot idea have come from?
[38:59] Speaker 1: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle concluded his tale with Sherlock forcing
[39:06] Speaker 1: the wretched perpetrator to come clean. The theory of scandal
[39:12] Speaker 1: denied that pleasure to poor Sir Arthur Vickers. A quick
[39:26] Speaker 1: announcement before the credits, We're having another live event on
[39:31] Speaker 1: our Patreon. We're inviting members of our Cautionary Club to
[39:35] Speaker 1: join us for one of our episode table reads, where
[39:38] Speaker 1: I read a draft of an episode and we give
[39:40] Speaker 1: feedback and make suggestions. It's a chance to get a
[39:43] Speaker 1: sneak preview of an episode, hear how our stories develop,
[39:47] Speaker 1: and ask me or the team questions of your own.
[39:50] Speaker 1: It's on the eighth of July at five pm UK
[39:53] Speaker 1: or noon Eastern. If you join the Patreon before then,
[39:57] Speaker 1: or if you're already a member, you'll get your exclusive invitation.
[40:01] Speaker 1: You'll also have access to all the other benefits, an
[40:04] Speaker 1: extra Cautionary tale every month, a bonus video interview, and
[40:08] Speaker 1: a new sign up now. To get the live table
[40:11] Speaker 1: read details and join the club, head to patreon dot
[40:15] Speaker 1: com slash Cautionary Club. That's Patreon, p A t R
[40:20] Speaker 1: e o N dot com slash Cautionary Club. Key sources
[40:28] Speaker 1: for this episode were Vicious Circle, the Case of the
[40:32] Speaker 1: Missing Irish Crown Jewels by Francis Bamford and Viola Banks,
[40:37] Speaker 1: and the Stealing of the Irish Crown Jewels an Unsolved
[40:42] Speaker 1: Crime by Miles Dungan. Cautionary Tales is presented by me
[40:49] Speaker 1: Tim Harford. It's produced by Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust.
[40:54] Speaker 1: The sound design and original music are the work of
[40:57] Speaker 1: Pascal Wise. The show also wouldn't have been possible without
[41:01] Speaker 1: the work of Jacob Weisberg, Greta Cohne, Corn Gilliard, Fisher
[41:05] Speaker 1: benderd A. F. Haffrey, Eric Sandler, Christina Sullivan, Kira Posey,
[41:10] Speaker 1: and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries.
[41:16] Speaker 1: If you like the show, please remember to share, rate,
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