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Tim Harford (Narrator of Cautionary Tales)

Pushkin. Dublin Castle, 1903 the seat of government in Ireland, then still ruled by Britain, workmen are dragging a heavy safe across a hallway. It's three feet wide, made from sturdy steel by the prestigious Ratner Co. Thief Proof. Or so it says. Inside the safe, the Irish crown jewels. Exquisitely crafted, ostentatiously made from diamonds, emeralds and rubies. When the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland came to Ireland for some grand ceremonial occasion, these jewels would be worn. They were worth, in today's money, several million dollars. The workers are heaving the safe towards the strong room. They've just built an extra layer of protection for the safe and the jewels, along with various other valuables and documents. The walls to the strong room are thick and reinforced. The door is made from steel. Two tons of it now, time to put the safe in the strong room. Ah, the safe doesn't quite fit through the doorway. At least this way round. Let's try swiveling it 90 degrees. Hmm, not that way either. Maybe at an angle. Well, this is embarrassing. The plans for the strong room are unfolded and with some trepidation, the door is measured. But it's exactly the width it's supposed to be. No mistake there. Apparently nobody thought to measure the safe before drawing up the plans. Or what might have been even more sensible to put the safe in the space that would become the strong room and build the walls around it. The man in charge, Sir Arthur Vickers, considers his options. They could take down a wall. They've only just put them up. They could buy a narrower safe. But they've already spent a fortune on this refurbishment. Maybe they could just leave the safe in another room. The library, over the hallway from the strong room. The safe is thief proof, after all. And the only people who come into this part of the castle are the colleagues and friends of Sir Arthur Vickers. It'll be fine. Sir Arthur Vickers has some grand titles. He's the Ulster King of Arms, the Registrar and Knight Attendant of the Most illustrious Order of St. Patrick. Two years after the Strong Room Door debacle in 1905, Vickers is making some amendments to the Statute of The Order of St Patrick, which formally sets out the responsibilities of his role among them to ensure the crown jewels are deposited for safekeeping in a steel safe in the strong room that had been written when the Strong Room was being built. The safe is still very much not in the strong room, so mightn't it be wise to strike out those words from his actual job description? No need. He decides. It'll be fine. Two years after that, in 1907, well, you can probably guess what happens then. I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to Cautionary Tales. Arthur Vickers was fascinated by the genealogy of aristocratic Irish families. An arcane subject to find fascinating. Perhaps, but his enthusiasm landed him a comfortable job as Ulster King of Arms, Knight Attendant and Registrar of the Order of St. Patrick. Vickers reported directly to His Majesty the King and the job was his for life, provided he didn't do anything stupid enough to force the King to reconsider. The salary wasn't huge, but enough to allow Vickers to lease a grand looking townhouse and employ a cook, a coachman and a manservant. At 44 years old, Vickers was very much the established bachelor. Which is to say, Vickers was widely rumoured to be gay. He also Had a housemate, another bachelor, although the young man spent a lot of time in London on business. Vickers job. He was in charge of tracing family trees and deciding who qualified for what privileges. In the labyrinthine world of Irish gentry, the lords and ladies, earls and barons, who was merely an Honourable who got to be a Right Honourable or a Most Honourable, who was allowed to use a coronet on their family's heraldic crest? Important stuff. Vickers was deeply conscious of what distinguished a Knight of the Garter from a Knight of the Order of the Bath or a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. That's what Vickers was himself, and proud of it. When the King visited the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, who governed on Britain's behalf, it was Vickers who made sure all the ceremonial aspects of the visit ran smoothly. Oh, and of course, he had to make sure that the Crown Jewels were kept in a steel safe in the strong room. It doesn't sound too onerous. And Vickers rarely rolled up at his suite of rooms in Dublin Castle before 11am Those rooms included his own office, the Strong Room and the library. That's where the safe was. The library also served as an antechamber for visitors, so people were often in and out. Not ideal for a room containing the Crown Jewels. But the office messenger, Mr. Stivey, sat right outside in the hallway. Admittedly, Stivey couldn't actually see the safe from where he sat or one of the two doors into the library. And he wasn't always there. But still, it'd be fine. The first sign of trouble came on a Wednesday in July 1907, one week before the King was due to visit on an important matter investing a new lord as a Knight of St Patrick. It was the kind of occasion for which vicars had to be on top of all the minutiae, such as making sure the engraving was up to date on the gold collars worn by the Knights of the Order of St. Patrick. Vickers had a lot on his mind. Vickers arrived at his usual leisurely hour and was accosted by a worried Mr. Stivey. He'd been talking to the cleaning lady when she'd arrived that morning. She was always the first. She'd found that the front door into the office building hadn't been locked. Vickers absently replied. Did she? Yes, said Stifey. But Vickers did not appear concerned. Stivey was nonplussed. He had expected his boss to alert the police and investigate if anything had been taken. But Stivey was an ex Navy man who understood chains of command. He'd Told his boss it was up to the boss to decide what, if anything, to do with that information. Three days later, four days before the king's visit, the cleaning lady had an even bigger shock this time. She arrived to find that the huge steel door to the strong room was hanging open. Once again, she informed Stivey. When Vickers turned up, Stivey passed on the alarming news. Or at least Stivey thought it was alarming. Vickers, though, seemed distracted. Is that so? He said and went straight into his office. It was Saturday. Stivey always left early on a Saturday, but not before checking if Vickers had any last job that needed doing. Can you put this in the safe? Says Vickers. He hands Stivey one of the newly engraved golden collars of The Order of St. Patrick, just received back from a local jeweller. He also hands him the key to the safe. Stivey is surprised. He's never before been asked to open the safe. He goes into the library, slides the key into the lock and tries to turn. Doesn't move.

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He tries the other way. And now the key turns. He pulls the handle. The door doesn't open. He understands he hasn't just unlocked the safe, he's just locked it. Stivey rushes back to tell Vickers that the safe had been unlocked. This time Vickers pays attention. What do you mean? Vickers hurries to the safe, unlocks it and pulls the door open. My God, he says. They're gone. The jewels are gone. When the police arrive to investigate, Vickers tells them he has no idea how this could have happened. He. He never lets the keys out of sight. Well, except when they're in his coat pocket and he takes his coat off and leaves it somewhere. Or that one time he forgot his keys at home and his coachman brought them in for him. He doesn't mention what's later reported to have happened. One night a few months earlier, at one of the after hours parties he sometimes threw in his office for other young men, men, vicars passed out drunk and one of the men proposed a practical joke. They took vicar's keys from his pocket, removed the crown jewels from the safe and put the keys back. The next morning, a hungover vicars received a parcel through the post and opened it to find, to his astonishment, the crown jewels. No, he doesn't mention that to the police. But he does say, hopefully, I would not be a bit surprised that they would be returned to my house by parcel post tomorrow morning. Well, maybe, Sir Arthur, maybe cautionary tales will be back after the break.

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Tim Harford (Narrator of Cautionary Tales)

Sir Arthur Vickers was widely rumoured to be gay. Not that gay had its current meaning. In 1907, even the word homosexual wasn't widely used. Whatever you called it, consensual sex between adult men was very much against the law. A Generation earlier, in 1884, Sir Arthur's own workplace had been the centre of the Dublin Castle scandal. A senior official and army captain were among a group of men who stood criminal trial for their homosexual activities. The scandal rocked the British administration. Dublin Castle was portrayed as a hotbed of this terrible vice, this crime that was loathsome, impure and revolting, the lowest depth of detestable depravity. A decade later, in 1895, the celebrated Irish playwright Oscar Wilde was convicted in London of gross indecency and sentenced to two years hard labour. And yet Sir Arthur Vickers shared his house with another man who was well known to be gay. He employed servants who as servants do, knew exactly what was happening. Sir Arthur frequently held after work drinks in his office with more gay men. Wasn't he taking a terrible risk? Well, yes and no. The sociologist Ari Udute points out that homosexuality norms were only rarely and reluctantly enforced. For many years before Oscar Wilde's trial it was common knowledge that he was gay. He hardly tried to hide it with his flamboyant dress and green carnation boutonniere, public flirting and waxing lyrical about male beauty and Socratic love. Yet his plays were wildly popular and he moved in the most fashionable high society circles. As Ari Adut says, on the face of it, that's a puzzle. Why would audiences and authorities accommodate those who are widely known to commit a transgression deemed repulsive by society and criminal by law? Allow me to set that puzzle aside for later and invite you first to spend some time with one of Oscar Wilde's great friends, Lord Ronald Gower. An inspiration for Wilde's character, Lord Henry Wootton in his novel the Picture of Dorian Gray. Lord Ronald Gower made some some attempt to be discreet about his homosexuality by legally adopting his much younger lover to give them an ostensible reason for living together. At his country house, Gower and his adopted son threw weekend parties for his close friends, mostly men. Though a wealthy widow was also a much loved fixture. Lord Ronald Gower was a sculptor. He laboured for 12 years on an installation that still overlooks the river in Stratford upon Avon. Bronze sculptures of William Shakespeare and four of his major characters. Gower didn't get paid for this, he financed it himself. He could do that because he was an aristocrat and very rich. At least he was very rich until he met Frank Shackleton. Francis Frank Shackleton was the brother of the famous Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. 30 years younger than Gower, Frank was an Irishman who spent a lot of time in London. He did something finance related in the city and frequented all the fashionable London clubs. One who knew him described Shackleton as extremely good looking and extremely depraved. Shackleton became part of Lord Gower's intimate circle, a regular at his weekend parties. Gower became so close to Shackleton that he bestowed upon him a pet nickname, My old Foozle. In 1907 Gower's investment manager died. He asked his old Foozle to take over. Why not young. Shackleton, it seemed, was good at business. Gower's wealthy widow friend also entrusted Shackleton with her money. She had taken a shine to him. Dear little Francis, she writes in one letter. You are very dear to me. She later said she thought she and Shackleton enjoyed a relationship akin to mother and son. Much of their money, many millions in today's terms, was invested in railway shares. It gave a steady income. But Shackleton said what about the rise of the motor car? They trusted Shackleton to invest in something better instead. Gower found money matters tedious so he gave Shackleton power of attorney. That way he wouldn't have the hassle of approving every last transaction. Frank Shackleton had a secret. He'd risked all his own money on a tract of land in Mexico. He was sure it had the resources to make him rich. But it needed more upfront investment, more than Shackleton himself could raise. He put Gowers and the widow's money into an elaborate scheme of worthless shell companies to try to convince his bank and brokers to keep extending his credit and underwriting his risks. Lord Gower had no idea he was bankrolling Shackleton's Mexican adventure until in 1910 he received a summons for unpaid debts. Shackleton had mortgaged Gower's properties. He'd been intercepting Gower's mail to stop him finding out. Soon after, Shackleton's brokers pulled the plug. Gower's adopted son and wealthy widow friend went to Shackleton's bankruptcy hearings. If they'd expected contrition, they were in for a shock. Shackleton walked up to them and grinned. The adopted son was furious. He yelled at Shackleton, thief. Before anyone could sue Shackleton for defrauding them, he skipped the country. Frank Shackleton then. Suave, plausible, secretly desperate for money and utterly without moral scruples. Oh, and one other thing about Shackleton. Back in 1907 he used to split his time between London and Dublin where he shared the lease on a grand looking townhouse with his good friend Sir Arthur Village Vickers. Sir Arthur Vickers waited anxiously for the arrival of the parcel post. Alas, it did not contain the Irish crown jewels. The local police continued their investigation. They asked Vickers when was the last time he'd opened the safe. Just over three weeks earlier. He worked out the jewels could have been taken at any point in that time. The police brought in experts to examine the locks on the safe and the strong room door. They said if the locks had been picked there'd be telltale scratches. There were none that meant they'd been opened with a key. Only one man possessed the original keys to the safe, Sir Arthur Vickers. There were two ways. One might make a copy of a key. You could quickly make a wax impression of the original. Or you could take the original to a locksmith and have them take their time about it. If the safe had been opened by the kind of crude copy you might get from a wax impression, there'd again be telltale signs. There were none. Whoever had opened the safe had either used an original key or at some point had gained possession of an original for long enough to make a perfect copy. Who might that be? Vickers thought for a moment and unwisely suggested his coachman. After all that one time, he did have access to the keys. When Vickers forgot them at home, police interrogated the coachman, who was outraged that his boss had accused him. They found nothing to suggest the coachman had done it. But the coachman did tell them lots of interesting information about the comings and goings of men in the vicar's Shackleton household. The British government sent in an inspector from Scotland Yard, the their top crime investigation agency. He quickly zeroed in on another suggestive piece of evidence. What had been left behind in the safe. A ribbon was there. It had been attached to the crown jewels and would have taken quite some time to remove. Several gold collars were also stolen from the safe. They'd been wrapped in tissue paper and stored in boxes and the boxes and tissue paper had been neatly put back. Whoever took the jewels clearly hadn't been in a rush. This was no opportunistic heist, said the inspector. Any regular thief would swipe the valuables and get away. Whoever took the jewels was not only close enough to Vickers to to have access to his keys, but also comfortable enough in Dublin Castle to take their time. It had to be one of Vicar's colleagues or friends or housemate. Cautionary tales will be back in a moment.

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Tim Harford (Narrator of Cautionary Tales)

sociologist Ari Adut posed a puzzle. Why did London high society accept and celebrate Oscar Wilde when everyone knew he was gay? That puzzle has a flip side. After years of acceptance, why was Wilde suddenly punished so harshly for something that everyone already knew about? In 1895, the father of one of Wilde's lovers publicly called him a sodomite. Wild chose to sue for libel. He thought the allegation would be hard to prove. He lost. That put pressure on the government to put Wild on criminal trial. They didn't want to. The prime minister at the time was thought to be gay. Who knew what embarrassing details might come out? They quietly encouraged Wild to leave the country in the hope that it would all blow over. Wilde refused and ended up in prison. Ari Adut used Wilde's case to develop a general theory of scandal. It's one thing for a transgression such as being gay in the 1890s to be commonly known. It's another thing for the transgression to be actively publicised. Publicity creates costs for others. It makes the authorities look weak if they don't act but if they do act, perhaps some inconvenient information will end up being exposed. Adut defines scandal as the disruptive publicity of transgression. His theory helps to explain why well connected individuals can behave transgressively for years in ways that are hardly a secret. Then something happens to trigger publicity and suddenly there's a scandal with fallout that can be hard to control. The week before the King's visit to Dublin in 1907, Frank Shackleton was at a high society dinner party in London. Sir Arthur Vickers came up in conversation and the Irish crown jewels were made mentioned. Shackleton chipped in. I should never be surprised to hear that they were stolen someday. What makes you say that, Frank? I have never considered them safe. And what do you know? Just a couple of days later, the crown jewels were reported stolen. With hindsight, Shackleton's remarks raised some eyebrows. Back in Dublin, Shackleton was happy to expand on what he'd meant at a private inquiry into vicar's security measures. He was his usual urbane and confident self. Certainly I could have gone into his room when he was in the bath and taken those keys. I could have walked away with that key and replaced it quite easily. Anyone could have done that. He explained why he thought security was lax at Dublin Castle. Often he'd gone to visit Sir Arthur and walked into the suite of rooms unnoticed as Mr. Stivey wasn't there. One could then sneak down to the cellar to hide, sift through the contents of the safe at one's leisure overnight and simply walk out again the next daytime. Provided your face was familiar, no one would suspect a thing. Shackleton added with a disarming smile, I don't want to pile up a case against myself. Not that Shackleton himself could be accused. He had alibis. Before the jewels were stolen, he'd been in England for weeks. As the police investigation continued, Sir Arthur Vickers asked if he could borrow the safe key back. He explained that he'd received an interesting message from a psychic. She'd been having visions about the crown jewels. If she could touch something related to the case, she said she might be able to locate them. Sir Arthur later mentioned that he'd been discussing the case with a relative, another Irish Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the famous author of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries and a great believer in supernatural phenomena. The mystic came to Vicar's home, held the key, entered into a trance state and announced the missing jewels are hidden near a tombstone not far from the entrance to an old and disused churchyard in the direction of Clonsilla. The next Day the police accompanied Vickers on the road to Clonsilla, a village outside Dublin. They passed two churchyards which might fit the psychic's description and spent the whole day searching in vain for any signs of recent digging. A newspaper described this line of inquiry as an outrageous display of utter stupidity. While the local police were exploring tombstones the inspector from Scotland Yard was writing up his report. It said. Well, we don't know what it said because the report was never made public. The inspector never talked about it and no copies exist. The jewels were never found. Nobody was ever brought to trial. Historians still debate who did it. Some think the heist was related to politics. The Irish nationalists were pushing for Home rule. The Unionists determined to keep Ireland ruled from Britain. Various motives are conceivable but others incline to the theory that seems most obvious. It was Frank Shackleton, the man who was later revealed to be in desperate financial straits and amoral enough to steal from a wealthy widow who loved him like a son. But hold on. How did Shackleton do it if he was in London? Shackleton had a lover, an army officer. Both were reportedly present at that drinks party in vicar's office where another man had played the prank of taking vicar's keys, removing the jewels from the safe and sending them back through parcel post. The lover was well known around Dublin Castle. He'd have attracted no attention slipping in and out of vicar's rooms and hiding out in the cellar overnight just as Shackleton himself had brought brazenly described. This theory would explain the otherwise curious detail of the unlocked doors. Shackleton was due to travel back to Dublin for the King's visit. The theft of the jewels had to be discovered while Shackleton was still in London so he'd be above suspicion. When Vickers initially failed to notice the theft left the lover slipped back in to unlock the front door. Surely that would precipitate a search that would reveal the jewels were missing. When it didn't, he left a more obvious hint by opening the strong room door. Do we have proof that the lover did it? Well, he did confess years later although that's perhaps not as conclusive as it might seem. As he was by then a wreck, an alcoholic in prison for killing a policeman. The most seductive evidence for Shackleton's guilt is Ari Adut's theory of scandal. If Shackleton stood trial for stealing the jewels, what embarrassing details might come out? Well, for a start, the identity of the man at the drinks party who played the practical joke of borrowing the jewels. He was none other than the son of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He was widely rumoured to be gay. The Lord Lieutenant didn't want that to be actively publicised. That was awkward. The King was furious about the theft. He wanted answers. The Lord Lieutenant explained to the King about Shackleton and those intimate weekend gatherings at Lord Ronald Gower's house and who else regularly attended. The King's brother in law, King Edward, is reported to have digested the implications, then banged the table and yelled, I will have no scandals. The investigation into the jewel heist quietly went nowhere. It reveals an ironic twist in the theory of scandal. Transgressive behaviour can make you vulnerable, as Oscar Wilde discovered. But if you're well enough connected, those very transgressions can sometimes become a source of protection too. There had to be some kind of consequence and it fell on Sir Arthur Vickers. The King had him sacked for failing to fulfil the very clear duty in his job description of keeping the jewels in a safe in the strong room. In 1910, when Frank Shackleton's brokers informed him they would no longer underwrite his Mexican investments, they gave an intriguing reason. Owing to a variety of circumstances, of which the death of King Edward was by no means the least had the King quietly let it be known in the city that he wanted Shackleton to be protected. Then, once the King died, they cut him loose. Shackleton fled the country, but was tracked down to Portuguese West Africa, what's now Angola, and brought back to stand trial for fraud. The judge wondered aloud what his nickname foozle meant. A golfing term, it seemed, he drily remarked, that maybe someone who takes another's property would be a better definition. Shackleton served 15 months in prison, changed his name not to Mr. Foozle, moved to a genteel English seaside town and opened an antique shop. Sir UN Arthur Vickers never got over his bitterness. He retired to a family property in rural County Kerry and at the age of 53, surprised everyone by marrying an old friend called Gertrude. After the First World War, as the battle for Irish Home Rule turned violent, Vickers was either brave or foolish enough to take a stand against the local armed nationalists. He was dragged from his bed and shot. Vickers left a will in which he disposed of his worldly goods and remarked, I might have had more to dispose of had it not been for the outrageous wealth in which I was treated over the loss of the Irish Crown Jewels, I was made a scapegoat. They shielded the real culprit and thief, Francis R Shackleton. My whole life and work was ruined by the wicked and blackguardly acts of the Irish government. In 1908, a new Sherlock Holmes short story appeared in print, the Adventure of the Bruce Partington Plans. A handsome, plausible protagonist, secretly in debt, copies the keys of an intimate to steal something valuable from a government office. Where could that plot idea have come from? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle concluded his tale with Sherlock, forcing the wretched perpetrator to come clean. The theory of Scandal denied that pleasure to poor Sir Arthur Vickers. A quick announcement before the credits we we're having another live event on our Patreon. We're inviting members of our Cautionary Club to join us for one of our episode table reads where I read a draft of an episode and we give feedback and make suggestions. It's a chance to get a sneak preview of an episode, hear how our stories develop, and ask me or the team questions of your own. It's on the 8th of July at 5pm UK or noon Eastern Eastern. If you join the Patreon before then, or if you're already a member, you'll get your exclusive invitation. You'll also have access to all the other benefits, an extra Cautionary Tale every month, a bonus video interview and a newsletter. Sign up now to get the live table, read details and join the Club. Head to patreon.com cautionaryclub that's patreon P A T R E O N.com cautionaryclub Key sources for this episode were Vicious the Case of the Missing Irish Crown Jewels by Frances Bamford and Viola Banks and the Stealing of the Irish Crown Jewels, an Unsolved Crime, by Miles Dungan. Cautionary Tales is presented by me, Tim Harford. It's produced by Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust. The sound design and original music are the work of Pascal Wise. The show also wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Greta Cohn, Corinne Gilliard Fisher, Ben Nadaff Haffrey, Eric Sandler, Christina Sullivan, Keira Posey and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you like the show, please remember to share, rate and review.

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