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