Thinking Sideways: Theft of the Irish Crown Jewels

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Thinking Sideways. I don't know. You never know what story
is of things. We simply don't know the answer too.
Hey there and welcome to another episode of Thinking Sideways
the podcast um Steve as always joined by Devin, Joe

(00:29):
and Joe. He got his name right this story, did it?
We didn't even have to take five takes, Sir Joe.
Sir Joe, Well, that's actually kind of apropos for the
story here perfecting. Why what are we going to talk about? Well,
tonight's story is the theft of the Irish Crown Jewels. Wait,
the Irish have jewels? They did, They didn't, They don't

(00:51):
have them anymore. They're they're gone. Somebody's gone, somebody does. Well,
let's let's just pop right into the story since we
prefaced it so well. Uh await the ending I did?
It's the Middle way, The middle did so. The Irish

(01:12):
Crown Jewels disappeared sometime between the month of June and
July seven. Wait, I'm sorry, they don't even know when
they disappeared, not exactly. Yeah, it was a really good theft,
and you'll find out why it wasn't so obvious right away.
I think that probably everybody is familiar with the concept

(01:33):
at this point of royal jewels or crown jewels. You know,
you see the things that the crown or the cornery,
coronation ceremony accouterments, you know, gilded staff in precious precious
metals and precious stones and all of that. Uh, you know,

(01:55):
they're like I said, they brought out for coronations or
when somebody famous visits. Well, the Irish didn't exactly have
that at this time. We're talking nine o seven. This
is when jewels, yeah, well this is this is seven.
This is when Ireland is actually part of the United Kingdom,
are part of England, officially part of England. The Irish

(02:17):
crown jewels are different because they were part of a
small collection of jewels and ornaments that were used by
and I love this name, the Most Illustrious Order of St. Patrick.
That's a pretty awesome name. If you asked me, we
should change the show name of that. We are now

(02:39):
the most Illustrious Order of thinking sideways all right, Well,
the order was what is referred to as a chivalric
is at the correct pronunciation chivalric organization, which shivalick organizations
were a thing that originally they were made up of
knights who and it was in honor. These were guys

(03:02):
who were honoring knights who had fallen in the Crusades. Yes,
that's exactly right. Well, of course the Crusades were in
the fourteen and fifteen centuries. So as you move forward,
what actually I think they were before then? Were they well,
I know they were a long time ago, like happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(03:27):
as of about the seventeenth century. These orders were actually
just kind of honorary societies kind of they were set
up by they were set up by royalty. It was
kind of a way to say you're my friend, you're
a really good guy, and I'm going to honor you
by inducting you into this order. Or if you had

(03:49):
a lot of hit songs, maybe yeah kind of thing. Yeah, yeah,
because you know St. Patrick, he he had a lot
of hits. Greatest Hits album. You gotta pick that up.
It's it's on Amazon. The the Irish Crown Jewels, which
were part of the order, where there was really only
two pieces of the set. Of my people to only
have two parts of Crown Jewels right now, before we

(04:14):
get into it, you know what, I had a really
hard time this whole time. You guys have watched Family Guy, right,
do you remember when Family Guy did the History of
Ireland and at one point Ireland was this giant, utopian,
super scientific civilization beer and then developed whiskey, and suddenly
they burned and raised the cities and they were no more.

(04:36):
All I can ever remember. It's I think a Family
Guy one to write is when they like fly into
Ireland and the landing strip is really it's just covered
in beer bottles. They just like crash Land. It's like
a pit of beer bottles. Yeah, we should clarify. I'm
definitely super Irish, I think ye, I'd probably have a

(04:57):
little bit. We mean, this is just the funny, the
funny that I couldn't help but thinking of as I
was doing this. But all right, we'll back to the story,
back to the seriousness of the Order of St John's St. Patrick,
the Order of St Patrick's the Irish Town jewels that
were part of it. The two pieces were a eight
pointed Star of St. Patrick, which was a jeweled star.

(05:22):
It had it's eight points, It had a shamrock in
the center that was made out of emeralds, and there
was a diamond brooch which was called the grand Master's Badge,
and the badge was made with ruby's emeralds, and at
the time they called them Brazilian diamonds, which was evidently

(05:42):
the highest quality, clearest diamond they had available. Yeah, that's
that's that's what they used. And written in diamonds on
this badge in Latin it said who will separate us?
With question mark at the end, But I don't. I
didn't write down what it is in Latin because I'm

(06:03):
really bad at Latin. At it. Well, I forgot, I know.
To give you a kind of an idea of the
size of these two pieces, the star was about four
and a quarter inches by four and a quarter inches,
so it was kind of a square, and the brooch
was about three inches across by five inches tall. So

(06:25):
these are like an index card. Yeah there, I mean,
think of it. It's it's about the size of your hand,
almost the ballpark. I mean, that's that's a big piece
of jewelry that you can hold in your hand. Yeah.
And and what they would do is they would pin
them on the chest. They had silk robes and stuff
that they would wear. And so the the star was

(06:45):
worn by one guy and the badge was worn by
another and it was it was the sign of your office,
was really what they did, which is just so silly
because silk just can't hold diamonds like that. Yeah, but
when you're rich, it doesn't matter because you only use
it a couple of times and then you get a
new one. That's true. Yeah, Well, let's get on to
the theft. The Irish Crown jewels were stolen, and they

(07:09):
weren't the only thing that were stolen at the time.
There was also several gold collars for the Order of
St Patrick Collar. All right, Yeah, this this took me
a while. A gold collar is basically a giant gold
chain that would be worn around the neck. If you
think about some of the it's not really draped around
the neck and is across the shoulders and across the chest.

(07:35):
The easiest way I can think of this is if
you ever look at some of the old paintings of royalty,
like let's say Henry the eighth, and you'll see he's
got this big gold thing that comes off his shoulders
and droops across the front of his chest. That's a caller.
That's what they called the caller, which basically just giant bling.
So it's not like an actual like button on collar

(07:56):
like we wear on collar shirts. No, it actually and
that took me a while to figure out because they
kept talking about silk callers that were also stolen, and
silk collars were kind of the roughly bit with silk
that it sat a pond. So you put on the
silk collar, you pull it over your head, and then
you would pull on the gold collar on top of that.

(08:19):
So yes, yeah, so it's me. It's pretty, it's fancy.
It's fanciness, fancy, goldiness, fancy. Uh. Well, the oh, and
the other thing that was stolen at the same time
was the personal jewel belongings of the mother of a
man by the name of Arthur Vickers. Now Vickers is

(08:43):
going to come up in a story very shortly, but
I just want to point out that her jewels were
also stolen because they were stored at the same location.
I have to point out that when I was reading
through some of the links for this story, I skimmed
some of the like kind of backstory on this right,
so I missed the part that there was a dude

(09:03):
named Arthur Vickers. So when I was reading through it,
I just kept thinking, oh, the vicars he thought. He
was like a vicar, Yeah, And I was like, why
are they adding an S to the end of like
the vicar? It makes you feeling better? Yeah, I did
the same thing, and I've read this thing like five
times before I finally slowed down enough to realize what

(09:25):
was going on. Okay, well, here's here's what happens. Here's
the backstory that I think will help is, according to
the Statutes of the Order of St Patrick, the jewels,
along with any other regalia that they might have, was
to be safely guarded by the Ulster King of Arms.

(09:47):
So that's the title. The statue also said that the jewels,
and I'm reading directly here, shall be deposited for safe
keeping in a steel safe in the chancery of the
Order of Office of Arms of Ireland. That makes sense.
Put them in a safe. Put him in a steel
safe so they're locked up. Put them in a safe

(10:07):
in an office you know that has access from only
this one dude, right, correct. Here's the problem is that
from the year eighteen eighty one to nineteen o three
the Order had operated out of Dublin Castle and it
was in a location that was no, that's called Birmingham Tower.

(10:28):
In nineteen o three though they moved the order from
that tower to the upper castle Yard into Bedford Tower,
so they moved locations. Essentially, they changed where they were at.
And when they moved it required that they had a
new safe made, because it's safe that they were using,

(10:48):
I'm guessing was bolted to the floor like you dot to, yeah,
something to keep it from being picked up and easily moved. Exactly,
a good idea generally. The problem is is that when
the new safe was made and delivered, they discovered it
was too big to get through the door into the

(11:12):
strong room where it was supposed to be stared. That's
the hilarious thing too, is like the animals of incompetence,
that's a custom built this strong room to hold this safe,
and they made it and they made the door too small.
And the amazing thing is, you know, I mean it
must have been a really super strong room because they
couldn't like widen the doorway. Yeah, partially, it's a It's
in a tower that is hundreds of years old, so

(11:33):
you're not just gonna put pulling stones out of the
doorway to open it up and try and put them
back in. I know, that just doesn't work. It's just
a bad idea anyway, So I wound up with in
a new location. So now we talked about Arthur Vickers.
He at the time was Ulster King of Arms, and
he was the guy who was responsible for the safe

(11:53):
keeping and storage of the Irish Crown jewels along with
all the other you know reggae yet that they might have,
and his grandmother's jewels and his his mother in law's
jewels or his mother's not well, rather than freak out
and say you need to make me a new safe,
or you need to fix this, because the guy who

(12:15):
made the safe was said, oh, well, we can totally
fix that. I can, I can make new safe. And
he's like, oh no, no, no, no, no, it's fine.
Just put that in the library and we'll just use
it in the library in his office. I got to
put it in Victor's office. No, it was in the
library because there was a bunch of other cases of
stuff that was stored for display and they stuck it

(12:37):
in the library. What I just feel like was he
the kind of guy who had his office because he
was related to somebody. Well, he got the office I
think he was given the office in nineteen o two
or nineteen o three, and he was given the office
by the king. He did something to impress the king
to be elevated to the Ulster King of Arms by

(13:01):
the King of England at the time. Interesting particularly, I
was wondered exactly what what he did. It doesn't say.
I never could find exactly what he did to get
this honor to be elevated to this level. But he
just said, oh, yeah, no, it's fine, just put it there,
no big deal. Let's move forward. That was three. We're

(13:23):
going to move forward to nineteen o seven. On June
eleven of nineteen o seven, it's confirmed there's accounts that
the jewels were removed from the safe and they were
shown to a man by the name of John Hodgson.
He was the librarian of the Duke of Northumberland. Not
John Hodgman. No Hodgson, did I say Hodgman. I just

(13:48):
wanted to make sure that it wasn't famed millionaire, deranged
millionaire John Hodgeman. No, No, it was not him. He'd
be crazy old at that point anyway. Correct. On July
three of nineteen o seven, the cleaning lady showed up
for work and she found the front door unlocked. Yeah,
and I couldn't totally tell. I don't know if you

(14:09):
found out if this was it was that the library door,
was that the safe door? Was it the front door
to the whole building front understanding? I think it was
the front door of the building, but I could never
confirm exactly what the quote unquote front door was. It
was always a cleaning lady finding this stuff. That lady
had to find everything. Ye seven days later, I mean

(14:31):
after after this, she this guver was the strong room
doors has been left. Well, yeah, you're jumping ahead on
me a little bit, but you're right. But then, yeah, okay,
she's always finding stuff that's unlocked and open. Three days
later she finds again, this is July six, she finds
the door to the strong room is open. But you know, nobody,
nobody's worried about it, Nobody thought anything on it, No

(14:52):
big deal. Later that day, though, Vickers, Arthur Vickers had
sent a messenge, you're to the safe. Evidently they had
received the collar of a deceased Knight of the Order,
and he said, hey, take that down to the safe
and put it in the safe, at which point the
messenger discovered that A the safe was open and be

(15:15):
the jewels were gone. I at least they didn't get
that collar. Was it the Was it the cleaning lady?
I mean like did she seal them? We don't know.
I mean it seems like that, right, Like if you
were the cleaning lady and you were going to do
a theft like this, you would totally be like, hey,
when I came in today, Sorry, I know we're jumping ahead. Well,

(15:38):
and there's and there's some facts about locks and keys
that will help, I think clear the cleaning lady of
her of her possible suspicion. But then again, maybe not
one thing I want to know about this safe. It
had two locks on it, so two locks, two keys.
But did those two that's my understanding. I said, at
least something I understood that it was unlock two copies

(16:02):
of the key original and yeah, and some readings I've
seen that, But in other ones I say, it looks
like the say had two locks with two separate keys.
But you would kind of want for security, right. It's
like the every time you see on TV where it's like, oh,
we gotta launch launch the bomb that's going to kill humanity.
You've got to have like at least two different people

(16:22):
with two different keys. And yes, and and this is
jumping ahead a little bit, but I think the way
that I understood it, there was two copies of the
key because Vickers, as his position dictated, was always supposed
to have one copy of the key with him, and
then he was also supposed to have a second copy
of the key locked and stowed somewhere in his residence.

(16:46):
So I got the impression that it was two copies
of the same key, not two locks with two individual keys.
That probably, I mean, yeah, okay. But but then the
cleaning lad clearly could have done it, because once she
found a strong room open strong and was like there
was a door and out of door, and then there
was an inner gate, like her gate was locked, but

(17:07):
somebody had left the key in the lock, and there
was a ring of keys hanging from that, and it
turns out it was Vicker's key ring, So probably the
key to the safe was on that key ring. So
she could have boogied in there, got the crown jewels
stuffed and down her bodice and then you know, and
then turned the keys into lost and found that's one
of my favorite phrases in the world. It stuffed it
down her bodice. I was gonna just like shout out

(17:28):
that technically bodice is not a thing. Well, you're just
no fun. Thanks for killing all the fun. We'll just
move forward the story. She hit it in her underwear, Okay, alright, alright, Well,
the Dublin Metropolitan Police and the Detective Branch. These are
two separate groups. Let all away from ourselves. Yeah we did.

(17:50):
These are two separate groups that are investigative groups that
are you know, of the Royal Police Society As for
lack of I made up that phrase, but they're the police.
They went ahead and they investigated the theft. They determined
that no doors had been forced open. The manufacturer of
the safe, remember the guy who built it too big, Yeah,

(18:11):
and was like yeah, he showed up and said, uh no,
duplicate had key had been used. And by duplicate, I
took that to mean that if somebody had made a
rough copy. And we'll talk about some rough copy stuff
later on, but if you make a rough copy, it's
not perfect, but I imagine with a rough copy you

(18:32):
can kind of jam it in there and bang it around.
It's almost like, what's the phrase for a key when
you've a bump key. Yeah, it's kind of like a
bump key, so it works, but it would mar up
the inside of the teeth of it. Yeah, yeah, a
little bit. That's what I infer that. That's what that
I always when I was reading this, was thinking about

(18:54):
Charlie's Angels. Do you guys ever see that really crappy
Charlie's Angels movie that had like Cameron Diaz, Oh yeah,
clo in it. Um, they like took a copy of
a key by like pushing clay on both sides and
then like injecting some like metal bouleon in there or whatever.
That's how like in my mind that you would have
gotten And that's the easiest way to think about that,

(19:15):
one way to do it. And so of course it
would be a crappy, be very very crappy one time
key or you know, a locksmith could have actually picked it. Yeah,
but you would think that a locksmith, if they were
picking it, they would they would leave some kind of mark.
If you open up the guts of the safe, you
would think you would see this this marks where they
were in there playing around trying to find the tumblers

(19:36):
to push him in. Also, if the safe was found locked, right,
you would have to like not only would you have
to get into it, but you would also have to
like close it and lock it actually, and that's why
if you picked the lock, you don't have the key
to close it with again, and you don't want to
repick the locks, so it's just sitting open. Yeah, yeah,
there's harness. You know. I know this And I saw

(19:56):
that too, about how this guy pronounced that no duplicate
And I thought, I'm guessing he's talking about a cheap
copy with a bump key kind of situation. Granted that
we're probably looking at more of a skeleton key situation. Well, no, actually,
this is would be a normal kind of key that
were Well, there's a guy named Detective Inspector John Kane

(20:19):
who was of Scotland Yard, the Scotland Yards, the Scotland Yards.
He compiled the report which evidently he named who he
was sure the thief was. This is terrible, But the
commissioner of the Dublin Metro Police refused to accept his

(20:40):
report for some reason, and his report subsequently disappeared, so gone,
we don't know who he fingered for the job. It's
hard when you know there weren't electronic copies of everything.
That's the problem. You have to be like the I.
R s to totally lose something that thoroughly. Now, as
you can imagine, there's there's some huge fallout from the

(21:02):
theft of these jewels. Uh. Part of the problem right
away is that it wasn't reported right away. In other words,
they sat on the fact that these things were missing
for at least a week, if not two or three
before they finally admitted it. And when the King Edward
the Seven figured it out, he was mad, super mad.

(21:26):
He sacked everybody in the order that was that was there,
that was an officer in that location. And we got well, yeah,
now we've got four other guys besides Arthur Vickers. We
have a gentleman by the name of Francis Shackleton, Pierce Mahoney,
Sydney Horlock, and Francis Bennett Goldney. These these five guys

(21:51):
are at the center of the conspiracy. For lack of
a better phrase of who could have done it. Now,
there was a commission that was that was put out
to investigated, a commission of inquiry to look into it.
But it seems like mostly they were geared at finding

(22:11):
somebody to point a finger out, and others looking for
a scapegoat or a patsy. They didn't look for who
done it. They looked for kind of who was responsible
for it happening. It was a classic case of who
done it? Yes, I love that you put your hand
on your hip. At the same time, if I had
like the little newsgirl cap, I don't. Yeah, we're like wow.

(22:32):
I was a classic case with your your little notepad
in your hand. Yes, yes, yes, but that's that's the end.
Like the jewels disappeared, we never saw them again. They
were never found, they were never recovered. We don't know
what happened to it until today exactly. Yeah. Do you
want to go through the theory? Just want to. I
want to go through the theories. We could solve it.

(22:54):
I know where they are. Where my jewelry case, Oh
the glass ones that you've got your costume jewelry. No
they're real? No, no, no, all right, Well I can
actually tell you I have a family connection to this
great great uncle Patty stole them. Well let me let me,
let me just get into the theories. You too, But

(23:15):
before I know you've got your I know you know
who done it. But let's like try to hold true
to the way we do things. I like the modern way.
He says, who done it? Who done it? Let's find
out who done it, not let's find out who done it.
That's because I'm not good with accents and inflection. Just
th reason I have not tried yet to do a

(23:37):
terrible Irish accent. Oh I wish you accent? That was?
That was? That was your? All? Right? Can we not
learn that he only has one act? I? Can we can? Please?
Serie number one? Well, he didn't do it, but Arthur

(24:02):
Vickers was actually completely in totally in a problem. Yeah,
let's let's okay, here's well, let's be honest. Any man
who's like just throw that thing in the library gonna
be fine with Colonal Mustard. It's actually and and all
and fairness to Vickers though, I mean, this is actually
um Dublin Castle was also like the home of the

(24:24):
It's under Locking team. I mean there are cops all
around and stuff like that. Yeah, the reason to believe
it was fairly secure world. Oh yeah, no, I I
don't disagree with that at all. Here's the deal. We
talked about the commission that was set up to investigate this,
and they focused on Vickers exclusively in this. I mean

(24:45):
they really did. They just focused on him. I mean,
I probably would have to I read a book. I
read some of the old accounts the I mean, you
can actually find some of the stuff on the web,
the old typewritten notes from the commission and stuff, and
it's pretty obvious that they just were out to get him.
But there was two ways that this commission could be held.
One they could meet publicly, which means that they could

(25:08):
compel witnesses to come forward on record, and those witnesses
had no choice. It's kind of like jury duty. You
had to come or not jury duty, but in a
criminal case, you can't refuse to show up very easily, yeah,
your subpoena. Or they could do it in private, at
which point they lost that ability for some reason, they

(25:30):
decided to go with the private option. Well, Vickers at
this point he's decided that they're looking to whitewash the
story and they're just looking for a scapegoat. So he
gets all peeved, and he had counsel with him, and
he removed his counsel from the entire proceedings. What that meant, though,
is that he didn't have any way to cross examine

(25:54):
anybody that they were talking to. So basically, I get
up there, I tell my story and they say, well,
say you sir, good day. But if he had been there,
and he had not bowed out or got mad and left,
his attorney could have got up there and you know,
said wait, wait, wait, that doesn't make sense. What are
you saying here and kind of put it put the
grill to us, and that very Mason, like you know,

(26:15):
solved the mystery right there in the courtroom. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah,
because somebody goes, fine, it was me, I did it. Yeah.
I don't understand why he got so mad at at
them being private, And maybe it's because then the records
were sealed and it wasn't public record. It was now
a private record. I don't know why he It's not

(26:36):
like he was refusing to cooperate with any inquiry. He
just wanted to, but he wanted a public in Yeah,
and so well, and he had a he had a
pretty valid point that he was pretty sure they were
whitewashing it because this commission started. Once they started interviewing
people they were done in fifteen days, which doesn't sound
like it's a very extensive inquiry. I just don't know
why you would. I still don't know why you would

(26:57):
just like pull your counsel though. I mean, that just
seems like a dumb move. Well, he wasn't known for
making great decisions because he didn't do such a bang
up job in his position. Uh he here's here's the
little history on Vickers. He was known for having a
few drinks on the job. Supposed he would get drunk

(27:19):
on site. He evidently once woke up after being he
got drunk, passed out, woke up wearing the jewels around
his neck, wearing a collar and and something. One of
the jewels was pinned to him. And we don't know
if he got drunk and put him on himself and
partied around and then passed out, or if somebody put

(27:41):
him on him as a practical joke. Let me ask
you this, when he woke up and he found the
jewels on him, did he have like, uh, did you
have like writing? Sharpie writing? They didn't have sharpie's Maybe
lipstick or they didn't They didn't They didn't put on
his face. Got to do that that's kind of interesting though.

(28:02):
It's like, I mean, if I had passed out of
my office and woke up with the Crown jewels on me,
I don't think i'd tell anybody. I don't. I don't
know how we know about this. This is the thing.
I'm guessing that it was in some kind of written
account somewhere that somebody else had written, Oh yeah, Arthur
told me this happened. That's the only way I can
figure out that it got He must have confided to somebody.
I guess I was going to assume that, Like I mean,

(28:25):
I guess I can count the number of times that
I've you know, like passed out drunk like that kind
of seriously on one hand. But every in every single case,
it's not like I just like wake up naturally the
next day and I'm like, oh crap, there's like this
was a horrible decision. It's usually like somebody coming in
and being like, hey, dude, hey, you forgot that you're

(28:46):
going to class. The cleaning lady found him that you
must have done it. He's always yes, he's always the
center of these things. But you know, I think it's
not unreasonable to assume that, like one of his colleagues
could have come in and been like, hey, dude, wake up,
what are you doing with all those jewels around your neck?
And that's how it got in there. Yeah, here's another
another bit that proved that he didn't do such a

(29:08):
bank up job. There was a gentleman by the name
of Lord Hatto. I believe h A D. D O
Hatto or Hato, I'm not sure how you pronounce it,
but he was a son of Viceroy Lord Aberdeen. This
is just Star Wars. Yeah, like lords. None of the

(29:29):
viceroy he Lord hat Hatto, whichever it is. He visited
the castle on a pre regular basis and allegedly once
stole the crown jewels as a practical joke, and then
put him in the mail the next day and mailed
him back to Vickers. Hey dude, you you were drunk.

(29:51):
You left this open, so I sent them back. You
think that would have been a wake up call for
old Vickers. Yeah, you would kind of think, like, here's
a seriously deal all the jewels back. Maybe, or he
might have bailed back copies waxed copies that melted in
the summer heat. No. Uh. In May seven, there's this
is another incident. Vickers left the key to the safe

(30:15):
attached to a key ring of his own that was
for the his offices, and he reported it and a
maid found them and she sent them to the Chief
Herald's office via another servant. So he's losing these Uh.
This this obviously proves that the safes weren't always locked,

(30:39):
and they weren't exactly hard to get into. This guy
was just leaving stuff open all the time. Well, it
was a different time, but and I'd say that that
cleaning lady had just multiple temptations placed in front of it,
and she kind of did. Yeah, she kind of did. Now. Well,
and you remember how speaking to the cleaning lady, remember
how we had talked about the doors were left open
multiple times. Well, it's theorized that it's possible that Vickers

(31:06):
was actually leaving the doors open on purpose in this
this couple of days preceding the discovery of the loss
of the jewels, and that he had realized that either
a a prankster had stolen them and he was waiting
for them to return them, so he's leaving things open
for them to just put him back, or he had

(31:27):
realized they had been stolen. He didn't want to admit
that they had been stolen, and he wanted him to
be theft to be discovered by somebody other than him,
or even Another theory on that is that he realized
that they were gone and he got some kind of
ransom note and he couldn't raise the money out of

(31:48):
his own funds, so he's trying to raise awareness of
it so that then he could get some money to
pay off the blackmailer to have him returned, and raising
awareness by what leaving the doors, leaving the doors open
to have it discovered so somebody be like, oh my god,
they're gone. Oh yeah, hey, by the way, I got
this letter saying we need to pay X amount of

(32:10):
pounds before they'll give them back because at this time,
well even today, the Irish Ireland uses the pound. That
it's not the pounds sterling that the UK uses anymore.
They've separated. But this is a weird little fact. So
do you know what they call the pound in Ireland?

(32:30):
The punt put the punt. It's just such a random name.
I think it's that's how do you think the things
in the UK? Okay, Well, let's let's keep going alright,
theory number two. Uh, the jewels were we're stolen, and
they actually accidentally let the thief in at a stag party. Yeah,

(32:55):
they did, all right. Remember I talked about there were
several gentlemen who were working in the office at the time.
One of those guys, his name is Francis Shackleton. Well,
Shackleton was openly homosexual. How openly could you be homosexual
back in those days? Evidently he was very open. He
was very open about the fact that he was homosexual,

(33:18):
and it's alleged that he actually had quite a few
stag parties at the office with men who were of
the same persuasion. Sorry, I'm pushing so hard against making
jewels stealing, Joe, I'm gonna keep going so you can
keep that. Well, it's reported that not only was Shackleton

(33:40):
at some of these parts, was at all of these parties,
but every other member of the staff attended the parties
at some point. So they were all getting drunk at
the office, having Shenanigan's um. So it's I mean, who knows.
But the problem is Shackleton also had some high up friends,
high up as in in the royal family. Because one

(34:04):
of the people who was at some of these parties
was the King's brother in law, John Campbell, the ninth
Duke of Argyle. So these theories, the theories that they
let they let the thief in. Is either a that
because the jewels weren't locked up, somebody came to a party,

(34:25):
realized the jewels weren't locked up and checked the joint
out to figure out how they could take they could
pull it off, and then the next time they showed
up and things weren't locked up, they stole them and
disappeared into the night. Or and this is this is
gonna lead into the next theory as well. But it's
also theorized that Shackleton might have stolen the jewels himself

(34:51):
and when he was approached about the theft, basically said, hey, uh,
John Campbell and I were good friends, wink wink, and
if you start talking about the fact that I stole
these jewels, I'm going to start talking about the things
that he does, basically causing a scandal and exposing his lifestyle,

(35:13):
which was a big issue at that time. It wasn't
proper for a member of the royal family to be gay.
It still is probably it probably still is. You never
hear anything like that, it's always hushed up. You know,
if he had blackmailed, what do you think they just
would have murdered him. Well, there's some reasons that they
might not have murdered him quite so easily. And that

(35:33):
actually goes into our next theory, which is a good segue.
Joe Francis Shackelin was a friend of Arthur Vickers and
he actually lived with the guy for two plus years,
like two and a half years. Yeah, uh well. He
also was really bad with money. The guy had racked
up some serious debts. He had borrowed money from every

(35:54):
one of his co workers somewhere. You know. I think
the smallest loan he got from a friend was four
hundred pounds to the order of fifteen hundred pounds, which
this is nineteen hundreds, so that is I would say
that's taking of inflation. Joe, what do you think do
the math? What do you think, Like, I'm like ten
to fifty tho dollars into the whole with multiple people

(36:16):
of the pounds, right, which is like, yeah, well I'm
just using the pound. Yeah, So I mean he's he's
seriously in debt. Here's another thing that doesn't go in
his favor. Is that at a luncheon on July four seven,
Shackleton said it would not be in the least bit

(36:38):
surprising to learn that one day the jewels would be stolen.
He said that two days before the theft was discovered.
Here's the problem, though, Okay, instantly we're like, oh, yeah,
Shackleton did it. He's the guy he's saying all these clues.
I think that would that would tend to actually point
the other direction because he said it would be really

(37:00):
easy for them to be stolen, and then they disappeared
two days later, No, they'd been gone. I mean, I
think I think it's fairly well the loss was discovered
two days later. I think this is running in that
people gloating about a theft. Oh gosh, that bank would
be so easy to knock over, and then two days
later the bank gets knocked over. I think it's just

(37:21):
kind of that he's saying how easy it would be,
because he's kind of bragging. But here's a problem. He
wasn't in the country when during the weeks prior since
that before the jewels disappeared, Shackleton wasn't in the country.
He was in England, so it couldn't have been Shackleton
himself that did the theft. Kind a quick ferry right

(37:44):
over to Dublin, and you know, that's possible, that's not
that far and it is possible. But it is also
possible that he had an accomplice. There's a guy by
the name of Captain Richard Gorge's who he served in
the army with and they were they were really good friends.

(38:05):
They had been friends for years. And it's thought that
maybe he had Gorgees go do the theft while he
was out of the country so that the blame couldn't
easily fall on him, was it. Do you think that
the jewels would have gone for enough to cover all
his depths? Though? I don't know. Well, if you think
about and if you think about it, these are encrusted

(38:28):
with diamonds and rubies and emeralds, and if you break
those up and you make them into smaller bits of jewelry,
that's a lot of freaking money. I guess I thought
that we had read and this may be jumping ahead,
who read in the the theories somewhere that the jewels
could have been got for two or three thousand pounds

(38:51):
And it sounds like he was much more than that.
In it sounded to me that depending on the version
of the story, it's anywhere between thirty three thousand pounds
and fifty at the time of their theft. At the
time of the theft, but that's as that's as a
single unity. You can't take this thing to a pawn
shop and get rid of it. Yeah, you're gonna have
to break it up. Yeah you have less. And we'll

(39:14):
talk about that two or three thousand pounds things because
it's weird that they could be got for that kind
of money. It's a really small summer month. There's a
guy by the name and this is a great name,
Bollmer Hobson. Hobson. Well, it could be that one too.

(39:34):
He interviewed Gorge's in nineteen twelve, so this is the
army buddy of Shackleton, and in that interview, Gorgeous strongly
hinted at his involvement in the crime and that Shackleton
was his co conspirator. There's also a letter from Vickers
to Shackleton, and Vickers wrote this on the August seven

(39:59):
and this was also read into that inquiry that we
talked about, and in that letter, Vickers made it pretty
quick clear that he and Goldney suspected Shackleton knew more
than he had admitted to. And when Vickers was interviewed
by that detective that we talked about earlier, who said

(40:20):
he knew who did it, Vickers said, and I quote,
that they were taken by a man who you know well.
He was a guest in my house and he treacherously
took impressions of my keys when I was in my bath.
He often came to this office on Sundays and he
used my latch key to get in. He is in

(40:43):
Paris at the moment, which Vickers or not Vickers, but
Shackleton went from England to Paris. He then traveled from
Paris back to Dublin for the inquiry, came in, did
his inquiry, and then immediately turned around and left again.
He's doing a lot of finger pointing. So there's all
this finger pointing that it could have been Shackleton, but

(41:04):
there's no real good concrete evidence that Vickers was pretty adamant.
He even even noted in his will and as well
he accused the thief. Yeah, I guess, but you know,
at the same time, you can kind of look at
it like if you were guilty of it and you
found somebody who like people are kind of thinking, well,

(41:25):
it could have been this person, right, I guess that's
vaguely possible that was this person, and you didn't want
to get caught. The potential for you to say, oh, yeah,
I was told that person. And here's like all the
reasons that I think it was that person. You know,
I'm not sure that you wouldn't do that. Yeah. Well,
the problem is, and here's the other thing about Shackleton,

(41:45):
he wasn't the best guy in the world himself either.
It doesn't sound like any of these guys were good guys.
Well no, but Shackleton himself he went to prison in
nineteen for trying to cheat some lady out of a
bunch of money her her inheritance. Uh. And so he
went to jail for I think he was in jail

(42:05):
for like twenty years long. Yeah, he was in jail
for ten or twenty years. Like, he didn't he jil
He's the longest living one of the group of the
five guys that we're talking about here. So he spent
time in jail after this, Yes, after so five years
after this theft happens he goes to jail for ten

(42:26):
or twenty years, and that's the only reason he ends
up being living as long as he did. And we'll
talk about the death of these guys as well here
in a little bit. But let's let's move on. So
we'll we'll move away from Shackleton a little bit, actually,
and we'll go to what Joe was talking about, which is,
where was it you or Joe that talked about them
being able to be had for a small amount of money. Okay,

(42:48):
So this next theory is that the Irish government has
had them all along. And nineteen seventy six and Irish
government document is released, a memoranda which is dated nineteen seven,
which is twenty years after the theft, and then another
fifty years later it gets released as publication effects essentially yes,

(43:13):
and it says the Castle Jewels are for sale and
they could be got for two to three thousand pounds. Well,
people interpret this that a the jewels had not been
broken apart and they were still intact as of ninety seven.
They also infer that they could be purchased and that

(43:36):
maybe the government wanted to purchase them to keep down
the Irish people. In other words, a lot of these
orders at this point in that the late twenties, they're
gone because if you look at Irish history, this is
at the beginning of a lot of the turmoil where
you have unionists and anti unionists in Ireland. The basicly

(44:00):
the Crown has said you can be free or not.
The Protestants and the Catholic fight, which makes the i Rara,
which is a lot of stuff that we know and
more current history, but that's right around when that stuff
was happening. So they probably didn't if if we're going
to say that the Crown had them, they didn't want
it out there that, hey, we found these you guys

(44:21):
are re stored to your former glory. Yes, we we
want you to stay down so that we can keep
control of the ones that we have control of and
not have this big co buffalo happened. You know, So
you know that that means that must be there in
the Tower of London. Then where else would they keep them?
Where else would they keep them? The the other direction

(44:42):
that this whole they had the Irish or the government
has them is remember how we talked about Shackleton might
be having some bit of mystery information that was embarrassing.
So it might be that they did have them, somebody
knew about it, and maybe we're trying to sell them,
and then that got quelled and they got stuffed in

(45:02):
a shelf for in a drawer somewhere in an archive
with the Ark of the Covenant, and they'll never be
seen again. Right, That's exactly right. So I just like,
for the sake of correcting you all the time, every time,
Ark of the Covenant wouldn't fit in a drawer. If
it's a big enough drawer, it'll fit pretty big the

(45:27):
house or the size of a watch, all right, if
we're saying it's a room sized drawer, So leave the
drawers out of this, okay. Well, regardless regardless of which
way it goes down. There was a lot, I mean
a lot of really odd behavior on the part of
the Irish government. Well there, their record keeping leaves a

(45:52):
lot to be desired. Remember we talked about that police
report that disappeared. There's all kinds of records from this
time and this case that have disappeared. Now a lot
of it has been put up on the net. I mean,
you can read these old type. It's funny to read
the old typewritten accounts, because I forget. The typewriters aren't
even whereas the word processor today is. So I'm reading, going, Wow,

(46:16):
this computer sucks. This scan is terrible. Oh no, wait,
that's just the way the typewriter wrote. It is kind
of up and down and uneven. We're used to these
things now, but some of these things are there and
some of them are just flat out gone. But that
takes us to our last theory. I was gonna say,
whiskey man, that's that's your theories. It's the whiskey. No,

(46:40):
I mean, whiskey makes you do dumb things. It does,
it really does. All right, Well, let's let's go to
our last theory. Uh, we're We're gonna move ahead to
And there's an article in the Carryman, which is an
Irish newspaper, and there's a guy by the name of
Michael Murphy who is the nephew of Michael Murphy, of

(47:06):
Michael Murphy who was the valet of Arthur Vickers. And
he did a bunch of research on this and he
said he had discovered the hiding place of the Irish
Crown jewels at kill MoMA House. Is that how you
pronounce that? Anybody have any better idea, I don't k

(47:30):
thank you. Kil mourna house on Friday, fourteenth of August
twelve years ago, just twelve years ago, maybe a little
more than that. Murphy was instructed by a quote unquote
informant to go to the old garden of the house,

(47:50):
where he discovered a stone behind a brick wall with
a Latin inscription. Of course, he believed the jewels had
been removed from that box that was in the stone.
He said. He found a portion of an old map
and other documents from the house before it was burned,
and that indicated to him that someone had stolen the

(48:12):
jewels and solved the mystery. But here's the thing I
come were in the house that was Vicker's house. That
was Vicker's house, and it was raised to the ground
in nineteen twenty one, the IRA burned it down. Now
the murdered Vickers. I was gonna say, everybody involved in
this story, except for Shackleton, did not get off easy. Uh.

(48:32):
The IRA killed Vickers in ninety one. They like thirty
guys shot him at once and then they burned his house. Uh,
we've got Bennett Goldney. He died in nineteen eighteen after
a car accident. Yeah, Shackleton died in nineteen forty one.
He served as prison sentence, went out under a different name,

(48:56):
and then died of old age. And uh, Sydney how
what was his name? Hawk Horlock, Sydney Horlock. I couldn't.
I came across how he died, and then when I
went to find it again, I couldn't find it. But
he died in the nineteen teens as well, if I
I remember correctly, And it wasn't a pleasant end, like
I don't remember something. Yeah, a nineteen hundreds version of

(49:20):
a wood Chat basically. But yeah, none of these guys
did really well. But as we said, it's it's it's
very possible that if these things got stolen, the jewels
had to have been broken up to be resold. Now,
if they're top quality diamonds and rubies and emeralds, even
in a new piece, they're gonna fetch top dollar, but

(49:42):
they're not going to be traceable. But that's that's all
we know. We don't know exactly where they disappeared. Who
could have actually stolen them other than Joe who swears
it was the cleaning lady. Now I don't know that
might have been a cleaning lady. Makes it just sounds
like the sounds like Vickers was careless enough about security

(50:03):
and about keeping his keys, you know, like close to him.
He was really terrible. Yeah, it seems to me that
there's a whole lot of people that could have stolen,
including including the cleaning lady. There was all this was
also essentially a police station. There were lots of cops
coming and going and uh, which do you know, I
mean not to say anything about about police, but they're
you know, they are known have corruption there that does happen,

(50:25):
you know, And so I mean there's all kinds of
people who coming and going on that building, the constal
in these things. So yeah, I mean it's yeah. I mean,
would you guys have a theory that you you adhere
to or you prefer I'm gonna stick with Shackleton just
for the sheer heck of it. I don't know, Devin, No,
I mean, I think they all kind of seem equally
inept and dumb and bad at their jobs, and kind

(50:45):
of they all have good reason to have stolen them.
I mean if just even just if you know, for sheer,
you can break it up and sell them for a
good amount of money. I mean, I don't think that
I can't pick one kind of rich, entitled jerk over another. Right,
and all kind of sound the same. Yeah, I have
a and I have a hard time pinning down. I mean,

(51:06):
the one theory that we really haven't talked about is
there was there's a group known as the Irish Brotherhood.
There was talk that they had smuggled them out of
the country to be sold in the United States. But
that's as far as that theory goes. Yeah, I mean, well,
the the Irish Brotherhood is the early version of the
I R A right, But I couldn't find anything to

(51:27):
even lend a creed and souther there's rumors, so my
I gotta agree that I think that it's just the
Shackloon was so inapped that there were so many people. Yeah,
excuse me, thank you. Wasn't Shackleton. I don't think Shackleton did.
I think he was kind of the easy scapegoat in this.
You know, the the quote unquote guy who was bad
with money air quotes here that nobody can see and

(51:49):
that you know, Vickers just left the door open and
somebody he was just waiting for somebody to come in
and steal the sheep, and I don't themselves. I mean
it's hard, it's it's hard to tell, Yeah, except that
he never he never lived a lavish lifestyle. It once
he was, you know, expelled from office. It wasn't like

(52:09):
he was living high on the hog or emigrated to
another country to live lavishly. So that that's the reason
that I don't think Vickers himself did it. I guess
it's hard to tell because you know, if you you
do that sort of thing and you get away with it,
you go and live a lavish lifestyle. But if you've
been called into questioning and there's like a private inquiry
into you, are you gonna be smart enough to say,

(52:32):
like a crap, I better like waited out a couple
more years and then you get shot to death by
the fourteen years later. Well that's a long time to
wait it out. Yeah, that's true. Now, granted, there's been
thieves who have stolen major pieces of art and waited
twenty or thirty years trying to sell it. But still,
I just I don't know. I have a hard time
pointing the figure at Vickers. But that's just me. But

(52:56):
ladies and gentlemen, if you've if you've got any thoughts
of your own, we'd love to hear about them. You
can always put a comment on the website with your
thoughts about this particular story that website is thinking Sideways
podcast dot com of course, dot com of course you can.
You can listen to the shows there. You can listen

(53:16):
to them on iTunes and download subscribe through there. If
you're on iTunes, go and take the time to leave
us comment and rating. We always like that. Uh, if
you forget to download a show and you know that
it's that day that we're gonna put one out Thursday, Thursday,
we don't have to be secretive us Thursday. It's Thursday.
Thursday's my favorite day of the week. That's why we
do it on Thursdays. No, not really, but you can

(53:38):
go ahead and you can download or download is the
wrong word. You can stream it on Stitcher. Stitcher will
allow you to listen to its streaming on any mobile
ready device, tablet, phone, whatever the case may be. I know,
isn't an amazing joke. I know it's your first time

(53:58):
figured to learn about this. Yeah. Now, of course we've
got the Facebook page, so we've got the group and
we've got the page, so please find us and friend
us on those to see what we've got going on.
Things were putting up to some good discussions. And of
course if you did, if you were actually the one
who stole the jewels or related to the one who
stole the joy lot, you want to tell us, you

(54:19):
can send us an email and we it's all in confidence,
absolutely not in confidence that email. We were going to
read that over there on the air. We'll keep your
name quiet though. That email address is thinking Sideways Podcast
at gmail dot com. And with that, uh, I guess

(54:40):
that's all we've got. Yeah, right, So, yeah, kind of
a short one this week. Sorry about that, kids, We
know you'd like to Yeah. Short is an average time. Yes,
I don't know. I think that we haven't. This is
kind of unusual, but we haven't solved the mystery right now,
I really I did this. Joe at it alright, guys, well,

(55:01):
we're gonna go ahead and wrap this one up and
we will talk to you next week. I do own them, though, really,
why are you looking at me like that? I own
them