Author(s): Duncan Hamilton

True Crime

Harry the Valet began his criminal career out of grief, but became Europe’s most notorious jewel thief out of love. The story of a real-life Raffles – a man who wore bespoke suits and handmade shoes; who used a dozen pseudonyms to dust over his tracks; who belonged to three smart London clubs and lived in the luxury of West End hotels; whose staple diet was champagne and whisky; who was pursued by London’s top detectives for five and a half years and – by their own admission – ‘proved smarter’ than them; and who fell so much in love with an Gaiety girl, a women who he would steal for and lie for and who would eventually betray him. His daring and well planned theft of the Dowager Duchess of Sutherland’s jewels from her train carriage at Paris’ Gare du Nord station on October 1898 was one of the most widely reported court cases of the late Victorian era. Harry took more than 40 pieces of jewellery with an approximate value of £30,000 – a sum worth nearly £2m today. But what no one knew at the time was that he had already committed nine almost identical crimes. This amazing story embraces a controversial Duchess, her Knighted husband, who was also a Conservative MP under suspicion for the murder of the Duchess’ former husband, an actress and Gaiety ‘good time’ Girl, the policeman who caught the wife-killer Dr Crippen and Harry himself. The Unreliable Life of Harry the Valet reads like detective fiction, but has romance at its heart – a love story which endured on Harry’s part for the rest of his life, despite the treachery that sent him to jail – a love that ultimately destroyed him.