The story of Harry the Valet is the stuff of fiction. He was a dazzlingly adept, smooth, glamorous jewel thief, who never stooped to petty crime but carried off the kind of robberies more commonly found in novels and films: huge ruby necklaces, diamonds and pearls all poured out, pirate-treasure fashion, into his waiting hands.
The Valet was the son of a successful lower-middle-class tradesman, a picture-framer, who died when he was a young man, leaving his widow to carry on his business, unsuccessfully. Harry meanwhile bet on horses, drank and smoked and revelled in bad company, soon finding himself with no money and no profession. He took the easy way out, deciding to steal a living, rather than earn one.
His first theft, a case briefly left un- attended at a railway station, set him on his way, filled as it was with glittering jewels. His second was equally easy, and equally successful, with more pretties falling into his eager hands. It was only when he foolishly pawned a watch at an unknown pawnbroker that he was collared — the broker had recognised the watch from a police list, and turned him in. He was jailed and his wife, long neglected, died of grief. The Valet emerged from prison hardened, and embarked on a life of crime, culminating in his mega-theft of the Duchess of Sutherland’s jewels in 1898.
If this all sounds like a novel, it is because, unacknowledged by author or publisher, it is. Harry the Valet is presented as a non- fiction look at a Victorian crime, à la The Suspicions of Mr Whicher. But unlike that book, which was a return to original sources to explore a murder, this is a biography, in theory if not in fact.
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