The “gentleman thief” who stole jewels from the rich and famous Lord Mountbatten | Books | Entertainment

Lord Louis Mountbatten stirred slightly in his sleep. It was just after 4 a.m. and after a night of drinking cocktails and dancing with his wife Edwina, a hangover was an almost inevitable accompaniment to the dawn of the morning. As the sun rose over Long Island, he grunted and went back to sleep.

This brief interruption of deep sleep frightened the third person in the room.

Arthur Barry had just enough time to hide behind a window curtain, wait for Queen Victoria's great-grandson to return to dreamland, and then escape with a loot of stolen jewelry worth about £3 million.

The so-called “gentleman thief” had struck again – a man whose brazen jewel thefts made him the bogeyman of the wealthiest citizens of jazz-era America and a folk hero of those who disliked the decadence displayed by the country’s upper classes.

“During Barry's robberies he stole jewels worth at least £47 million today. He became a high-profile crook, appearing on the front pages of newspapers across the United States.”

That's according to Dean Jobb, a Canadian author who wrote the first modern biography of Arthur's incredible life. “His life story was serialized. He became more famous than many of his rich and prominent victims,” ​​explains Jobb.

Barry's background shows a man who was not completely addicted to a life of crime.

He was born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1896. At age 15, he committed his first burglary, but lied about his later conviction – not to evade justice, but to serve as a medic in World War I.

After returning to America, Barry turned to crime because many ex-soldiers had no employment opportunities. Over the next decade, he became, as Jobb describes him, “a brazen con man, a charming trickster, and a master burglar.”

Barry's playground was geared toward America's wealthiest families and resembled the kind of East Coast retreats depicted by F. Scott Fitzgerald in his novel The Great Gatsby: where champagne flowed, debutantes frolicked, and replica castles were built to house a generation of old-time plutocrats and novice publishers, oilmen, and bankers.

Barry developed an impressive ability to win over the American landed gentry and their guests, including the Prince of Wales.

Edward was about to turn 30 and begin his brief reign. He regularly travelled to the USA, where he became close friends with Joshua Cosden and his wife Nellie. The two had become multimillionaires as owners of one of the world's largest oil refineries in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

When they threw a party for the English prince, Barry saw his chance to explore the potential treasures in their home. He hid in a hedge before emerging from cover to join the gathered crowd, introducing himself to the guests as Arthur Gibson. His smooth demeanor and effortless charisma captivated Edward, who took “Gibson's” idea that they should head to Broadway and have a drink in some of New York's speakeasy bars.

So, at the height of Prohibition, the future King of England found himself at the El Fey Club, sipping cocktails with dancing girls who mingled with the crowd. According to one newspaper, one of them left the club that same evening with Edward's top hat perched on her bob.

But Arthur, like his fictional alter ego, the “gentleman thief” AJ Raffles, created by Arthur Conan Doyle’s brother-in-law EW Hornung in a series of short stories and a novel between 1899 and 1909, had an ulterior motive in his dealings with the elite.

Having already thoroughly looked around the Cosdens' estate at the party, it was not long before he returned and plundered the jewelry boxes of the Cosdens and the visiting Mountbattens.

While they slept, Arthur took Nellie Cosden's black pearl rings, diamond pins and ruby ​​bracelets, valued at around £100,000 in total. From Lady Mountbatten he took three rings set with diamonds, rubies, sapphires and emeralds, and a platinum bracelet with over 30 square-cut rubies.

By midday the next day, he had auctioned off the jewels in New York, and, as always, he had only collected about 10 percent of the total value. And, true to the old fashioned tradition, he quickly squandered the money on lengthy gambling sessions.

Fearing the embarrassment of the crime, the Cosdens refused to cooperate with the police. Instead, they hired a private detective.

While the headlines of London newspapers screamed about the “Mountbatten gem mystery” and wrote about the “loss of Lady Edwina,” investigator Gerard Luisi stated: “There is no master criminal involved here? It is just a petty theft committed by an average crook.”

Luisi could not have been more wrong. Although Barry's fearless exploits may have caused suffering to families such as the Mountbattens and the Cosdens, his reputation was tempered by the support he received from much of the public.

Jobb explains, “One of my favorite Barry quotes is from 1932: 'I only robbed the rich. If a woman can carry around a $750,000 necklace, she doesn't know where her next meal is coming from.' The 1920s press enjoyed reducing the rich and famous to normal size, and many of the victims of Barry's robberies flaunted their priceless jewels to show how rich they were.”

Barry's methods included gently rousing those he called his “clients” from their beds at gunpoint at dawn and politely asking them if they would let him have their jewelry. He was known to allow his victims to keep items of particular sentimental value.

One of the women who woke up gave Barry an aspirin, her bathrobe and a glass of water when he sensed that she might faint from fear because the man Life magazine called “the greatest jewel thief of all time” was going to steal her jewelry box.

Numerous high-value robberies spanning much of the Jazz Era did not make Arthur a rich man, however, and when he was only in his mid-30s, he was finally caught and sentenced to prison.

The bleak years that followed were punctuated by a violent mass prison break in which Barry managed to escape. He was on the run for three years before being caught and sent back to prison. When he was finally released, his ever-faithful wife Anna had already died and his reputation was completely forgotten, a throwback to a distant era of wealth, capriciousness and bootlegging.

“Barry served 19 years in prison for his crimes, was paroled in 1949 and returned to Worcester, Massachusetts,” explains Jobb. “He regained the respect of his family and friends. He found a job in a restaurant and his boss trusted him to deposit the day's earnings into the bank every night. In numerous interviews after his release, he made it clear that he regretted the crimes that had cost him so many years of his life.”

Barry died in 1981 and since his victims are also long dead, Jobb comes to the conclusion that although he may have been a thief, he did have some kind of moral sense.

“There was nothing noble about his crimes. He stole from the rich and gave it to himself, and when the money ran out, he planned more robberies and stole even more jewels,” he adds.

“But Barry turns out to be a kind-hearted, likeable guy who has nevertheless chosen a career on the wrong side of the law. I suspect that many people still have a grudging respect for a brazen crook who can separate fools from their money.”

A Gentleman and a Thief by Dean Jobb (Algonquin Books, £28) is out now. Visit expressbookshop.com or call Express Bookshop on 020 3176 3832. Free UK delivery on orders over £25