In February 1938, James Agate, London’s leading theater critic, went along to the famous Courtroom Number One of the Old Bailey to witness the trial of the Mayfair playboys. As he wrote in his journal, he found their performances unsettling: “A horrid glamour about the whole affair. I am naturally fascinated by criminals, whose dreadful jauntiness haunts me for days.”1 His fellow spectators were less sensitive; he overheard some say appreciatively that the trial was “better than any play.” “Many brought sandwiches and flasks for surreptitious use in the courtroom to avoid losing their places at lunch time.”2 Heightening the contrast between the “jewels and ermine” of the fashionably dressed audience and the sordid crime of which four young men were accused, the popular press explicitly presented the trial as theater.
The sensational Hyde Park Hotel Jewel robbery trial, in which the chief actors are Mayfair men and the Lord Chief Justice, drew an eager crowd of fashionable people to the Old Bailey. Hours before the doors opened, as in the case of some popular theatre, well-dressed men and women in furs waited in a long queue, and seemed oblivious to the driving sleet of a particularly unpleasant February morning. But admission was, except in a few cases, by ticket only, and extra police on the doors strictly enforced this ukase. Among the privileged spectators in court were the Duke of Rutland, Viscountess Byng, the Countess of Oxford and Asquith, Lady Hubery, Lady Travers Humphreys, and that keen criminologist, Sir Seymour Hicks. Rarely, has the grim Old Bailey presented such an opera-night appearance. The dock, with its four perfectly groomed and tailored prisoners, was perhaps the most startling contrast of all with the customary drab scenery. Mayfair savoir-faire survived even the Ordeal of the Old Bailey. All the accused seemed completely self-possessed and at ease until the final scene, when the Lord Chief, in a few brief scarifying sentences, dealt out their punishment. Even the West End veneer was not equal to that grim “curtain.”3
Some papers called it the most shocking trial in over a decade. The newspapers wanted to bolster their circulation, so it was of course in their interest to play up the importance of what was revealed in court. Nevertheless, the number of journalists and politicians who subsequently referred to the trial made it clear that the court case had become a flash point in subjecting the lives of a particular cast of young men to public scrutiny.
At the end of January a magistrate committed the four to trial. The Lord Chief Justice (Lord Hewart) set the contest to begin February 16.4 The blond-haired John Lonsdale was charged with conspiracy to steal and accessory to stealing; the three others with conspiracy to steal and robbery with violence. Robert Harley alone was charged with “receiving eight diamond rings.” He and Lonsdale pleaded not guilty to all charges; David Wilmer and Peter Jenkins pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge but not guilty to robbery with violence.5
The trial judge was Gordon Hewart, Lord Chief Justice of England. He had been the Liberal MP for Leicester from 1913 to 1922, entered the House of Lords in 1922 as Viscount Hewart, and served as Lord Chief Justice from 1922 to 1940. Though author of the famous dictum “It is not merely of some importance but is of fundamental importance that justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done,”6 he was not a particularly distinguished lawman. He had a reputation for boorishness in court, which was aggravated by his poor health. In February 1938, though suffering from a bad cold and forced to consume a steady diet of lozenges, Hewart soldiered on.
The prosecution was led by G. B. McClure, prosecuting counsel to the Treasury from 1928 to 1942, when he became judge of the Mayor’s and City of London Court.7 In the current case he was supported by another future judge, Henry Elam.8 Each of the defendants had his own lawyer. Wilmer was represented by Norman Birkett, Harley by Bernard Gillis, Lonsdale by F. Ashe Lincoln, and Jenkins by Christmas Humphreys. The newspapers said little about the make-up of the jury except to note that it included three women.9
The crown’s case, as made by McClure, was that Lonsdale had the idea of how to carry out the robbery, Jenkins made the necessary arrangements, and Wilmer and Harley did the dirty work. Central to the prosecution’s case was the assertion that the four not only conspired to steal. Three had committed robbery with violence. For them now to claim that they hoped the theft could be achieved peacefully was patently ridiculous. Given that they intended to seize and forcibly carry off a jeweler’s diamonds, they had to have expected to meet with resistance, and consequently their recourse to violence was inevitable.10
For the benefit of the jury, McClure described the robbery, reviewed the statements made by the accused in Oxford and London, and cited the findings of the police. The crown then called witnesses. Bellenger was obviously the prosecution’s key witness. His quick wit made him a favorite of the tabloids. When asked by McClure if he was concerned, while at the hotel, that Jenkins or Wilmer would run off with his precious rings, he won a laugh by responding: “No. All I was afraid of was a dud cheque.”11
Bellenger identified the mustachioed Harley as the man who attacked him. He acknowledged that his assailant wore dark glasses and a bandana but asserted that he recognized him by “the line of his hair.” He firmly refused to accept Gillis’s suggestion that his identification of Harley was based on a photograph he saw in a newspaper. Similarly, Humphreys failed when he tried to have Bellenger say that Harley appeared “desperate,” as Jenkins had claimed. Bellenger asserted that, on the contrary, Harley was “as cool as can be.”
Bellenger also identified Wilmer as the man who pushed him to the floor. Birkett sought to cast doubt on his testimony by implying that in his confused state the jeweler’s memory would likely be faulty. But Birkett proved to be no match for Bellenger. When the barrister asked: “How many blows do you think you had received before you say Wilmer said: ‘Finish it quick?’ ” Bellenger tersely replied: “I was not counting them.” The courtroom again burst into laughter.12
The crown introduced material evidence—the gloves, spectacles, and handkerchief—found in the hotel room. All of the accused denied recognizing any of these items. The police had also kept the glasses and whiskey bottle used in 305. Cherrill testified that the prints on the tumbler in the bathroom were Wilmer’s; those on the tumbler in the sitting room were Jenkins’s; those on the bottle belonged to both Jenkins and the waiter Laurenti, and only the waiter’s were on the siphon.13 A third glass bore no fingerprints. Detectives believed the man who had drunk from that glass was wearing the gloves that were left behind. McClure directed Harley to try them on. “An excellent fit, are they not?” noted the Lord Chief Justice.14
Mr. Etienne Bellenger. Daily Telegraph, Feb. 16, 1938. © The British Library Board
The crown did not produce the most damning evidence against the accused. The four men provided that material themselves in their vicious attacks on each other. The trial provided a classic example of what is known as the “cutthroat defense,” a situation in which two or more individuals faced with the same charge conclude that only by betraying their colleagues can they hope to save themselves.
That the four accused conspired together to carry out a theft appeared to be a given. The central question that remained was who had assaulted or assisted in the assault on Bellenger. Each of the four emphatically denied responsibility. Three of the accused testified against Harley. He was therefore the target not only of McClure but also of the barristers representing his erstwhile friends. It was their goal to ensure that he be held solely responsible for beating the jeweler. A tabloid’s headline summed up Harley’s view: “ ‘Others Lied to Save Their Skins,’ One Tells Court.”15
Harley was in the witness stand for two hours. Bernard Gillis, a fairly competent barrister who went on to become a circuit court judge, represented him. Led by Gillis, he produced his account of his activities on December 20. He met Wilmer at 11:00 a.m. at his hotel. They had breakfast in Bond Street and were joined by Jenkins and Lonsdale. They then proceeded to the bar of the Mayfair Hotel. The judge at this point took the opportunity of openly expressing his distaste for such wastrels.
Mr. Gillis: How long were you there?
Harley: I think we had two drinks.
The Lord Chief Justice: Is that supposed to be a measure of time? (Laughter)16
Harley continued, stating that he and Wilmer then went to the Spotted Dog Club until about 2:00 p.m., when Harley returned to his brother’s. Later in the afternoon he took a bus to the Hyde Park Hotel, where at about 4:15 p.m. he ran into Wilmer, who was just leaving.
Gillis called two witnesses to confirm Harley’s account of his movements. Reginald William McBride, an accountant, stated that he saw Harley on December 20 at 4:30 p.m. crossing Kensington High Street. McBride had known Harley before he went to Canada.17 Another acquaintance of Harley’s who testified was Miss Toby Barry, described in the press as “a dance hostess” and “a pretty blonde actress.” They had known each other for a few months. When Harley was on remand in Brixton she visited him and he gave her the name of his solicitor. In court she declared that on the afternoon in question she was on a bus passing the Hyde Park Hotel. She saw Harley in his distinctive beige coat entering the building at about the time he had mentioned.18
In response to Gillis, Harley swore that though he entered the hotel he was never in rooms 305 or 309, never in the bathroom, and never struck Bellenger. Harley stated he and Wilmer left the hotel and went by cab to Green Park, then by tube to Piccadilly. But because of all the drinking his memory was hazy. That night he joined Jenkins at the Mayfair Hotel, and they went once more to the Spotted Dog. They also had a drink at a club on Cork Street. At midnight all four met up. At this point, Harley said, his three friends finally told him of the theft; though surprised, he volunteered to dispose of the booty. That night he came into possession of the gems, which he hid at his brother’s flat at 4:00 a.m.
Harley said that he had anticipated something like robbery with violence would take place. “It was suggested to me that I should join Wilmer and Jenkins, Lonsdale not being present, in an attempt to remove jewelry from a man they proposed to get up to a room in a hotel to be decided upon.”19 Why, asked Gillis, did he appear to go along with this criminal undertaking? So that no one else would be brought in on the scheme. His plan was to use the “pretext” of disposing of the rings to return them to their rightful owner and obtain the insurance reward.20 Even so, he told the court, he doubted his friends would succeed in the proposed robbery. In essence Harley portrayed Wilmer and Jenkins as having hatched a plan that required the use of physical force that they were now trying to attribute to him. As he had said in an earlier statement, he did not want to cause trouble for “these boys,” but they were making false claims, and he had to defend himself.
Gillis had Inspector Fabian called as a witness to confirm that Harley was a police informant.21 The detective testified that Harley had first contacted him on October 20 and they had exchanged information about six times between October 21 and December 12 by “telephone appointment.”22
Harley was then subjected to a rigorous grilling by both the prosecutor and the other defense lawyers. Birkett (who represented Wilmer) in cross-examination sought to expose the contradictions in Harley’s story. He had stated that from previous conversations he knew something big was to occur, but he could not tell the court what these talks were about. At Stewart’s Restaurant a plan was sketched out. Birkett asked: “Was there a suggestion of violence?—Correct. Who was to carry that out?—I was.” And what about Bellenger? Wilmer told him to “knock him out.”23 Harley claimed that he did not directly say he would. Birkett seized on Harley’s admission that he and his friends discussed the theft at least a week beforehand. It followed that it was not the sort of last-minute, spur-of-the-moment undertaking that all the accused had earlier claimed. Moreover it meant that Harley had had the chance on December 18 of informing Fabian of what was to occur two days later.
At the same time, Birkett sought to minimize Wilmer’s guilt by portraying him as acting abnormally. He put it to Harley that when he and Wilmer left the hotel, Wilmer was so overwrought that he told the cab driver to go off in four different directions.
Birkett: “You must have thought you were in a taxi with a madman.”
Harley: “It did rather look like it.”24
Birkett was, of course, alluding to the fact that such nervousness was to be expected since the two men were fleeing the scene of a robbery, a robbery of which Harley claimed to be ignorant. Yet all the diamonds ended up in Harley’s hands. How and why was this the case? Birkett pummeled Harley, asking sarcastically if his goal had been “to assist in the administration of justice.” Harley, floundering, replied: “To a certain extent it was.” If so, Birkett insisted, why had he hidden gems he knew were stolen? Asked how he heard of the plan and if he had not encouraged it, Harley denied having earlier met Lonsdale or hearing his story of how in Paris a similar brilliant theft had been carried out. Birkett suggested that in fact Harley drew from his own experience in preparing for the robbery. “Did you say that Messrs. Cartier had sent a man down to Bexhill-on-Sea with jewelry for you to examine, that he carried it in a belt, and came out on to the golf-links where you were playing?” And had he not suggested having a girl play the part of the fiancée? Harley continued to deny Birkett’s insinuations, but he was forced to concede that he was correct when asked: “Would you agree that the most contemptible thing in this world would be to save your skin by lies which involve other people?”25
Humphreys (who appeared for Jenkins) then took his turn. He began by insisting that Jenkins had not been part of the conspiracy, but Harley replied that Jenkins was not adverse to committing crimes. At the Charing Cross Hotel, two and a half months earlier, he had spoken about using force to extort money from an uncle living in the country. When Humphreys asked if it were not true that the plan in the Hyde Park Hotel case was to avoid violence and simply for Jenkins or Wilmer to throw him a ring, Harley curtly replied, “That is the first I have ever heard of it.”26
The four defense teams varied in quality. Wilmer obviously had enough family money to be defended by the best—Norman Birkett assisted by W. W. Fearnley-Whittingstall and E. White. Birkett had represented Lonsdale in the Blake slander trial but had far more famous clients. In 1929 he had represented Clarence Harry whose huge frauds shook the stock market; in 1932, Lady Mountbatten in her libel action against the People for its reporting of her affair with a black man; in 1933, John Maundy Gregory, compromised by the Lloyd George honours scandal; and in 1936, Wallis Simpson, whose divorce of her second husband raised the possibility of her marrying Edward VIII.27
With Birkett’s promptings, Wilmer presented his account. His story was that on December 19 he ran into Lonsdale at a bar called French Jack’s. They had not seen each other in more than six months. That night Lonsdale came to Wilmer’s flat, as did Jenkins. Lonsdale then told them about a simple but daring theft he had read about in Paris Soir.28 An enterprising thief established his reputation as a wealthy spendthrift. His key investment was renting an expensive two-room suite. He then had a jeweler bring around some precious stones. Not knowing that the adjoining room had a second door that opened onto the corridor, the victim allowed his supposed client to take a diamond with him when he went into the bedroom to get his checkbook. Gem in hand, he simply walked out the door and was gone, while the dimwitted jeweler sat patiently waiting for his return.29
Wilmer testified that “in fairness to Lonsdale” he had to stress that Lonsdale only told his friends about the Paris thief’s trick as a matter of interest; he did not suggest they should copy it.30 Nevertheless they were all inspired to do something similar. Lonsdale left Wilmer’s at 11:00 p.m. and so missed Harley, who “accidentally” dropped by a bit later. Wilmer told him about Lonsdale’s tale, they both laughed, and, according to Wilmer, one of them said it should be tried in London.31 The next day they finalized the details of their scheme and immediately set it in motion. Though they were not seasoned professionals, they appear to have exaggerated how carelessly they made last-minute changes to their plan. The defense clearly felt that there was something to be gained in presenting the robbery as the misguided lark of a few drunken young men rather than a consequence of their cold calculations.
While Wilmer admitted having helped plan the surreptitious appropriation of a diamond, he maintained that what actually occurred was not of his doing. He realized, once Bellenger had arrived at room 305, that spiriting away one of his rings would be impossible. He went into 309 and told Harley to leave. Wilmer denied giving any “signal” and protested that no one was more surprised than he when Harley burst in and assaulted the Cartier representative. Wilmer said that neither he nor Jenkins “raised a finger” to harm him. In response to Birkett’s leading questions Wilmer explicitly denied tackling Bellenger and saying, “Finish it off, quick.” On the contrary, Birkett presented his client as appalled by Harley’s behavior. “The attack on Mr Bellenger was an unspeakable outrage which ran counter to every decent English tradition.”32
Wilmer claimed that he was astounded by the brutal assault he had witnessed. In a haze, he stumbled from the room with a ring in each hand. Having lost his head, in the street he got into a cab with Harley, to whom he gave the two rings. Harley in return gave him his scarf and weapon, with the order to dump them in a lavatory. Not finding the Green Park tube station suitable, they finally disposed of the evidence at the Piccadilly tube station. That night Wilmer went out on the town to drown his sorrows. He remembered Harley’s answer to the question of why he did it: “He said he was sorry he had done it; he must have been crazy.”33
Birkett was one of the most skillful lawyers of the time, but as his own clerk reported, defending Wilmer was a hopeless task, given the lack of extenuating circumstances.34 The court was soon apprised of the holes in his argument. As Wilmer had mentioned that a lack of money drove him to contemplate robbery, McClure asked if he was hard up. Wilmer replied, “Not particularly” and admitted to spending an average of £6 a week on cocktails, restaurants, and nightclubs.35 Gillis (Harley’s barrister) pointed out that Wilmer, in his first statement to the police, mentioned the possible use of adhesive tape to gag the victim. He ceased to refer to such tape when he realized (no doubt after talking to his lawyer) that the law regarded the employment of such a restraint as a form of violence. The justification of his not guilty plea to the charge of robbery with violence was thereby undermined.36 In addition Gillis accused Wilmer of lying when he said he told the man in the adjoining room that the theft was to be called off and he should leave. His seeking to offload onto Harley the entire burden of guilt was, Gillis stated, too transparently self-serving. So too was his claim that he lost his head. The judge interjected that as confused as Wilmer claimed to be, he still took his coat and two rings and left via the bedroom, not the drawing room.37
Since he was not charged with robbery with violence, the court had only to determine whether Lonsdale’s discussions with his three friends amounted to making him an accessory to stealing. F. Ashe Lincoln, a well-known barrister, led Lonsdale through his testimony.38 Lonsdale stated that he had arrived in London from Paris in December, going under the name of Mainwaring to avoid a High Court claim for money, due to his having signed a bill for a friend who had gone bankrupt. The story of the Paris theft, he averred, was true, and he only met “Mike” Harley on December 20. Why did the others use the name Hambro and a Dorset address? Lonsdale conceded that, as he lived in Dorset, he might have suggested these, but that did not mean he imagined they would actually be employed.
Lonsdale testified that he opposed the other men’s plan to attempt by some trick to obtain a diamond, but out of curiosity he rang up the Hyde Park Hotel and went round for a drink between 2:30 and 2:40. Once there he learned that Wilmer had phoned Cartier’s. “I told Wilmer that I thought it was a very stupid thing to have done, and told him to ring up Cartier’s and put the man off. I then said that I wanted nothing more do with him. I then left the Hyde Park Hotel and did not go back.”39 Despite being angry with his friends, Lonsdale joined them for drinks that night. Their behavior was unusual. “Jenkins was more than nervous. He had driven himself into a condition when his nerves were completely gone.”40 But until they got to Oxford, Lonsdale insisted that he had no inkling that they had stolen the Cartier’s diamonds. Why then, asked Ashe Lincoln, did he accompany Wilmer and Jenkins to Oxford? Lonsdale replied that he had no idea. Being very tired and drunk he went “for no particular reason.” McClure made it clear that the crown did not believe him.41
In cross-examination McClure sought to portray Lonsdale as someone who had been involved in other criminal conspiracies. He even suggested that Lonsdale’s story of the brilliant Paris theft was really autobiographical. Lonsdale maintained that he had been in Paris for an armaments deal. He insisted the story was not about him. Nevertheless, McClure had Lonsdale admit knowing Élie Lévy in Paris. He denied, however, McClure’s suggestion that on November 6, 1937, he had swindled Lévy out of a diamond ring.42
The well-known barrister Travers Christmas Humphreys—son of Richard Travers Humphreys of the Court of Criminal Appeal—was Jenkins’s representative.43 He led Jenkins through his testimony, which Jenkins began by portraying himself as a victim of circumstance. Raised in luxury, Jenkins had seen his world fall apart with the loss of the family fortune and then the deaths of his father and mother. He was unemployed. Engaged informally to a New York woman, he had hoped to visit her at Christmas, but in October the £1,000 he had raised on a beneficial interest under a will had been stolen. He was now “penniless.”
Jenkins said that he, Wilmer, and Lonsdale met on the night of December 19. “We were all fairly short of money and were trying to think of a way of making some fairly quickly.” McClure pointed out that Jenkins did not seem to appreciate how crass he sounded. “Those were strange words to be used by young men of decent birth and education.”44 In any event Jenkins stressed that he and Wilmer were enthralled by Lonsdale’s story of the Parisian fraudster. Why not try the same thing in London? Wilmer had said that his friend Harley, who knew how to dispose of stolen property, should be included. On Monday morning all four met together for the first time. Jenkins stressed that there was no well-worked-out plan. They hoped at best to grab a diamond and run. He agreed that Lonsdale was not happy with the scenario and said he wanted nothing more to do with it. Like Wilmer, Jenkins claimed that they had made no provision for what to do if the plan proved unworkable. This was simply another way of saying that Harley acted on his own in attacking Bellenger. “Amazed” by the unexpected bloodshed, Jenkins stated that he was so “frozen” in terror that he could not intervene. He followed his first impulse, which was to run away, crying out to Wilmer: “For Christ’s sake, come quickly.”45 Jenkins claimed that he cursed Harley for having put them all in a terrible position, but that night he met up with him and the others and was shown the diamond rings. He attributed his erratic behavior to being drunk.
In cross-examination, Gillis (Harley’s lawyer) implied that Jenkins was lying in saying that the use of force had not been envisaged. Jenkins held his position. He also took the opportunity to refute Harley’s assertion that he (Jenkins) had tried to get hold of his uncle’s money. He had to admit, however, to having been bound over in June 1936. McClure noted that Jenkins had been convicted of six charges of swindling, four of which were asked to be taken into consideration.46
In defending Harley, Bernard Gillis had the most challenging of assignments. He took some comfort in concluding his duties by insisting that though all of the accused betrayed their friends, the prosecution had failed to make its case.47 The Lord Chief Justice did not share this view. In the two hours he took in summing up, the judge made it abundantly clear that he regarded all four guilty as charged. Could the jury, he asked, doubt that there had been a conspiracy or that Bellenger had been robbed and assaulted? The defense attorneys might talk of sympathy, but what sympathy had the young men shown? “Can you forget that the defendants … left that jeweller on the floor of that sitting-room in a pool of blood, left him in circumstances in which, but for the inquisitiveness of a chambermaid and a waiter, he might have conceivably died?”48 The judge noted that though Lonsdale was not present at the assault, he was an accessory. His expectation of receiving a share of the proceeds was reflected in his behavior. In any event was there any doubt that the conspirators had the jeweler place himself where he was most susceptible to attack, that they knew they would face resistance, and that they followed a plan that required violence? The Lord Chief Justice ended his diatribe by challenging the jury to do the right thing. “If it could in any respect come to a result favorable to any of the accused you will, of course, do so. On the other hand, if soberly and calmly on this evidence you find your minds impelled to certain stern conclusions, I am sure you will not flinch.”49
Under such clear instructions the jury only needed fifty-six minutes to find Lonsdale guilty of conspiracy to steal, but not guilty of robbery. Ironically, the jury accepted the argument that being a swindler made it unlikely that he would have resorted to violence.50 The other three were found guilty of all charges.51 The judge congratulated the jury on coming to the “only reasonable conclusion.” Addressing the four directly, he observed that much had been said of their education, though if they were truly educated he would have been even more severe. “But probably all that is meant is that somebody has spent money in providing you with certain conventional opportunities of education, the results of which are not impressive.”52 They were just lucky, he opined, that they had not been charged with murder.
It was at this stage that some of the spectators realized that they were not simply observing a theatrical matinee. Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse wrote a friend:
On the last day, when the Lord Chief was going to sum up, all the doors were locked as he would not have people creeping in and out of court. My seat was next to a pillar and the Sergeant, who by then was a dear friend of mine, came up to me and said: “Miss Jesse do you think you could squeeze this gentleman in beside you?” So, ever obliging and polite, I said “Certainly” and the man squeezed in and sat between me and the pillar. The Judge summed up and he and the jury retired and the Sergeant came over again and spoke to this man, saying, “Can you tell me if any of the family relatives of the prisoners are in court?” The man said “I don’t know. Jenkins’ sister has been here the whole time but I have not seen her this afternoon.” The Sergeant went away and I turned to the man and said “I had no idea relatives came to this sort of thing. How dreadful for them!” “Well,” he said quietly, “I am one of the fathers.” I never had a more awful moment. I felt hot to the ends of my hair.53
The Lord Chief Justice proceeded to the sentencing.54 He sentenced Harley to seven years penal servitude (with two of hard labor served concurrently) and twenty strokes of the cat-o’-nine tails; Wilmer to five years of penal servitude (with two of hard labor served concurrently) and fifteen strokes; Jenkins to three years of penal servitude (with two of hard labor served concurrently); and Lonsdale to eighteen months penal servitude with hard labor. Lonsdale’s subsequent attempt to appeal his sentence failed.55
Lonsdale, “sleek and icy cool,” took his sentence like a trooper; Jenkins sweated and trembled. What shocked the public was the Lord Chief Justice sentencing two young men of respectable families to be flogged. Wilmer was blind in one eye, which the judge seems to have taken in consideration. “I have a report from the medical officer that you are fit for the cat-o’-nine-tails,” said the judge, “and you must receive fifteen strokes from the cat-o’-nine-tails.” A journalist described Wilmer, on hearing these words, as being close to tears. His father could only watch. “Brigadier Wilmer, stiff and soldiery, saw his son turn down to the cells.”56 The Daily Mail described the brigadier staggering from the court, protesting that the sentence was far worse than expected and that his son would be incapable of surviving a flogging.57 When the judge meted out twenty strokes to Harley, the women in the court gasped. Maintaining his role as a hard man, Harley “just turned away with a grin.”58 Once he was back in his cell he momentarily lost his composure, but when his brother arrived he managed to put on a smile. A reporter overheard him say: “It’s pretty stiff but I can take it.”59
Under such headlines as “Saville Row Suits to Prison Grey,” the tabloids gleefully portrayed the traumatic transformation that imprisonment entailed. The felons would be stripped and scrubbed with yellow soap. Coarse prison garb replaced their twenty-five-guinea suits and silk shirts. For the initial two weeks they would sleep on bare boards. Breakfasts consisted of porridge, tea, and bread. Neither salt nor sugar was provided; slivers of cheese or margarine had to be bargained for. Cockroaches rather than cocktails would accompany a typical dinner of sea pie (made of cheap cuts of pork rather than fish) washed down with enamel mugs of weak cocoa.60
Etienne Bellenger was in court when the sentences were read out. A reporter asked for his response. “Mais non,” he replied. “I have nothing to say.”61 But to another journalist, who referred to the brutal flogging to which the young men would be subjected, he responded: “I am not sorry for them. Why should I be?”62 He was still recovering from his wounds. Though having the occasional headache, by April he was back at work and indulging in his favorite recreation—horseback riding. He attributed the restoration of his health to a three-week holiday in the south of France under the watchful eye of his wife.63 Etienne Bellenger was still his firm’s London managing director in 1942 when he placed Cartier’s offices in New Bond Street at the disposal of General de Gaulle, leader of the Free French.64
The trial of the Mayfair Playboys helped precipitate a series of public discussions on societal changes in interwar Britain. Here it suffices to offer only one example of how the reports of the robbery supposedly influenced behavior. King George VI, whose coronation had taken place the previous May, kept himself abreast of developments. Given that Cartier was known as “the jeweller of kings and the king of jewellers,” it was hardly surprising that the monarch took an interest in the case. He told a judge that he warmly supported the punishments inflicted. He regretted, however, that as a result of the trial there had been a decline in public trust. As an example he pointed out that it was the custom when the royal family needed to provide jewels as presents to buy them from Cartier. Shortly after the Hyde Park Hotel robbery, the palace asked that they send a man around with a selection of gems. “And what do you think?” the king asked indignantly. “They sent up two men. Two men! I could see they were not going to trust me!”65