The words ‘Scotland Yard’ continue to conjure images of ‘bobbies’ patrolling the dark streets of Victorian London
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He was a jewel thief who dressed like an aristocrat, with a diamond stud in his dress shirt. This shadowy yet showy figure was occasionally witnessed on Mayfair rooftops at night in the 1920s, shimmering out of apartment windows and onto white-stuccoed balconies, before vanishing into the darkness. The audacious serial burglar had been preying on London’s wealthiest inhabitants. But then came one obscure clue: a footprint on a drainage pipe. And something about it struck Inspector Robert Fabian of Scotland Yard as being unusual.