Handsome, charming, and well-dressed, Delaney was a popular figure in the West End of London
He is thought to have born somewhere in 1890s Ireland, emigrated to South Africa with his parents as a child, and later settled in England after fighting in the first World War.
By the time he was jailed again, in 1927, a judge at the Derby Assizes was upgrading him to be “the original cat burglar”. Which may not have been strictly true, since the Oxford Dictionary says the phrase was at least 20 years old then.He got another seven years on that occasion. Thereafter, his periods of freedom were fewer and further between, until he died in Parkhurst prison in 1948.He too married a wealthy English widow, or at least one who inherited £23,000 from her husband.
He may well have modelled himself on Arthur J Raffles, the fictional gentleman thief invented a generation earlier by Arthur Conan Doyle . Among Lynch’s achievements, the Press said, “his patiently planned capture of the super cat burglar Robert Delaney . . . would do justice to Conan Doyle”. While making inquiries in a bar on London’s Half Moon Street one night in 1924, the then young detective saw a man pass in formal evening dress, including “pointed shoes”.One thing then led to another and soon afterwards, in the phrase beloved of detective novels, it was a “fair cop, guv’nor”.
Of the many who attempted to emulate him, however, not all were as successful, or even as fortunate in ending up behind bars.
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