Excerpt from A Gentleman and a Thief by Dean Jobb, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Gibson said his goodbyes around half past five, barely an hour before sunrise, hailed a taxi, and returned to his Manhattan apartment. The prince and his companions piled into their car for the thirty-five-mile trek back to the Burden estate.

The royal tour of Manhattan's nightlife was soon the talk of the city. The borrowed car was spotted near Texas Guinan's, on a street off Broadway. A suspicious journalist traced the plates and discovered it belonged to the prince's host. "He went in disguise to one of the white light jazz palaces on Broadway," noted one account. "Nothing could prevent his instinct for fun bringing him into close view of the twinkling lights and engaging characters of New York's night life."

* * *

A king-in-waiting had managed to enjoy a few fleeting hours of freedom by pretending to be Mr. Windsor. He never suspected that his guide had been playing a part as well.

Gibson had not been on the guest list for the Cosdens' party. Before meeting the prince that night, he had parked his red Cadillac coupe on a secluded lane at the edge of the estate, bypassing the fieldstone gatehouse at the entrance to The Cedars. He crouched in the shrubbery in his tux until he saw an opening, then emerged—"as spick and span in my dress clothes as any guest," he later boasted—to mingle with people chatting and drinking nearby on a brick terrace. As a waiter passed, he scooped up a cocktail and joined the conversation.

He soon slipped into the darkness and wandered alongside the mansion until he found a secluded spot. He climbed a rose trellis to the roof of a porch. Above him was a second-floor window, left open on the warm summer night. Grasping the ledge, he hoisted himself inside.

He pulled on a pair of white silk gloves, ensuring that he left no fingerprints, and crept from bedroom to bedroom. He checked the tops of dressing tables and quietly slid open bureau drawers. He could hear muffled voices and music from the party below. If anyone came upstairs and spotted him in the hallway, he knew what to do—he would pretend to be lost or drunk, or claim he was looking for the bathroom.

He could find no jewelry worth taking. The fortune in gems he had come for was either locked away or on display downstairs. He returned to the open window and was about to climb out when he realized a few guests had gathered under the porch while he was inside. A waiter was refreshing their glasses, and they appeared to be in no hurry to move along. There was only one other way out. He followed the hallway to the main staircase and descended into the heart of the party. When a young woman coming up the stairs smiled at him as they passed, he was certain he looked like any other guest.

Gibson's real name was Arthur Barry, and he was one of the most brazen and successful jewel thieves in history. He was a bold impostor, a charming con artist, and a master cat burglar rolled into one. During the Roaring Twenties, with the posh estates of Long Island and New York's Westchester County as his hunting grounds, he swiped diamonds, pearls, rubies, emeralds, and other glittering gems worth almost $60 million today. His victims included a Rockefeller, bankers and industrialists, Wall Street bigwigs, and an heiress to the Woolworth five-and-dime store fortune. A skilled "second-story man," Barry could slip in and out of bedrooms undetected, sometimes as the occupants were sleeping inches away, oblivious to his presence. He hobnobbed with celebrities and millionaires as he cased their mansions and planned some of the most audacious and lucrative jewel heists of the Jazz Age. He outfoxed investigators, eluded the posse of police and private detectives trying to hunt him down, and staged a spectacular prison break to reunite with the woman he loved. He was touted in the press as a "Prince of Thieves" and an "Aristocrat of Crime." Life magazine would proclaim him "the greatest jewel thief who ever lived."

Excerpted from A Gentleman and a Thief by Dean Jobb. Copyright © 2024 by Dean Jobb. Excerpted by permission of Algonquin Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.