Geoffrey Howse - Foul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths in South Yorkshire

... assured of a valuable booty, the three men determined to appropriate it for their own use on the last day of their visit.

On 6 October 1834, The Times wrote an article concerning the goings on at Doncasters famous September Race Week:

Doncaster, which at the season of the great St. Leger race is at all times the scene of desperate speculations, presented one at the meeting of a daring and successful description.

The report went on to say that on the first day of the race meeting three men of respectable appearance, dressed in the first style of fashion, went to the Falcon Inn, where they made inquiries about the availability of beds and other accommodation throughout the week. There being space available to accommodate these gentlemen, they were duly booked in, and their luggage conveyed to their respective apartments. The Times said this about the three gentlemen:

Their manners indicated a disposition to give freely, and to sustain the character which they had assumed. They ate and drank of the best, and expense seemed to be the last consideration in their minds. They every day visited the race course, with the apparent curiosity of strangers, and it was concluded that they were young men of fortune, who had no other pursuit, but that of pleasure. In the end, however, it turned out they were playing a deeper game.

The men paid particular attention to the movements of their host and discovered that he not only presided over their comforts at the Falcon Inn but also had a refreshment booth on the racecourse, to which a large body of people resorted during the course of each days racing. They also observed that after each days racing was over, their host, on his return from his booth, took the days receipts to what he believed to be a secure room upstairs in the inn. Thus assured of a valuable booty, the three men determined to appropriate it for their own use on the last day of their visit. To that end they managed to remove their own luggage, with the assistance of two others, to another house. While two of the men prepared to avail themselves of the landlords money, the third kept watch from the road outside, of the window that looked from the landlords room. Meanwhile, the two men inside gained entry to the room where the landlords valuables were kept, and broke open an escritoire, stealing more than 100. While the men were at their business, the landlord decided to visit his chamber, but upon finding some resistance when he attempted to open the door, supposed that some of his female intimates of the house were there, returning again downstairs. The two men inside being somewhat alarmed, decided to effect their escape by means of a window, the drop from which was not great. When the landlord returned downstairs he made inquiry of his servants as to which of his family was in his upstairs chamber. On being informed that none of them were, the landlord quickly returned upstairs, only to discover his loss, and that the birds had flown. The landlord looked out of the window just in time to see his three generous customers running off into the distance.