During his sentence he studied antiques and learned the etiquette of the aristocracy, as well as taking elocution lessons to soften his Scottish accent.

[3] Based in London again, he combined more thieving and racketeering with working as a butler to the 82-year-old Walter Scott-Elliot and his 60-year-old wife Dorothy.

[4] Hall and Kitto then drugged her husband and drove them both up to Scotland, helped by the Scott-Elliots' housekeeper Mary Coggle.

[4] After she refused to dispose of a fur coat which was potentially incriminating evidence, Hall and Kitto killed her with a poker and left her body in a stream near Middlebie, Dumfriesshire,[7] where she was discovered on 25 December 1977 by a shepherd.

[8] Hall and Kitto placed Donald's body in the boot of a car and again drove to Scotland to carry out another burial.

However, the shifty movements of Hall and Kitto made the hotelier suspicious and, worried about whether he would be paid for their stay, he called the police as a precaution.

They then took the car to the police station (only 200 yards away, and on the same side of the High Street) where they made the discovery of Donald's body in the boot.

The police then made a connection between Hall's car and the registration number of a vehicle noted by a suspicious antiques dealer in Newcastle-under-Lyme, to whom two men had offered silver and china at a price well below its true value.

The police traced the car to the Scott-Elliots' address in London and found the apartment robbed of many valuables and spattered with blood.

In deep snow and bitterly cold weather, and with the media watching, police teams dug up the bodies of David Wright and Walter and Dorothy Scott-Elliot.

The Lady's Man is a 1993 film based on the story of Archibald Hall: it stars John Shrapnel and Mark McGann.

In 2005, British actor Malcolm McDowell and Hollywood screenwriter Peter Bellwood announced that they were seeking a director and funding for a film based on Hall's life.