A couple booked in for a sumptuous meal at London's L'Autre Pied in Mayfair under the name "Lupin." They rang up a £572.74 tab (including £409 for two bottles of vintage Champagne), then stepped outside for a cigarette before the dessert course (plum tart and millefeuille), and kept on going:

What may make the case more intriguing is that the name in which the pair booked the table, Lupin, echoes that of the fictional Arsene Lupin – a stylish Gallic gentleman thief whose adversaries, in a series of novels by Maurice LeBlanc, are invariably portrayed as rather worse villains than him. The Metropolitan police confirmed they were investigating.

Restaurant couple do cigarette break runner leaving £570 bill unpaid