Any Human Heart (32 page)

I went down to the harbour at about 10.00 this morning and McStay said at once, ‘Sir Harry Oakes has been murdered.’ My God, I thought, alarm bells ringing. But who would want to kill Sir Harry? McStay didn’t need to be asked. ‘Everyone says it was Harold Christie.’ I suppose McStay must have got this from his sailing chums. I only know Christie by reputation: big in real estate, here in the House of Assembly, an unattractive blunt-looking man, reputedly an ex-bootlegger. A political power and a close friend of Sir Harry. In a Bahamian context, Christie murdering Sir Harry is akin to Lord Halifax [Foreign Secretary] murdering Bendor [the Duke of Westminster].

I’ve met Oakes a few times: a small chunky boorish man with a surly expression, the corners of his mouth permanently turned down. A self-appointed ‘rough diamond’, calls a spade a spade. Fabulously wealthy too, by all accounts, but one of those men whose grotesque excess of money only seems to make them more troubled and tormented, rather than the reverse. He hated paying tax in Canada, which is why he moved here. Now that there are rumours of introducing an income tax in the Bahamas, he was planning a move to Mexico. Funny how Mexico keeps cropping up.

At lunch I went to the Prince George and the place was humming like a hive. It was a voodoo murder; Oakes’s genitals had been burned off; it was robbers looking for the gold he kept in his house; and so on. Now the prime suspect is his son-in-law, de Marigny. Christie had actually spent the night in Oakes’s house and had slept through everything. Oh yes: the Duchess had been having an affair with Oakes and the British secret service had killed him to protect the Duke’s honour (this was as outlandish as it got).

I was walking back to the British Colonial when a car pulled up and one of the Duke’s equerries, Wood, asked me to meet the Duke in his cabana at Cable Beach at 5.00 this afternoon.

Later. I met the Duke. We were alone; he smoked constantly and seemed very worried. He told me he had been profoundly, utterly shocked by Sir Harry’s death. At first he had been led to believe it was suicide but afterwards news that it had been a murder emerged. A blow to the head with some sort of blunt instrument, then there was an attempt to set the body and the house on fire, which had failed.

‘I’ve asked the Miami police to send two of their detectives,’ he said. ‘They arrived this afternoon. They’re taking over the investigation.’

‘But why, sir?’ I said spontaneously. ‘What about Erskine-Lindop?’ Erskine-Lindop is Chief of Police in the Bahamas.

‘He’s entirely in agreement with me,’ the Duke said, a little snappily. ‘This is too big for the local force. I don’t think you realize the consequences of Sir Harry’s death — the ramifications. It’s a disaster. We have to have experts. Real experts. And this has to be wound up, solved, as quickly as possible. Minimize damage to the colony. Complete disaster.’

‘I understand.’ I didn’t really.

The Duke lit another cigarette. ‘It’s become clear — crystal clear — that the murderer was de Marigny. Do you know him?’

De Marigny, the good-looking son-in-law. I said I’d lunched at his house once and occasionally bumped into him at the Prince George. McStay knew him well.

‘Good,’ the Duke said, allowing himself a quick smile. ‘That’s very good.’ I was now more in the dark but let it ride. Then he said: ‘I want you to meet the two detectives from Miami — Melchen and Barker — tonight. Could you manage that?’

Of course, sir. My pleasure.’

Later. I must write all this down. Melchen and Barker have just left my room. Melchen is fat and bespectacled, untidy. Barker is lean with cropped grey hair, tough, fit-looking. They had just come from de Marigny’s house (with evidence, they said) and there was absolutely no doubt at all that de Marigny had murdered Oakes. Oakes and de Marigny loathed each other, de Marigny had threatened violence in the past. Oakes had never forgiven de Marigny for eloping with his daughter, Nancy (Nancy was eighteen, de Marigny thirty-six). De Marigny was broke and with Oakes dead he would inherit Nancy’s share of the fortune. De Marigny had given a dinner party last night (Wednesday) and had no alibi between 11.30 when he drove two guests home — near Oakes’s house, Westbourne — and 3.00 a.m. Between these times the murder was committed. He had both motive and means and no alibi.

I said: ‘He gave a dinner party and then went out and murdered his father-in-law?’

‘It happens,’ Barker said. ‘Believe me.’

‘What about Christie?’ I said.

‘Slept through it all.’

‘I thought they set the place on fire.’

‘It was a small fire. It didn’t take.’

‘He didn’t hear anything? Smell anything burning?’

‘No.’

I told them I thought de Marigny wasn’t the murdering kind. I said he was one of those hugely self-satisfied narcissists whose main interest in life is figuring out who might next sleep with him.

‘You can never tell a killer,’ Barker said patronizingly.

Then Melchen said: ‘The Duke speaks very highly of you, Commander Mountstuart.’

I said I was gratified to learn that this was so.

‘We need someone to get close to de Marigny and the Duke said you would be ideal.’

‘Get close?’ I said.

Barker said: ‘We’d like you to have a drink with de Marigny, some time tomorrow.’

‘Why?’

‘And, you know, just slip anything he touches into your pocket — a glass, book of matches, ashtray. Then bring it to us — we’re in the hotel here.’

I stood up and told them to get out. They looked at each other wearily.

‘The Duke is going to be very disappointed,’ Barker said.

I said: ‘Wait till he learns what you just asked me to do. I’d book your seats on tomorrow’s plane back to Miami, if I were you.’

They sauntered out, unperturbed. And I sat down and wrote all this up.

I am sitting in the back of a taxi outside Government House scribbling this on a piece of paper [later transcribed in journal]. It is 9.13 in the morning. I had urgently requested an interview with the Duke and had been ushered into his study. He was standing stiffly in front of the bookcases.

‘Thank you, for seeing me, sir,’ I said. ‘Those two inept fools from Miami have actually — ’

‘They told me you’d been most unhelpful.’

‘“Unhelpful?” Do you know what they asked me to do?’

And then he seemed to go a little mad. His voice became a high, semi-throttled scream and his face flushed red.

‘If I cannot ask a friend and a British officer to be of assistance in the worst crisis this island has ever seen!… I told them they could count on you, Mountstuart. They said we need a trustworthy man and I said, instantly, Commander Mountstuart. And this is what you do to me! This is how you let me down! I’m deeply hurt and disappointed in you.’

‘Just one second, sir. They were asking me to incriminate — ’

They are highly professional police investigators who know exactly what they’re doing and exactly what they have to do to bring this sordid affair to a rapid and proper conclusion. De Marigny killed Sir Harry Oakes — full stop. The sooner that man is behind bars the happier this island will be.’

‘With great respect, sir, you’re mistaken. Those men are utterly cynical and corrupt. They’re not what you think.’

‘Don’t you dare tell me what I think! Get out! Get out! You’re useless to me.’

And so I left. These are, verbatim, the words we exchanged.

Friday night. The news is all around Nassau. De Marigny was arrested this evening for the murder of Sir Harry Oakes. His fingerprints were found in the murder room. Barker and Melchen have got their man.

Still a bit stunned by all that has taken place. I can’t quite piece it together yet, but all is not well. Today there was a Red Cross fund-raising drive in Victoria Square. The crew of the 1122 had laid on lucky dip, skittles, a coconut shy and all manner of games, so I went down to see how they were coping.

The Duchess, who is patron of the Bahamian Red Cross, had opened the fete and was wandering around meeting people and examining the stalls and exhibits, being her usual gracious and friendly self. As she approached the 1122 stall she saw me and checked her stride momentarily. She avoided my eye but could hardly ignore us. She shook my hand and gave me a thin smile. ‘How wonderful you British sailors are,’ she said and was about to move on.

‘Your Grace,’ I said quietly, ‘how is the Duke?’

Then I saw the depthless lake of hatred in her eyes.

‘Judas,’ she whispered, and turned her back on me.

[NOTE IN RETROSPECT. December 1943. These notes have been compiled with help from Sq. Leader Snow — who sent me newspaper accounts of de Marigny’s trial (in October) — and from Sub-Lt Crawford McStay, who visited de Marigny in gaol in July and August.]

Some time in the early hours of Thursday, 8 July 1943, Sir Harry Oakes was murdered in his bedroom in his house ‘Westbourne’ as he slept. He was hit on the head with some sort of spiked instrument that caused four deep puncture wounds, triangular in shape, in front of and behind his left ear. His skull was badly fractured. Then his body was significantly burned, most of his pyjamas being consumed by flame, as was the mosquito netting above his head. There was further scorching on the mattress, on a folding Chinese screen near his bed and on the carpet. Feathers from a ripped pillow were scattered over his body. On the walls of the room, low down, were blood stains and bloody handprints.

Harold Christie, a friend and business associate, who was sleeping in a guest bedroom two doors away, found the body in the morning and summoned help. The local police and other interested parties moved more or less unchecked through the house and the murder scene.

De Marigny, informed of the death of Sir Harry, turned up at the house on the Thursday morning but was not allowed admittance to the upper floor and did not see the body.

In the early afternoon the two detectives, Captains Melchen and Barker, summoned from Miami by the Duke, arrived and began their investigation. Barker did not dust for fingerprints, as he regarded the conditions in the murder room as being too humid. Sir Harry’s body was moved to the Nassau morgue for autopsy at around 4.00 p.m.

At dinner time de Marigny was instructed to go to Westbourne, where he was interrogated and physically examined by the two detectives. Clippings of singed hair were taken from his beard and arms. Then Melchen and Barker, accompanied by local police, went with de Marigny to his house, where the clothes he had been wearing the previous night were taken away as evidence (it was after this that the detectives visited me in the British Colonial Hotel). During that night a local detective stayed with de Marigny.

The next day, Friday, 9 July, de Marigny was escorted back to Westbourne. He went upstairs to a seating area on the landing where he was interrogated by Melchen. During the course of his questioning Melchen asked de Marigny to pour a glass of water from a carafe on a nearby table. Then he offered de Marigny a cigarette and when he accepted tossed him a pack of Lucky Strikes. De Marigny lit a cigarette and returned the pack. At this juncture Barker appeared and asked if everything was ‘OΚ’. Melchen said it was, the interview was terminated and de Marigny was allowed to leave.

At about four o’clock that afternoon the Duke of Windsor arrived at Westbourne and went upstairs. He had a confidential, unwitnessed conversation with Barker that lasted twenty minutes.

At six o’clock that evening de Marigny was escorted to Westbourne yet again and was arrested and accused of the murder of Sir Harry Oakes. A clear fingerprint from the little finger of his left hand had been found on the Chinese screen.

During de Marigny’s trial it was established by the defence counsel that (a) Barker showed astonishing incompetence for a so-called fingerprint expert and that (b) the fingerprint offered in evidence — that placed de Marigny in the murder room — could not have come from the Chinese screen as alleged. It must have been lifted from some other surface (A glass? The cellophane from a cigarette pack?) and planted as incriminating evidence. The case against de Marigny effectively collapsed and he was declared not guilty and acquitted.

I make only these observations.

Barker and Melchen were determined to solve this case in record time. They clearly believed de Marigny was guilty and decided to implicate him by fair means or foul. I was intended to supply the necessary print (it would have saved having to go through the charade with the carafe and the cigarette pack). When I refused on Thursday night they realized they would have to retrieve the ‘evidence’ themselves. Barker’s question — ‘Is everything OK?’ — actually meant ‘Do we have clean prints?’

I ask only these questions.

Why did the Duke of Windsor call in detectives from Miami (one of the most corrupt forces in the USA) when he had a completely competent police department on his doorstep?

What did the Duke and Barker talk about during their private conference on Friday, 9 July? (This question was deliberately and pointedly not asked during the trial.)

Why, when de Marigny was acquitted, was the case closed when the murderer was still at large?

Why did no one investigate Harold Christie?

Here is an interpretation of what actually went on — as unprejudiced as I can make it.

The Duke — a nervous and insecure man — was thrown in complete panic by Sir Harry’s death. For some reason he had no confidence in his own police force and dreaded the affair running on for months. One has to wonder why there was this need for a rush to justice. Was there anything else that might be uncovered? Anyway, whatever the reason, the Duke called in Melchen, whom he knew from previous Miami trips. It’s not clear if he asked for Barker also, but Barker, not Melchen, effectively ran the show.