by Paul Spicer
In the days that followed, Alice and Frédéric said a last goodbye to their friends and their animals, then went by car to Nairobi and thence by train to Mombasa. Of his departure, Frédéric wrote in Tarred with the Same Brush:
Ordered home—failing in health—miserable in mind. Much as I would greet a home leave of even a long period, just as much do I resent this ordering out of the colony. My heart is out here—with my house—my boys [servants]—my zoo…. I would much rather die out here as they say I will, unless I return to temperate climes…. I will rest in the shade of the Mombasa] Club veranda, sipping pink gin—thinking, remembering, mostly Samson, his baby roundness; his affection which helped us through some hectic months of puppy hood, until he grew up to be a real man, fearless, quiet, understanding, a better friend than any of you could find in most men’s lives.
Raymund, busy with his new business ventures, seemed hardly affected by Alice’s departure. Even so, Alice was determined to shake herself free of Frédéric so that she could be with Raymund. She now had the travel time back to Paris in which to end her marriage. She needed to make clear to her devoted husband that after seeing him safely home, she intended to return to Kenya immediately. By the time the de Janzés reached Paris, Frédéric had agreed to Alice’s conditions. They would remain good friends, but the marriage was over. Alice would ask her lawyer to file for divorce. Nolwen and Paola would remain in Frédéric’s custody. On this matter, Alice was adamant, and Frédéric did not argue. Both girls had always been closer to their father than their mother. There was no question of Alice taking her daughters back with her to Africa. Yes, she loved her children, but if she did not feel well, then how could she be a good parent to them? She could always return to Paris for visits. There is no doubt that Frédéric was heartbroken by Alice’s decision to divorce. He loved her and was deeply attached to Kenya and to their animals. Now he was being banished, not only from Africa but also from his wife’s affections.
In Paris, the little girls were reunited with their parents, only to find their father sick and their mother on the verge of departure again. After only a month in Paris, Alice reembarked at Marseilles for Kenya, leaving Frédéric in the care of his mother and placing Nolwen and Paola with Aunt Tattie. It was October 1926. As a bizarre consolation prize, Alice promised Frédéric that she would bring Samson back to him in Paris before the end of the year. The count told her this would be impossible, but Alice was undeterred. Once again, she boarded the train to Nairobi at Mombasa. Alice was familiar with the route by now and she would have greeted the train’s arrival at Voi with delight: Dinner at the wayside station meant you had truly returned to Kenya. The menu was the same as it had been a year ago and Alice and the other old hands en route to Nairobi greeted each dish with acclamation: Brown Windsor soup, tinned salmon, meatballs, and fruit and custard. Alice was returning to Kenya alone and free of all obligations to her family, her husband, her children, and her rank. Instead, she had a new husband in her sights; a new house; dozens of friends waiting for her in the Wanjohi Valley; her animals, Samson, Fairyfeet, Monster, Roderigo, two more monkeys, and her dik-dik.
On her return to Kenya, Alice and Raymund officially became a couple, dining out together and sharing a bedroom. For the last three months of 1926, Alice spent most of her time with Raymund at Wanjohi Farm, channeling her energies into making improvements to her new home. She often visited Joss and Idina, whose notorious marriage had dwindled into a rather strained friendship by now. Raymund slithered over from his base in Njoro on a regular basis: It was not a long journey and there was a good road to Nakuru, and then on to Gilgil, before turning off to the Wanjohi Valley. There is no doubt that with their dark good looks they made a striking pair, but while Alice’s attraction to Raymund was developing into devotion, Raymund, although very keen on Alice, was instinctively more restrained. He was someone who would never be able to care about anyone quite as much as he did about himself. Nonetheless, Alice was determined to secure her divorce from Frédéric so that she could be free to remarry.
Alice was still resolved to return with Samson to France in December, as promised, and she enlisted Raymund’s newfound expertise in capturing and transporting animals to help her accomplish this feat. There is a note in Margaret Spicer’s diary that Raymund de Trafford dined and danced with Margaret at the Muthaiga Club on New Year’s Day, 1927. Alice is not mentioned. In fact, she had sailed in mid-December with Samson, the lion cub, and Roderigo, the monkey, now on his second trip to France. Once back in Paris, Alice delivered the animals to the apartment in rue Spontini, where her daughters Nolwen and Paola were living with Frédéric and their nanny. When Aunt Tattie arrived for her regular visits, she would be greeted by a monkey climbing on the furniture, a lion in the living room, and a baby Nile crocodile in the bathtub. It is not known whether Alice smuggled in this crocodile from Africa or whether she had bought it in Paris. Certainly, Samson had the run of the rue Spontini apartment, because Paola, then two and a half years old, distinctly remembers riding on the cub’s back while hanging on to his considerable ruff of a mane.
Alice remained in Paris for more than a month this time. One of the reasons for her delayed return to Africa was that Raymund was in England after having received word that his father had suffered a stroke. In February 1927, Alice told Moya and Aunt Tattie that she was moving out of the rue Spontini apartment to take a small pied-à-terre in rue Chalgrin: Evidently, she wanted to be free to receive Raymund without the encumbrances of her children, her husband, and her animals. Alice’s friends and family in Paris remained understandably concerned about this new relationship. Raymund was an unknown quantity, whereas Frédéric had proved himself to be loyal, devoted, and tirelessly kind. But Alice was in love, she was a woman of means, and she was determined. In Raymund’s letters to Alice during this time, he cautioned her not to move so fast. Instead, Alice simply urged her lawyers to hurry through the divorce proceedings even faster, fearing that Raymund’s interest was dwindling. She began to make plans for her wedding.
To his credit, Raymund had informed his family that he wanted to marry Alice. However, the de Trafford family, especially Raymund’s brother Humphrey had grave reservations about this new relationship. As son and heir to the baronetcy, Humphrey was a much more conservative member of the de Trafford family than his wilder younger brother. The aristocratic de Traffords considered the countess far below their social status, despite her enormous personal fortune. Alice was American, still married, and she had two children into the bargain. Above all, Raymund’s family were straitlaced Catholics and did not approve of divorce. As far as Humphrey was concerned, Raymund had been instrumental in breaking up a Catholic marriage—scandalous behavior, in other words. Divorce was a mere technicality, meaning nothing in the eyes of God. Only the Pope could rule on an annulment, as he had done in the case of the de Traffords’ sister, Violet, who had divorced her first husband, receiving an annulment in 1921. The mechanics of annulment were complicated. One argument was that annulment could be granted if the marriage had not been consummated. This obviously could not apply in the case of Alice and Frédéric, who had two children. (Nolwen once asked her sister, Paola, in later years “How can Mummy’s marriage be annulled when we are her two children?”) Another submission could be that the children had been unwillingly conceived. A large payment to the Pope (Pius XI) was also deemed to be a help. Alice’s French lawyers provided a very competent submission, combining the argument of reluctant conception with a considerable offer of money.
The lawyers did not move fast enough, however. On Friday, March 25, 1927, less than a year after their first meeting, Raymund visited Alice at her apartment in Paris in order to inform her that the relationship was over and that he was leaving the next day by the four o’clock boat train. His parents were threatening to cut him out of his inheritance and would stop his allowance altogether unless he ended the relationship immediately. The threat of disinheritance terrified Raymund—he relied on regul
ar injections of the family’s cash to fund his love of gambling, travel, and luxury. Alice told him there was no need to worry about money; she had quite enough for both of them. Raymund explained that he could not turn his back on his family, his religion, and his country. It was too much of a sacrifice. Alice reminded him that she had given up her husband and her children for him. Raymund could not be persuaded. He argued that if he continued his relationship with her, he would further jeopardize his father’s health. He even went as far as to suggest that Alice would probably be better off going back to Frédéric.
After Raymund’s departure, Alice was left in an uneviable position: She had abandoned her husband and children for a man who was now about to abandon her. Alice was a naturally unstable person, displaying a dangerous combination of vulnerability and determination. Faced with the sudden ending of the relationship with Raymund, she quickly began to unravel. That Friday evening, she visited Frédéric and her daughters at the rue Spontini apartment. Frédéric could see that Alice was distraught, and he asked her what had happened. Alice told him about Raymund’s announcement. Although Frédéric was already aware of Raymund’s reputation and can hardly have been surprised, the count comforted Alice as best he could. Then, in an act that demonstrates Frédéric’s impressive decency, he decided to defend the very woman who had rejected him. He went to see Raymund at his hotel, accusing his wife’s lover of dishonorable cowardice and instructing him to marry Alice as promised. Frédéric’s words, although well intentioned, had little or no effect. Later that same evening, Raymund arrived at Alice’s apartment on the rue Chalgrin to inform her, yet again, that he was leaving. This offered Alice one more opportunity to change his mind. She begged him, shouted at him, tried to reason with him, offered him money, and even tried to seduce him, but to no avail. Raymund was determined to leave for London the next day. He told her that he had no source of income without his family’s support and no intention of being kept by anyone else. He agreed to one more lunch to say good-bye the following day before he caught his train, but nothing more.
That night, Alice decided there was no future she could imagine for herself without him. The best and only possible way out of this situation was also the most extreme. She barely slept. By Saturday morning, she was resolved. If she couldn’t persuade Raymund to stay, she was going to have to take the most drastic action imaginable.
Five
The Shooting at the Gare du Nord
ON THE MORNING OF SATURDAY, MARCH 26, 1927, Alice awoke from a fitful sleep in the bedroom of her apartment at 20, rue Chalgrin. She got out of bed and began to prepare for lunch with Raymund. She dressed with great attention to detail; if this was to be their last meeting, then she wanted to look her best. She had arranged to meet him at the Maison Lapérouse, a restaurant and salon de thé on the quai des Grands Augustins, overlooking the Seine. That week, Alice was looking after a friend’s Alsatian dog and she decided to take the animal with her, glad of the company. After a short cab ride along the banks of the Seine, she arrived at Lapérouse. Alice and the dog made straight for a private dining room reserved especially for the meeting with Raymund. Lunch consisted of champagne, fois gras, and salmon. Raymund must have been nervous, but Alice was determined to lighten the mood, and, consequently, the meal went smoothly as they ate and drank, laughing and even joking together. So amusing was their meeting that Alice had to remind herself of the gravity of the situation: Raymund was planning to leave.
When lunch was over, Alice suggested they do some shopping before going to the station in time for Raymund’s four o’clock train. She informed him that she had to run an errand for Frédéric at a nearby gun shop and suggested she could also buy a parting gift for Raymund there. The gun shop was on the avenue de l’Opéra, a short walk across the Pont Neuf and through the courtyards of the Louvre. The owner of the shop, a Monsieur Guinon, recognized Alice. She had visited with Frédéric to buy hunting equipment for their trip to Kenya in early 1925. For that same reason, no special permits or licenses were required for Alice’s purchase. Raymund chose some knives and a twelve-bore shotgun. Alice elected to buy herself a small revolver—a .38-caliber Colt with pearl-inlay handle and a box of nickel-plated bullets. The countess paid for the weapons and asked for them to be wrapped separately. She watched attentively as her gun was carefully enclosed in brown paper, with the box of bullets placed in the same bag.
The Gare du Nord was a cab ride away. When they arrived at the station, it was bustling with Saturday-afternoon shoppers on their way home to the suburbs. The boat train to Boulogne was waiting at platform one, at the far end of the station. Alice and Raymund made their way through the crowds, picking up some snacks from a boulangerie along the way. As Alice looked up at the station’s enormous overhead clock, she would have realized that she had only a little time left. She told Raymund she would meet him on the train to say their farewells. Next she went to the ladies’ room to unwrap her gun from its parcel, load it with bullets, and place it in her handbag. As she walked toward the boat train, Alice maintained her resolve. She had decided she was going to die in Raymund’s arms. Suicide was both a solution to her impossible predicament and a twisted restitution of justice. In other words, she would rather kill herself than allow herself to be abandoned by another man.
Alice boarded the train and found Raymund in his first-class compartment, stowing his luggage above his seat, ready to settle down with his newspaper for the journey ahead. He got up and moved toward Alice, who was standing in the entrance to the first-class carriage.
“Do you really want to leave?” she asked him.
“Yes,” he replied.
The whistle blew and the train gave a jolt, signifying its imminent departure. Alice went for her gun, but at this moment, she later described, she had a sudden change of heart. Why should Raymund continue to live without her? Why should he be allowed to go on with his life when hers was about to end? Alice leaned forward to kiss him, throwing one arm around his neck while removing the gun from her bag. Then she pressed the muzzle against Raymund’s chest and pulled the trigger. He collapsed. Next, Alice turned the gun on herself. Another crack. Witnesses reported that as she fell to the floor, she smiled.
Neither Alice nor Raymund remembered the furor that followed. The guards were summoned, someone was sent to call for an ambulance, and within a matter of minutes train officials had boarded the train. The guards found the couple motionless and bleeding, their bodies half in and half out of the first-class compartment. Alice’s Alsatian was growling so ferociously that it initially proved impossible to rescue the dying couple. Finally, someone threw a rock at the head of the dog so that the police were able to approach and remove the bodies from the train. Raymund was able to utter, “It was she who fired,” while Alice’s chief concern was with the Alsatian, which was now lying unconscious on the platform. “Take care of my dog!” she managed to gasp to an onlooker.
Alice and Raymund were taken to Lariboisière Hospital, directly adjacent to the Gare du Nord, where operations were performed to remove the bullets. The condition of both parties was desperate and there was a possibility that neither would live through the night. Raymund’s family was notified and members of the de Trafford clan left the deathbed of their father to sit in the hospital’s anteroom while the youngest son of the family slipped into a coma. Alice’s gun was a fairly large-caliber pistol, and an examination of the bullet extracted from Raymund’s wound showed the muzzle had been pressed directly against his chest as he had leaned forward to kiss her good-bye. By a miracle, the bullet had missed his heart by a few millimeters, and it is a tribute to the skill of the Parisian surgeons that he was revived at all. Meanwhile, Alice was fairing slightly better. Her bullet had passed through her stomach before penetrating her lower abdomen.
The events at the Gare du Nord made headlines in the United States, France, and Great Britain. The Fort Covington Sun in New York State printed the following account on April 14, 1927:
Ameri
ca, France and England were all threatened in the tragedy in the Gare du Nord, Paris, when Countess de Janzé, estranged wife of a Frenchman, shot Raymond [sic] V. de Trafford, scion of a prominent British family, and then put a bullet through her own body. The countess was Alice Silverthorne of Chicago, cousin of J. Ogden Armour and well-known in American social circles. Her relations with De Trafford recently led her husband to file suit for divorce. For several days after the shooting it was believed both the countess and De Trafford would die, but latest reports are that they are out of danger.
