The Temptress: The Scandalous Life of Alice De Janze and the Mysterious Death of Lord Erroll

by Paul Spicer

  She had already written five letters. Two of these were to her children, one was a suicide note, and one was addressed to the police. The other was to Dickie and was sent to him in Cairo. She described the beauty of the African morning as she sat writing to him by a pool in her garden, surrounded by the sunshine, colorful flowers, and a sense of peace. She told Dickie she loved him and predicted that he would find it very hard to understand her actions. Even so, she said, he should know that she believed she was doing the right thing. Then she revealed that the reason she had found it so hard to say good-bye in Uganda was that she knew it would be their last good-bye. Alice ended the letter with the following words to Dickie: “I simply can’t write again, and there is nothing more to say.”

  Alice locked her bedroom door and wrapped a large bandage around her chest. By now, it had begun to rain. She put on her best nightdress and climbed into bed. Next she swallowed ten grams of Nembutal, a huge dose. She placed her revolver to her heart. Before she slipped out of consciousness completely, she pulled the trigger. Alerted by the sound of rasping breathing noises coming from Alice’s bedroom, one of her African servants forced the door open only to discover a terrible scene. By the time Flo returned from Olkalau, Alice was near death.

  Flo drove out to Kipipiri, where there was a telephone, and called Dr. Boyle, who was in his surgery in Nairobi. Boyle knew his own car was too small and slow to drive up to the heights of Wanjohi, so he borrowed Dr. Bowles’s powerful Lincoln and raced up to Alice’s house in the pouring rain. He arrived to find Alice dead. At her bedside, Dr. Boyle found the painting that she had labeled and left for him. She must have known he would come. The oil, possibly painted by the Russian-American Surrealist Pavel Fedorovich Tchelitchew, shows three figures done in several shades of blue. On the back Alice had written teasingly to her favorite doctor, “To the one who is too frolicsome”—a final joking gesture of sorts.

  Dr. Boyle knew he must now carry out his legal duties. A coroner’s inquest would be required. He found Alice’s five letters, which he handed over to the police before lodging a death certificate at the coroner’s office.

  Alice was buried at the side of the river on Wanjohi Farm, near the place where her dog Minnie had been laid to rest. Her staff, together with Pat Fisher and Flo Crofton, attended her funeral. In one of her suicide notes, Alice had asked that a cocktail party be held at her grave, but it was not to be. Most of her other friends stayed away, dispersed by war or ill health. In her final years, many friends had fallen away. Alice’s grave was left unmarked, as was often the case in this part of the world—the local Kikuyu believed that the white settlers died with their wealth still upon them, and they often dug up graves in search of money and jewelry.

  The coroner duly investigated the circumstances surrounding Alice’s death and an inquest was held on Thursday, October 9, 1941, at Gilgil. At the inquest, the doctor submitted the letters found at Alice’s deathbed, along with his report (by law, suicide notes have to be submitted to the authorities and the coroner). Dr. Boyle gave his evidence, but the hearing was adjourned, pending the result of the postmortem. In December 1941, the hearing was again delayed, “owing to certain witnesses being in Mombasa”—namely, Alice’s housekeepers, Flo Crofton and Noel Case. When the inquest was reconvened on January 21, 1942, the coroner, who had been unable to locate the missing witnesses, stated that he did not wish to prolong the inquiry, so he brought the hearing to a close. In his statement, he asserted, “Alice de Trafford took her own life on 27 September 1941” and that “the proximate cause of her death was shock and internal haemorrhage from a gunshot wound. It is clear that the deceased’s taking of her own life was intentional, and there is no evidence of mental instability….”

  There is no doubt that Alice’s suicide was intentional. She had planned her death carefully. She had said good-bye to Dickie for the last time. She had tested the Nembutal on Minnie first, ensuring that her dog would not survive her. She had visited Joss’s grave to pay her final respects. She had written letters to her children and amended her will, assigning her furniture and other items to her friends. She had prepared her bedroom and the manner of her death. Above all, she made sure that she would not fail and that this suicide attempt would be final.

  Alice’s two daughters—now nineteen and seventeen, respectively, and living in Chicago with Aunt Tattie—learned of their mother’s suicide from a newspaper headline announcing her death. They had not seen Alice in two years, due to the war. Alice had always lived at such a great distance from them that it must have been easy for Nolwen and Paola simply to imagine their mother going on with her life in Wanjohi, with her animals and her stories. Although Alice’s daughters had never visited their mother in Africa, the terms of her will contained a belated invitation. Nolwen and Paola were to inherit Wanjohi Farm and her house, on condition that they come to live in Kenya and look after the place for five years, spending eight months each year there. As Nolwen later pointed out, these were impossible terms for two adolescent girls during war time. In the event that her daughters were unable to live at Wanjohi, Alice’s African estate was to go to a fatherless child of eight, the daughter of Noreen Pearson. Noreen’s husband had died in the war, and evidently Alice had decided to take pity on this young child who had recently lost her father. Nolwen later recalled, “Alas, the child who inherited was taken away to Washington, her mother having remarried in Kenya an American officer. So, the Wanjohi Farm was sold on the girl’s twenty-first birthday. My mother’s wishes all to the wind.” In the coming years, Wanjohi Farm was given over to the authorities, becoming the Satima Primary School for Girls.

  After their mother’s death and the end of World War II, Nolwen and Paola left Chicago and returned to France. Nolwen had taken a course in Mary land with the Women’s Army Corps during the war and she joined the Free French forces in 1944 as a diplomatic liaison officer. On September 23, 1948, she married Lionel Armand-Delille and together they had two children, Frédéric and Angélique. In the 1950s, Nolwen embarked on a career in fashion, becoming the president of the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers, which would no doubt have delighted her stylish mother. After divorcing Armand-Delille, Nolwen married twice more—first to Edward Rice and then to the art historian Kenneth Clark. She died at the family château, Parfondeval, in 1989. Paola married twice, first to Walter Haydon and then to John Ciechanowski. She had two sons, Guillaume and Alexander. She died in 2007. Both of Alice’s daughters remained loyal to their mother’s memory throughout their lives. Their apparent lack of resentment must be some indication of their good feeling toward her, despite their long separations from her, and of Aunt Tattie’s excellent care of them in Alice’s absence. Sadly, Nolwen and Paola never did visit Alice’s beloved Wanjohi Valley. The only de Janzé member of the family to have seen Alice’s farm to this day is Nolwen’s daughter, Angélique Fiedler. On a visit there in 2004, Angélique was so taken by the breathtaking beauty of the place that she set about negotiating with the authorities to have the school renamed the De Janzé Primary School. Angélique is now seeking to endow the school to enhance its prosperity and future, in memory of her grandmother.

  Dickie Pembroke received word of Alice’s death while posted in Egypt. He was devastated by the news. Undoubtedly, he had had it in mind that if he survived the war, he would return to Kenya and marry Alice, but this was not to be. Throughout the rest of the war, he carried Alice’s letters in the left-hand breast pocket of his battle uniform, along with his AB64 (the document denoting his number and rank). In March 1943, Dickie’s battalion entered Medenine, in Tunisia, where the British won a decisive victory against Field Marshal Rommel, one of the finest German generals of World War II. Toward the end of armed conflict, Dickie returned to England, later going on to the War Office, where he was granted the status of full colonel in 1951. His medals and awards included the 39/45 Star, the Africa Star, the Defence Medal, and an OBE. After marrying Mrs. Dermot Pakenham in 1950, he left the army an
d embarked on a career in the bill-broking business. He died in Upham, Hampshire, in 1967, at the age of sixty-three. Brigadier H. R. Norman, formerly of the Coldstream Guards, wrote an obituary for Dickie Pembroke, in which he described him as “the most modest of men,” someone who had the gift of creating friendships with all sorts and conditions of people, old and young.

  Lizzie Lezard also outlived Alice. On arriving in Cairo in late 1941, he began boarding with several other bachelor officers, one of whom was the future diplomat and translator of Turgenev, Charles Johnston. Later, Johnston would immortalize Lizzie and their time in Cairo in his book, Mo and Other Originals (1971), where Lizzie appears as Monty Malan, a bon vivant who spends all day lounging in bed, being brought trays of chicken sandwiches and whiskey and soda by his servant, Mo. In 1943, Lezard, who had recently completed his parachute training, was dropped near Monte Carlo, where he fell heavily and broke his back, henceforth becoming known as “The man who broke his back at Monte Carlo.” Lizzie was rescued and hidden by the local Free French until the arrival of the Americans, at which point he returned to London on a steamer and was welcomed home a hero. He was next heard of living in a butler’s room at the top of the Ritz Hotel, leading an extremely active social life, before taking a flat in Eaton Square. In 1958, he went into the hospital for a minor operation, where he died very suddenly from shock on August 21, at the age of fifty-six. Charles Johnston wrote in Lizzie’s obituary, “It was as if a vital source of light and warmth in our lives had been violently put out.”

  Raymund de Trafford was released from Parkhurst prison in 1941, having survived the air raids over the Isle of Wight during the Battle of Britain. He soon reported to his former regiment of the Coldstream Guards, hoping to rejoin, but he was turned down, and his application for a commission with the Rifle Brigade was also refused. Eventually, in 1942, after having missed three years of service during the war, he was permitted to join the Pioneer Corps as a lieutenant. Raymund was posted to Morocco, where he worked conscientiously as the commander of a platoon of engineer workers, digging drains and building bridges. He remained in North Africa until 1945, when he was honorably discharged, having attained the rank of captain. After the war, Raymund was awarded two medals. He also resumed his previous lifestyle, hunting, gambling, womanizing, and visiting friends, including the writers Evelyn Waugh, Maurice Baring, and Robert Graves. (When Baring died at the end of 1945, Raymund was named as Baring’s literary executor.) In 1950, he met Eve Drummond, whom he married the following year. The day after the couple’s wedding announcement appeared in The Times of London on May 21, 1951, congratulatory telegrams arrived, along with demands from six separate bookmakers. Raymund and Eve went to live in Ireland, but the marriage did not last long. Raymund used his asthma and worsening emphysema as an excuse to visit Robert Graves in Majorca, leaving Eve behind. Robert, who was very fond of Raymund, took him in almost permanently at his house in Dejà on the Spanish island. In May 1971, Raymund was visiting London where he suffered a fatal stroke. He was seventy-one years old. He is buried in the Catholic cemetery in Monks Kirby, Warwickshire. On his headstone is written “Liber scriptus proferetur, in quo totum continetur,” a verse from the Catholic Requiem Mass, which translates as “The written book will be brought forth in which all is contained.” Dermot de Trafford, the sixth baronet and Raymund’s nephew, has said of his uncle, “He behaved badly, but he knew how to behave well.” Raymund left an estate worth £212.02.

  Jock Delves Broughton sailed to Ceylon and India after the end of his trial for Joss’s murder, staying until later that year. Diana was at his side. On their return to Kenya in 1942, they rented Joss’s former home, Oserian, for a time. Diana said that it brought her solace to be surrounded by a place Joss had loved. The Delves Broughton marriage lasted until the end of the year, at which point Jock returned to England. Despite his acquittal, he had continued to be dogged by speculation and ignominy. Soon after his return, he took a fatal overdose of morphine at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool, dying on December 5, 1942, a little more than a year after Alice’s suicide.

  Diana Delves Broughton stayed on in Nairobi, where she was more or less completely ostracized by the settlers, many of whom had come to blame her for Joss’s death. Undeterred, she proceeded to marry one of the wealthiest men in Kenya, Gilbert Colville, in 1943 (a month after Jock’s suicide). Gilbert bought Oserian for Diana, and the couple went on living there until their divorce in 1955. At this point, Diana had already met and fallen in love with Thomas Pitt Hamilton Cholmondely, the fourth Baron Delamere, the son of the famed highland settler and third Baron Delamere, Alice’s old friend D. Tom and Diana married in 1955. Despite Gilbert’s divorce from Diana, he still left her his entire estate on his death, making her a very wealthy woman. When Tom died of heart failure in 1979, Diana was sixty-six years old, at which point she took an apartment behind the Ritz Hotel in London, staying there for a few months each year. The rest of her time was spent in Kenya, attending Nairobi races or fishing at Kilifi, where she acquired a home called Villa Buzza. Diana died of a stroke on September 7, 1987, at the age of seventy-four. Her body was flown back to Nairobi, where she was buried at Ndabibi between the graves of Gilbert and Tom. The inscription on her grave reads “Surrounded by all I love.”

  Alice’s great friend Paula Long, née Gellibrand, also maintained her ties to Kenya. She and her husband, Boy, lived on their ranch, Nderit, at Elmenteita, where they farmed cattle, close to the lake whose shores are fringed with pink flamingos. It was an appropriately dramatic setting for this flamboyant couple: In the hills above the house is a place called Eburu, where hot steam emerges from splits in the rock surface. After Boy’s death in 1955, Paula left Elmenteita and returned home to England, where she lived at Henley-on-Thames, in Oxfordshire. Late in her life, she began to suffer with dementia, and she died at the Priory, a private psychiatric hospital in London, in 1986, at the age of eighty-eight. She is buried in the small Oxfordshire village of Nettlebed.

  After Alice’s death, Idina went on living and farming at Clouds. Until the end of the war, Phyllis Filmer lived there, too, and Idina was evidently glad of the company—her husband at the time was the fighter pilot Vincent Soltau, and so he was almost permanently away. What’s more, during the course of the war, she suffered the losses of her first and third husbands (Euan and Joss) and her two sons from her first marriage, David and Gee. By 1945, she had a nervous breakdown, brought on by grief. Her doctors advised her to seek relief from living continuously at so many thousands of feet above sea level, and she left Clouds for a time for her bungalow at Mtapwa Creek. Mtapwa is about ten miles north of Mombasa, on the banks of a long sea inlet. Here she planted a lushly beautiful tropical garden. After divorcing her fighter-pilot husband, Idina reverted to her maiden name, Sackville, promising never to marry again. In 1950, she met James Bird, known as Jimmy Bird or James the Sixth, in honor of his position as the sixth “husband” in Idina’s life, although the pair were never officially married. He became her constant companion, despite the fact that he was something of a drunk and known to prefer men to women. “I’ve worn out five husbands and the sixth is on his last legs,” Idina was often heard to say. In 1952, she had a hysterectomy, having been diagnosed with uterine cancer. Despite the operation, her cancer returned. After refusing to go back to the hospital, Idina fell into a coma, dying at Mtapwa in 1955, at the age of sixty-two. Idina had once told her neighbor there, the essayist Edward Rodwell, that she knew the identity of Joss’s killer and that she would tell Rodwell the name before she died. She never did.

  And so one by one, the protagonists in the Erroll saga passed away, taking what they knew of the mystery of his murder to their graves.

  Epilogue

  The Missing Letter and the Great Beyond

  IN 1998, I HAD BEGUN TO CAST AROUND FOR INFORMATION on Alice de Janzé, in the hope that I might write her biography. I was keen to track down Alice’s former housekeeper, Noel Case, who had helped run Wanjohi Farm af
ter Alice’s return to Kenya in 1933. I felt she must have great insight into Alice’s life there, and that she could well prove essential to my research. By now, I had begun to suspect that Alice was responsible for the Erroll murder, but I needed to know more about her psychology and movements in order to be sure. I was already in contact with the writer Errol Trzebinski, who was at that time hard at work on her biography of Joss Erroll, The Life and Death of Lord Erroll. It was Trzebinski who put me in contact with a woman named Alice Boyle. Alice Boyle was the daughter of Dr. William Boyle, the physician who had raced to Alice de Janzé’s bedside after her suicide. Trzebinski told me that Alice Boyle was in close contact with Noel Case and could perhaps put us in touch. Even so, Trzebinski warned me, I should not hold out too much hope of an interview. Apparently, Noel was refusing to talk to anyone (even her own nephew) about her days with Alice de Janzé at Wanjohi Farm.

  I obtained a telephone number for Alice Boyle (now Mrs. Fleet) and invited her to lunch at my house in London. I was met by an attractive woman in her fifties with dark hair and a lively and capable air. As we began to speak—first about Noel Case and then about Dr. Boyle—I realized that this Alice was shy and even a little defensive, especially when it came to talking about her father. Over lunch, she revealed to me that she was still in possession of the blue oil painting that Alice de Janzé had left to Dr. Boyle at the time of her death. Later I learned that Alice Boyle was certain her father must have had some kind of an affair with Alice—who was his favorite patient—possibly before his marriage in 1936. It was only after our fifth or sixth meeting that Alice Boyle revealed information to me that cast the story I was researching in a startling new light.