Ashes From A Burning Corpse (An American True Crime Reporter in the 20th Century Book 3)

by Noel Hynd

  His lawyers questioned him on his movements on July 7th and 8th, his relationship with the Oakes family, and his financial affairs. He closed the day’s testimony by denying that he was at Westbourne on the night of the killing or that he was responsible for the murder. Several more days of questioning followed. De Marigny continued smoothly. There were no surprises or inconsistencies. His friend the Count de Visdelou supported him with an alibi.

  On November 5, de Marigny faced Eric Hallinan, the Attorney General whom he felt had made it his personal ambition to railroad him. Hallinan’s inquiries revolved around his finances, his relationship with his former wife, and the elopement with Nancy Oakes, whom he had married two days after she became of legal age.

  Hallinan also zeroed in on the fact that Nancy became pregnant when she was ill. This had been one of the Oakes’ main bones of contention. Having set the scene, Hallinan then pivoted to the antipathy which had apparently developed between the two men. He referred to the hospital incident, when Sir Harry threatened to eject him, and the hauling of young Sydney out of de Marigny’s house in Victoria Avenue, asking if these incidents left him feeling humiliated.

  “No,” de Marigny answered. “Everyone knew Sir Harry was a moody man and had a violent temper. He would lose his temper for nothing and might forget the whole thing the next day.”

  Hallinan asked, “Did he call you a sex maniac?”

  “Quite possibly. But when he was angry he said things he didn’t mean. I did not resent it.”

  De Marigny replied to every question with firm, unruffled authority. If Hallinan’s objective had been to trick him into indiscretion, he had failed. Higgs had scored a victory.

  ***

  The other telling defense evidence came from Captain Maurice O’Neil, supervisor of the New Orleans investigation bureau, who said the now famous Exhibit J, the print of de Marigny’s right little finger, did not come from the screen in Sir Harry’s bedroom, but an object with circular patterns on it. He also said he had never heard of a lifted print being accepted as evidence, unless it was photographed in its original position beforehand.

  For the most part, the defense case went well. The final witness was the nineteen-year-old heiress, herself, Nancy Oakes de Marigny. She showed up in the witness box in a black designer dress and flat white beret. De Marigny, leaning forward in his cage, watched her intently as she took the oath in an almost inaudible voice. I watched de Marigny as his wife gave testimony. I did not see him did take his eyes off her.

  Her evidence largely concerned family relationships, but also covered Barker’s graphic account of the murder, an account which spared no one’s feelings, least of all those of the distraught Lady Oakes. Higgs asked her, “Have you ever heard your husband use any expression of hatred towards your father?”

  “Never,” she said. “Not once in my life.”

  When she stepped from the box, Higgs said: “That is the case for the defense.”

  So now only the final speeches of the attorneys, and the judge’s summing-up, stood between de Marigny and his fate. Nassau remained in a state of high tension. The trial was the only point for discussion in the bars and stores of Bay Street, and in the shanty communities over the hill. Barber shops were abuzz with nothing else.

  Higgs opened his final address by saying that never in the history of the Bahamas had there been a crime of more sensational nature. It was a brutal and dastardly affair and it fell to the jury to decide whether de Marigny committed “the shocking deed.” Never had a local jury been faced with greater responsibility. The rest of Higgs’ address spotlighted deficiencies in the prosecution evidence. He focused on Lady Oakes’ statement that de Marigny had never shown ill-will towards Sir Harry.

  Higgs then, having dismissed most of the prosecution evidence as irrelevant, suggested the Crown’s case would stand or fall on the reliability of Melchen and Barker and the reliability of the fingerprint that he had worked so hard to discredit. The case against de Marigny was, he said, purely circumstantial. There was nothing to show what weapon was used, how the killer entered the house, or how he committed the crime. Higgs was merciless in his treatment of Barker, whom he criticized for not bringing proper photographic equipment to the Bahamas, for not producing the contested print on the object on which it was found, and for changing his story when he realized his original testimony about the print and its location given at the preliminary hearing could not have been true. With the verbal beating of the Miami cop complete, Higgs rested his case.

  Justice Daly spent five tedious hours on a summation of the case. Daly expressed the hope that the jury would reach a unanimous verdict. He noted that a unanimous verdict was required to hang a man under Bahamian law. The noose was ready and waiting.

  The jury retired at 5:25 p.m.

  They returned at 7:20 p.m.

  They had reached their conclusion after less than two hours. Ray, our fingerprint experts, and I scrambled to get back to our seats.

  De Marigny, who had been chatting with policemen during the interim, pacing the floor and smiling nervously, was called back into court. Nancy, who had been waiting tensely on the second floor of the nearby Central Police Station, took her seat. Her face was pale, her lips quivering.

  Then the jury trooped in, their faces somber but inscrutable.

  When the judge had taken his seat, the court registrar asked the jury if they had agreed on a verdict. Foreman Sands said: “Yes, we have.”

  The registrar asked, “How say you? Is the prisoner guilty or not guilty of the offence with which he is charged?”

  The foreman, James Sands, stood. He addressed the court. In a firm, clear voice, he gave the answer that the world had been waiting for weeks to hear.

  “Not guilty.”

  CHAPTER 26

  In the courtroom, the acquittal of Alfred de Marigny sparked a tumultuous celebration. Windows rattled. Walls shook. Spectators bolted to their feet and cheered. Police tried to maintain order but for several minutes there wasn’t any.

  The judge discharged Alfred de Marigny. He jumped off the dock to embrace his wife. Immediately, they fled outside to the crowded square where crowds cheered and jostled to get close. They pushed their way through excited well-wishers. Flashbulbs popped. People wanted to touch them. Reporters, including myself, shouted questions. The only comment de Marigny made to waiting reporters was, “The judge is a fair man,” which as it turned out was quite accurate.

  I rushed over to the telegraph office which was jammed with other members of the press. I sent a bulletin to my editors in New York. I promised to follow up the next day with a thousand words. Then I sent a second Western Union telegram to my wife, advised her that at the trial was over and I loved her and would be home soon.

  Thereafter, I turned my attention back to Nassau. I followed the celebrations that were breaking out in the streets, high spirits quickly met with a strong and ominous police and military presence.

  Alfred de Marigny was, however, still not completely out of trouble, at least in Nassau. The jury had taken the highly questionable legal step of recommending his deportation, as well as the deportation of his pal, de Visdelou. But de Marigny had little desire to linger in Nassau at this point. He would most likely have been making his own plans to get out of town even if he weren’t being kicked out.

  But that night it was all revelry. There was a big party thrown at the estate of the Baron and Baroness af Trolle. Ray was invited and pulled me along. The Baroness was in a great mood since her friend’s husband had just ducked a noose. No one objected to my presence. Leonarde Keeler was also there with his polygraph.

  After everyone was suitably juiced with some of the best stuff from the Baroness’s bar, Keeler, who had been a key to the acquittal, started to show off his lie detector.

  “Say,” de Marigny finally said to Keeler, “how about giving me a lie detector test about the murder of Sir Harry Oakes? I’d like to take such a test. You know, I asked the Crown for such a test when
I was arrested, but was refused.”

  The test was made with a stenographer present. The key exchange went like this.

  Keeler asked, “Is your name Alfred de Marigny?”

  De Marigny answered. “Yes.”

  “Did you know Sir Harry Oakes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know who killed Sir Harry Oakes?”

  “No.”

  “Have you had something to eat today?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you kill Sir Harry yourself?”

  “No.”

  The needle never wavered. De Marigny’s answers to the key questions brought no more of a reaction in the lie detector than his replies to a dozen unimportant queries. It was clear to even those who might have nursed a few doubts that de Marigny knew nothing about the murder of Oakes.

  A throng of reporters and well-wishers had gathered outside de Marigny’s home in Victoria Avenue. Rather than brave the crowd, the couple accepted Godfrey Higgs’ offer of refuge. The evening passed in a spirit of relief and jubilation.

  The prisoner’s release also brought an unexpected explosion of joy from the public, and especially the blacks, who had carried him to his car outside the court. Hallinan had ordered the police to stand by with fire-hoses, expecting that conviction would spark riotous hostility towards de Marigny. But as the prosecution team vanished quietly into the night, the holiday mood spread through Nassau. The bars filled with revelers celebrating the count’s victory over the establishment forces that had wished to hang him.

  ***

  Later that same evening, in one of the bars, I found Leroy Stone, one of the jurors.

  He was at the bar, staring into a whiskey but not touching it. He was fair, burley and pink-faced. A few beads of sweat were on his forehead just below the hairline. I walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder. He flinched slightly in surprise, but calmed when he recognized me. “Hello, Alan,” he said in a low voice. “How’s tricks?”

  “Congratulations,” I said.

  “On what?”

  “You did the right thing,” I said.

  “Did we?”

  “Yes. De Marigny is innocent. We all know that.”

  I ordered a quinine water over ice.

  “Of course, we know that,” he said. “Want to know how close he came to the gallows?”

  “Sure. Tell me.”

  “Four of the jurymen were Plymouth Brethren,” Stone began.

  “Plymouth what?” I asked.

  “Evangelical sect. Conservative, low church, nonconformist. There are a bunch of them on the island. They didn’t like de Marigny for more reasons than I can count.”

  “They thought he murdered Oakes?”

  Stone turned toward me. “It had nothing to do with Oakes,” he said. “They figured he was French and thus suspect. They didn’t like the stories they’d heard about him fornicating around town with various indulgent women. And, most of all, they disliked him because they said he had ‘broken God’s laws.’”

  “Which laws? Adultery? Murder?”

  “He was in the habit of going sailing on Sundays. The Sabbath.”

  I blinked.

  “They were ready to hang him for that?” I asked.

  “Good Christian men all,” he said. He knocked back his drink with one deft toss. “They talk about forgiveness and Salvation, and they were ready to send the bloke to the gallows all out of their own righteous indignation of his way of living.” He wiped a sleeve across his mouth. “I thought of the deportation order myself,” he said. “I told these devout buggers that if they didn’t like seeing the Frenchman around town there was a more charitably Christian way to get rid of him. Make him leave. One of the four of them went along with me. We avoided a hung jury which would have meant a new trial. A new trial, who knows? We would have had to do this all again. Anything could have happened. De Marigny could have swung.”

  Stone fell silent. I joined him with a whiskey. I thought about it.

  “Jesus!” I said.

  “If you’ll excuse me now,” he said, “I’m going out into the alley to vomit.”

  I examined my own thoughts. I started to put in order what I wanted to say in the report I would telegraph the next day. I had no shortage of thoughts. It wasn’t like working on the Evening Graphic any more. I was forty years old and needed to file top notch material or I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror.

  A body lurched up against the bar next to me.

  “Thinking about what to write?”

  I turned sharply. At first, I thought it was Stone, returning. But it was a man I’d never seen before, a gaunt white man with a fedora, a suit jacket and a tie.

  “I’m always thinking about what to write,” I allowed.

  “You’re Alan, aren’t you?” he asked. “Ray’s pal from New York?”

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  Instead of giving his name, he gave me mine, first and last, as if I didn’t know it. Then he gave me my street address in New York and the names of the publications I wrote for. I could tell he was not a fan looking for me to autograph a book.

  I glanced around. There were two other men at the door who were watching us. Quickly, it was intimidating and ominous.

  “What can I do for you?” I asked. My eyes lowered for a split second. I found what I had suspected. Police shoes. My eyes came back up and met his.

  “What did you think of the trial?” he asked. “The verdict?”

  “You want an honest answer or a polite answer?” I asked.

  “How about both?” he suggested.

  I unloaded, speaking more out of indignation than courage. “You acquitted an innocent man,” I said. “Bully for you. He should never have been accused in the first place. The real killer—or killers—is out there walking the streets right now while you and your two gorillas over there at the door are wandering around the bars looking for stragglers from the courtroom. That’s not a very impressive episode of policework, but nothing here has been. Frankly, you guys should be ashamed of yourselves. Let’s see if you ever go the next step and arrest the real killer. Let’s see, but I suspect it’ll be a cold day in hell when that happens.”

  I waited for a fist to find my nose. I’d badly overplayed my hand. But I had no choice but to stand my ground and go with it.

  “When are you leaving Nassau?” he asked.

  “As soon as I can.”

  “We’ll see about that,” he said.

  “Let me phrase it differently,” I said. “If Alfred de Marigny didn’t kill Sir Harry, who did? Got a theory on that?”

  He snuffed out his cigarette on the back of my hand. I flinched but went with it. I reasoned that if I betrayed my fear, I’d be dead. Over the years, I’d learned. Back up an inch for thugs like this and they’ll push you for a lifetime.

  He lifted the cigarette butt, hurled it behind the bar, turned and stalked to the door. His back-ups followed. I left via the back door, rather than walk out onto a dark street late in the evening. I might have found a reception committee brandishing weapons.

  CHAPTER 27

  The Nassau Tribune, in a postscript to the trial, read: “Today Bahamians are looking around for someone to scalp for the unsolved murder of Sir Harry Oakes. In this ‘Tragedy of Errors’, the question for the public to decide is who made the first and biggest error that led to the greatest fiasco in a criminal trial in this colony?”

  That referenced only one individual, the person who had bollixed the case from the get-go, labeled it a suicide, imported a couple of incompetent corrupt American cops, and then started to point a finger at a man who was innocent. The individual’s initials were H.R.H., The Duke of Windsor.

  Typically, the ex-King missed the editorial. He was socializing with his friends in the United States on the evening that de Marigny was set free. But his Highness the Duke, the Royal Nitwit, still had a few tricks up his colonial sleeve for the man who had once called him, “not my favorite ex-King.”
Far from governing his ever-diminishing empire, the Duke and Mrs. The Duke were now cooling their royal heels in New York, waiting for the war and their obligations to end. But they still had some muscle with the administration of the islands.

  Through the Colonial Secretary, a decree was issued that invited de Marigny and his pal Visdelou to leave the islands. The decree was very specific, saying that if de Marigny and Visdelou didn’t accept the invitation, they would be forcibly deported to the first place that would accept them.

  De Marigny argued that he couldn’t be deported—he now had a British passport. Deportation only applied to foreigners. But there was a trump card in the recent law for folks like him, a law dating from Prohibition days, when good Nassau residents feared that Yankee gangsters could hide out among them. Oh, the horror of it! The law empowered the government to give the heave-ho to anyone, no hearing required. The Count was fair game to be sent adrift.

  But deported? Who would take him? The war was still on.

  The logical answer was to the United States. But the United States wouldn’t grant a visa to a thrice-married spoiled adventurer, not even for transit. Pan Am Airways, the line with the only flights out, wouldn’t sell him a ticket. Royal Air Force planes that the Duke might otherwise have been able to press into service had better business to attend to than to ferry around the world a lapsed-Frenchman who had just ducked a murder rap.

  De Marigny sat tight in the island paradise, a modern-day Flying Dutchman with no port to sail to. In New York, Windsor inquired by telegraph as to how the deportation had gone and was enraged to discover de Marigny was still in Nassau. Windsor popped a royal knot.

  “Why the hell is he still there?” he barked to his staff.

  He was informed of the bothersome legal niceties. He told his people to think of something and think fast, thinking not being Windsor’s stronger qualities.

  They thought of something. A couple of mornings later, de Marigny was arrested a second time. The issue this time was lesser than homicide, but pesky all the same. The warrant cited four gasoline drums with RAF markings that were in his possession. De Marigny had mentioned these to the police the day he learned of his father-in-law’s murder. No one had cared, though they were technically contraband due to wartime rationing. Now they were suddenly important. A local magistrate said the Count was on his way to a Bahamian jail if he didn’t do everyone a favor and find his way out of the country, fast.