White Mischief

by James Fox

  After that Diana came to thank Mrs. McCrae for her help, and they were gradually brought into the lakeside circle. They must have found it very different from the circle they had known, for although there was plenty of bridge and tennis and dancing, there was none of the Happy Valley type of life. Diana, however, seemed eager to be friendly—I can well see how she settled down in Kenya. She wasn’t really snobbish. Her husband didn’t come so much. You say the break came in May 1942; yet I feel sure that they were together at a dance at the Country Club in June 1942. I distinctly remember dancing with Diana, and taking her back to her party which included Colvile and Broughton. Could there have been a short reconciliation about this time? Diana was always polite to him when we were around, and it was only when I was in Nairobi in the July or August that I heard of the rift. We were all sorry, but as she was young enough to be his daughter, we were not surprised.

  Only one other person mentioned did I know, and that was Idina (I believe she was Idina Soltau when I knew her). Nobody could have been kinder or more thoughtful, and she was most certainly not snobbish. She was willing to be nice to anyone, and the last thing she thought about was class. She was exceptionally nice to her servants.

  Frankly I found far more snobbery in Government. Army and Missionary Circles than I did among the so called good-timers. The last named would accept anyone but bores. If one played a moderately good game of bridge, and took one’s drinks without becoming objectionable, one was persona grata with them. They probably were drones—but very amusing ones.

  However, thank you once again for reviving memories of a most interesting part of my life.

  Yours sincerely,

  Albert W. Andrew

  As Broughton’s isolation increased, he began to see Mrs. Woodhouse as his only loyal friend. In early May he wrote to her and told her he wanted to come home.

  My Darling Marie.

  So loved getting your letter and I am so sorry to hear your news about Jim which came as a complete surprise to me. What a rotten thing marriage is. Nowadays it always seems to end in disaster. I shall come home as quickly as I can, but doubt whether it will be possible before the end of the war. I am very unhappy out here, thousands of miles from all my friends.

  Do write often. I miss you unbelievably.

  Broughton now made a mysterious trip to Mombasa. There is no indication of where he stayed, or what he did, except that, having barely recovered from his riding accident, he fell down a railway embankment and seriously hurt his back.

  This episode is mentioned in a letter I received from Mrs. Molly Hall, known in her Kenya days as “Woody” Hall, who was now living in Mallorca. The letter, which was undated, arrived in February 1970.

  Dear Mr. Fox,

  Lady Nihill [wife of Sir Barclay Nihill. Chief Justice of Kenya from 1947–50. whom I had met] has asked me to tell you what I can remember about Sir Delves Broughton’s last days. First of all let me make it quite clear that he did not confess to the murder, what did happen was this …

  Jane Wynne Eaton [known as “Silver Jane.” a famous East African aviatrix], who was living with me in Mombasa, asked him point blank if he did it—he remembered he had an engagement and left. No answer one way or the other.

  On the other hand he would go over the whole business, his time in prison and the fact that there was no motive. He also talked a lot about his wife. Vera. Apparently she was in love with somebody else and hoped he would marry her if she were free—hence their divorce—Jock was heartbroken and felt he must get away, but not alone. There were two women who might make a trip with him, his first choice could not get away, but Diana “jumped” at the idea. The marriage was forced on them, as you already know.* After the trial, when he came out of prison, he spent two weeks in Mombasa. He would arrive in the morning at my house and more or less sit about all day. I have no idea where he slept. He vaguely talked about a tent and I suggested he might like to put it on a piece of land I had beside the house, where he could have a bath and my boys would look after him, but he said he was all right where he was.

  Mombasa was jam packed with troops, etc. A tent: very mysterious. Where could he have put it? An African came to see him one day—not an ordinary African “boy”—very tall and hefty, possibly Somali. He walked on to the verandah, where we were having coffee. I gathered he wanted money.

  Jock said. “He wants money for his food.” I said. “Finish your coffee and tell him to wait for you in the boys’ quarters.” But I was talking into thin air. They were gone. Jock returned later, and the subject was not mentioned. Jock came with me to the Club one evening, to change library books. He liked to go to the Club, but would not go alone, although the Secretary had told him he was most welcome to use it. We had two whiskies, and I drove him back to my house. It was raining and I offered to drive him to his “tent”—but he would not hear of it. or come into my house, he wanted to walk! At this point I must tell you my house overlooked the harbour—a broad road, grass verge, quite wide, and a cutting for a little goods train. That is where he fell, right onto the lane below. He appeared next day in plaster from his neck to his waist, in great pain. I saw him off at the boat some weeks later. [Broughton had returned to Nairobi in the meantime.] No luggage, just a bed roll and his shaving kit. He travelled as a deck passenger, still in plaster.

  I know Diana well. I’ve stayed with her at the Gin [sic] Palace when she was married to Gilbert Colvile. I was trying to cope with Micky Dew [née Grosvenor]. No nursing home would have her. A very difficult woman, with a whip in her hand or on her bed. which she used on her boys.

  I often thought one day she would be murdered! I was rather frantic being in that house, but one couldn’t leave her ill as she was. Diana and Gilbert came over to see us one day and with no hesitation at all, took us both off to the “Gin Palace.” I only mention this because I don’t like what you wrote about Gilbert Colvile. He was generous, shy perhaps, and charming. Diana went everywhere with him. into deepest darkest Africa, where he visited his vast acres and counted his cattle etc. Diana is kind and warm-hearted.

  It does not seem to have occurred to anybody that Joss Erroll might have been murdered by a woman—a woman who used a gun in the Gare du Nord and wounded the man she married later. A woman who bound her head up in yards of chiffon, got into bed covered with flowers and shot herself after Joss Erroll’s death. She had a motive, if you call unrequited love a motive.

  I wish it were possible to talk to you. So difficult to write. A clue here and there, which might be useful. For instance, that mysterious African in Mombasa. Jock had obviously known him for years. The lost revolver. What could be easier than to give him the revolver and report the loss to the police? The boy could so easily have got into the back of the car that night while Joss was in the house. I hope I have been of some help.

  Yours sincerely,

  M. M. Hall.

  The fall down the embankment, the mysterious Somali—Broughton was beginning to resemble Orestes, stumbling about Africa, pursued by furies. He managed to return to Nairobi, still in plaster, to make one last attempt to get Diana back. He asked Dickinson to meet him at Grogan’s office, and begged him to intercede with her. When Dickinson refused, pointing out that Diana would never return to him, Broughton, by now “deranged with alcohol and nerves” according to Kaplan, began to shout and issue threats against them both.

  In July Mrs. Woodhouse wrote to him with the news that her husband was dead. Broughton cabled back “Returning immediately.” He wrote to her on August 9th, from Nairobi,

  Darling Marie,

  I am trying to get home as soon as I possibly can. Fly to Johannesburg, train to Cape Town, and then home by boat. All very mad and may take six months. I will contact you when, and if. I get back, immediately. Longing to see you again.

  All my fondest love,

  Jock

  I return alone.

  In the end Broughton left for Mombasa in September of that year.

  * Historically.
Broughton is way off the mark. He may be referring to the Earl of Bothwell. who became Mary’s third husband. Bothwell masterminded the gunpowder plot against her second husband. Lord Darnley in 1567. although Darnley was strangled by another hand. Both-well died insane in a Danish dungeon some years later.

  * A common misapprehension in Kenya is that they were not allowed into the country except as man and wife—a notion that was quashed al the trial.

  18

  PEARLS AND OYSTERS

  Diana’s friend Hugh Dickinson had now begun to move to the centre of the story. It was Poppy who had told us—at first in the vaguest terms—that Broughton was making threats against him, and it began to be apparent that Dickinson was invariably present, in a minor role, at the most telling moments in the drama, except, of course, on the night Erroll was murdered. He was somehow indispensable to the Broughtons.

  The trusted friend from Doddington days with the “outsider” tendencies, Dickinson’s life revolved increasingly around Diana as the years went by. When he met her at Mombasa, she handed him her marriage certificate for safe keeping, as well as the contract—the marriage “pact” that she had drawn up with Broughton—a gesture on Diana’s part that was never explained. The trio formed up again for the safari in the Southern Masai Reserve a few days after Erroll was shot. And, at the end, before Broughton left for England, he needed Dickinson as a broker between himself and his wife.

  I knew Dickinson was still alive, but he seemed to have lost contact with all of the old Kenya network, and it took me months to track him down. Letters to his former regiment and to the army records office at first drew a blank. When I persisted I was given the wartime address of his bank. Towards the end of October 1969, near the deadline for our article, Dickinson telephoned me, to my amazement, at the Sunday Times offices. He had received my letter within a week, and was willing to see me. He was now the managing director of an office cleaning firm in London. His telephone number was listed, he said, under his wife’s maiden name. I set a date for lunch at the Savoy Grill on November 5th, and sent a cable to Connolly.

  On our way to that rendezvous, I told Connolly that there would be a photographer waiting in an alley outside the entrance to the Savoy Grill, ready to take a picture of Dickinson as he came out after lunch, and that at a certain moment during the meal I would be called to the telephone—the prearranged signal from the photographer that he was in place. Connolly was seized with fear at the thought of being caught out using such surreptitious journalistic methods.

  The menu, however, helped to calm his nerves. Indeed, for once it severely diverted his attention—his notebook records the opening round:

  DICKINSON Nov. 5 (anniversary of DB’s marriage).

  Savoy Grill (oysters, partridges, claret!). Dickinson thin, grey, pink faced, good features, quiet, reserved, nervous. [Dickinson’s hair was, in fact, blond, according to my own notes, with a slight ginger tinge.] Hates publicity. Had a bad time after the trial. Comes from old Northumberland family. Brother or brother in law High Sheriff. Sherry. Talk of Savoy in old days. Kenya in old days. Offers to tell whole story for £20.000.

  The offer was turned down. Dickinson, however, did not get up and leave, and the following is the essence of our conversation, extracted from our notebooks.

  He had met Diana at a cocktail party, and through her, Delves Broughton. He was a frequent visitor at Doddington (“very comfortable, fairly lavish”). He kept himself always very fit, and could play twelve sets of tennis even now, and walk any distance. His relationship with Diana was extremely warm and close, but platonic. It was true that he had followed her out to Kenya. He and Diana regarded themselves as half brother and sister. He got into trouble with the army because he had obtained compassionate leave on these grounds to look for a house for her, but really he just wanted to be near her. When the truth came out in court, he was exiled to Abyssinia.

  Diana was a “wonderful woman,” a great animator of the scene. Her boyfriends before 1940 were Mark Pilkington, Rory More O’Ferrall and Broughton. They had had many happy times together, although he hadn’t seen her now for eighteen years. Yes, it was possible that she did love jewellery and clothes more than men. She was certainly not promiscuous.

  Erroll was the greatest “athlete” in Kenya, where there were many “athletes,” and was undoubtedly the love of Diana’s life. He was much disliked and his reputation contributed a great deal to Broughton’s acquittal. There is no doubt, he repeated, that Diana loved Erroll madly, and he her, “in his way.” He kept himself immaculate and was always better groomed than anyone else.

  Delves Broughton was devious above all—even capable of writing anonymous letters—very intelligent, not sour by any means, good company, friendly and sympathetic, but two-faced. He could be charming to someone and say “dreadful old cow,” etc. the moment after. He would pat you on the back and say “absolutely marvellous, old boy,” when his real feelings were “bloody awful.” He was crazy about Diana physically, but they hated each other like poison later—i.e.. at the time of the Erroll affair. It was natural for such love to turn to hate. He did not recall anything, or any conversation on the safari to suggest that Broughton had done it—it was, in any case, an unmentionable subject.

  He last saw Broughton in Ewart Grogan’s office in Nairobi. Broughton had fallen down a railway embankment in Mombasa, and his back was in plaster. He thought he’d gone round the bend, and said to Broughton, “Why don’t you go into a home or something?” Broughton said, “I can’t live without Diana. You know her best and you’re the only one who has any real influence over her. Won’t you see her and try to persuade her?” Dickinson told him that nothing would induce Diana to go back to him and he wouldn’t bother to try. Broughton was furious, began shouting. Dickinson said he could do nothing. He should cut his losses and go back to England. “He said a lot of mad things at the interview.”

  Dickinson admitted that he had smuggled the syringe and the morphine into Nairobi jail in a chocolate box because Broughton had told him that if the case went against him he wanted to commit suicide. When it was suggested that Broughton had tried to frame him in an attempt to get Diana back, he replied that Broughton had a grudge against him because of his close friendship with Diana. He would say no more than that.

  He thought Broughton was morally capable of committing the murder, but not physically so, and he couldn’t think of anyone else. He (Dickinson) was physically capable, but was away at Nyali in hospital. A cactus spine had pierced his foot (coral according to Poppy), and he had nearly had to have it amputated. He described the theories of African killers as unlikely, though “any African would disappear and never be seen again for a few shillings.” Erroll would have stopped his car for any European who flagged him down to ask for a lift, but for no African.

  Dickinson did seem nervous when the murder was mentioned; but when the robberies were talked about he became distinctly uneasy. He was in the South of France with Diana, Mark Pilkington, Rory More O’Ferrall and a few others two months before the war started. Their car was outside the restaurant in which they were lunching and the jewels had been left in the glove pocket by Dickinson. “Damn silly place …” etc. They were all interviewed by the insurance company, but only Freddie Mcllvray, who was a South of France playboy, saw the police. Dickinson knew nothing about the picture theft from Doddington.

  The telephone call came from the photographer, and the lunch broke up. But Dickinson, instead of walking out of the side entrance of the Grill and into the photographer’s viewfinder, went back through the hotel to the front entrance, and got into a taxi. The only photographs taken that day were of two shamefaced reporters, Connolly and myself, flushed with claret, emerging from the Savoy Grill.

  That Christmas of 1969, Dickinson went to stay with his brother Roy, near Newcastle. A description of the family gathering came to us by chance soon afterwards. It seemed that as a result of the article Hugh Dickinson had become the hero of the hour, and the talk i
n the house throughout Christmas was of nothing but the Erroll murder. According to our source, Dickinson told them that he knew who had done it, but had sworn total secrecy. He had not done it himself, he said, neither had Broughton, although Broughton, he said, had engineered it. He himself had been offered £25,000 for the story (sic) but there were certain things that couldn’t be done for money. To me the story echoed those Kenya rumours and the claims to unique knowledge that could never be substantiated.

  But there was one other snippet from the Christmas weekend which I had thought nothing of, until I looked at the transcript again while writing this book. Dickinson had been asked by one of the guests whether his alibi—his stay in the hospital on the coast—was genuine, and he had replied by giving a large wink. In the witness box he made a slip that went unnoticed. He told Harragin that he went into hospital on January 18th or 19th, “for about a month.” But to Morris, who was questioning him about his meeting with Diana and Erroll at Malindi a week or so before the murder, and who asked, “After that meeting when did you next see Lady Broughton and Sir Delves?” Dickinson replied, “I think the last day in January.” Was it a simple mistake? If Dickinson had taken trouble to establish a false alibi, he would not have exposed the flaw so glibly, and in court. Or would he? A slip, after all, is a slip.

  19

  A GOOD RACING MAN

  Broughton was aware that he was taking a serious risk in returning to England. His son, Sir Evelyn, revealed to me in 1980 that his father’s affairs at home were in a chronically bad state. Broughton had hinted at this in his circular letter after the trial (“The wicked part is that it has cost me £5,000 which I have not got …”). He took pains in his letter to justify spending the money on his defence in what seemed like an appeal to the trustees in England.