Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China
Page 25
Chinese mythology has it that when a fox spirit departs this world, its image flickers briefly before disappearing. The spirit’s influence is rendered benign, and the world of mortals can finally begin the process of healing. Scars fade and disappear, blemishes and stains gradually recede, until no trace of them is left and life can return to normality. But this is merely illusion, for in reality everything has changed and nothing remains as it was before.
THE WRITING OF MIDNIGHT IN PEKING
Ifirst read of Pamela Werner in a biography of the American journalist Edgar Snow, whose best-selling Red Star Over China introduced Mao Tse-tung to the world in the late 1930s. A footnote made reference to Edgar’s wife Helen feeling nervous after Pamela’s mutilated body was found not far from the Snows’ house in Peking. Helen Foster Snow frequently bicycled home that way at night herself. The footnote also mentioned fox spirits, a ‘love cult,’ the fact that Pamela’s father had once been a British consul in China, and that the murder was never solved.
I put the book down and fell asleep, and in the morning the first thing that came into my mind was the murder of Pamela Werner. When something casually read remains in the front of your brain the morning afterwards, it’s usually the sign of a great tale.
Unable to get the story out of my head, I began tracking down newspapers from the time, in archives in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and London. I learned that the investigation had been jointly handled by the Peking police and a British detective working in China, a unique occurrence and a potentially fascinating collaboration between a senior Chinese and a European detective. Some papers tantalisingly hinted at official interference in the investigation by the British Legation—a desperate attempt to save face by His Majesty’s government in the Far East. The reports of Pamela’s autopsy confirmed that this was a particularly nasty murder, one that had set both the Chinese and foreign rumour mills of Peking working overtime, and sparked paroxysms of fear in a city already jittery about an attack by the surrounding Japanese. Pamela’s was one murder that seemed to presage thousands; an outrage in a city braced for much worse to follow.
All the details around the murder case were intriguing: an eccentric father with a colourful past, fox spirits running riot at night in the old Tartar City of Peking, the suggestion of illicit sex, a whiff of opium, whispers of scandal, a previously rarely mentioned underclass of criminal and corrupt foreigners in the city, the purposeful obfuscation by pompous British diplomats and the terrible lack of final justice in the case. All taking place against a backdrop of a doomed China slipping inexorably into wholesale war, which was followed by the drawing tight of the bamboo curtain under Mao. Pamela Werner had been forgotten by everyone a long time ago, it seemed.
It was when I came across a photo of her, on a cold morning in the British Library’s newspaper archives in north London, that I knew her story had to be told. I started writing. And then, by chance, while tying up the loose ends of some research in Britain’s National Archive at Kew, I stumbled across an uncatalogued file in one of several dozen boxes of random correspondence sent from Peking during the years 1941–45. The letters in the file had been recorded, acknowledged, filed and forgotten. There were some 150 pages of close type, with handwriting added by the author in the margins.
It took a while to work out what it all was: the details of the private investigation E. T. C. Werner had conducted after the official one was halted. Peking was by then occupied by the Japanese, yet Werner’s search uncovered more than the detectives had found; it answered questions that they had been unable to, settling nagging doubts and bringing more to light than the official inquest ever did. It took these lost letters of Werner’s to bring Pamela’s murder into focus for me.
In the course of writing this book I travelled to the foreign treaty ports where Werner once served; to the backstreets of Shanghai’s Frenchtown, where so many of the accused and guilty fled; and to Tianjin (Tientsin), where Pamela had gone to boarding school and where other scandals dwelt. Naturally I spent time in Beijing attempting to penetrate the increasingly glitzy and modern exterior of the Chinese capital, looking for traces of that prewar, prerevolutionary city—the former Legation Quarter, the once infamous Badlands, the hutong of the old Tartar City and the Fox Tower. Remarkably, most of the key locations in Pamela’s life and story remain, despite the massive disruption and construction in Beijing in the past three decades. I made contact with the few remaining people around the world who remembered Pamela. I rechecked every false scent and misguided trail, every officious injunction from the British authorities.
I came to agree with Werner’s conclusion, and I reconstructed the events of his daughter’s final night, in the chapter ‘Invitation to a Party,’ using his findings. From the start, I thought it important that Pamela Werner not be forgotten, and that some sort of justice, however belated, be awarded her.
—PAUL FRENCH, SHANGHAI, 2011
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My reconstruction of the investigation into Pamela Werner’s murder is based on medical records, press reports, Peking police reports, and letters written by officials of Scotland Yard, as well as documents produced by and for the International Military Tribunal for the Far East after the war; these latter are held in Singapore. It also draws on various documents from the British Legation in Peking, the consulate in Tientsin, and the embassy temporarily located at Shanghai, along with the recollections of people who knew Pamela in Peking or at Tientsin Grammar School.
Most helpful were the copious notes sent by E. T. C. Werner to the Foreign Office in London, detailing his private investigation after the case was officially closed in July 1937. I came across these letters in an uncatalogued file in Britain’s National Archive at Kew, in one of several dozen boxes of random correspondence sent from Peking during the years 1941–45.
Any number of experts on and former residents of Old Peking and Tientsin offered me help most graciously and enthusiastically, among them Eric Abrahamson, Jacob Avshalomov, Michael Aldrich, Julia Boyd, Luby Bubeshko, Dora Chun, Ron Dworkin, Robin Farmer, Jim Hoare, Ed Lanfranco, Greg Leck, Desmond Power, R. Stevenson Upton, Joan Ward, Adam Williams and Frances Wood. Much gratitude also to Diana Dennis, the daughter-in-law of Detective Chief Inspector Dennis. Thanks also to Lucy Cavender, Peter Goff and Alexandra Pearson, who offered me a chance to write a shorter version of this story for their collection Beijing: Portrait of a City.
Librarians are essential, and I have to thank the helpful staff of the following: the British Library’s Chinese Collection, the British Library Newspaper Archives at Colindale, the National Archives at Kew, the Shanghai Library Bibliotheca Zikawei, Hong Kong University Library, the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge, and the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.
Grateful thanks to all at Penguin China, especially Jo Lusby, who commissioned this project and then gave up so much of her time and energy to see it to a conclusion, as well as all her staff at Penguin China, especially Abi Howell in Beijing and Mike Tsang in Shang-hai. My editor Meredith Rose at Penguin Australia pulled apart and then put together the original manuscript with the skill of a surgeon. Arwen Summers diligently copyedited it and saved me from many potential gaffes. Any remaining errors are entirely the fault of the author. I must also thank Joel Rickett at Penguin in London as well as Stephen Morrison and Emily Murdock Baker at Penguin in New York for taking up Pamela’s story so enthusiastically.
Finally, as always, to Lisa (Xu Ni), who was never anything less than totally supportive and who, I hope, will one day finally realise how much her support means to me.
SOURCES
Text
‘fish in an aquarium’: Peter Fleming, News from Tartary (London: Jonathan Cape, 1936).
all details of Pamela’s autopsy: North-China Daily News, 30 February 1937; China Weekly Review, 13 February 1937.
‘No comment’: Ibid.
Desk sergeant: ‘What did you do?’: Anthony Abbot, These Are Strange
Tales (Philadelphia: John C. Winston, 1948).
‘But aren’t you afraid’: China Press, 9 January 1937.
‘Dig around a bit’: Times (London), 11 January 1937.
‘The socially popular man’: Abbot, Strange Tales.
South to the Temple of Heaven: Ibid.
‘We were to return to England’: Ibid.
Unfortunately we have a very: Lo Hui-min, The Correspondence of G.E. Morrison, 2 vols. (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1976).
‘like a frightened sparrow’: Abbot, Strange Tales.
‘When you and I beyond the veil’: Ibid.
‘inexplicable act of God’: E. T. C. Werner, Autumn Leaves (Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1928).
‘beneath the trees and flowers’: Ibid.
‘The search for the motive’: Jeffrey Bloomfield, ‘The Rise and Fall of Basil Thomson, 1861–1939,’ Journal of the Police History Society 12 (1997): 11–19.
‘reluctant to talk’: Times (London), 13 January 1937.
‘Optimism prevails’: North-China Daily News, 13 January 1937.
‘I will do my best to’: North-China Daily News, 11 January 1937.
‘They’ve got a foreigner with blood’: China Press, 14 January 1937.
‘Can you tell us where you were’: Ibid.
HUMAN MUTILATOR OF: China Press, 11 January 1937.
‘Let’s talk about the Western Hills’: Abbot, Strange Tales.
‘dubious background’: North-China Daily News, 14 January 1937.
‘dapper’: Jacob Avshalomov and Aaron Avshalomov, Avshalomov’s Winding Way: Composers Out of China—A Chronicle (Bloomington, Ind.: Xlibris Corporation, 2001).
‘not of a placid nature’: China Weekly Review, 20 March 1937.
Mr EC Peters—Chairman and In 1927 he became Headmaster: Peking and Tientsin Times, 23 March 1937.
The old man did it: Abbot, Strange Tales.
‘Not in sociology, myths’: Ibid.
‘In view of circumstances’: Document F3453/1510/10 (Far Eastern), the National Archives, Kew, U.K.
‘Remember, you have no powers’: Ibid.
‘Prentice, Miss—Nov. 28’: U.S. State Department Document 393.1115/14, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.
‘I have never seen the girl,’ and all details of interview with Prentice: Document F3453/1510/10.
‘teeth—healthy—26 present’: North-China Daily News, 3 February 1937.
Gorman’s editorial: Peking Chronicle, 13 January 1937.
‘not the work of an ordinary’: North-China Herald, 10 February 1937.
‘living on the rim of a volcano’: John B. Powell, My Twenty-Five Years in China (New York: Macmillan, 1945).
‘It was me they were after’: All details of Dennis’s meeting with Helen Foster Snow are from Snow, My China Years (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1984).
‘The evidence is inconclusive’: North-China Herald, 30 June 1937.
‘I shall not let the matter rest’: National Archives, op. cit.
The sight of my child’s kind little face and ‘apart from the herd’: Times (London), 16 February 1954.
This is to confirm my statement: Document F3453/1510/10.
‘made love’: Document F5480/1510/10 (Far Eastern), National Archives, Kew.
‘You are on the wrong track’: Ibid.
‘Are you Mr Werner?’ and details of Werner’s meeting with the White Russian girl: Document F3435/1510/10.
‘frog walking’: Doc. F5480/1510/10.
impressed him as being true’: Ibid.
This particular line of enquiry: Ibid.
‘Very flattering, but’ and ‘exhausted lines of enquiry’: Document F3435/1510/10.
It is not necessary to read: Ibid.
‘person of interest’: Document F9120/1510/10 (Far Eastern), National Archives, Kew.
‘You heard of the murder,’ and details of Werner’s interview with Rosie Gerbert: Document F12367/1510/10 (Far Eastern), National Archives, Kew.
‘Did the stout Russian,’ and details of Werner’s interview with Liu Pao-chung: Ibid.
‘This is surely a crime’: Ibid.
‘terrific thud,’ and details about Marie: Document F8038/1510/10 (Far Eastern), National Archives, Kew.
‘Is there anyone here’: Ibid.
‘Murder of Pamela Werner’: Ibid.
‘Prentice killed her; Document F12367/1510/10 (Far Eastern), National Archives, Kew.
‘to lay his cards on the table’: Ibid.
‘cringing politeness’: Ibid.
‘When your daughter was killed’: Ibid.
‘there is a marine who knows’: Ibid.
My first impression was: Document F9120/1510/10.
‘one little Korean girl,’ and all details of Werner’s interview with Knauf: Ibid.
‘connected with the murder’: Ibid.
If British administration of justice: Document F714/714/10 (Far Eastern), National Archives, Kew.
‘mystery was never solved’: Snow, My China Years.
‘for their safety and comfort’: Greg Leck, Captives of Empire: The Japanese Internment of Allied Civilians in China 1941–1945 (Philadelphia: Shandy Press, 2006).
‘You killed her’: Desmond Power, former internee at Weihsien Civilian Assembly Centre, e-mail to the author.
PHOTOGRAPHS
While every effort has been made to contact copyright holders, the publisher welcomes hearing from anyone in this regard.
The Fox Tower looms over eastern Peking: only the narrow ditch separated the tower from Pamela’s home on Armour Factory Alley
Pekingers walk their songbirds by the city’s ancient walls
Pamela Werner as a happy three-year-old in Peking
E. T. C. Werner at thirty-five in 1900 (left) and at sixty in 1924 (right)
The Legation Quarter as rebuilt after the Boxer Rebellion of 1900: the exercise grounds were soon to be covered over and become the Badlands
Legation Street, the premier thoroughfare of the quarter
Peking Central Railway Station: to arrive was to be awed by the imperial city
The Grand Hôtel des Wagons Lits
Inside the compound of the British Legation
reproduced by permission of Surrey History Centre
The gates of the French Legation; the ice-skating rink was adjacent
Peking Union Medical College
The Hatamen Gate, the main gateway to the Tartar City
Street vendors in the Tartar City
The Tartar City, a mere stone’s throw from the Legation Quarter yet startlingly different
Ch’ienmen Street, home to Peking’s police headquarters
Gladys Nina Ravenshaw
Gladys Nina and Werner on the steps of St John’s Cathedral, Hong Kong, after their wedding, 1911
DCI Dennis with his wife and son at home in Tientsin, 1935
Courtesy of Diana Dennis
DCI Dennis (on the right) with the British Ambassador to China, inspecting Tientsin’s British Municipal Police
Courtesy of Diana Dennis
Pamela in 1936:
In uniform at Tientsin Grammar School
Reproduced by permission of Desmond Power
Pamela in 1936:
With the school netball team (second from left)
Reproduced by permission of Desmond Power
Pamela in 1936:
The much discussed studio portrait
Tientsin Grammar School, the ‘best school east of Suez’
Reproduced by permission of Desmond Power
The School House, Pamela’s home in Tientsin
Mischa Horjelsky (back row, right) and the TGS swimming team
Courtesy of the John Woodall Archives, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London
Sydney Yeates, headmaster of TGS
Courtesy of the John Woodall Archives, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London
He
len Foster Snow and Edgar Snow
Copyright Corbis Images
Japanese troops in Peking, September 1937
Copyright Corbis Images
Werner at the time of his daughter’s death