Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in London's West End

by Geoffrey Howse

  The trial of Madame Fahmy was held in Number One Court in the Old Bailey, before Mr Justice Rigby Swift, it lasted for six days and commenced at ten o’clock on the morning of Monday 10 September 1923. The prosecution was lead by Percival Clarke, eldest son of a more famous father. Madame Fahmy was defended by the formidable Sir Edward Marshall Hall, arguably the most famous defender of all time, who used Madame Fahmy in the witness box to great effect by getting her to reveal her husband’s perverted sexual practices. When Marshall Hall questioned Said Enani, Prince Fahmy’s secretary, he gained Madame Fahmy the sympathy of the jury:

  Sir Edward Was he in the habit of beating women?

  Said Enani He would dispute with them, but I have never seen him beat them.

  Sir Edward You have known of his intimacies with many women?’

  Said Enani Yes.

  Sir Edward You said that you tried to dissuade the prince from marrying her?

  Said Enani Yes.

  Sir Edward Did you say he was an Oriental; and passionate?

  Said Enani Yes.

  Sir Edward You were very much attached to Prince Fahmy?

  Said Enani Yes.

  Sir Edward Was he infatuated with her at that time?

  Said Enani Yes, very much in love with her.

  Enani told the Court that the question of marriage had first been raised in Cairo. Two of the stipulations in the contract were to be that as his wife Madame Fahmy would not be required to wear Egyptian clothes and she would have the right to divorce her husband. Madame Fahmy had agreed to adopt the Moslem religion because Fahmy’s mother had left him a large legacy, which was conditional on him marrying a Moslem. However, it seems the Prince was not a man of his word, because when the religious ceremony took place he refused to allow the divorce clause but he retained the right himself, which meant he could divorce his wife without giving her a penny. He was also able to take three wives if he so wished.

  Sir Edward On February 21st was there a very serious scene? Do you know that he swore on the Koran to kill her?

  Said Enani No.

  Sir Edward Do you know that she was in fear of her life?

  Said Enani No, I never knew that.

  Sir Edward On the 23rd, did Fahmy take her on his yacht at Luxor?

  Said Enani Yes.

  Sir Edward Were there six black servants on board?

  Said Enani Yes.

  Sir Edward I suggest from that moment Fahmy began to treat her with persistent cruelty.

  Said Enani I cannot say cruelty. He was a bit unkind.

  Sir Edward The day he arrived at Luxor, did he smack her face, tell her she must not leave the yacht, and then kick her?

  Said Enani I have not seen him kick her. I knew he locked her in.

  Marshall Hall was able to extract additional information which showed Fahmy in a bad light. Enani said that he remembered an incident when the Prince struck his wife a violent blow and dislocated her jaw.

  Sir Edward When you came over from Egypt, his treatment of his wife was the talk of the ship?

  Said Enani They were always quarrelling.

  Sir Edward Do you know that he locked her in her cabin for 24 hours and that the captain had to have her released?

  A cartoon from Cairo’s comic weekly Kachkoul depicting Prince Ali Kamel Fahmy Bey (shown right), his secretary, Said Enani, and his secretary’s secretary. It was captioned: The Light, the Shadow of the Light, and the Shadow of the Shadow of the Light. Author’s collection

  Said Enani I don’t know that.

  Sir Edward Was not the Madame Fahmy of 1923 totally different from the Madame Fahmy of 1922?

  Said Enani Perhaps.

  Sir Edward From a quite entertaining and fascinating woman she became miserable and wretched?

  Said Enani They were always quarrelling.

  Sir Edward Did she say that you and Fahmy were always against her, and that it was a case of two to one?

  Said Enani Yes.

  Shortly after the honeymoon, a cruise along the River Nile on Fahmy’s largest yacht, Madame Fahmy wrote a statement. This was an exhibit at the trial. Headlined ‘THE SECRET DOCUMENT’ in newspapers throughout the world, translated into English, the statement ran:

  I, Marie Marguerite Alibert, of full age, of sound mind and body, formally accuse, in the case of my death, violent or otherwise, Ali Fahmy Bey, of having contributed in my disappearance.

  Yesterday, 21 January 1923, at three o’clock in the afternoon, he took his Bible or Koran – I do not know how it is called – kissed it, put his hand on it, and swore to avenge himself upon me tomorrow, in eight days, a month, or three months, but I must disappear by his hand. This oath was taken without any reason, neither jealousy, bad conduct, nor a scene on my part.

  I desire and demand justice for my daughter and for my family.

  Done at Zamalik, at about eleven o’clock in the morning, 22 January 1923.

  M. MARGUERITE ALIBERT

  P.S. Today he wanted to take my jewellery from me. I refused; hence a fresh scene.

  Marshall Hall suggested that Prince Fahmy was a man of vicious and eccentric sexual appetite. He revealed to the jury that Fahmy’s homosexual relationship with his secretary, Said Enani, was a well-known fact in Egyptian society. He produced a cartoon from an Egyptian newspaper depicting Prince Fahmy, his secretary and his secretary’s secretary, which bore the caption, ‘The Light, the Shadow of the Light and the Shadow of the Shadow of the Light’.

  He told the jury:

  We know that women are sometimes very much attracted to men younger than themselves, and he went out of his way, with all his Eastern cunning to make himself agreeable and acceptable to her. But this was a man who enjoys the sufferings of women. He was abnormal and a brute. After marriage all restraint ceased and he developed from a plausible lover into a ferocious brute with the vilest of vile tempers and a filthy perverted taste. It makes one shudder to consider the conditions under which this wretched woman lived.

  The Prince’s proclivity for anal sex with his wife having been raised, suggesting that he used his wife sexually as though she were some unnatural male lover. These unnatural sexual acts caused her to have distressing ailments in an embarrassing place, and it had been Madame Fahmy’s hope that during their stay in Europe, she would be able to return to Paris for surgery. However, her husband denied her request, telling her that he preferred the operation to be carried out in London. It was Madame Fahmy’s repeated request that she should be allowed to return to Paris in order that her injured fundament could receive the necessary attention that culminated in the tragic events of 10 July. That night Fahmy had called his wife into the bedroom and pointed to a pile of money on the table. She asked him to give her the French money for her to go to Paris for the operation. He told her she could only have it if she would submit to anal sex. She refused and he spat in her face. As she went outside, he followed her into the corridor and took hold of her by the neck. As he tightened his grip she was in fear of her life. Three abrasions on Madame Fahmy’s neck, evidently caused by a man’s hand were mentioned in the medical report, compiled on Madame Fahmy’s admission to Holloway Prison.

  Marshall Hall’s closing speech was one of his most memorable:

  She made one great mistake, possibly the greatest mistake a woman of the West can make. She married an Oriental. I dare say the Egyptian civilization is, and may be, one of the oldest and most wonderful civilizations in the world. But if you strip off the external civilization of the Oriental, you get the real Oriental underneath. It is common knowledge that the Oriental’s treatment of women does not fit in with the way the Western woman considers she should be treated by her husband … The curse of this case is the atmosphere which we cannot understand – the Eastern feeling of possession of the woman, the Turk in his harem, this man who was entitled to have four wives if he liked for chattels, which to us Western people with our ideas of women is almost unintelligible, something we cannot deal with.

  The Centra
l Criminal Court Old Bailey. Author’s collection

  Marshall Hall’s legendary use of theatrical effect in the courtroom was never more so clearly demonstrated than in the closing stages of the trial, when he brandished the gun with which Madame Fahmy had killed her husband, before the jury. He set the scene of the fatal events by crouching in imitation of Prince Ali Fahmy, demonstrating the threat he posed as he advanced towards his wife. Marshall Hall told the court:

  … she turned the pistol and put it to his face, and to her horror the thing went off.

  The jury was almost spellbound by this demonstration and while he was talking Marshall Hall pointed the gun at the jury, then, to add greater effect, he threw the pistol down on the courtroom floor, the sound of which startled the entire courtroom, and he uttered the words:

  Was that deliberate murder? Would she choose the Savoy Hotel for such an act?

  Then there came a female voice from the gallery:

  No.

  And then another:

  Of course not!

  Marshall Hall then made reference to a work of fiction by Robert Hichens, Bella Donna:

  You will remember the final scene, where this woman goes out of the gates of the garden into the dark night of the desert. Members of the jury, I want you to open the gates where this Western woman can go out – not into the dark night of the desert but back to her friends, who love her in spite of her weaknesses; back to her friends who will be glad to receive her … You will open the gate and let this Western woman go back into the light of God’s great Western Sun.

  Marshall Hall pointed to the skylight above where the sun was streaming in and sat down.

  Mr Justice Swift concluded his summing up by saying:

  A person who honestly believes that his life is in danger is entitled to kill his assailant if that is the only way he honestly and reasonably believes he can protect himself. But he must be in real danger, and it must be the only way out of it.

  The jury took less than an hour to acquit. After her acquittal Madame Fahmy said, ‘It is terrible to have killed Ali, but I spoke the truth.’

  The Savoy Hotel viewed from Victorian Embankment. Author’s collection

  CHAPTER 14

  The Charing Cross Trunk Murder 1927

  There were several bruises on the woman’s forehead, stomach, back and limbs. These, Spilsbury concluded, had been inflicted before she died and he suggested that she had been beaten unconcious and that the cause of death was asphyxia, resulting from pressure on her mouth and nostrils, while she was unconscious.

  At a little after 1.50 pm on Friday 6 May 1927, a man described by luggage attendant Mr Glass, as being of military bearing, arrived by taxi-cab, and, aided by a station porter, deposited a large black trunk in the left luggage office at Charing Cross Railway Station. Before he departed, also by taxi-cab, he urged the attendant to take great care when handling his luggage. The trunk was made of wicker-work and had a rounded top, the outside being covered in black American cloth, edged with stitched leather. It was fastened by two fixed leather straps to the front and a wide leather strap, which went right around the girth, fastening with a large buckle, on the top. The letters F and A were painted on either end the trunk and a label read ‘F AUSTIN to ST LENARDS [sic]’, actually St Leonards-on-Sea and as later discovered, pertaining to the quite innocent previous owner of what was to become in the eyes of the British public of the day, a most infamous trunk. The original owner was in fact Frank Austin, a resident of Hastings but one-time chief high flyer for Barnum and Bailey’s circus.

  On Monday 9 May, attention was drawn to the otherwise commonplace trunk, when Mr Albert Edward Glass, the cloak room clerk, of 16 Childeric Road, New Cross, noticed an unpleasant smell, which, as far as he could tell, seemed to be emanating from within it. The smell became increasingly offensive and next morning the police were summoned to oversee the opening of the trunk. Divisional Detective Inspector William Steele of Bow Street lifted the lid. He initially saw four brown paper parcels, a ladies’ black bag and a pair of shoes. He strapped the trunk up and had it taken to Bow Street Police Station. When opened and emptied it was discovered that the trunk contained five brown paper parcels tied up with string, a pair of woman’s shoes and the aforementioned black handbag. The brown paper parcels contained five portions of a woman. Her limbs had been severed at each shoulder and hip joint and wrapped in items of female clothing and a towel, before being wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string. A duster had been wound around the victim’s head, which was still attached to the torso. Police surgeon, Dr Thomas Rose, Divisional Surgeon, was called before the remains were moved to the mortuary and properly examined.

  The luggage label found on the trunk. Author’s collection

  On Tuesday 10 May, the Evening Standard reported:

  The body of a woman, with bobbed black hair and blue eyes, and aged between 38 and 40, was today found in a large trunk which had been deposited in Charing Cross (Southern Railway) Station cloakroom. Doctors have found a wound on the body.

  On Wednesday 11 May, at Horseferry Road Mortuary a postmortem examination on the remains was carried out by Dr Rose and Dr Henry Bright Weir, the pathologist. Home Office Pathologist, Sir Bernard Spilsbury (who had first come to prominence in 1910 in the case of Dr Crippen) also examined the remains. There were several bruises on the woman’s forehead, stomach, back and limbs. These, Spilsbury concluded, had been inflicted before she died and he suggested that she had been beaten unconcious and that the cause of death was asphyxia, resulting from pressure on her mouth and nostrils, while she was unconscious. Congestion in the lungs showed that she had lain on her back for some time. He further concluded that the woman had been dead for perhaps a week, that she had been short and stout and was aged about thirty-five.

  Horseferry Road Coroner’s Court and Mortuary where the post-mortem examination of Minnie Bonati’s remains was conducted and where the inquest was held. The author

  Two of the items of clothing bore the laundry mark H51-447 and a name-tag on a pair of slate coloured knickers bore the name ‘P Holt’. Through the laundry marks and the name-tag it was quickly ascertained, in fact within twenty-four hours, that their owner Mrs Holt, a genteel lady, who lived in Chelsea, was very much alive. It was she who suggested that the items must have been purloined by someone who had been at some time in her employ, which later proved to be the case. She said the marks were those placed on items of clothing belonging to her servants. Investigations began into the whereabouts of no fewer than ten female servants who had been employed by Mrs Holt during the previous two years, and all but one could be accounted for. Mrs Holt was asked if she would be prepared to view the remains of the murder victim. She agreed to do so, and she identified the dead woman as Mrs Rolls, who had indeed been in her employ briefly, as a cook.

  Investigations began and when Mr Rolls was found it was quickly established that he was not her husband. She had lived with him for a time and assumed his name but was in fact at the time of their association the estranged wife of an Italian waiter called Bonati. The dead woman’s real name was Mrs Minnie Alice Bonati and her maiden name was Budd. She stood five feet tall and was thirty-seven-years-old, and was described by some as a prostitute, who was last seen alive in Sydney Street, Chelsea, during the late afternoon of Thursday 4 May. Minnie Budd had married Bianco Bonati on 27 April 1913 and they had lived for about seven years at 80 Balcombe Street, Dorset Square. At the time of the discovery of his wife’s body, Mr Bonati was living at 22 Paradise Street, Marylebone. He told the police that Minnie had left him to go with a roadworker, Frederick Rolls, on 21 September 1923 and they had lived at various London addresses and also at Tilbury, until the relationship came to an end in July 1926. The police were quick to satisfy themselves that neither Mr Rolls nor Mr Bonati were in any way connected with the murder and mutilation of Minnie Alice Bonati.

  The Westminster coroner, Mr Ingleby Oddie opened the inquest on Friday 13 May and after evidence had bee
n given by Bianco Bonati, Detective Inspector Steele and a railway official, the hearing was adjourned for a month until 13 June. The Evening Standard reported:

  Bianco Bonati, the husband, who is an Italian waiter, told how he married the woman in 1913, and in 1923 she left him for their lodger, Frederick Roles [sic], a roadman. He had seen her several times since, he said, and had given her money … Bonati said he identified his wife by, among other things, her very small ears …

  The requests for information that appeared in newspaper reports produced some highly satisfactory results. Mr Glass’s description of the trunk’s depositor was corroborated when a second-hand dealer in luggage named George Henry Ward, from 71 Brixton Road, came forward and recognized the trunk as one he had sold for 12s 6d to a well-dressed military looking gentleman, of average height, well spoken, dark and with a small moustache. A shoe-shine boy came forward, as he had handed a left-luggage ticket in at the cloak room (placed on one side in case the owner came to redeem it), which he had seen dropped out of the window of a taxi cab in the station forecourt, as the cab drove away, which proved to be the very ticket that related to the trunk, Ticket No. 014190; and the driver of that same taxi cab the shoe-shine boy had seen driving away, came forward with information which was to prove crucial in the rapid detection of the culprit. He told the police that shortly after 1 pm on Friday, 6 May, he had taken two young men from the Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall, to the police station in Rochester Row, SW1. It was later established from the charge sheet there that the men had been summonsed for motoring offences and had arrived at the station at 1.35 pm. The cabbie said that after he had dropped off the two young men he was hailed by a gentleman who was standing in the doorway of some offices diagonally opposite, which he later identified as 86, Rochester Row, described as rather rundown office suites, situated above the Cooperative stores. At the man’s request he assisted him in carrying a heavy trunk from the doorway of the building and into his cab. Having commented on its weight, the cabbie was informed that the trunk contained books. The trunk being loaded and his fare ensconced in the passenger seat, they set off for Charing Cross Station, whereupon on arrival, the man was assisted in taking the trunk (identified by the cabbie as being the very same one in which Minnie Bonati’s remains were found) to the left luggage office by a station porter.