The Woman Before Wallis: Prince Edward, the Parisian Courtesan, and the Perfect Murder

by Andrew Rose

  His as secretary, Said Enani eff[endi], was well-known as his master’s pimp and very probably worse than that, as morality does not exist in this country.410

  Ignoring this diatribe, Grosse had to make some effort to ascertain Marguerite’s background before the trial started. The Paris Prefecture of Police was contacted late in July and responded with a short background report on Marguerite, dated 7 August, which established that she had no criminal convictions recorded against her in France, though she had earned quite a reputation since her youth. ‘De naissance très modeste … elle se lança de bonne heure dans la haute galanterie…’ (‘Of very humble birth … she soon joined the ranks of high-class fast women…’) With gallic prudence, the statement did not identify any of Marguerite’s former clients, whose publicity-shy ranks included many influential French citizens, as well as the Prince of Wales.411

  Grosse also received information, on 26 August, from Dr Said, Ali’s brother-in-law, who had returned to Egypt in the interim, probably for Ali’s funeral on 3 August 1923. The elaborate procession, which was filmed as a newsreel by pioneer Egyptian cineaste, Mahmoud Bayoumi, took place in Cairo. The silver-draped coffin on which lay a bright red fez, was carried on one of Ali’s expensive limousines, accompanied by a long procession of children, carrying candles and mourning wreaths. Ali’s family were now gearing themselves up for some unwelcome revelations at the trial. Ex-Chief Inspector James Stockley of Scotland Yard, who had retired in 1911 and was now operating as a ‘private enquiry agent’, was instructed by Dr Said to make detailed enquiries in Paris about Marguerite’s character and background.

  On 2 September 1923, after his return, Stockley called on Grosse, telling him of his instructions. He had been able to collect a ‘considerable amount of data’, contained in a six-page report marked ‘CONFIDENTIAL’, which he passed on to the police.

  Stockley had spent four days in France ‘with the assistance of an agent of mine, who for many years, in an official and unofficial capacity has been acquainted with Paris’. The wording of Stockley’s report suggests that the former Chief Inspector did not speak French. ‘I beg to state’, he began, in wonderful police jargon, ‘that … I proceeded to Paris…’ There, with the help of his agent, he secured an interview with Madame Denart, Marguerite’s old madame.

  The intrepid ex-detective was also told by the manager at Louis Vuitton, Frank Theobald, about the Fahmys’ visit to the Château de Madrid, but this reference in Stockley’s written report would not have pleased the restaurant management. ‘I heard that Madame Fahmy was in the habit of encouraging her husband to some place outside Paris, called I think the Château,’ wrote Stockley, ‘where she used to introduce him to all sorts of not altogether desirable people and to encourage him to drink.’

  ‘The enquiry necessitated much going backwards and forwards,’ reported Stockley, who hinted that he had heard something about the royal connection, ‘Of course, I heard a great many stories that might or might not be true, but the matters I shall deal with I believe to be substantially true…’ Stockley’s finding that ‘amongst people in Paris there is a very strong feeling in favour of Madame Fahmy’ was yet another factor that emphasised the dangerous consequences for the Royal Household of a conviction and death sentence, events that risked international repercussions.412

  At this time, Said Enani was found to be back in Paris, ostensibly waiting for Dr Said, who ‘was expected to pass through … on his way to London’ to attend Marguerite’s trial. Said was living it up at the Hôtel Majestic, the scene of much marital strife between his late employer and the accused woman. ‘He is staying alone,’ revealed Stockley, ‘but frequently has various ladies to his apartment. The people at the hotel are rather careful about him and ask him to pay up his account pretty frequently…’

  The report provided confirmation that the three telegrams had been sent on 9 July, as alleged by Dr Said. In a last-minute flurry, for the trial was to begin in three days, further information was sought from the Paris police on 7 September. ‘Phoning was not satisfactory. Paris could not hear’, so a letter was sent by Air Mail from Croydon, as well as a telegram suitably subscribed ‘HANDCUFFS … LONDON’.

  The time for Marguerite’s trial was fast approaching. On Wednesday 5 September, the archaic Grand Jury at the Old Bailey was sworn in to find, as a formality, a ‘True Bill’ against the prisoner, enabling the indictment to be preferred against her the following Monday. Press interest in the case began to revive and references to Marshall Hall’s long and colourful career appeared in the social columns.

  The coming of September was a welcome relief to journalists, the summer doldrums being blown away by several international crises. After Mussolini’s Italian troops had bombarded Corfu, and the Spanish military coup, Germany too was in turmoil: claiming unpaid war reparations, France had occupied the industrial lands of the Ruhr in January. By the end of August, a catastrophic inflation, partly engineered by the German government to erode its foreign debt obligations, produced a rate of 23,000,000 marks to the pound. And from Germany there appeared in September the first photograph of the man the Daily Graphic referred to as the ‘Bavarian Mussolini’ and the Daily Mail called ‘Herr Hittler’ [sic].413

  20

  Curtain Up

  People started queuing outside the narrow public entrance to the Central Criminal Court well before dawn on Monday 10 September 1923. ‘Endeavours to be present [were] as strenuous as in the case of Crippen’, thirteen years before.414 One woman sent her chauffeur down to Newgate at eight o’clock that morning, armed with a £10 note and instructions to reserve a place, but he had no takers.

  The Old Bailey, as the Court is better known, presents a formidable appearance to its visitors, a grim and grimy structure, faced with unpolished Cornish granite and the grey Portland stone of the notorious Newgate gaol, which formerly occupied the site. Court Number One, home of so many grave criminal trials, stands on the first floor, leading off the large marble staircase and hall, the latter decorated with coloured mosaics on suitable juridical themes. By 10.30, when the court day began, every available seat was taken and many people stood at the sides and back.

  In front of the judge’s dais, beyond the seat of the court clerk (‘Clerk of Arraigns’ in Old Bailey argot), stood the imposing Treasury table, designed for the display of exhibits. Nearby sat a number of police officers, including Divisional Detective Inspector Grosse, the acting officer in the case. Behind him, in counsel’s row, probably looking through the notes of his opening speech, sat the principal prosecuting counsel, known as ‘Treasury Counsel’. Percival Clarke, a tall, thin, colourless man of 51, was a son of the great Victorian advocate Sir Edward Clarke, who had successfully defended Adelaide Bartlett (in a classic Victorian poisoning case) and appeared on behalf of Oscar Wilde in the first of the three trials of 1895.

  Percival Clarke’s ‘junior’ was Eustace Fulton, an experienced barrister also from a distinguished legal background. Sharing, indeed cramming, into counsel’s seats were the defence team (Marshall Hall, the bulky Curtis-Bennett and their junior, Roland Oliver), accompanied by a clutch of lawyers representing the Fahmy family. Cecil Whiteley KC and J. B. Melville sat alongside Dr Abdul Fattah Ragai bey,415 an Egyptian lawyer, for Madame Said. The latter, sombrely dressed, had settled herself quietly at the back of the court. Edward Atkin, described as ‘the well-known … authority on Egyptian and Eastern affairs’, appeared with Dr Abdul Rahman el-Bialy bey,416 for another of Ali’s sisters, Aziza, now Madame Roznangi.417

  These family lawyers had no status in the trial and were unable to take any direct part in the proceedings: they merely held a ‘watching brief ’, no doubt with instructions to keep a careful note of the evidence, which might later prove to be relevant to the disposition of Ali’s substantial estate in Egypt. Other members of the Bar, wholly unconnected with the proceedings, also squeezed into counsel’s seats. Among them were two barristers in wig and gown, Ivy Williams and Helena Normanton, who ca
ught the eye of the press. Women lawyers were a novelty in 1923.

  High above the legal representatives, in the public gallery, could be seen an ‘Egyptian woman’ who had headed the queue of would-be spectators and ‘an elegant Frenchman with the mark of Paris stamped on his clothes’.418 Opposite the lawyers, on the other side of the courtroom, were two empty benches awaiting their complement of twelve jurors.

  Elsewhere, reporters balanced their notebooks where they could, while others, who had shamelessly used their influence with well-disposed members of the Bar, quickly secured their places. One high-minded barrister had refused to co-operate with two women friends who begged him for tickets. ‘The evidence is likely to be of such a nature,’ he told them severely, ‘that I am not going to raise a finger to help anyone to listen to it, least of all women.’419

  Amid the excited buzz of conversation, ushers, policemen, journalists and spotty junior solicitors’ clerks hurried about on their last-minute errands. At the rear of the court, dressed in morning coat and striped trousers, stood Edgar Bowker, who would accompany Marshall Hall throughout yet another celebrated defence, leaving his clerk’s duties at Temple Gardens in other hands for the duration of the trial.

  Three sharp knocks silenced the company and heralded the arrival of the judge. Everyone stood. In robes of scarlet trimmed with ermine, Mr Justice Rigby Swift entered court with the Sheriff, both carrying the traditional bouquets, a seasonal mélange of red and white roses. ‘Oyez, oyez’ cried an usher, making standard, antique reference to the judge’s powers of ‘Oyer and Terminer and General Gaol Delivery’, a venerable phrase, partly of Norman-French origin, which referred to the process of hearing and determining issues at trial, with the power to commit to prison or to release defendants. The judge, round-faced and rubicund, bowed to counsel and settled himself in the enormous, throne-like chair which stood underneath the great Sword of Justice.

  As the Clerk of Arraigns intoned the name ‘Marie Marguerite Fahmy’, another little procession made its way up the narrow staircase into the dock. Necks craned forward to get a first glimpse of the accused: Marguerite, conscious of the value of first impressions, was dressed as befitted a tragic widow. ‘Madame Fahmy [was] in deep mourning, which emphasised the pallor of her complexion…’, and she wore a black tailored coat, trimmed with fur, with a small cloche hat, whose wide brim and short veil cast a shadow over the upper part of her face.420 Her lips appeared pale, pressed tightly together, as she swayed momentarily when approaching the front of the dock. Holding her arm was a wardress, reported by the Daily Express as being ‘a good looking young woman, whose neat and kindly personality suggested a ministering VAD’ – a volunteer nurse from the Great War.421

  Even before the indictment was put to Marguerite, Marshall Hall was on his feet, eager to make his presence and personality felt from the start, knowing that the press would be hanging on his every word. The interpreter, Harry Ashton-Wolfe, was about to be sworn in, but Marshall Hall insisted that one interpreter was insufficient in the circumstances and asked for another to be brought in. The idea was that the first should interpret the evidence to Marguerite as she sat in the dock and the other would be used to translate to the court any French oral testimony and documents.

  The indictment was simple enough, containing only one count, the particulars of which read ‘MARIE MARGUERITE FAHMY on the 10th day of July 1923 in the County of London murdered Ali Kamel Fahmy Bey’. Initially, Marguerite ‘did not seem at first fully to comprehend’ what was being put to her, despite Ashton-Wolfe’s translation, so the indictment was read a second time.422 ‘Non coupable’ (‘Not Guilty’), she responded, in a loud, clear voice.

  A gaggle of people summoned for jury service then made its way into the packed courtroom, each anxious to know whether he or she would be selected to try this sensational case. The jury was made up from their number, the Clerk reading the names aloud from a little piece of card. Margaret Anne Barnwell, George Edmund Galliford, James John Butler, Frederick George Strohmenger, William Cronin, James Atkinson, Ernest William Turner, Arthur Mee, Herbert Horace Holt, Herbert Bracey Eyles, Mary Ann Austin and John Thomas Bailey took their seats in the jury-box. Marshall Hall appears not to have exercised the defence’s right to challenge up to seven prospective jurors: perhaps his long experience had led him to believe in taking his jury as he found it.

  The two women were described by the Evening Standard as ‘matronly-looking, wearing good-rimmed spectacles and dressed in black’: both would have had to have been over 30. The very thought of women jurors remained controversial.423 In May, the Daily Express used the headline ‘CAN JURYWOMEN UNDERSTAND?’ in reporting a civil case in which Mr Justice Darling, reactionary as ever, had discharged a number of women from jury service. ‘It is hardly worthwhile keeping three women on the jury,’ said the judge, barely concealing his contempt for the female mind, ‘[as] the evidence appears to be of a technical character.’424

  The Clerk of Arraigns read the indictment out to the jury, adding, ‘To this indictment she has pleaded “Not Guilty”. It is your charge to say whether she be guilty or not.’ After a moment’s silence, Percival Clarke rose to his feet, waiting for that flicker of the judge’s eye which means that prosecuting counsel can embark on his opening statement, a précis of the Crown’s case against the prisoner, indicating the principal witnesses and the likely nature of their evidence.

  How much Clarke knew about the royal dimension is unclear. Written instructions from the DPP to his junior, Eustace Fulton, survive, but make no reference to the Prince and his involvement with Marguerite.425 However, as the Royal Household was already well aware in this case, sensitive matters are sometimes best dealt with by word of mouth. In his role as Senior Treasury Counsel, Clarke had worked closely with Bodkin in the prosecution of other grave criminal trials and would have had the DPP’s confidence. From background information available to him, including the statements from people who would not be called to give evidence, Clarke would have been well-informed about Marguerite’s background as a high-class Paris sex worker, contrary to her carefully constructed image as world-weary innocent. The way Clarke expressed himself in the course of the trial, particularly when applying for permission to cross-examine Marguerite about her relations with other men, supports this view. Clarke probably knew something about Marguerite’s relationship with the Prince, as his conduct as prosecutor was a lacklustre affair, ‘going through the motions’, with vital issues left unexplored, important witnesses not called, and the defence effectively given free rein to create a monstrous scenario of depravity and cruelty on the part of someone no longer alive and able to answer back.

  The apparently formidable case against Marguerite was set out by Clarke in a short speech, lasting under an hour and delivered in a dry monotone. Its character contrasted sharply with the episodes of human rage and passion, the references to high life in Egypt and France and to the violent tragedy that had occurred in London during the great thunderstorm exactly two months before.

  Counsel’s first words were prosaic: ‘Madame Fahmy was married to her husband in December last. Her husband was in the diplomatic service and was a man of wealth and position.’ Clarke went on to chronicle the brief courtship: ‘In December she adopted the Mohammedan religion. Whether it was necessary or not, I do not know … Their natures seemed to be entirely unfitted one to the other … He is said to have been a quiet, retiring nervous sort of man, 22 years old, and she a woman rather fond of the gay life…’

  Reference to events of 9 July, prior to the final scene in and around suite 41, led Clarke to his deadliest evidence, the recollections of John Beattie, the Savoy’s night porter. ‘Just as the porter was going away,’ said Clarke, ‘he heard a slight whistle behind him and, looking back, saw the deceased man stooping down, whistling and snapping his fingers at a little dog which had come out of the suite. In that position this man was last seen before he was killed.’ Clarke emphasised to the jury that the post-mortem report
on Ali was consistent with the Crown’s contention that he had been shot from behind.

  If this crucial evidence were to be accepted by the jury, it would completely demolish any suggestion of self-defence, or of a provocation so immediate as to reduce the case from one of capital murder to the lesser conviction of manslaughter, punishable not by hanging but by a term of imprisonment.

  The defence did not have to indicate the precise nature of their answer to the charge before the trial began. But Clarke had the advantage of knowing, from Dr Gordon’s statements in the July proceedings, what Marguerite had said immediately after the shooting. Trying to anticipate the line Marshall Hall would take, Clarke told the jury of Marguerite’s assertion that Ali had advanced towards her threateningly in her bedroom (counsel seems to have delicately eschewed any reference to Marguerite’s allegations of sodomy). ‘She rushed for a revolver and fired it out of the bedroom window. She expected it to frighten him, but he still advanced towards her and [she] … pulled the trigger. She was surprised it went off, as having previously fired it from the window, she thought it would be unloaded…’

  ‘This statement,’ Clarke declared, slowly and with great emphasis, ‘would have to be considered to see if the facts proved were consistent with the story she told.’ He pointed out that Ali could not have been shot from Marguerite’s bedroom: the shooting had, beyond any doubt, occurred in the corridor. Furthermore, the crushed beads, torn from Marguerite’s white evening dress, had been found in Ali’s room, which suggested that the final quarrel had taken place there, not in her own bedroom, as she had said.

  ‘Coming to this country,’ concluded Clarke in a chilly passage designed to eliminate the possibility of a French-style defence on the grounds of crime passionnel, ‘persons are bound by the laws which prevail here. Every homicide is presumed to be murder unless the contrary is shown. From her own lips, it is known that she it was who caused the death of her husband. And in the absence of any circumstances to make it some other offence, you must find her guilty of murder.’