Authors: James Fox
The conversation, as it was presented in court, began: “Diana tells me she is in love with you.” Erroll replied, “Well, she has never told me that but I am frightfully in love with her.” Broughton told Erroll that he should try to persuade her to go away with Broughton to Ceylon, “as we have been so frightfully happy,” and suggested that Erroll go away as well.
On the surface, at least. Broughton had “cut his losses” (“as a racing man I’m used to it”), and was keeping to the marriage pact. For this reason, he claimed to have been unperturbed when Erroll refused to go away. Erroll himself was as familiar with this situation as an old dance step, and kept calm. He could not go away, he said, he was terribly sorry, there was a
war
on. (Broughton said later that Erroll had repeated this observation three times in the course of their conversation.) He tried to discover Erroll’s financial position, but got nowhere.
Was that all? “He did say he felt miserably unhappy about the whole thing,” said Broughton, “as we had been such great friends. Both of us were as dispassionate as possible.”
For appearances sake, Broughton wanted Diana to stay in the Karen house at least until he went to Ceylon. He even hoped that she might stay there for the next three months, while he was away, and not go to live with Erroll.
The discussion was ended by the arrival of Diana and June across the lawn. Broughton walked away with June and told her that since neither Diana nor Joss would go away, he felt he was intruding and “rather in the way.”
Perhaps he ought to get out. The way he put it, June thought he was talking about suicide, and Broughton later admitted that he might have been hinting at it. It was six o’clock now, and Erroll had gone into the house to make Diana a cocktail. He then drove Broughton the half mile to the Club.
From there, Broughton went home alone with his driver. Erroll, Diana and June stayed on and were seen laughing and celebrating together. Later, Erroll ordered a table for eight. Broughton dined alone at Karen, for the first time.
Then, unable to sleep, Broughton waited up for his wife and June Carberry to return from Muthaiga. When they came back at 3:30 a.m., Diana, to his evident astonishment, was wearing a new set of pearls. June Carberry said later that she shared Diana’s bed that night because she was frightened of “creaks in the house.” But she began to laugh when she saw Broughton looking at them through a crack in the door and she delivered an unbearable taunt: “I told him it reminded me of a play—
Love From a Stranger
,” a drama based on an Agatha Christie story of murder within a triangular romance, which had recently been performed in London.
Broughton had only one thing to discuss at that late hour. Diana told him that the three strings of pearls around her neck had been given to her by Erroll. Broughton reminded her of another valuable piece of jewellery—also a set of pearls—for which Diana had paid half in England, and Brought had promised to pay the other half. “I asked her if she would like to pay the remaining half and take over the jewellery, or whether she would like me to pay the whole lot and take it over myself.” Broughton was saying, in effect, that he wanted the other pearls back. He wasn’t prepared to give up quite so easily.
Diana was still wearing Erroll’s pearls as she breakfasted in bed the following morning, the 19th. According to Broughton, they had a “very pleasant” Sunday lunch that day. The whole of Derek Erskine’s family rode eight miles across country to Karen for the occasion, with the
Broughtons and Gwladys, June and Erroll. His young daughter. Petal Allen, remembered the afternoon clearly. “We did a lot of cavorting about in the pool. Diana said to her maid, ‘Give Petal any bathing suit she wants!’ She had about forty. There were lots of piggybacks and shoulder rides. I remember Broughton drinking too much and being angry. Diana and Joss were obviously very attracted to each other, and making no effort to hide it. There was a lot of flicking towels and horsing about.” Her brother, Francis Erskine was learning, to dive that day. He remembers looking up at the house and seeing Broughton frowning and glowering from the window, and being frightened of him.
Afterwards, June announced that she was going to Nyeri. Diana, at the last moment, said she couldn’t stay at Karen with her husband, given the situation, and wanted to go with her. Instead, they decided to go to Erroll’s house at Muthaiga
à deux,
and Diana was seen dancing with Erroll at Torr’s Hotel in Nairobi-by Mrs. Phyllis Barkas, an upright and ever-vigilant member of the Muthaiga Club, on the 21st. Mrs. Barkas also overheard Broughton telephoning Erroll that day from the Muthaiga Club and saying, “Is that Lord Erroll? Is that you, Joss?” and later, “You understand, Joss. You quite understand.” It sounded like an ultimatum.
While Diana was away, Broughton told his personal servants, Mohammed and Alfred, that two revolvers, a silver cigarette case and a small amount of money (a five shilling note which he always kept in his access book) had been taken from the living room. He repeated this to the police, who found no clues except a broken climbing rose. He told them, “I think access was gained to the room by means of a door on the veranda which leads to the room, and which I think may possibly have been left unlocked.” There was a bell under the carpet which an intruder would certainly have stepped on, and which sounded in the servants’ rooms, but nobody had heard it.
On the 21st, too, Broughton and Erroll went to their
lawyers about divorce; Broughton, who had cancelled a proposed trip with Diana to Ceylon some days earlier, now rebooked his passage and wrote to Soames, telling him of the burglary and admitting defeat:
I have taken your advice. I put the position to Erroll and Diana. They say they are in love with each other and mean to get married. It is a hopeless position and I’m going to cut my losses. I think I’ll go to Ceylon. There’s nothing for me to live in Kenya for.
A third anonymous letter appeared in Broughton’s rack at the Club:
There’s no fool like an old fool. What are you going to do about it?
But on the morning of the 23rd, Broughton was wavering. Erroll told his friend Julian Lezard that Broughton was being “very difficult.” “He won’t make up his mind what he’s going to do.” Nevertheless, another lunch at Muthaiga was arranged and the usual foursome sat down to what June Carberry described as a “success … an ordinary, cheerful affair.”
Lunch, as so often in the past, had improved Broughton’s mood. “Lizzie” Lezard was summoned to Erroll’s office that afternoon and told, “Jock could not have been nicer. He has agreed to go away. As a matter of fact, he has been so nice it smells bad.”
Erroll told Diana that he couldn’t believe that Broughton was giving up so easily. A celebration dinner had been arranged for that evening with Broughton’s enthusiastic consent, and Erroll planned to take Diana dancing. Lezard recalled Erroll saying, “The old boy insists that I have her back by three o’clock because she is tired, and I must not be later than that. It suits me because I am tired too and have to get to work, and work hard tomorrow morning.” Diana had spent only five nights at the house in Karen with her husband since the beginning of January.
Broughton had taken Diana on to the veranda after the meal and told her that she had nothing to worry about: he was prepared to go away to Ceylon and he would give her the Karen house. Two months later he would return to England. But he hoped she would at least stay at home until he left. Diana said, “I am sorry it has happened so soon.” Broughton made no reply.
Because the party had only been arranged at lunch-time, Broughton had to return to Karen to get his dinner jacket and a dress for Diana, who was to change in Erroll’s house. He wanted to be back at the Club by 5 p.m. for a golf croquet game with Mrs. Barkas, but it was drizzling when he got there and they went inside and played backgammon instead. He told her during the game that he was going to a party that night, that he was going to dance and he was looking forward to it.
Between six and seven, Erroll drove up with Diana and June Carberry, who went into the Club. Broughton was in the driveway getting something out of his car. As Erroll was on the point of getting out of his own car, Broughton said, “I want a word with you, Joss,” and sat beside him. “How is Diana?” Broughton asked, and continued, “She was in a dreadful state at lunch, but I talked to her afterwards and I think I got her quite all right.” Erroll replied, “She is grand now.” Broughton sat with Erroll in the Buick for two minutes, and then both men joined the ladies.
Broughton played bridge with Mrs. Barkas until eight o’clock, when the drinking began. “Mostly champagne cocktails and one or two others, perhaps Bronxes,” said Broughton, and “quite a few” of them.
Now the foursome sat down to this odd celebration, and ordered more champagne. Suddenly, during the meal, and to the astonishment of the other guests, Broughton raised his glass and proposed a toast, all possession and jealousy apparently forgotten, all losses cut, the champagne roaring in his blood. “I wish them every happiness,” he said, “and may their union be blessed with an
heir. To Diana and Joss.” Later he said, “It was the most extreme gesture I could make.” In the presence of this euphoric couple, mad with love for each other, relieved and grateful for Broughton’s blessing, there was no room for Broughton’s own hurt feelings. He had chosen to be part of it; to have stayed away would have added humiliation his loneliness. The toast was perhaps the measure of his pain.
When the dinner party ended after two hours, at 10:15, Joss and Diana left the Club and went dancing at the Claremont Road House near by, leaving Broughton and June in the Club. Broughton had by now been drinking heavily for some days, for the first time in his life. He and June began drinking liqueur brandy, and Jock asked her if she wanted to go dancing. “I was not feeling particularly well,” she said afterwards, “and I suggested we stay at the Club for a little while.”
At about 10:30, Broughton passed Richard Pembroke in the hall and asked him when he would come and play bezique again. Pembroke made some polite reply. And then for about an hour, Broughton and June Carberry were alone, unobserved apparently, at the Club. Around 11:30, as they sat by the bar in the lounge, Broughton became “suddenly rather cross and peevish,” according to June. She said that he began to raise his voice, but by then other guests had noticed the couple and had overheard Jock talking about his wife. June reported Broughton as saying, “I’m not going to give her £5,000 a year or the Karen house,” and that she could bloody well go and live with Joss—that they had only been married for three months and look how it was for him. She tried to quieten him. Phyllis Barkas overheard him saying, “To think that a woman would treat me like this after being married two months.” Another guest had it differently: “Juney, it’s all very well, but we’ve only been married two months, and she does this.”
Mrs. Barkas and Captain Llewellin, “Jacko” Heath and Gerald Portman were having a supper of bacon and
eggs, and invited Broughton and June Carberry to join them. Broughton, according to June, complained endlessly that he was “very tired,” and begged to go home.
Despite his state of drunkenness, June Carberry thought that the party she had dragged him off to might cheer him up. When she finally agreed to leave at 1:30, they were driven home by Broughton’s chauffeur, arriving at Karen at around 2 a.m.
Wilks was still up and she opened the door to them; June Carberry helped the old man up the stairs and at the top of the staircase they said goodnight to each other. June went into her room and asked Wilks for quinine for an attack of malaria. Wilks brought it to her room and stayed talking to June for some minutes. June said later that Broughton came to her door ten minutes later, asked if she was all right, and said good-night, but neither Broughton nor Wilks had any recollection of this.
Diana and Joss had left the Claremont Road House around midnight for his house at Muthaiga. Here they stayed an hour—and finally, talking and laughing and, according to the servants, “looking very happy,” drove to Karen with her three suitcases, the accumulation of her travels in the recent weeks. Once again the front door was opened by the ever-attentive Wilks, who took the suitcases upstairs. It was now somewhere between 2:15 and 2:25 a.m.
June Carberry said she heard the sound of laughter in the hall, and then the slamming of a car door, and the car driving away. Diana came upstairs, went to her room, put her dog inside, and walked back along the corridor to talk to June. June said Diana stayed talking to her for half an hour, perhaps more. Wilks, who had been darting in and out of June’s room, was now going to bed. June said that Broughton paid a second call on her at 3:30 “to ask me if I was all right,” but afterwards Broughton couldn’t remember the call, just as he couldn’t remember the first one. June heard Diana’s dachshund bark, either just before or just after his visit.
*
In the descriptions that follow. Broughton’s quoted speech, and that of others, such as Gwladys Delamere, is taken from the shorthand notes of the trial, at which these succeeding days and moments were examined in great detail. Most of the factual information comes from that source, although I have added some material from my own interviews, in particular the conversations between Erroll and Diana.
7
THE BODY IN THE BUICK
Around 3 a.m. on that morning (January 24th), two African dairy workers—known as milk boys—were driving their truck up to the intersection of the Karen and Ngong roads. The heavy rainstorm that night had turned to a light summer drizzle. They turned into the main Nairobi-Ngong road, and saw the lights of a car blazing in the darkness, pointing away from them towards Nairobi, illuminating the dense grass and scrub on the right-hand verge, 150 yards ahead of the intersection. Then they saw the Buick lying at a steep angle, almost tipped over into a deep murram trench.
The car had plunged into the grass on the wrong side of the road, and when they looked through the window they saw the body of a European in army uniform, crouched on all fours under the dashboard, hands clasped in front of the head. They turned the truck around on the grass, and headed back to the Karen police post, where their horn woke Third-grade Constable Luali, who was sleeping in his hut. Luali alerted the corporal, who left with three constables to investigate the accident.