Authors: James Fox
Luali, the corporal and the three askaris must have had a very long debate at the scene of the accident, without even opening the door of the car—one that lasted at least forty minutes. They were still there, having taken no further action, when Leslie Condon, a European dairy farmer
on his way to Nairobi, was flagged down by one of them at 4 a.m. (Condon had already passed the site at 2:40, or so he estimated, and had seen nothing on the road.) When he looked at the body he saw a wound behind the left ear which he was sure was a bullet wound. He drove to Kilimani police station, and reported what he had seen.
Now, some time after 4 a.m., Luali bicycled to the house of Assistant-Superintendent Anstis Bewes, a company director who had been drafted as a policeman, and who lived at Karen. Bewes had little police training, but that night he managed better than most.
He arrived at the road junction at about 4:50 a.m., and saw the wound behind the left ear. It had congealed since Condon had seen it, and he didn’t recognise it as a bullet wound. He made the following notes:
Some blood on the nearside front seat. Car at an angle of 40 degrees precariously perched on edge of 18-inch drain. Askari opened nearside front door using handkerchief over handle, to enable closer observation. Strong smell of scent pervaded car. Headlights full on. Clock going. Left to report to police H.Q. from Karen police post. Fifteen minutes’ delay in getting through.
Returned to scene. Lights left on. Nothing touched lest evidence be destroyed. Unable to identify body in view of its position. Heavy rain earlier had made car tracks plainly visible including a set of wide tracks from front of Buick towards Nairobi.
Bewes had called Inspector Fentum, and by 6 a.m. there were six white officers and at least five African Constables walking over the site, plainly believing that they were dealing with an ordinary road accident. But Bewes had noticed some other details: there were white pipeclay marks on the rear seat and a carpet on the floor in the rear, which was crumpled; both the armstraps had been wrenched away, and the ignition had been switched off.
Superintendent Arthur Poppy, the head of the Nairobi Criminal Investigation Department, had been told of the incident by telephone and had ordered photographs to be
taken. At 8 a.m. the Government pathologist, Geoffrey Timms. who also lived at Karen, passed by on his usual journey to work. By this time, the rain and the policemen’s boots had removed any trace of footprints or tyre marks. Timms noticed that the hands and face of the dead man were cold, the body under the clothing still warm; the head and neck were a blue, congested colour, and rigor mortis was beginning to set in. Timms, for some reason, ordered that the body be removed from the car and put on to a stretcher so that he could have a better look—an action he later felt he would never live down. It was only then that the body was recognised as that of Lord Erroll.
Superintendent Poppy was called to the mortuary at 10 a.m. When he first looked at the body he thought that the knobless spike of the headlight switch had been driven into Erroll’s head as he had been thrown forward and sideways. There was also a bruise on his head which made it look as if he had hit the steering wheel. It was only when the wound was washed, revealing the scorchmarks of the gunpowder, that Poppy knew Erroll had been shot. The bullet that was extracted from his head had travelled into the medulla of the brain, in a straight line from ear to ear.
The car had been towed away too, and repair work already started. A second bullet was found near the accelerator pedal. It had first struck the central door pillar on the driver’s side. And other items were discovered: a blood-soaked Player’s cigarette, a bloodstained hairpin in the front of the car, and bloodstains on the windscreen on the passenger side.
Poppy informed Government House that the funeral would have to be delayed, and asked that the fact of the murder be kept quiet for twenty-four hours.
Broughton was already awake when Alfred, the room boy brought him his tea at 7 a.m. He put on a
sports jacket and grey flannels and set out for his usual morning walk. On his return, feeling the hangover now, he undressed and went back to bed. He called the boy for more tea. By 8:30 he was up and breakfasted, and at nine Gerald Portman rang from his office to say that Joss Erroll had had a motor accident and had broken his neck.
June Carberry took the call. She called Broughton to her room. He said “Good God,” so she remembered, and sat down on the bed.
Within a few minutes, Inspectors Swayne and Fentum arrived from the road junction and took a short statement from Broughton. Nairobi was, and still is, a small town, and as soon as they had identified the body in the car, they knew where to begin their enquiries. When they came up the drive at Karen, Broughton said, “Is he all right? Is he all right?” “Is who all right?” one of them asked. “Lord Erroll,” replied Broughton.
Diana was in a state of hysteria, and the policemen, who could see her peering at them through the window, decided to leave her alone. In a later statement Broughton said, “My wife could not believe that Lord Erroll was dead and she said to me, ‘Do go and see if it is him.’ I said I would. I asked her, I think, if she had anything personal, belonging to her, that she would like to put on his body. She gave me a handkerchief. From my recollection I think I rang up the police and asked where I could find Lord Erroll’s body and they told me some hospital at the top of the hill. I went there and it was not there and they told me to go to some other hospital; it was not there. I then went to the police station at Nairobi and I saw Inspector May and he told me it was in the town mortuary. I asked him whether I could put a handkerchief belonging to my wife on. Lord Erroll’s body as he had been a very dear friend of hers.”
Broughton began his search soon after Fentum and Swayne had left, driving past the scene of the accident, where he stopped to look at the ditch. He was shaking
with nerves when he arrived at the station and showed the handkerchief to Swayne with both hands. Swayne remembered Broughton saying in explanation, “My wife was very much in love with Lord Erroll.”
Alice de Trafford and Gwladys Delamere were already at the mortuary when Broughton arrived. Alice had put a small branch of a tree on the body; Gwladys, the Mayor of Nairobi, had asked for Erroll’s identity disc. Broughton was not allowed inside the building, but persuaded a policeman to take the handkerchief and place it on Erroll’s breast. Alice told Broughton that Erroll suffered from heart trouble, and that this might have been the cause of his death.
From there Broughton drove into Nairobi, and went straight to the Union Castle steamer agent. Some days previously he had, once again, cancelled his passage to Ceylon. Now he rebooked it. He returned home around 12:30.
June Carberry, who had made a lightning visit to Erroll’s house, arrived carrying a small jewel case. And there were two other guests for lunch: Juanita Carberry, June’s fifteen-year-old stepdaughter, and her governess, Isabel Rutt.
Three days beforehand, Abdullah bin Ahmed, Broughton’s head boy, had been told to get petrol from the
dhobi
and put it in Broughton’s bedroom. Now Broughton asked for it, and Abdullah watched him sprinkle petrol over a bonfire in the rubbish pit. As he was about to strike a match, Abdullah jumped back, afraid of being burned. Broughton then ordered him to produce the lunch, but before they went in to eat, seeing the fire spreading out of the pit, he told Abdullah to put it out.
Before the other guests had finished their lunch, Broughton asked Juanita if she would like to see the stables. Juanita was fond of Broughton. Unlike her parents or her governess, he was kind to her, and they both liked horses. As they went out, Juanita was surprised to see a
pair of gym shoes lying in the bonfire. You never burned even a worn out pair of gym shoes in Kenya. You gave them to your houseboy.
They came back indoors for coffee and brandy. June began talking about the tragedy. Broughton had his hand up to his face and was crying.
That afternoon Diana, June, Juanita and Isabel Rutt travelled together to the Carberrys’ house at Nyeri, leaving Broughton at Karen. (It was his suggestion that he be left alone.)
Broughton spoke to Gwladys three times that day by telephone. He described the dinner party the night before; how he had drunk the health of Diana and Joss. “I gave them my blessing,” he said. In the evening he rang Gwladys and told her that Diana wanted a note dropped into Erroll’s grave. He asked if she would do this for him at the funeral the following day. Gwladys refused.
The mourners were already leaving the churchyard the following day, the 25th, when Broughton made a late appearance. He was flustered and distressed. He told Gwladys that his car had broken down. Later, to the police, he said that he thought the funeral was half an hour later.
He asked Gwladys what he should do with Diana’s note.
She pointed over her shoulder. “The grave is behind,” she snapped, “I should take it there yourself,” and walked on. Broughton threw the letter on to the coffin.
At the Muthaiga Club afterwards, Broughton asked Gwladys if he could join her for lunch. She said yes, “provided it is a quick lunch.” Gwladys was to say later that Broughton abused Diana at the lunch—that he “blew hot and cold about her,” bitterly regretting the break with his first wife, Vera, and his children. They discussed Diana’s request, made to Broughton before lunch the previous day, that he take her to Ceylon. Gwladys had the feeling that Broughton would do anything not to be left alone. From the Club, Broughton sent a cable to John
Carberry, who was at Nyeri, asking if June could come with him and Diana to Ceylon. He explained, “Diana has nervous breakdown.”
In the afternoon, Broughton made his first detailed statement to Poppy at Karen. He described the final dinner. “It was a very cheery evening,” he said. “It was one of the better nights.”
Afterwards the two men walked in the garden, past the rubbish pit which was still burning. Poppy was surprised to discover that Broughton had set the pit alight himself, using aviation fuel, and that the blaze had been strong enough to burn the surrounding grass. He decided to put a guard over the pit the next day. Broughton showed some anxiety about the results of the post mortem. He asked Poppy several times why the inquest had been delayed.
It began two days later. As soon as murder was established, Broughton drove to Nyeri to break the news to Diana. He found the house empty, except for Juanita, and this upset him. He hadn’t thought that his wife would be in a fit state to go out visiting. He spent the afternoon with Juanita, who had been left behind. Again they went to look at horses together. Juanita kept a book of the likes and dislikes of her friends and now she paid Broughton the compliment of asking him to write in it. Broughton wrote under the respective headings, “all animals” and “loneliness.”
June and Diana arrived two hours later than expected. Diana hadn’t eaten for four days—ever since Gerry Portman’s call—and was still hysterical. At one point she shouted abuse, including angry and direct accusations of murder, at her husband, who suffered the attacks in silence.
Broughton was told that the police had been there the previous day. He asked June what she had told them; had she said that he was cross and peevish on the night of the murder, while they were drinking brandy—June and he
—in the Muthaiga bar? She reminded him that he had knocked on her door, later on. He couldn’t remember it. She told him that he had been drunk. She also said that she wanted to go to South Africa. She couldn’t do that, Broughton said, because the inquest would continue and she would be a principal witness. Broughton recognised that by now he was a prime suspect.
The day before Diana had also made her first statement to the police. They asked her what she thought had happened to Erroll. She told them that Erroll was a very fast driver and she thought he must have lost control and crashed.
Broughton went over the ground for Poppy again on the 29th in a yet more detailed statement: the theft of the revolvers on the 21st; the marriage pact with Diana: the agreement with Erroll that he should take her over; his movements on the night of 23rd–24th; the note in the grave; the burning of the rubbish pit. The following day Poppy ordered a search of the house and grounds. On the rubbish pit where the fire had been the charred remains of a golf stocking was found, with blood stains still clearly visible. Poppy didn’t seem to be looking any further than Broughton for a suspect now, and when he brought off what he considered his smartest piece of detection, he was convinced that he was on the right track.
From his spies in the Broughton household Poppy had heard soon after the murder about the revolver practice on Soames’s farm, and on February 2nd he sent two detectives to Nanyuki to talk to Soames. They set up the targets in the same positions and fired away, then raked through the ground, and found, as they had expected, spent bullets, cartridge cases and live rounds from a .32 revolver. The spent bullets were taken to the Government chemist for comparison with the murder bullets—a process that was to take six weeks.
On February 6th Broughton made his final statement, and handed over the firearms certificate on which the Colt .32—stolen in January—was registered.
Then, later in February, less than three weeks after the murder, Broughton and Diana set off, incredibly, on a full-scale shooting safari, into the Southern Masai Reserve along the Mara River. They were accompanied by the famous white hunter, John Hunter, and Hugh Dickinson, whom they hadn’t seen since the end of January. He had been in hospital in Mombasa at the time of the murder, his left foot poisoned by cactus. The infection had been serious, and his foot had almost been amputated, yet by now he was fit enough, apparently, to walk long distances after game.
The safari lasted eight days, and the party travelled by truck, open car, and on foot. It was already clear that Diana was deeply suspicious of her husband and their relations were severely strained. It seems astonishing that such a trip should have been contemplated in the circumstances, and without Dickinson’s company it might well have been disastrous. Eight days in the bush can break the closest of friendships and Broughton, at the best of times, had been known to make terrible scenes on hunting trips with Vera, on one occasion overturning all the tables in the camp, and then kicking Vera until her shins bled. But as at Muthaiga, where lunch could never be suspended merely for reasons of bad feeling, so the ritual task of shooting lion and buffalo took precedence over personal crises, and provided its own therapeutic bloodletting.