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THE CHINA MAIL, - SATURDAY, NOVEMBER:

1809.

Beginning the life and death of one of the most fantastic figures of our times

Who killed Sir Harry Oakes?

SIR HARRY OAKES

he said he would

make a million, and he made many millions. But he paid a bitles price for his riches.

Private

The secret

sweets

they're sucking in Whithall

!

Presenting a fascinating casebook on

the most controversial and mishandled of all murder investigations

⇓ Navor has a crime shaken a community so violently as the killing of millionaire Sir Harry Oakes in the Bahamas 16 years ago; never was an investigation so disastrously, bungled; navor has a Today the Harry murder case led to such bitter controversy.

Oakes murder still oppresses that sunlit playground... and there is mounting pressure for the truth to be found and told.

NASSAU off-season. Gusta

of steamy rain come and go, and the palm trees droop. The hibiscus, bougainvillea, and trumpet vine weep warm tears down one's neck. The

--by

¦ GEOFFREY BOCCA

401

who has travelled thousands of miles in the quest for material

authoritative reconstruction.

The start

THIS IS WESTBOURNE, the nouse Sir Harry Oakes bought after moying to Nassàu. Here the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were his quests, Here, on a

stormy night in July 1943, Harry Oakes was murdered,

مداد

and

the murder of her father.

We sat on his terrace over- looking the Hudson River.

Schindler," I said. "You have often said, and It was here that Harry Cakes Raid publicly, that you know was born on December 23, 1874, who killed Sir Harry Onken." It was here and at Foxcroft, spent Schindler smiled, but his smile seven miles away, that

a countryside was wary and his piggy eyes his boyhood, in

where salmon and trout leaped generations were suspicious.

in the streams, and firs and pines towered into coal blue skies.

Saxon, and whose cuntle accents except for little Eugene Whit- retain traces of their ancestors' tredge, who was younger, homeland.

followed him when he hunted rabbits.

"Tell mc frankly, Mr Schindler, who killed Sir Harry Oakes?"

Respectable

British immigration officer, neat in his white shirt and

America a couple of days before, murderer is for payment of crown-crested blue

cap, the elegant Freddie, tou cashing about £5,000.

good in the old The curse of Sir Harry Oakes weighs my passport without for his own

Raymond Schindler talked, 1 50 now and continue to live. days; close to

listened. Darkness had fallen pleasure and asks unusual greying cured.

reliving

when I left his home and drove stemmed from the events that questions.

back thoughtfully to New York. that night in July 1943 when

of The starting point Oakes was struck down and set

bad

several been.

The Harry Cakes story begins sisters. I Are.

thought

the research which linger,

their months earlier at Tarrytown in in America-in a little township distinguish questions

County, Maine. the as New York, at the hundsone in Piscataquia they were 15 years ago. stings as obnoxious today

home of Raymond C. Schindler. It is called Sangerville (after a families of Sangerville.

the Schindler

Colonel Sanger private certain

who In later years it was alleged It fact had been hired oace owned the land) and it is that Oakes was a hobe. detective who

a community of religious, hard- he came from one of the oldest by Nancy Oakes de Marigny to and out the truth after her working people whose names families in New England.

almost exclusively Angio- Harry had few close friends husband had been charged with are

"How long have you lived in News York?"

"Eleven years on and off." "What do you mean, on and off?"

"On and off.":

"What is your profession?** "Writer."

What business?

The officer's gloom deepened. "Hum." There was a pause.

"Are you in the Bahamas on business or pleasure?"

"Business."

"What kind of business?" "My own business. I am minding it."

Line

By CHAPMAN

PINCHER

He gave me a look of dislike. "Who are you going to see in

Halt the patients are being given sweets loaded with the drug. The others are getting sweets containing no drug,

The Sisters distributing the

the Bahamas?

I named

couple of names.

His manner changed.

Promptly

my passport snapped shut.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir, Have a

nice slay in Nassau, sir."

Derelict

Out of the airport I went, and was soon bowling past crub pines and mangrove swamps, to- wards Nassau.

The taxi passed Cakes Field, the airport Harry Oakes built, now all but derelict.

On the other side of the high- way a simple memorial obelisk stood Incing the wilderness of weeds and concrete and COT rugated iron. It was Inscribed simply to "Sir Harty Oakes, Bt., 1874-1943.”

The desolation of Orkes Field had, in some way, a sort of melancholy symbolica, derelist, Just as the murder of Sir Harry Oakes had dere- licted the moral resources of this whole island paradise. I checked into my hotel room

Nassau

HUNDREDS of white sweets do not know which or telephone directory to r

civil servants

servants, which. So some of the top make my who are now appointmenis, aware of the including many of the sucking furiously are swallow-wamings I had received of the nation's top administra- ing nothing but barley sugar. dangers of my task.

It was amazing, the sense of oppression that the Oakes case still cast.

tors, are serving as guinea-pigs in a Govern ment experiment to find a cure for the common cold.

They are sucking brawn sweets containing 2 germ- killing drug, the name of which is not yet being revealed.

The

Is experiment, which

In

Each case la then being followed up unu Di the

symptoms have cleared.

The experiment is to be con-

Calypsos

inued throughout the winter. Then Independent doctors will analyse the results. If they are

Sixteen years after Sir Harry favourable the drugged sweets Oakes had been found murdered will be made generally avaliable | in bis Nassau mansion the

on the Health Service.

The RAF wina

being run by the Treasury THE

HE RAF. has won Its battle

the hope of reducing the

to prevent Coastal Com

atory still dominates the lives

of Baharons citizens,

It remains their Brst topic of conversation, and at the same time a forbidden subject, to be spoken of only in whispers.

Had I told the Immigration officer the truth about my

colossal expense of absenteeisin mand being handed over to the business in Nassau, that I was through colds and chest com- Navy--a switch urged by Mr plaints, is based on a claim Dancan Sandys, the former here to teer away what myths. 1

that some modern drugs can Defenoo stop a cold in its tracks before Sea Lorde. the full symptoms develop.

Minister,

and

could surrounding Harry Oakes

tho and his death; myths built up

by years of gossip, half-truth, The Navy chiefs have settled and intrigue, I have no doubt Dr Walter ""Tiny" Chlesman for a few changes in the chala that I would have been taken

of command which will give aside and closely. questioned. of the Treasury Medical Service them the main say-no oni Coastal The phone calls done, I ́made belleves the aixo is worth following up on a big scale for Command with Nato and the my way to Nassau Prison.

Iwo reasons?--

the

1. The drug may kill virus germ responsible for the

cold.

2. It may kill the bigger germs which invade later, and esuso compliations.

Americans.

Picking out a certain cell This move puts paid to the abnost by dead reckoning, I rumour that in the new position stood in the street outside.

straigs Chief of the Defence Stad could hear the

Earl Mountbatten would wield |calypios coming from a Negro hly Influence in favour of his nightclub, a few blocks away.... old service.

there are

RAF

Those sama Calypsos had

I regret that

no been heard by Count Alfred de the sans that

will Marigny while he sat month cxpand Coastal · Command | sftar inonth' in gnol charged

So the Whitehall men and beyond its hidicrously mail † with the murder of his father- women have been urged to con- total of subquarine-hunting -ain--in-law, Sir Harry Oalsen, sult the Health, Gistera fn, their planes, which I estimate at no The hot night deepened. Ministrine at the, fast, signs of "moré "ihan:40. :

thought of Alfred" de Mirigy,

3 had last spot: itz

on

of

1 And thought of Lady Oakes, who told me she still gets letiers from people who promise they wit tel her who the

FOUR D. JONES

JA SYRANONE CAMPT

POP --Finally sent

AHOY Down

Free O'CLOCK ANO Toyke STILL RACKETING AWAY NEXT DOOR

BRICK BRADFORD

THE CAPSULE DRIFTS DOWN GENTLY TOWARD BARTH....

LOOKS LIKE QUITE A CLOUD,

MASS BELOW!

FERDINAND

was

my

SAY, TE THIS THE

DRIVER?

ANHO WHERS

(IF I DONT STOP IT AT ONCE-ILL

Go RAVING MAD

WELL 86 DROPPING INTO

THE SOUTH ATLANTIC,

PAM!

WE MIGHT 85 FALLING INTO A HEATY BEA! TRY

THE RADIO!

YOU PUT

THAT

PERACIOUS ALIVET HOW MANY Turies AUKT STILL MUST NOT BE

العلاج

DISTURBED WOMAN

YOU'RE TOO

LATE!

"KEY PACKED, IT UP AN

HOUR.

AGO

10 WE CAN CONTACT DR. BASTLAND, MAYBET HE HAS RECOVERED THE TIME-TOP AND HE CAN

· COME AFTER US!

Harry went Arst to Foxcroft Academy, and then to the fine Bowdoin College in Brunswick, the Alma Mater of Longfellow and President PIÉrce, and of New England lowyers, judges, and doctors,

At school, Hairy WAS 2 dreamy boy. At collega too he preferred his own company. On Saturday evenings the students

Harry Oakes's father was a linked arms and made their way Liz to the beer houses. Harry was lawyer and land surveyor. mother udy 1 schoolteacher.

never among them. Nor did he Harry had a brother and three like tenra games or collective

There was nothing to

enterprises. from the family

Few of la elaamaien. 'took other solid, respectable

smanii. mach notion of this quiet youth, The only thing the thas set him spark van Deleneity at his day-dreaming -end. the subfact of

by MADDOCKS

IVING RO

PLEASE YOURNELY,

BUT FELPICT ENTERTAIN YOUR GUBETE

1

By Gog

By Paul Norris

IF WE CAN CONTACT THATS RIGHT! ANY OF THE MISSILE- THERE'S A WHOLE TRACKING STATIONS. I STRIHS OF THEM! ON THE ISLAND SA THEY CAN GET A (91% ON US) P

· LOOKS LIKE ITS, A BALL AFTER ALL, HUN, BRICK!

drester.

(Continted on Page 73

NEW

Lady Sheaffer

"SEMPERTY POUT PO

Never betree Penta In De woes your personal taste in Ana Jawalzy, Naver KOMPARE A kes bottle.

drop-in cartridgen af Skrip writing fuld.

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STOR PAREN MA, LTE

IN WALES THEÝ PLAY THE HARP

AND THEY DRINK

Carlsberg

BAM

By MD

ales Managers prefer

SWISSAIR

THE AIRLINE OF USWI

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