Blood and Fire is the true account of the murder of Canadian Sir Harry Oakes, who was brutally slain at his Nassau home in 1943 during World War II.
It’s the first novel by veteran British journalist John Marquis. Thirty-six years ago, Marquis was a young reporter in the Bahamas. At a clandestine meeting, he was given significant information about the still unsolved murder of one of the British Empire’s richest men.
Marquis never forgot about the story but couldn’t do anything with the information. Now he’s publishing it in a re-examination of the case.
TABOO SUBJECT
Marquis (whom I’ve worked for) went back to the Bahamas in 1999 as managing editor of The Tribune. I had a chance to hook up with him by e-mail to talk about the case which has been a taboo subject in the Bahamas for 62 years.
“The information confirmed several suspicions about the Oakes murder,” Marquis said. “It was passed on to me by a much older person who said it was important that it eventually be disclosed. As I was in my 20s at the time, it was felt I would eventually be able to publish what I was told.”
Marquis’ book also looks closely at the Duke of Windsor, who was governor of the Bahamas at the time of the murder. Marquis says the duke obstructed the police investigation to protect his friends.
For six decades, Bahamians have been convinced that the duke bungled the inquiry by calling in two “hick” detectives from Miami.
Eventually Count Alfred de Marigny was charged with the murder but was acquitted and deported. Marquis writes that not a single police officer involved in the investigation thought de Marigny guilty.
“De Marigny escaped with his life on a split jury vote, but the Duke continued to persecute him for the rest of his days,” said Marquis.
Sir Harry, a prospector who struck it rich in Canada, settled in the Bahamas in 1937 to escape the demands of the Canadian taxman. He bought up vast tracts of land in Nassau and became one of the then- British colony’s movers and shakers.
On the morning of July 8, 1943, he was found murdered in his bed — a story so big at the time that it knocked the war itself off many front pages.
His close friend Harold Christie — later to be knighted as the Bahamas’ most successful realtor — was sleeping at the Oakes home on the night of the killing and was under suspicion until his death in 1973.
INFO DATES BACK TO 1969
Marquis has been keenly interested in the Oakes case since he first worked in the Bahamas during the 1960s. It was in 1969 that he first received information that shed light on the case.
One of the reasons the case gathered so much attention, says Marquis, was because in those days the Bahamas was still a British colony with a British governor, so Brits working in the colony in the 1960s felt in some respects that it was part of their country.
GREAT CRIME MYSTERY
Also, the Duke of Windsor, who had created a scandal when he abdicated the throne to marry divorcee Wallis Simpson in 1936, was governor when the Oakes murder happened, making the story a natural source of interest for any British person. In fact, the Oakes murder remains one of the greatest crime mysteries in the history of the British Empire, says Marquis.
“The fact that Sir Harry was a Canadian who was awarded a baronetcy by the King in 1939 also made him part of the old establishment, even though he never really saw himself like that.
“Over the last 60 years, the Oakes case has always bubbled just under the surface of Bahamian life. People have felt very uneasy about it. In fact, for many years it was highly dangerous to talk about it because several mysterious killings occurred in the 16 years following the murder.”
Up next for Marquis is a biography of Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, the dictator of Haiti between 1957 and 1971.
Blood and Fire is due out Dec. 6.
Donald Ermen, Ottawa Sun
www.ottawasun.com
