Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China (31 page)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

M
y reconstruction of the investigation into Pamela Werner’s murder is based on medical records, press reports, Peking police reports, and letters written by officials of Scotland Yard, as well as documents produced by and for the International Military Tribunal for the Far East after the war; these latter are held in Singapore. It also draws on various documents from the British Legation in Peking, the consulate in Tientsin, and the embassy temporarily located at Shanghai, along with the recollections of people who knew Pamela in Peking or at Tientsin Grammar School.

Most helpful were the copious notes sent by E. T. C. Werner to the Foreign Office in London, detailing his private investigation after the case was officially closed in July 1937. I came across these letters in an uncatalogued file in Britain’s National Archive at Kew, in one of several dozen boxes of random correspondence sent from Peking during the years 1941–45.

Any number of experts on and former residents of Old Peking and Tientsin offered me help most graciously and enthusiastically, among them Eric Abrahamson, Jacob Avshalomov, Michael Aldrich, Julia Boyd, Luby Bubeshko, Dora Chun, Ron Dworkin, Robin Farmer, Jim Hoare, Ed Lanfranco, Greg Leck, Desmond Power, R. Stevenson Upton, Joan Ward, Adam Williams and Frances Wood. Much gratitude also to Diana Dennis, the daughter-in-law of Detective Chief Inspector Dennis. Thanks also to Lucy Cavender, Peter Goff and Alexandra Pearson, who offered me a chance to write a shorter version of this story for their collection
Beijing: Portrait
of a City
.

Librarians are essential, and I have to thank the helpful staff of the following: the British Library’s Chinese Collection, the British Library Newspaper Archives at Colindale, the National Archives at Kew, the Shanghai Library Bibliotheca Zikawei, Hong Kong University Library, the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge, and the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

Grateful thanks to all at Penguin China, especially Jo Lusby, who commissioned this project and then gave up so much of her time and energy to see it to a conclusion, as well as all her staff at Penguin China, especially Abi Howell in Beijing and Mike Tsang in Shang-hai. My editor Meredith Rose at Penguin Australia pulled apart and then put together the original manuscript with the skill of a surgeon. Arwen Summers diligently copyedited it and saved me from many potential gaffes. Any remaining errors are entirely the fault of the author. I must also thank Joel Rickett at Penguin in London as well as Stephen Morrison and Emily Murdock Baker at Penguin in New York for taking up Pamela’s story so enthusiastically.

Finally, as always, to Lisa (Xu Ni), who was never anything less than totally supportive and who, I hope, will one day finally realise how much her support means to me.

SOURCES

Text

‘
fish in an aquarium’
:
Peter Fleming,
News from Tartary
(London: Jonathan Cape, 1936).

all details of Pamela’s autopsy:
North-China Daily News
, 30 February 1937;
China Weekly Review
, 13 February 1937.

‘
No comment’
:
Ibid.

Desk sergeant: ‘What did you do?’:
Anthony Abbot,
These Are Strange Tales
(Philadelphia: John C. Winston, 1948).

‘
But aren’t you afraid
’:
China Press
, 9 January 1937.

‘
Dig around a bit’:
Times
(London), 11 January 1937.

‘
The socially popular man’:
Abbot,
Strange Tales.

South to the Temple of Heaven:
Ibid.

‘
We were to return to England’:
Ibid.

Unfortunately we have a very:
Lo Hui-min,
The Correspondence of G.E. Morrison
, 2 vols. (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1976).

‘
like a frightened sparrow’:
Abbot,
Strange Tales.

‘
When you and I beyond the veil
’:
Ibid.

‘
inexplicable act of God’:
E. T. C. Werner,
Autumn Leaves
(Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1928).

‘
beneath the trees and flowers’:
Ibid.

‘
The search for the motive’:
Jeffrey Bloomfield, ‘The Rise and Fall of Basil Thomson, 1861–1939,’
Journal of the Police History
Society
12 (1997): 11–19.

‘
reluctant to talk’:
Times
(London), 13 January 1937.

‘
Optimism prevails’:
North-China Daily News
, 13 January 1937.

‘
I will do my best to’:
North-China Daily News
, 11 January 1937.

‘
They’ve got a foreigner with blood’:
China Press
, 14 January 1937.

‘
Can you tell us where you were’:
Ibid.

H
UMAN
M
UTILATOR OF
:
China Press
, 11 January 1937.

‘
Let’s talk about the Western Hills’:
Abbot,
Strange Tales.

‘dubious background’:
North-China Daily News
, 14 January 1937.

‘
dapper’:
Jacob Avshalomov and Aaron Avshalomov,
Avshalomov’s Winding Way: Composers Out of China—A Chronicle
(Bloomington, Ind.: Xlibris Corporation, 2001).

‘not of a placid nature’:
China Weekly Review
, 20 March 1937.

Mr EC Peters—Chairman
and
In 1927 he became Headmaster:
Peking and Tientsin Times
, 23 March 1937.

The old man did it:
Abbot,
Strange Tales.

‘
Not in sociology, myths’:
Ibid.

‘
In view of circumstances’:
Document F3453/1510/10 (Far Eastern), the National Archives, Kew, U.K.

‘
Remember, you have no powers’:
Ibid.

‘
Prentice, Miss—Nov. 28’:
U.S. State Department Document 393.1115/14, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.

‘
I have never seen the girl,’
and all details of interview with Prentice:
Document F3453/1510/10.

‘
teeth—healthy—26 present’:
North-China Daily News
, 3 February 1937.

Gorman’s editorial:
Peking Chronicle
, 13 January 1937.

‘
not the work of an ordinary’:
North-China Herald
, 10 February 1937.

‘
living on the rim of a volcano’:
John B. Powell,
My Twenty-Five Years in China
(New York: Macmillan, 1945).

‘
It was me they were after’:
All details of Dennis’s meeting with Helen Foster Snow are from Snow,
My China Years
(New York: William Morrow & Co., 1984).

‘
The evidence is inconclusive’:
North-China Herald
, 30 June 1937.

‘
I shall not let the matter rest’:
National Archives, op. cit.

The sight of my child’s kind little face
and
‘apart from the herd’:
Times
(London), 16 February 1954.

This is to confirm my statement:
Document F3453/1510/10.

‘
made love’:
Document F5480/1510/10 (Far Eastern), National Archives, Kew.

‘
You are on the wrong track’:
Ibid.

‘
Are you Mr Werner?’
and details of Werner’s meeting with the White Russian girl:
Document F3435/1510/10.

‘
frog walking’:
Doc. F5480/1510/10.

impressed him as being true’:
Ibid.

This particular line of enquiry:
Ibid.

‘
Very flattering, but
’ and ‘
exhausted lines of enquiry’:
Document F3435/1510/10.

It is not necessary to read:
Ibid.

‘
person of interest’:
Document F9120/1510/10 (Far Eastern), National Archives, Kew.

‘
You heard of the murder,’
and details of Werner’s interview with Rosie Gerbert
: Document F12367/1510/10 (Far Eastern), National Archives, Kew.

‘
Did the stout Russian,’
and details of Werner’s interview with Liu Pao-chung:
Ibid.

‘
This is surely a crime’:
Ibid.

‘
terrific thud,’
and details about Marie:
Document F8038/1510/10 (Far Eastern), National Archives, Kew.

‘
Is there anyone here’:
Ibid.

‘
Murder of Pamela Werner’:
Ibid.

‘
Prentice killed her;
Document F12367/1510/10 (Far Eastern), National Archives, Kew.

‘
to lay his cards on the table’:
Ibid.

‘
cringing politeness’:
Ibid.

‘
When your daughter was killed
’:
Ibid.

‘
there is a marine who knows
’:
Ibid.

My first impression was:
Document F9120/1510/10.

‘
one little Korean girl,’
and all details of Werner’s interview with Knauf:
Ibid.

‘connected with the murder’:
Ibid.

If British administration of justice:
Document F714/714/10 (Far Eastern), National Archives, Kew.

‘
mystery was never solved’:
Snow,
My China Years
.

‘
for their safety and comfort’:
Greg Leck,
Captives of Empire: The Japanese Internment of Allied Civilians in China 1941–1945 (
Philadelphia: Shandy Press, 2006).

‘
You killed her’:
Desmond Power, former internee at Weihsien Civilian Assembly Centre, e-mail to the author.

PHOTOGRAPHS

While every effort has been made to contact copyright holders, the publisher welcomes hearing from anyone in this regard.