Appearances and titles can be deceiving. The princess in question is just such a case. Princess Marguerite Fahmy had come by her title through marriage. She had started out as plain Marie-Marguerite Laurient when she was born into the gutters of Paris. She became a well-known dominatrix catering to rich men in Paris. During World War I, she looked after English soldiers of substantial means, among them the Prince of Wales, better known to us as King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom. The latter was young, impressionable, and foolish enough to send her letters signed with his real name.
After Prince David broke off their entanglement at a substantial financial loss to her, she initially threatened disclosure. She stopped short of full blackmail, though, and just let him know that she had his letters in a safe place. After the Great War, she managed to land her fish from among her rich and famous clients in the person of Prince Ali Kamel Fahmy Bey. The Prince was ten years her junior and she converted to Islam prior to their marriage. The wedding took place in Cairo in 1922. In 1923, the couple visited London and stayed at the Savoy. There, Marguerite shot Ali in their suite.
She was apprehended at the scene. Police had was no doubt that she would be charged with murder with a very high probability to hang. Ten weeks after her arrest, a jury acquitted her unanimously of all charges. The book of Andrew Rose reconstructs the events under the premise that a conspiracy by friends of the Prince of Wales engineered the sensational outcome of the trial. Author and barrister Andrew Rose knows how to build an excellent case for the prosecution and for his own conspiracy theory presented in full in the book.
The intervention of the friends Prince David’s reeled in the Director of Public Prosecution from the very beginning. Consequently, the dice were loaded in favour of the defense when the murder case came to trial. The scene was carefully set with a junior prosecutor, an inexperienced judge, and ‘The Great Defender’ Sir Edward Marshall Hall hired for Marguerite's defense. Meanwhile, Marguerite rehearsed her role as an abused victim of a cruel eastern prince.
Marguerite had been offered a deal: Freedom for the return of Prince David's letters and her promise to keep the Prince of Wales out of trial proceedings. She duly instructed her French lawyers to send the letters to London, most of them. And the Great Defender was let loose on the person, life, and memory of the victim, Prince Ali. After Sir Edward had had his run in court, the young prince, probably more bisexual than anything else, had officially become a figure from hell, an abuser, wife beater, slaver, and sexual pervert. All this was accomplished by using every racial and religious prejudice ripe at the time.
As performances go, both he and Marguerite were magnificent. They were so good, in fact, that minor quibbles were graciously overlooked by the jury. Sir Edward was claiming self-defense for Marguerite. No one ventured to ask why she had to shoot three times, for instance. One of those shots went into the prince’s back. But as Andrew Rose builds his story, the outcome seems inevitable: Freedom for Marguerite and her return to Paris. She cheekily tried to claim her inheritance as a widow, too, but that ploy was foiled by the courts in Cairo.
This is a book that ticks many boxes. History, period drama, conspiracy theory, gossip, Royalty, and murder mystery are all rolled into one. As it is also well written, this for once is no waste of money. Go for it.
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