The Prince and the Poisoner

In the latest episode of our ‘Small Island, Big Story Sessions’ podcast, hosts Mel and Perry are joined by Dan Morrison, author of 'The Prince and the Poisoner'. When Dan visited Jersey recently, he came on the podcast to tell us about a murder in 1930s India that rocked the Raj and how the investigation was linked to Jersey through Deputy Police Commissioner E. Henry Le Brocq, who was in charge of Calcutta’s detective department.

Dan is a former New York crime reporter and currently deputy world editor at ‘USA Today’, shares his research into this fascinating story with a Jersey connection, and how he stumbled across it whilst researching something completely different.

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Transcript

Perry (00:02):

Welcome to the Jersey Heritage Podcast,

Mel (00:05):

The Small Island Big Story sessions.

Perry (00:08):

You are listening to Mel and Perry. In today's episode, we are going to be speaking to New York, author and journalist Dan Morrison.

Mel (00:17):

Dan has written a book titled The Prince and The Poisoner, all About the Murder that rocked the British Raj and its connections to Jersey. Dan, welcome to Jersey.

Dan (00:30):

Thank you for having me.

Mel (00:31):

So today we're going to talk a little bit about this book that you've written. So I thought it'd be really nice to start off with telling us a little bit about the plot of the storyline so that our listeners can kind of understand what its link is to Jersey.

Dan (00:48):

Sure. The Prince and the poisoner concerns a a sort of demented ger murder that took part, it took place in Calcutta in the 1930s where a member of the rural nobility has his brother assassinated through an injection of plague. Wow. And it, it, it was a it, it, it, it was a real, you know barn burner of a case at, at the time, and, and made headlines across India and indeed all over the world with, you know, in, in European and, and, and us newspapers taking, you know, following along the case. The, the jersey aspect of this is that the head of the Calcutta detective department at, at the, at the time was Jerseymen E Henry Lerock. And I came upon Henry while researching the, the, the murder and the trial and the in investigation and, and found in him a very, you know, a very interesting and, and you know, engaging character.

Perry (01:44):

Wow. I got some of the rock sort of somewhere a couple generations ago in my family tree. Yeah. Nice. My great granddad's wife. Well, my great-grandmother then, I suppose, was a, was a love rock.

Mel (01:56):

And how did you come across this story? How did you get onto it?

Dan (02:00):

So, I, I'm, I'm a journalist and, and an author, and I've spent a lot of time living in South Asia over the past 20 years. I've lived in in, in Delhi and, and Mumbai and Chennai and, and spent some, some years in, in Bangladesh as well. I had, I had written a book on the, on the Nile River where I traveled the length of a Nile from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean and wrote a sort of a travel history adventure book about it. And the follow up was meant to be a book on the, on the, on the Ganges. And I did travel the length of the Ganges, but it didn't come together. It didn't come together as like a single narrative, but in fact, instead of a single narrative, it had a lot of, a lot of profitless tangents that I started going down.

Dan (02:43):

And one of those involved the history of cholera and, and plague in India. And then another sideline on that was a, a figure called Waldemar Haken, who was this Ukrainian Jew who ended up in Paris, who created the first vaccine for cholera, testing it on, testing it on himself. Cholera was the, was a huge killer of, of, of, of the day around the world. And he came to British India to work inno on inoculating people against cholera, and then later made a, a vax created a vaccine for Plague when the third plague pandemic reached, reached India. So I was looking for a lost manuscript about Baltimore Haken, a a, an unpublished biography. And in trying to track that down, I came across a small newspaper clipping that said the plague that killed the air came from the Haken Institute. Turns out that was not true. The plague did not come from the Haken Institute, however, plague air murder. It was intriguing. And I, and I started digging in into that first through, through newspaper clippings and then finding archival sources like the courtroom, like the trial record and, and government records, and then personal reminiscences, and then, you know, diaries and, and letters and that, and that, that sort of thing. It led to sort of a six year, you know, a six year effort to excavate as much as I could about the case.

Perry (04:07):

Wow. And you, you've already got a background as a journalist, don't you? You've been, you've been a journalist for a long time in, if I'm correct, kind of crime journalism and war journalism as well. And do you think that this is what inspired you to get into this kind of true, this old true crime case?

Dan (04:24):

It was a great case. So I, I got my start covering as, as, as a crime reporter in, in New York City. And although I've, I've moved on, moved on to other things, you always keep those, those instincts and, and, and an eye for that. The Packer murder case was a nice combination of, of something gritty and, and real and strange. And also the more esoteric research I've been doing for some years on involving public health and, and, and disease and the history of disease and, and the history of medicine. And these things came together quite nicely with, with this one case.

Perry (04:59):

So what, what kind of inspired this, the plague to be used as a poison, as a murder weapon in this case? It seems like such a strange thing to, to try and kill someone. So,

Dan (05:11):

So the, so brothers have been bumping off brothers, you know, since, since, you know, the book of Genesis, right? Yeah, yeah. <Laugh> and and particularly with, with families of, of status or family with families with money, where in, in the old days where the males were, were, were getting, were getting the stuff and the, and the, and the females were not, not, it's, it is just sort of a long, there's a long history of that, a a across across cultures in at the highest levels of nobility where, for example, you have the you know, the, the great moguls, you know, fighting it out for, for their Father's Thrones. You have in the Ottoman Empire, you know, a a a almost a codified tradition of the eldest son murdering all his brothers upon the death of their father. It was, you know, it was, it was sort of legalized.

Dan (05:54):

Yeah. You know, that that was the only, the, the basically as a way to, to, to promote stability was, was to, you know, drown your siblings or drown, or, or, yeah. Garot or, you know, just it just to bump 'em off. It, it, it was, it was legalized. Yeah. It's almost like a tradition, right? No, no. It, it was very much a, a tradition. There's some really crazy cases that I didn't go too deep into the book, but you know, of, of, you know, someone weeping, you know, weeping his heart out at, at this terrible thing he had to do, which was Yeah, kill his baby brother <laugh>. And so and so, and this, this pervaded down this, this, this percolates down into the, the lower aristocracy and, and, and great land and big land owning families as well, where brothers, brothers go at it. And in, in India, that would typically happen through, you could do it overtly through hiring goons to, to take down your brother, or you could kill him in a hunting accident, or you could put him away through more traditional forms of poison.

Dan (06:53):

By the early 20th century, those traditional forms of poison were, were known, you know, and, and, and people were on the lookout for them. Whereas with disease, the, the Raja of Akur, whose name was benra pani, Bero appears to have felt that he could, through failing his brother with disease, get away with it. This was, this was the pre antibiotic era where men and women of every station are, are, you know, they're dropping, there's no, there is, there is no life expectancy. You could win the lottery and, and live to 60, or you could die at 22 from, you know, any, any number of viruses or, or, or bacteriological diseases. And in fact, in this, over the course of this case, several of the leading figures in the case don't, they don't survive it. The, there's a family lawyer who helped, who helps crack the murder.

Dan (07:44):

His, his wife dies during, during this time, the, an assistant commissioner of police who, who initiates confi the, the confidential investigation. He doesn't live to see, he doesn't live to testify at trial. The public prosecutor himself, who's a very, you know, a, a very major figure. He, he dies before the verdict. You know there's, there's a moment where during the trial where you have the Raja of Pocker is on trial, a sort of down on his luck Sawbones, who's become his accomplice is on trial, and then two, two establishment doctors who, who their, their, their physicians to the, to the Calcutta elite have also been swept up, wrongfully swept up in this, in this murder case, and they're on trial for their lives as well. So you have three physicians and this landowner on trial, and then a vast array of, of, of top medical minds on the scene as prosecution witnesses.

Dan (08:37):

And in the middle, in the middle of a trial, one day, like the courtroom doors are thrown open, and these bailiffs run in and they drag away the two establishment doctors, and also one of the top prosecution witnesses. And they take them into the next courtroom where a judge has collapsed on the bench. And so these two accused killers who, who, who faced the gallows and this prosecution witness doctor, they all joined forces to try to, to try to revive this, this judge. He, he, he never, he dies, he doesn't make it. Whoa. But, but so dramatic. It's just kind of Yeah. You know, it's just death, death was just closer to everyone. Yeah. And, and so the expectation was that in this environment, if, if the young man picked up a fever and dropped dead in four days, it, it wouldn't necessarily attract too much attention. Yeah. Were it not for, for certain steps that the that the killers didn't take. And, and for the fact that it took nearly eight days for him to die instead of the four, which,

Mel (09:35):

Which was like the standard,

Dan (09:37):

So the, the a person infected with plague typically lasted four days, and, and he lasted seven and a half. And is this is bubonic plague, is it? So the, this is the plague. This is the, this is the biggie. Oh, yeah. There, there are three forms of the plague. So the classic one that we know is bubonic plague, that's produced a produced a, a sort of swollen Yeah, dark frog, like

Mel (10:03):

Seep protrusion

Dan (10:04):

That would come out of your body. Yeah. That, that sometimes you could see them pulsating, ah,

Mel (10:09):

Around the armpits, wasn't it?

Dan (10:11):

So the, the, the bacteria would colonize your lymph node, right. Where, which is usually used in the, your defense against disease. The bacteria would take hold in the lymph node and sort of undercover from, from the immune system, start reproducing it at, at a, at a super high rate, to the point that you, you would swell with this plague, with this plague fluid. And that's a bbo, and that's bubonic plague. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> it would appear typically like on at your groin or on or under your arms. The black death in Europe is seen as a combination of both bubonic plague and pneumonic plague, when is, when the infection caused by the booo would spread to the lungs, which could then be spread through coughing and droplets. Right. And so, so pneumonic plague is one of the elements that made the, the black death such a, so, so deadly to, to, to the continent.

Dan (11:02):

Less common is septic cmic plague, which is when plague is somehow introduced directly into the blood. Mm. And, and then you have essentially blood poisoning with plague germs. And what that does is it speeds up the process of, of, of infection. Mm-Hmm. So they, they, they might not, the, the victims don't develop the booo, but they still get all of the, all of the damage of, of plague. So the plague on the one hand, causes the body to create numerous blood clots that it doesn't need. And then at the same time, it's choking your organs of oxygen, and those organs be, become injured and they begin to bleed. But your clotting resources have already been allocated to these hundreds and thousands of unnecessary clots. Yeah. And then, and then the lung, the lungs fail under, under these conditions as, as,

Mel (11:52):

Oh, it's so brutal. Really

Dan (11:53):

Makes the fluid, you know, impinges on, on, on your breathing ability. Yeah. And so that

Mel (11:58):

Description is

Dan (12:00):

Ugh,

Perry (12:00):

And you appreciate being in the modern era right now with Yeah, yeah. Population. Yeah.

Dan (12:05):

Three, three pills, you know, call cholera. Cholera was a tremendous killer. And now it's, it's a, it's a, you know, three, three pills of an antibiotic and, and you can be cured a cholera, you just kill it like that. You know, I, I know I've had friends who've had cholera. Right. You know, and, and cholera turns you into a cholera producing machine, and that is, all you do is produce cholera with the hope that it will seep into the water and be consumed by others. And then, and, and you'll die. But cholera will live, which is all anything wants, right? Oh, yeah. Right. It's just like seeds dropping. It's just like apples and, you know, the seeds in an apple. Yeah, yeah,

Mel (12:37):

Yeah. Falling to the

Dan (12:38):

Ground and just so how amazing that after for diseases like plague and cholera where you have centuries of accounts of, of, of these gruesome and painful and, and, and woeful deaths. Right. And, and now, and now you can just pop a couple tablets and,

Mel (12:54):

And it's gone and you're clean. Yeah.

Dan (12:57):

It's unbelievable.

Mel (12:58):

It's mind blowing. Yeah.

Dan (13:00):

My, my, my father had pneumonia as a 1-year-old, and, and my grandfather walked half the course of Brooklyn to a to a naval base, the Brooklyn Navy yard, where he persuaded a Navy doctor to give him penicillin. There was no pen, there was no penicillin then. Even then, it was so new that only the military had it. And my, my grandmother was a nurse at a hospital. The hospital didn't have it. And this Navy doctor gave him the medicine, and, and they saved their child's life. And that, and that's how I, that's how I exist. Right, right.

Perry (13:29):

We just lucky we live, we live in the, the exact right period of time just to, to not have to suffer from this stuff, you know? Yeah. And long may continue, you know?

Mel (13:39):

Yeah, absolutely. So what, what, so was it cholera that this guy got injected with?

Dan (13:43):

No. So this is plague, our, our boy is in, our boy is injected with, with Plague, his brother. The Raja of Paku has the younger brother. You, you, you have two brothers. They have separate, they have different mothers. The, the, the Raja's mother dies when he's, when he's three years old, and he's his father's childless sister-in-law, widowed sister-in-law comes into the household and takes over the children. The father remarries, he has two more children, and his second wife dies in childbirth when the youngest is born. And that's Amra. And, and what happens is that the elder son has sort of twice lost his mother. He loses his first mother to disease when he's maybe six, no, maybe three years old. And then not long after, he loses his new mother when she takes control of this newborn, who, who is sort of hers from birth.

Dan (14:40):

Mm. Yeah. And he, he's, he's like the, I think the psychological term, he's, he's sort of dethroned by, by, by this. And Yeah. And it's the basis for a great sort of antipathy between, between the two of them. Now, the father dies, the elder brother takes control of their estate, and he's ringing ev ringing the money out of it and spending it on, on, on women and, and, and booze and, and drugs. And he's, he's leading a, a, a really good life. He's, he's, it's a scandalously good life, you know, by, by the measure of, of his social class, of his very, very tightly constrained, you know, upper cast ru the, the, the rules of the rural aristocracy. And he, he's, he's breaking them all. And he, and not, and not in secret, not, not with the delicates. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Not, not, not, not, not a delicate arm.

Dan (15:30):

He, he's, he's not hiding it. Yeah. And this, this is truly offensive to them. He brings, he brings his mistress in to live in a house near the family palace. You know, it alienates his, his adoptive mother, the woman who raised him, she leaves after she's been in this house for 30 years, and she, she walks out, she won't be a part of it. He, he he's that kind of guy. Yeah. His younger brother has gone to college at the age of 16. The, the elder is not paying his school fees. He's having to beg from, beg money from other relatives. He's, he's squeezing him hard. And when he reaches 18, he starts to challenge, to try to challenge his brother's supremacy and to find out where the money's going and to, and to learn if there's a way that he can, he can secure and, and defend his, his share of, of, of their patrimony.

Dan (16:15):

Yeah. It's at this time that the elder brother starts to make noises and make inquiries about where some plague might be found through, through, through this doctor. And, and there's a, there's a tremendous amount of documentary evidence as they're, as they search for the, for access to plague. Why are they searching for plague as opposed to something else? Is a mostly answered question, I would say. And as, as I argue in the book, if I've, I've, I've never said the phrase, I've argued anything in a book, but the book makes the case that the inspiration for this is a, is a Sherlock Holmes story, the, the Adventure of the Dying Detective. And in this Sherlock Holmes story, you have a, a wealthy landowner who is a, he's a, he's a colonial planter in, in Sumatra, who returns to London and kills his nephew to, to take over his nephew's estate.

Dan (17:08):

Whoa. And the manner of death is a decorative ivory box that would, that the kind that you sort of would slide the, like, you know, I I, I would picture it almost as like a snuff box or something, or something that you would keep, you know, maybe jewelry in or something. With, there's a sliding lid, and the, the victim slides the lid to see what's inside. And a and a coiled spring shoots up and breaks, breaks the skin of his thumb. And the victim in, in the fictional case named Vincent Savage, he dies this horrible death within four days. In the, in the Holmes story, Holmes takes on the case, the killer gets word that Holmes is after him. And he sends Holmes a similar box. And it's as, as all the stories are, it's narrated through the voice of, of, of Dr. Watson who finds his friend on the edge of death.

Dan (18:00):

And Holmes, where Holmes is basically faking death by the same manner that killed the first guy as so as to to goad the killer into a, into a gleeful confession. Yeah. Right. Wow. And, and, and there's, it is a gr there's a great moment in the story where, you know, his eyes are sun in even Watson himself, who's a physician, believes that Holmes is dying of something. And then Holmes he Holmes tells Watson to hide Wa Watson doesn't know why Holmes is kind of deranged. And then this other, the, the, the the killer comes in and he's taunting taunting Holmes on his death bed. It, his I who've killed you. It's me. It's me, it's me. Yeah. And then there's a great moment. He says, now, now what do you want? And Holmes says, I'd rather like a cigarette, <laugh> <laugh>. And, and, and the man realizes, you know, that he's, he's been had.

Dan (18:48):

And then, and then Watson emerges from his hiding place as a witness to the confession. And, and, and, and that's it. Mysterious Sumatran fever, which is not named in the, the adventure of the Dying Detective. It's just called a fever from Sumatra, the symptoms that the victim exhibits in his death, and that that Holmes mimics have a lot of similarity to those of, of person dying of septic Cmic Plague. Right. And different Holmes scholars and Sherlockians have, have, have tried out different, different possible germs, but the one that fits the best, even though this was a fictional exercise, is, is Septics Plague.

Perry (19:28):

Right. So this is a proper life imitating art. Murder, you know, it's, I I believe it is. It's, and it, it it's as dramatic <laugh> as anything that could be thought up, you know? It seems that this case, so, so the Jersey involvement then, Mm-Hmm. So Henry Lerock, was it? Yes. What was Henry's exact involvement in looking into this case then? Was he like a sort of really, really involved with it? Or was he kind of a, a tertiary character?

Dan (19:59):

So, Henry Lerock comes to India, I think, in 1924 to join the, the Indian police scoring as so many did a, an over a challenging overseas job that could, you know, provide them both just simply getting employment in the, in the post World War I era, when, when there just were in a lot of jobs around, but also, you know, giving young men, and they were mostly young men, a chance at, at adventure and advancement, and a responsibility that might not have been available to them. You know, in, in the British Isles, he shows himself to be a, you know, extremely capable lawman. He, he takes part in a, this dramatic shootout north of Calcutta with these armed Bengali militants Wow. Who've raided a, a an armory and, you know, in, in a, you know, big blaze of glory kind, kind of, kind of raid.

Dan (20:48):

And at the time of, of, of, of this murder, he's the head of the Calcutta Port Police, which is a very important job. Calcutta is, is, you know, the top port in India. It's it's both a node for the illegal export of opium to China. Wow. And a node for the illegal import of, of guns and cocaine for, for Indian consumption. Cocaine was a thing around the world. And, and India at that time had, was estimated to have maybe half a million habitual users of, of no way of, of every, of every class. Yes. So in those old days, we won't call them the good old days since this is a family program, <laugh>, you know, cocaine emerges as, as this surgical anesthetic. But, but really quickly gets taken on as, as a, as a recreational drug used in Europe, used in in America, and, and, and, and used, used in India.

Dan (21:42):

There's one Indian figure, and I forget his name right now, but he's, he's sort of a, he's both a, a big social reformer and sort of the founder of, of, of the modern, of modern chemistry in India, as, as, as a discipline. And he describes in one of his memoirs, visiting a, a factory in Germany, I, I can't remember if it was a bear, if it was bear or someone else. And he just simply calculates that the amount of cocaine they're producing, you know, is is 10 times greater than the surgical, than the, than the Earth's surgical need for, for this anesthetic. Yeah. Yeah. They, they know they're producing for, for recreational users. And, and it was relatively plentiful going into, into the 19, well, it was relat, it was plentiful going into World War I when, when the trade stops coming out of Germany, and in the Asian market, these factories in Yokohama and Japan become, become the node for, for cocaine production in, in, in, in the East.

Dan (22:41):

So that's Henry's job. Henry Henry has the, the thankless job of, of, of cops and, and customs officers everywhere and trying to, to, to plug the leaks. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. There's, there's thefts of cargo, there's guns, there's drugs, and he is doing well at it. The, his port police's work is commended in the Bengal legislature. There are lots of, you know, they get lots of smugglers. They're, they're doing, they're doing quite well. He returns to his office one day to find that he has a new job. Not only is he the head of the port police, but he has now also been given temporary charge of the Calcutta detective department. And when he goes to L Bazaar, the red brick fortress, that is the Calcutta Police headquarters, an assistant commissioner comes and briefs him on this secret case that they've been running. And it's the investigation of a, of a young heir who's, who's died of, of plague poisoning Henry's role in the case.

Dan (23:38):

He, he has two key roles. One, there's, there's no suggestion that he's on the, you know, that he's got a spy glass in his hand or that, that he's personally running, running down the case. Yeah. He's, he, he's, he's, he's the top figure. He makes a critical call to start arresting the suspects before they have sufficient evidence by which to charge them. There. There's, there's a moment after the, after the boy has died, after the test results have shown that he died of plague, which is this very alarming result. And after the family has sort of has produced a, a statement to the police saying what they believe has happened, that a lawyer for the victim's family, by strange coincidence, finds himself on the same train as the killer, as the killer is traveling from Wow, Calcutta to Bombay. That's smart. And he thinks he's going back that the, the lawyer is going to Bombay to try to run down his activities when he was there the year before.

Dan (24:32):

And the killer himself is going back to bribe those witnesses into silence. And so the lawyer races off the train and sends this emergency cable to police headquarters and then jumps back on it. And then Henry and, and his colleagues have to decide, will they jeopardize the case by making an arrest now? Or do they more jeopardize the case by letting the man go on his way and not alerting him and others to, to the fact that, that they're, that they're hot on their trail and he makes the call and, and the man is yanked off, yanked off a train at a, at a quiet, you know, at a quiet station. And is, you know, Benny under Chandra Pani, the, the, the Raja of Paku a man. He's, he's big, he's tall, he's thick, he's handsome. People do what he says. He has this natural command, and sort of, for the first time ever in his life, he's suddenly under the, under the power of other men. He, he's, he, he's arrested and he, he's sort of led almost like a, like a dog or a goat to slaughter. He has a, he's wearing these handcuffs or shackles in front of his hand. And then a constable has, has a, has a leash attached Oh, whoa. To that. And, and, and, you know, the humiliation.

Perry (25:42):

Yeah, I was about to say it's pretty degrading.

Dan (25:43):

Yeah. From, from, from the, from, from being the man, you know, to the man born to, you know, a hereditary aristocrat, you know, with thousands of, of, you know, tillers, basically who, who see you as your, as their local king, you know, to, to being led down a railway platform by a barefoot constable on a leash. This, this, this is what becomes of him. And

Perry (26:04):

How did the, the locals react to this then? Because, you know, they're under the British empire and this freedom fighters and stuff, and, and, and tension. So how did the local people react to seeing their, their lord or their king taken into in, you know arrested?

Dan (26:24):

The strong local reaction was, and even to this day, remains that there, there's this, there's a strong belief that he was, that he was done wrong. That he was framed by his family members, or that he was truly a, he was actually a freedom fighter taken down by the British. Right. <laugh>. He, he was, he was a local guy. And you go, you, you take the local guy aside, like, I'm here because your local man Yeah. Led the investigation. Right. We're all naturally inclined to Henry. And thankfully in my research, like he turned out to be like a real, real paragon of, of, of decency. You, you see in Henry Lerock, what the empire would've seen in, in itself, which is like, you see all the great and good aspects of, of, of a fair minded person who followed the law and believed in meritocracy.

Dan (27:14):

And Mm-Hmm. You know, he, he was truly, you know, I've, I've covered a lot of cops. I've covered cops in New York and Yeah. And in India, and in Egypt, and I've, you know, I've, I I know law enforcement, you know, he's not from the senior side of law enforcement. He, he was actually the real, the real thing. But here, so here we are, we're we're favorably inclined towards Henry back in Pocker. A large sector of the population was favorably inclined toward their man, even though it was him and his family, who for centuries, you know, generation upon generation and for centuries lived off the exploitation of, of, of, of these, of these local farmers. And, but when push came to shove that they, they took his side. Yeah.

Perry (27:54):

It's very interesting, isn't it? So, so they, they took a side then. So what trouble did the, the law enforcement have then were, was there like active violent resistance, or was there kind of like kind of propaganda going around? Like what was the, how did that kind of,

Dan (28:13):

There there was, there was certainly propaganda going around. So, so the story has this crazy coda. Okay, okay. Yeah. The crazy coda is this, he's convicted, he goes away to prison, and then he's released in an amnesty after independence. And he ends up within the space of a couple months holed up in his castle with a shotgun. And this, there's this crazy 28 day armed siege <laugh> the police, and then the, and then the army have to come to blast him out. And it's during this time that the peasantry, they rise up because they feel that their man is being targeted by the state. It's not the British anymore. This is the in, this is independent India. Yeah. It's only been independent for two months. And, and, and so the family bastion is the, is this castle like palace that's built to withstand an indigenous uprising, because one of his predecessors had almost lost her head during a, a, an 18 55, 56 uprising called the Sanal, who the sanal were the indigenous people of that, of that region.

Dan (29:19):

Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And they, you know, they went on this murderous tear across the region, you know, murdering landowners and money lenders who had, who, who were just violently oppressing and, and exploiting their people. And of course they were, they were put down horribly by, you know, by, by the east India company's army after that. But, so that's why this h this house is built to withstand a peasant uprising. But when the peasants rise up at that moment, it's, it's in defense of, of their Lord, basically. And, and hundreds of, of indigenous, and, and these small holding Muslim farmers, they march on the site to try to protect him from this police cordon. And, and, and they have to be, they have to be sort of swept off. And, you know, they, there's a, there's a colonial era law that is still used in India today called Section 1 4 4, which prevents public assembly. And they have to declare 1 44, you know, no more than two or three people can be on the street at any one time. Yeah. So just sort of get rid of this threat and, and just keep their lines of sight clear with, with their quarry. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's really mad. So

Mel (30:23):

Dramatic, a proper

Dan (30:23):

Siege. DA like, it's, it's a proper siege. 28 days. They can't get lines of sight. The, the castle is built with a mortar made from powdered, I believe powdered quartz, some kind of powdered stone and lime and, and millions of egg whites. It's, it's, it's, it, you know, it was built, it was built in the 19th century. And, and it, and I have these writings, these, these reports from the, the local police and the state police and the military talking about how there, there their shells, like tank shells are, are bouncing off it. They can't, wow. It's so hard. And, and it's cured so well that,

Mel (31:03):

That nothing is getting through that bad way,

Dan (31:05):

<Laugh> that nothing's getting, nothing's getting through. And, and, and he, several times they think that police snipers maybe have cut him down, and he mirror, he emerges again. And there's one, an inspector on the scene writes that his own troops were starting to ascribe superal powers to him that he was Right. You know, that, that, that he was, that he had magic on his side, that he could not be killed. And, and, and, and the pressure grows and grows on the government, the just the cost and the humiliation. This one man, this one man, why can't you take care of him? You see the memos coming down. I, meanwhile you see the, the telegrams going up to the governor saying, don't kill him. You don't kill him. You, you, you're, you're playing with fire. Don't kill him. And have

Mel (31:49):

You considered making this book into a film?

Dan (31:52):

I'm hoping it'll be made into a film. We'll, we'll, we'll see what happens. Because that would

Mel (31:55):

Be, I mean, the way that you are describing this, I'm like picturing it, it would be quite a dramatic, like, like in terms of cinema, it'd make a great film. Yes. Visually it'd look amazing.

Dan (32:06):

It's, it's, it is, it's got all the elements. It's, it's got, it's got Calcutta in the, in the jazz age.

Mel (32:13):

Yes.

Dan (32:13):

Beautiful. And, and, and the sort of the flowering of, of a, of a, of, of new entertainment Mm. And sort of new kinds of consumption that people are going for. It's a 24 hour city. It's lit. Mm. The, the, the movies are there, the cinema's there. Yeah. There's of course a huge theatrical, you know, huge theater scene. Theater is sort of integral to, you know, classic Bengali I identity. It's, it's, it's a real, it's a real hot and happening place. It's hot and happening as well, because you, there's a violent underground that's bumping off colonial officials, killing magistrates, you know, trying to assassinate top police officials. All, all these things are cooking, cooking at the same time. The nonviolent resistance is also hot and cooking, but there's a, there's a less known violent resistance that was also, that was also going on. It sounds, it just sounds like a really entertaining place to have, to have lived and to, to, to have been to, to, to me anyway.

Mel (33:08):

And it's really interesting how this story kind of does relate, you know, such an amazing ly there's lots going on in that area. And then we are linking it to a tiny little island in Jersey. Yeah. That it, well has its own little charm, but it's not quite as, as happening as a place like Calcutta. So when you came, just bringing it back to Henry's briefly, what was your research process like in terms of when you found this, this man, this jersey man that was out there investigating this case? Where did you start with your research? Did you come to Jersey?

Dan (33:41):

I, I did. First I I tracked down his, his son Philip, and I, I can't remember how <laugh>, I can't, I can't remember how I found Philip. It was so, it was so long ago. But I, I emailed him, and he, and he responded, you know, quite, quite favorably. And,

Mel (33:56):

And did he know about this story?

Dan (33:58):

He didn't know a thing about it. Really?

Mel (34:00):

Whoa. He had no idea.

Dan (34:01):

Father never mentioned it. What?

Perry (34:04):

Mad. They just didn't talk about stuff back in the day, did they?

Dan (34:07):

It is very old school. Right. They, they just lived and they moved on. They, they weren't, you know, here we, you know, here we'll reflect on, on our sandwich for a few, for several days, you know, <laugh>, that was a really great sandwich. You know? And I, yeah,

Mel (34:17):

You would've thought that this would be like a big story for their family. Yes. They'll be

Dan (34:20):

Telling everybody. Yeah. But

Perry (34:22):

Wonder, there's this whole kind of world War one and two kind of soldiery mindset of just,

Mel (34:27):

Just like very reserved, keeping themselves, themselves, the

Perry (34:30):

Family should hear about

Mel (34:31):

This thing. That's crazy. Didn't know anything. So your, your first stop was Philip. Yes. And then where did it go from there?

Dan (34:37):

So I, I came, I, I did some research here at the, at the Jersey library in, in, in, in the microfilm for a time after the war. And before partition, Henry wrote a column from India for, I believe the, the evening, the evening news. Don't hold me to that <laugh>. He, he, he wrote un, un under a pseudonym, a a column from, from from India. Oh, cool. That appeared in the, in, in the local newspapers here. He didn't, he didn't use his real name. Oh my. But it was his political commentary on, on the rapidly, and in some ways is, you know, quite disastrously, accelerating, move for, for independence and, and then partition. And so what, what people in Jersey got was a, was a local voice describing what was happening. OO over there in Wow. In, in India at a, at a time of rapid disintegration.

Mel (35:29):

That's really interesting. Yes. So obviously you were finding this information when you did your, when you were doing your research here. Yes,

Dan (35:34):

Yes, yes. I found, I found those here at, in, in, in the microfilm at the, at the Jersey library. And then there, there was more of him in, in the British library as as, as well. So I was able to look up some family geneal, not genealogical records, records of the family's travel to and from India his, his wife and, and, and children. And he had also typewritten some small memoirs of, of different episodes, including one on the, on the Packer murder case for a for possible inclusion in a, a history of the Indian Police, of the Colonial Indian Police. And these, these episodes were not included in the book, but, but there were microfilm versions of, of his hand type, you know, of his type written memoirs that I was able to access at, at the, the British Library.

Speaker 5 (36:25):

Research your family history at the Jersey Archive. Dive into our vast online catalog or visit in person. Our expert staff await to guide you on your journey. We are open Monday to Thursday, nine to one, then two till five, subscribe today.

Perry (36:43):

Your research, you said it was quite, it seems really well received in, in Britain and Jersey, and there was a lot of kind of help here, I assume. Well, how was your research received in India? Because you said that, you know, there was still tensions and it was still a touchy subject in India to a degree. Did you find it easy doing your research out in India, or was there a lot of kind of roadblocks?

Dan (37:06):

The, the, the only human roadblocks were that I, I, I wasn't able to access his, the, the killer's descendants. Right. The, the, there was an intermediary who at times came closer and at times came less close to, to getting me in to see a a grandchild of, of the killer. But in the end, they told me it's just not going to happen. They, they don't see it the way the factual record sees it, and, and, and they don't want to draw attention to it. Mm. That, that was the only human roadblock. Archival research is, is difficult in, in almost every case in finding records from the 1930s in, in India, Indian institutions have not always been successful in the proper conservation of, of, of records. Families everywhere tend to misplace, you know, grandmother's things or, or, you know, or, or a great grandfather's papers that they, they just, they just drift away.

Dan (38:05):

And this was true in, in the case of, of English characters. Also, I, I, I was trying to track down, Lionel Colson was the police commissioner of Calcutta at the time, and I used probate records to find his, his grandchildren, and to try to find his own personal papers. And, and I, I simply couldn't, I I, I couldn't find them. You know, eventually I found the, not, I, I didn't find one of, one of his descendants located and, and gave me colson's wife's unpublished memoir. Yeah. Right. And that, but that, that, that happened two years after I'd first made, made my first inquiry with that family. That's how difficult it was. You know, among people who, who, who, who had knighthoods right now in Calcutta, which has gone through really tremendous dislocation and violence in, in from the thirties into, into, into the partition era, you know, where it's always humid, where, you know, the housing isn't, isn't always, you know, to of, of the kind that we would expect here, yeah's very hard for, for families and institutions to, to maintain records. And and so that was, that was the difficulty was, was getting, getting, getting records or finding those personal, those personal writings that still survived. And, and, and that could be located by, by people who, who wanted to help me. Yeah.

Perry (39:28):

And that, well, that's really interesting that you, you managed to kind of find so much stuff <laugh>, you know, from something that happened so long ago in, in Britain and in India as well, because as you said, even even people over here just, they'll have something in the, in the loft for a hundred years, and then it just gets chucked away, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So

Mel (39:48):

All their family doesn't even know about it at all. Right?

Dan (39:50):

Right. It gets been, somehow you forget what's there. The house gets so and so dies, their nephew comes to handle, you know? Yeah. The, the estate, no one's, no one's looking in under all, all the cupboards. And then the build, they saw the place and the builder comes in and, and yeah.

Perry (40:05):

In the skip

Dan (40:05):

Out, everything out, everything goes. And yeah. So it was difficult, but that's, but I was able to get enough. Yeah.

Mel (40:11):

So what, what more is there to uncover from this story? Is there more to uncover?

Dan (40:18):

I mean, I really think I've, I've dug in hard nailed, but the, I'll tell you No, but I'll tell you what, what's, what's what's missing is the, my sources are 95% English sources. And I had a, I I left India after covid hit. We were, we were stuck there for a while, but, but eventually we, we, we left during Covid, and at the times when there was a window for me to return, COVID would, was flaring up again. So I, so I, I didn't return. Yeah. I haven't, I haven't been to India since, since 2020. So I hired a research assistant and I had him look for vernacular sources on, on this murder case, and he could not find 'em, he couldn't find newspaper clippings. There's something there, there's obviously something there. It was a, it was a huge case. Satyajit Ray, who's the, the, the Indian sort of cinematic maestro, the great, great film director in his memoirs, he talks about the case and how all the newspapers were covering it and pamphlets were being made, and people were following it day to day.

Dan (41:17):

But we were not able to find any of that record. And I cannot believe that, that all of its turns to compost. Yeah. It has to be somewhere. And it's just beyond my own, my own skills to find it. But I, it would be interesting to hear more of a true, a true Indian, a true Bengali response to this in, in a, in, in publications and writings that were meant for a Bengali or an Indian audience, the, the, the English language newspapers of that day, they catered to, to foreigners and to Indian elites who were, who were reading and operating Yeah, absolutely. In, in, in English. And that, and that's a, that's a small sliver of the population compared to the wider, the very vast literacy of Bengal and, and this very sort of flourishing atmosphere of publications. Yeah. You're missing a lot that, that, that were taking place there. But I, I, I don't, I didn't dip my toe into that. So there's another, there's another take on it and, and, and I hope someone else will catch it.

Perry (42:13):

And do, do you know if there's, if anyone's ever looked into this case and written about it before in India or in in Britain, or

Dan (42:19):

Sure. There, there was a there was a deputy commissioner of police in, in Calcutta, who maybe five, six years ago produced like an anthology of like, you know, great cases of the Calcutta police. Right. To me, the treatment of the case in, in that book isn't entirely satisfying. There was a, a former prosecutor who wrote a book on the case in the nineties in, in Bengali, but th th there were, there were two treatments of it. There was a film based on the case, a, a very loosely based on the case that appeared in, in the 1970s called Raj cia. It's a very interesting enough time had passed to make, to make the killer more of a noble character. Right. Yeah. I heard rumors that the family may have had to send letters to the filmmakers warning them against making it too, too congruent with the actual case.

Dan (43:14):

Right. But, but, but I didn't see that letter. It's, it is just something, it was something that was in the lure that I heard, that those are the main treatments, I'd say, I'd say every year and a half. There's, there's a, someone will write about it in some newspaper, usually based on the high court, on, on one of the high court decisions, which is easily available online. And that's the, that's the main source for people writing about the case today, the trial record, there are two, apparently two full records, two full copies of the trial record. One belongs to one of the high court judges, and his family donated it to the British Library. The other was in the Calcutta High court. And I've been told that that's, that that was removed from the court by an official and never returned. And so through someone's either negligence or someone's avarice, generations of Indian researchers have been, were denied that resource, you know, while I, who fly through London at least once a year, was able to have access to it. Yeah. And, and, and, and to basically was able to pe you know, piecemeal over the course of years, photograph the entire record in, in these stolen hours while transit, while transiting through, through London. So the, the reason I'm doing this book, and that no one else has done it is, is not because I'm some great go-getter. It's because someone, someone pinched the record in India and basically robbed, you know, robbed historians and researchers there of this very, very, very rich and interesting story. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>.

Perry (44:40):

So so obviously you, you worked as a, as a crime journalist, you know, today, you know, in, in the kind of more modern period have you seen many parallels? Does this kind of look like a case that you may have looked at in America or something? Or is it a completely kind of alien? The

Dan (44:59):

US has these occasional germ scares. Mm-Hmm. And then you had, you know, there was this crazy, these these crazy two months after, after the September 11 tax attacks in New York where you had, you know, this disastrous attack. And then I think like five or six weeks later, maybe I, I might be, I might have the timing wrong, suddenly these anthrax letters were mailed Yeah. Across the country and, and is still unsolved, unsolved case where I, I believe there were fatalities re from, from, from these, from these antax letters. Don't hold me to the fatality, but Yeah. But letters laced with anthrax were sent to top officials. One went to the governor to the, to New York's governor's to the, to the governor of New York's Manhattan office. And I was in the, that office the day that letter was received. Really? You know, it, it's just, wow.

Dan (45:52):

Whoa. You, you know, it, it, it was just a crazy time. And these pathogens, some of them can be produced relatively easily by people with, with knowhow and that, and that's, that's true today as it was a hundred years ago, that, that, that, that's, that's what I would say. I haven't myself covered any, any germ murders besides this one. Yeah. But, but it happens. And, and you have, you have scares of, of, of missing pathogens, including almost 20, 20 years ago, or maybe 18 years ago, you had a case in Texas where a researcher, I think he first claimed that he had accidentally destroyed several plague samples at his university in Texas, and then recanted and said that they were missing. And then he was criminally charged for lying to the FBI. But the actual disposition of the missing plague was sort of never discovered.

Dan (46:45):

And then in the investigation it emerged that he had sort of, he had carried samples from Tanzania to Texas in his hand luggage, you know, violating Oh, my, all sorts of rules for, for, for the handling of, of, of these sorts of substances. So I, I, I don't think that's only taking place in, in that one place, in that, in that one time, I think, yeah. When, when people get a use, get, get accustomed to handling different materials or handling different tools, they, they, they grow lax. Right. You know? Yeah. You can be trained in safety, you know, when you, when you take on a job, but eventually with, with without proper su supervision, tho those standards will, won't, won't hold.

Perry (47:19):

So, so what's next on the cards for you, Dan? Now you've finished this project, or, and you, you, you're currently going around advertising, is that the right word? Promoting your book? Promoting,

Dan (47:29):

I'm sorry, I'm, I'm, I'm Hawking a book. Yes. <laugh>. So I've been in I've been in the uk I've done I've done readings at a, at a gallery and at a a bookshop, a nice floating bookshop called Word on the Water. It's, it's Oh,

Mel (47:42):

Sounds lovely.

Dan (47:43):

It's a canal boat on, on the region's canal. Oh. And I spoke, I spoke, had a private talk with some at a law firm with some partners at a law firm on what's today is today Friday.

Mel (47:55):

Today is Friday the 2nd of August.

Dan (47:57):

So Saturday, tomorrow I'm reading at the Chelsea Library. And, and then Sunday I, I go home where I'm a, I'm a newspaper editor in Washington, DC and I, I return back to the, to the hot, you know, American presidential campaign.

Mel (48:10):

So I have here that we've done a little bit of research. So you've obviously traveled really widely, and I have here that you've taken tea with the Taliban sponsors.

Dan (48:19):

Yes, yes. With Hamid Goul, the the, the Pakistani former Pakistani spy master who helped, who helped get the Taliban going.

Mel (48:29):

What's that like? What was that like?

Dan (48:31):

He was very polite. He was, he was, he was fun to be around. Yeah. Yeah, he was.

Mel (48:36):

Okay. What was the tea like?

Dan (48:38):

I don't remember the tea <laugh>. Oh God.

Perry (48:39):

What was in it? I,

Dan (48:40):

I remember himself. Yeah.

Mel (48:42):

But you've eaten Stragan Stroganoff with the Maharajas

Dan (48:45):

<Laugh>, so you're reading off, so that was a humorous Yes. He, there were, there were many Maharajas in, in India and this was the I can't remember the name of, of his former prince, of his princely state. But he, like, like many former Rajas, he became a hotelier. He, he, he, his, these guys lost their lands to land reform. Yeah. after, after, after a dependence, you know, he was, you know, he was nostalgic for the empire because under the empire, his family had a lot of wealth and, and power. And, and at the time that I met him in, you know, 2003, you know, they were great. Greatly reduced. And, you know, he'd gone to Oxford and, and his son was studying hotel management, you know, in, in the north of England. And, and you know, he Yeah. Yeah. He kind of pine for the good old days.

Mel (49:35):

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. It's really interesting to hear how, how these things, how these situations come about when you're moving around and, you know, you are, you are like learning about different people and cultures and storylines. It's just really interesting to see how, like, how we get ourselves into these kind of like, cool situations.

Dan (49:52):

It, it is cool that there's, there's a lot of you know, there's a lot of risk of getting it wrong. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. You know, particularly when you're, when you're flitting about, when you're not really rooted in one place for, for a very long time. Like I've, I've spent a lot of time in South Asia, but still, you know, these are complex societies and, and the, the, the peril of of getting it wrong is, is, is ever, ever present. Yeah. Absolutely.

Mel (50:14):

Yeah.

Perry (50:16):

Brilliant. Okay, well, thank you so much, Dan. It's been really interesting. Yeah. It's, I can't wait. Brilliant to read the book myself. Yeah. And, and I look forward to seeing what you come out next. Thank you. Thank you all for having me. I'll watch out. I really appreciate it. If you enjoy today's episode, don't forget to click on the subscribe button for more.