Heirloom onsignment o e ee one o the lar e t rn t re con n ent tore n o thern Ma ne year e er ence n ho e rn h n cean treet o th Portland Me ours e at n • • beeswax candles! Bike Rentals We offer bike rentals and free biking and walking maps in the heart of Portland’s historic Old Port with easy access to the Eastern Promenade Trail www.portlandmainebikerental.com 6 Commercial St. • Portland 866.857.9544 Open daily from 8 to 6 On the waterfront between Casco Bay Lines and the Ocean Gateway intrigue 256 P r t L a n d montHL maga ine with fellow captain James Otto Barker. The murder scene was rife with evi- dence. The walls showed bloody hand- prints, as did a lacquered Chinese screen. Muddy boot tracks led up the stairs into the bedroom and back down again. The de- tectives, however, made no immediate at- tempt to examine the evidence or to pro- tect the crime scene from disturbance as people came and went freely, touching ob- jects within the room. Nor did the officers initially try to collect fingerprints, claiming the weather was too humid. Nonetheless, within days, they honed in on a suspect: Sir Harry’s son-in-law, Count Alfred de Marigny. [If you’re casting this thriller in your head, it might help to know de Marigny was played by Armand Assante in Passion and Paradise.] P intedfingerS&famiLyfeudS ount Alfred de Marigny was not a popular figure in Nassau. Ar- rogant and self-important, he’d managed to alienate both the locals and the privileged whites, who considered him–not without justification–a gigolo and a social climber. His detractors included the Duke of Windsor himself. But perhaps the man who most disliked de Marigny was Sir Har- ry Oakes. At 32, the penniless, twice-di- vorced count had eloped with Sir Harry’s 18-year-old daughter, Nancy. Although Sir Harry tried initially to accept the situation, he rapidly come to abhor his son-in-law af- ter Nancy had an abortion. When questioned by the two detectives, de Marigny offered a sound alibi for the night Sir Harry was killed, accounting for all but half an hour of his time. On scant evidence, and in apparent haste, de Mari- gny was booked, indicted, and imprisoned, spending the next four months in Nas- sau’s dour stone jail while the world specu- lated about his guilt. When de Marigny re- quested the best attorney in the Bahamas, he learned to his dismay that he’d been pre- empted in his selection by the prosecution, so he employed two young barristers to rep- resent him during the 25-day trial that held the Western world spellbound. Looking poised, elegant, and mature beyond her years, Nancy appeared in court every day to testify and to support her husband. Firmly convinced of his in- Murder in Paradise (continued from page 175)