Chapter 26: Two Funerals

WE attended two funeral services together, Mary and I, one low key in terms of attendance but deeply emotional, on one morning and followed that by another higher profile one the following afternoon, that was more for public show than anything else. Mary insisted I attend by her side for both funerals. How could I deny her my full support at them both?

To be honest, I wanted to spend every moment of our shrinking allotment of time we had together.

Mary wore the same black outfit for both funerals, wearing a dark veil so she was only recognised by the press at the second public funeral, while I also wore the same dark suit delivered to me by Mr Sims for both funerals.

I had wondered a couple of days earlier why I was sent the suit.

The morning funeral was a small private church ceremony for family and friends. The funeral was for Sarah Turner, the granddaughter of Mr Sims, a 12-year-old fan of Mary’s, who died of leukaemia only last Monday. This was the real reason for Mary’s hot-footed visit from the States to our war-torn islands, quite secondary to the disappearance of her husband.

It was only in the grief of her death that Mr Sims was prepared to do anything for Mary in his granddaughter’s memory. I had not realised the family connection until I saw him at the funeral, because Sarah was the daughter of Mr Sims’ daughter, Margery, married to Captain Simon Turner, a tank commander away serving in North Africa.

I looked the Sims family up in newspaper archive of my local library but Mary gave me most of the information. Little Sarah was always sickly and often bedridden, but was always an avid film fan. As most of Marcia la Mare’s films were certified U for family viewing, Sarah saw all those films over and over again and developed an obsession with the beautiful and talented actress.

Sarah first wrote to Mary when she was only 6 and Mary was so charmed by her letter that she personally replied, setting up a pattern of writing to the child every few weeks, while Sarah wrote something almost every day into her weekly posted letters while frequently sickly in hospital at increasingly more regular periods. Mary was taken by her story and replied as often as she could, at least once a month. The London office of Gold Studios, under Jenny Mac, sent Sarah all the public photos of Mary they ever received.

Over the six years Mary knew her, she often sent her private snaps, of the Montana ranch, her parents, her sisters and of Mary on location. Sarah had stuck these in various photo albums that were on display at the family home for the few invited mourners to view.

These included photos taken of Sarah and Mary together at the Eastbourne seaside in the summers of 1936 and 1939 when Mary made day trips from France, where she was promoting her films, in order to visit Sarah. And the last few photos were taken in the children’s hospice at Chichester on Mary’s first day in England in 1941, the day before poor Sarah died in her heroine’s arms.

The Turner-Sims family welcomed us as honoured guests, Mary as a virtual adopted Aunt to Sarah for half her short life and me for being Mary’s protector and only other friend in England. Mary spoke with deep emotion and some humour about her long relationship with her greatest fan and severest critic, their letters and few meetings full of excitement, humour and fun. Sarah had worked herself completely into Mary’s heart and Mary would never ever forget her.

The funeral and the period of reflection after was sad but uplifting, in celebration of a girl and family who had always known that she would never grow up but had packed so much into her life.

Bradford Gold’s funeral was held in a synagogue in East London, a simple ceremony, where men and women were segregated, so I couldn’t sit with Mary, so I preferred to stand outside the temple, watching for her emergence to protect her from the Press’s attention. Gold wasn’t buried in London, the place of his birth, but was sealed in his coffin and would sail back to the United States, under guard of honour as a serving officer of the Federal Government, killed while on active duty as an intelligence officer.

Mary would fly back without him, as scheduled, the show had to go on, but would later meet him on his arrival in New York and fly with him across the North American continent to Burbank, where he would be interred in the family vault in a multi-denominational cemetery, the first of the Gold family to be buried there.

Mary gave a much shorter speech, about how her husband Bradford Gold was not only her hero, but was truly a hero to his country of birth in their greatest need and a hero in putting his life on the line working to keep the peace for his adopted country.

At both funeral services there was not a dry eye in the house.

That evening was our first chance to relax and catch up on events after two emotion-filled days burying the dead.

I stayed in Mary’s second bedroom in her hotel suite for the third night in a row, after Milly smuggled us in the back each time we returned. We sat together on her settee with me holding her hand to comfort her.

“Brad was murdered by mistake, you know,” she said quietly.

“I know, for the sins of his father,” I agreed. “All down to stolen gold and a twenty thousand pound plating and smuggling fee. And Gold knew about his family’s involvement with smuggling vast amounts of precious metals into America disguised as silver plate. Both McLean and Keppel mentioned that Gold was investigating the smuggling and was concerned about a threat to his family”

“Well, yes, I guess Brad was aware, Ed. But he wasn’t killed for his own sins or his family’s, but it was worse than that. I think the murder was of the order of an eye for an eye, a life for a life, and it really wasn’t like that at all.”

“We now know the facts,” I said, “under the truth drug Cummings told us everything he knew, how his extended family were long-time criminals, involved in burglary, extortion, protection and several bank robberies, usually using insider staff through blackmail, hence his easy infiltration into the police service. He was a cousin of Cavenagh and the families were all descended from Jimmy Cavenagh who managed to steal a cache of gold bullion bound for the Protectorate of Kuwait in 1899, which was supposed to foil Germany’s plans to build a railway all the way from Berlin, through the Ottoman Empire to the Persian Gulf.”

“You’ve been in your local library again,” Mary smiled.

I was pleased to see her smile; she looked terribly tired after her recent ordeals.

“No,” I grinned, “while you were getting your hair done yesterday I discovered they have a wonderful reference and lending library here in the hotel. Milly showed me.”

“So, tell me what you found out.”

“Germany had wanted to build the railway ever since 1892. Now, Britain wasn’t that unhappy at first, but Russia and France immediately objected, as the railway threatened trade through French influences in Suez and Russia’s planned railway from Moscow through Persia. Germany were originally going to use British and French banks to finance it, but in the end they sold sufficient bonds on the Berlin and the Baghdad stock exchanges to finance the scheme. However, The Sultan of Kuwait, the main port on the Persian Gulf, saw this political rivalry as an opportunity of establishing his tiny state’s independence from the Ottoman Empire by appealing to Britain for Protectorate status within the British Empire, with a promise to the UK Government never to sell land for a railroad terminus in the only place possible.”