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A Death in Peking: Who Really Killed Pamela Werner

The French ice rink.

8/5/2018

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Picture
French Club entrance
Left: The much-changed site of the former entrance to the French Club in Peking's Legation Quarter. As detailed in A Death in Peking, press reports of the time describe a temporary ice rink at the location, one covered by a matshed (a large wood and canvas structure). Pamela was last seen alive leaving this location at about 7.30 pm on January 7th, 1937. 
The bicycle appearing in the photograph is purely a coincidence.
Right: Opposite the above is the entrance to the former French Barracks (now a trade union building).

The stone entrance may be the original.

The ice rink was arranged for the benefit of the French soldiers. The guard commander, however, permitted its use by the public.  Two hundred people used it on the evening Pamela was murdered. 
Picture
entrance to the French barracks
Picture
The area as shown in the most detailed map of the period (Guide to Peking, 1935). It clearly shows the barrack gate with the club opposite. From the club, Pamela's cycle route home would have taken her south into Legation Street, before heading east, out of the Legation Quarter and toward the wall road, where her body was later found. 
 
​Right: a matshed-covered temporary ice rink in Peking. The French Club rink was probably similar. 
​North China's winters could be relied upon to provide sub-zero temperatures. Ice skating was popular pastime, and Pamela appears to have skated regularly.
Picture
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    Graeme Sheppard

    Author of the new book, A Death in Peking, published by Earnshaw Books.

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