One of Britain’s richest men was being questioned last night about the mysterious death of his wife.

Hours after Hans Kristian Rausing was arrested on suspicion of possessing drugs, his wife Eva’s body was found in a bedroom at their £70million London home.

Eva Rausing’s father Tom Kemeny is a former Pepsi executive who owns an island off South Carolina and a property in Barbados with his wife Nancy. The couple also have a £10million property near their late daughter’s home in Cadogan Place.

Those outside their gilded circle will be reminded yet again that money and happiness are often strangers.

The Tetra Pak drinks carton is a wonder of neatness and efficiency. The recent history of the Rausing family, whose fabulous wealth came from its invention, is anything but that.

Bitter divorces have blighted the family tree of Dr Hans Rausing, the austere Swedish patriarch who 30 years ago became a tax exile in the UK. Before the arrival of the oligarchs from the former Soviet Union, he was said to be our richest resident.

But it was the savage, decades-long and mutually supportive drug addictions of his feckless only son and beautiful American daughter-in-law which eventually split the clan apart.

The problem became public only in 2008 when Eva was arrested after trying to smuggle Class A drugs into a function at the US Embassy.