THE death of an 85-year-old woman yesterday severed the final link to the most notorious divorce scandal of the century.

Jane Beadon, the last surviving figure from the scandalous Argyll divorce case, died at her home near Maidenhead, in Berkshire. Mrs Beadon, who had been confined to a wheelchair for several years by multiple sclerosis, was found by a maid yesterday morning.

The acrimonious divorce of the 11th Duke of Argyll from his wife, Margaret, in 1963 became notorious for the mystery of the Headless Man photograph, a star exhibit in the case brought by the duke.

The picture showed the duchess in the bathroom of her Mayfair mansion, wearing only a string of pearls, taking part in a sex act with a naked man, whose head had been cut off by the camera.

Mrs Beadon - then called Jane Whigham - was the duchess's stepmother but chose to give evidence for the duke when he began divorce proceedings against his wife on the grounds of multiple adultery.

There was a further twist when the duchess counter-petitioned for divorce, citing her stepmother - who was a year younger than her - for adultery with the duke.

The case was dropped on the day of the hearing in Edinburgh when the duchess said that a vital witness had not turned up. The duchess later had to pay #25,000 to her stepmother, who sued for libel, slander and conspiracy to suborn perjury.

The identity of the man has never been confirmed, but possible contenders included Douglas Fairbanks Jr and Winston Churchill's son-in-law, Duncan Sandys.

Mrs Beadon was born in Aberdeen in 1913. The duchess's father, the self-made multi-

millionaire George Hay Whigham, was Mrs Beadon's second husband. They married in 1956 when she was in her 40s and he was in his late 70s.

The couple were legally separated by the time he died in 1960. She was excluded from his will, but successfully contested it and won a right for life to one-third of the income from his estate in the Bahamas.

In 1965, she married her third husband, Second World War RAF hero Wing Commander Clive Beadon. He died in 1996 and she is survived by a daughter from her first marriage.

Mrs Beadon had hinted in the past that she intended to write an account of the scandal. In 1994, the then 80-year-old stepmother of the duchess said: ''I am hoping to do a book because there is a lot that has not been told. There are quite a lot of things that have not come out in public already, things that would be very interesting.''

However, she would not be drawn on whether she would finally reveal the identity of the man in the 1963 photos.

Mrs Beadon's death was confirmed by her younger brother, Mr Peter Corby, who said she had been in poor health for some time. ''She had a very interesting life one way and another,'' he added.

Her stepdaughter, Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, died in a nursing home in 1993, aged 80, after a life lived in the limelight.

She started life as Ethel Margaret Whigham, the daughter of a Glasgow man who made a multi-million pound textile fortune. In 1931, Margaret became Debutante of the Year and inspired Cole Porter's song, You're the Tops.

She married the Duke of Argyll in 1951 after her first marriage to the American amateur golfer, Charles Sweeney, ended in 1947. The duke began the divorce action which captured the imagination of the nation in 1959 and it was granted in 1963, when Lord Wheatley called the duchess ''a completely promiscuous woman''.

It was one of the most scandalous stories of the swinging sixties, but was eclipsed in the same year by the Profumo scandal and the assassination of President John Kennedy.

In a far cry from her glamorous early years, the duchess ended up living in a two-roomed service flat, relying on charity.