[Oscar Wilde 07] - Jack the Ripper: Case Closed

by Gyles Brandreth

  Oscar smiled and paused to let the room settle once again.

  ‘A poet,’ he continued, ‘is a nightingale who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.’

  ‘Shelley?’ I muttered quietly.

  ‘Bravo!’ said Oscar, smiling. ‘But tonight this poet is in company and hoping to throw light onto darkness with his song. After we’ve eaten, I have a story to tell, a mystery to unravel . . . ’

  ‘We all love a mystery,’ murmured George R. Sims.

  ‘We all love a soufflé,’ muttered Henry Labouchere.

  ‘But first I have a toast to propose to our guest of honour – Ivan Salazkin – Ivan the Terrible!’ We banged the table in assent.

  ‘Ivan has been bringing his Russian Circus to London for several years now. This much you know. And you know, too, I hope, that his is a circus without equal. You’ve been. You’ve taken your children, as I have mine. What Sarah Bernhardt is to beauty, what Irving is to Shakespeare, Salazkin is to circus! Whatever our American friend P. T. Barnum may claim, Ivan Salazkin’s Russian Circus is the Greatest Show on Earth.’

  Oscar paused to allow a moment of applause.

  I heard Willie Wilde mutter to Richard Mansfield: ‘Do you think Oscar’s on some sort of commission?’ Oscar heard him too and smiled. Willie went on, more loudly: ‘And I thought his reference to Irving in your presence, Mansfield, quite uncalled for.’

  ‘The true artist,’ Oscar continued, unabashed, ‘is a man who believes absolutely in himself, because he is absolutely himself. Watch Ivan Salazkin in command of everything that occurs in the three rings of his circus and you will see a true artist at the height of his powers.’

  ‘Well said, Oscar,’ rumbled George R. Sims, lifting his glass in readiness for the toast.

  ‘But what I want to share with you tonight is something even my friend George R. Sims may not know . . . ’

  ‘Surely not!’

  ‘I did not know it myself until this past week. Ivan Salazkin is a friend to our country – a true friend.’

  ‘Hear, hear!’ growled Henry Labouchere, banging the table with the flat of his hand.

  ‘Labby leads the cheers,’ said Oscar, ‘because he is a member of parliament – and a senior one: he has the ear of the Foreign Office – and Labby knows more of this than any of us – and I have his permission to share what I now know with all of you. In this uncertain world, gentlemen, where the whiff of revolution is in the air and the possibility of terror lurks in the least expected places, the government needs intelligence – information. And Ivan Salazkin is one of those who provide it. For several years now he has brought news from Russia, Germany, France to the United Kingdom. He has shared what he knows with our government and tonight we can salute him for his contribution to our national safety. Though his English is quite perfect, he is Russian, not British. He cannot receive any honour from the Sovereign, but he can receive thanks from some of her subjects. Can we raise our glasses, please, to our friend and guest of honour, Ivan Salazkin?’

  With a cheer, we rose and held out our glasses towards the Russian ringmaster who half-stood and bowed his acknowledgement.

  ‘Well spoken, Wilde,’ said Labouchere. ‘You understand the niceties.’ As he resumed his seat, he put his hand on Salazkin’s shoulder. ‘You see, Ivan. You are appreciated by your peers.’

  ‘The soufflé is served,’ cried Oscar, looking to the door as Martin and a second waiter trooped in to the room bearing trays. Their arrival prompted even louder cheers than Oscar’s eloquent toast had done.

  ‘I’m confused,’ grumbled Willie Wilde, leaning across the table. ‘Is the man a spy?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Constance in a whisper. ‘According to Oscar, Mr Salazkin is what the Foreign Office call “a friendly informer”. He collects nuggets of political gossip in the various capitals in which the circus performs and then shares them with Labby when he gets to London.’

  ‘In return for what?’ asked Willie.

  ‘Ease of passage, a laissez-passer for his animals, no awkward questions asked at customs, no local taxes exacted while he’s here, access to those in high places,’ I suggested, hazarding the answer.

  ‘Precisely,’ said Constance. ‘I don’t think he gets paid.’

  ‘How do we know he isn’t telling our secrets to the Germans and the Russians and the rest?’

  Constance, giggling, leaned forward conspiratorially and lowered her voice still further. ‘Oh, Oscar’s quite sure he is!’

  ‘And tonight is about keeping him sweet, is it?’ muttered Willie. ‘Making him feel more valued in this country than he might do in others?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, barely audibly, ‘and encouraging Mr Sims to write about him as a friend, without giving anything away that isn’t in the national interest.’

  ‘How do you know all this, Constance?’ I asked.

  ‘Oscar explained it all last night – when he came round with his new friend, Major Ridout.’

  ‘The man who’s been following him?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, Major Ridout works for the War Office. He’s been keeping an eye on Oscar for months now, it seems – ever since Oscar joined the Club Autonomie. They wanted to be sure Oscar wasn’t truly an anarchist.’

  ‘Now I’ve heard everything!’ spluttered Willie. ‘Oscar Wilde, aesthete and anarchist, dilettante and terrorist – under surveillance from the War Office. I must drink to that.’ He looked down the table. Mansfield was engaged with the two doctors. Sims and Shand were hugger-mugger. Oscar was holding court at his end of the table, clearly mid-anecdote. Willie caught Martin’s eye: ‘Waiter, more wine, if you please. I must drink to the Tite Street revolutionary.’

  ‘Hush, Willie,’ said Constance firmly. ‘Isn’t the soufflé delicious?’

  36

  Revelations

  The soufflé was outstanding. The lamb cutlets that followed exactly right. And to round off the meal, there was a choice: a hot Chester pudding or fresh fruit salad. ‘Can’t I have both?’ demanded Willie.

  ‘Of course, sir,’ said Martin. ‘They go together nicely.’

  ‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ said Willie, mopping his full lips with his napkin before taking another gulp of wine.

  The combination of Martin, the wine, the food and Constance had succeeded in keeping Willie in check all night. By turns, he was combative and waspish, overbearing and bombastic, but he was amusing, too, and on those topics that interested him – Irish history, the London theatre, the breeding of wolfhounds – he talked with passion and perception. He was evidently obsessed with his younger brother and torn between scorning him and hankering after his respect and approbation. Constance handled him faultlessly, with the firmness of a loving mother and the sweetness of an understanding wife. Each time he appeared to be about to embarrass himself by addressing the table at large, she managed, with an extraordinary lightness of touch, to nip his outburst in the bud.

  As pudding was cleared away, I looked around the candlelit table and the array of contented well-fed faces glowing in the dark and I marvelled at the scene. George R. Sims, seated on my right, read my mind. ‘I hear from Macnaghten that another unknown girl was cut to death today and two old men were burned alive, yet here we are enjoying a thoroughly civilised evening. A splendid spread, congenial company. Odd, isn’t it? Only in London . . . ’

  As Sims spoke, Oscar was on his feet once more. Gently he struck the side of a wine glass with the edge of a knife to command our attention. ‘I think we can agree that the chef and his team and Martin and his colleagues have done us proud tonight . . . ’ There was a mellow murmur of assent. ‘And now, the iron tongue of midnight having told twelve—’

  ‘About twenty minutes ago!’ interjected Richard Mansfield.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Oscar. ‘It is now time for—’

  ‘The Revelations!’ cried George R. Sims.

  ‘Exactly, George. The Revelations. There’s cheese and port to keep us going �
�� and, gentlemen, you may now smoke.’

  Constance discreetly rose in her place and made to leave the table. ‘Where are you going, my dear?’ called Oscar. ‘There’s no need to leave – or, if you must for a moment, be sure to return.’

  ‘Shall we have a moment’s break, Wilde?’ suggested Macnaghten. ‘I could use a breath of fresh air.’

  ‘Very good. No more than five minutes, gentlemen.’ He considered his timepiece. ‘If we resume as the clock strikes the half-hour, as I am an honest Puck I promise to release you all by one o’clock.’

  For a moment the small dining room took on the semblance of a provincial assembly room as the last dance was being called: figures rose (some steadily, some less so) and moved from here to there, weaving their way around the room, smiling, bowing, bobbing, exchanging banter, asking after brandy, lighting cigars.

  I accompanied Constance across the vestibule and up the small flight of stairs towards the ladies’ powder room. ‘Do you know what Oscar has in store for us?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t,’ she said lightly, ‘but I reminded him that all these dead girls were real people once, not characters in one of his short stories, let alone a fairy tale.’

  ‘Of course, he is a playwright. He can’t resist a touch of theatre.’

  And so it proved. When we returned to the dining room, we found that Oscar had moved himself to the other end of the table. He now faced the room. And he had extinguished some of the table candles so that where he stood was bathed in light and his audience was seated in darkness.

  ‘Sit where you please, gentlemen. And, Constance, you come sit by me.’

  I escorted Mrs Wilde to her place and resumed my own. The rest of the party gradually returned to their seats. Willie was flushed and shambling as he collapsed into his chair. He had the look of the fallen giant in the last act of Jack the Giant Killer. By contrast, Mansfield and Salazkin, still in costume, were the last to return and appeared as spruce now as they had done on their arrival.

  Oscar looked at me and smiled. ‘Arthur, would you kindly lock the door?’

  ‘You like a captive audience, do you, Oscar?’ said Mansfield, taking his place with a chuckle.

  ‘We don’t want to be disturbed,’ said Oscar smoothly.

  When we were all seated and still, Oscar, having removed the shade from a candlestick, held it up to his face to light his cigarette. His pale cheeks shone, his tearful eyes sparkled, his full lips trembled.

  ‘The Book of Life,’ he said, ‘begins with a man and a woman in a garden. It ends with Revelations.’

  Suddenly, I thought of Olga. I felt her hand pressing mine. I looked up. It was Constance. She smiled at me reassuringly and whispered, ‘Remember, Oscar’s the cleverest man in England.’

  I returned her smile: ‘I know.’

  ‘You are here this evening, my friends,’ continued Oscar, ‘because you are my friends – and because each of you, in a different way, has a connection with the tragedy of what Chief Constable Macnaghten of the Metropolitan Police calls “the Whitechapel murders” and the rest of us think of as the hideous case of Jack the Ripper.’ He paused and drew slowly on his cigarette.

  ‘You were quite a loss to the stage, Oscar,’ murmured Richard Mansfield.

  Oscar acknowledged the compliment with the hint of a smile. ‘Our drama opens not in Whitechapel, but in Chelsea. We begin with a man and a woman, not in the Garden of Eden, but in Paradise Walk. Who are they, this couple? Not Adam and Eve, surely? No. They are better dressed, for a start. They are an English baronet and his good lady: Sir Freddie and Lady Bunbury. They have been married for nigh on fifty years – since before the Battle of Balaclava. Now he is old and tired. She is older still and at her wits’ end. It is two weeks’ ago exactly, and Sir Freddie brings his frail and failing wife down from Yorkshire to spend New Year’s Eve at the home of the one friend he knows he can trust – an old courtier by the name of Festing Fitzmaurice. There, Freddie Bunbury kills his wife. It is a mercy killing, for he loves her dearly.’

  ‘It’s murder nonetheless,’ grunted Willie.

  ‘Quite so. And how does he do it? How does Sir Freddie dispatch Lady Bunbury? Very simply, I suggest. After supper, when she is lying sleeping on Fitzmaurice’s bed, he smothers her to death – with a handkerchief suffused with her own lavender-scented perfume.

  ‘Sir Freddie Bunbury is an old soldier, an old courtier and an old gentleman. He has killed his wife to put an end to the misery of her existence – and to serve another purpose, too. He may have regarded it as an even greater good. Having killed his lady, the knight undresses her – removes every vestige of her clothing and every ring and ornament from about her person. Then he dresses her afresh with a serving woman’s clothes and bonnet that his friend Festing Fitzmaurice keeps in his curious collection of women’s apparel.’

  ‘Can this be true?’ muttered George R. Sims.

  ‘I fear so,’ I whispered.

  ‘The hours pass until, at around three in the morning, a little earlier perhaps – there was no moon that night – the old soldier dons an apron and lifts the slight body of the old lady and carries it over his shoulder down the stairs, out into the yard and along the street for thirty paces. There he turns into the alleyway – Shelley Alley it’s called – and, resting himself against the knife-grinder’s cart that happens to be there, he heaves his burden – his dead’s wife body – up against the wall. And now he does the dreadful deed – the deed that will lead us ultimately to the identity of Jack the Ripper.’

  Oscar paused to draw once more on his cigarette. I looked back at the table. In the near-darkness cigar smoke hovered above the dining table. No one stirred.

  ‘Well?’ said Richard Mansfield eventually. ‘You can only hold a pause so long, old man.’

  Oscar closed his eyes as he continued. ‘From out of his pocket, the old knight takes a small butcher’s knife and from within his tortured soul somehow he finds the strength to do what he has to do. He thrusts his knee into his poor wife’s belly and holds her heavy head hard against the brick wall. The palm of his left hand pushes up against her mouth and nostrils and he presses his fingers into the sockets of her eyes. In his right hand he holds his knife and, with the force of a hammer blow, he jabs it into the right-side of her neck, just below her jaw. He pulls out the knife and strikes again, this time tearing a line across her neck, from one side to the other, slitting her throat from ear to ear, plunging in the knife so deep that the tip of the blade reaches as far as her vertebrae.’

  ‘No, Oscar, no,’ murmured Constance, beneath her breath.

  ‘Blood trickles from her and he steps back to let her body slide down the wall and slump to the ground. Bending down, he rolls the body over, tears open the poor woman’s coat and jacket and blouse, pulls up her skirt and petticoats, and stabs her repeatedly in the chest and stomach and groin. In all, he strikes her thirty-nine times.’

  George R. Sims cried out: ‘In God’s name, why?’

  Oscar opened his eyes. ‘To prove, once and for all, that Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, was not and never could have been Jack the Ripper.’

  ‘Is this possible?’

  ‘If the Ripper was still at work, the Ripper could not be Prince Eddy – for Prince Eddy died two years ago.’

  ‘How do you know all this, Oscar?’ Willie asked the question.

  ‘Some of this I surmise. Some of it I know. Chief Constable Macnaghten smelled the lavender-scented perfume first when he examined the poor woman’s corpse. Dr Conan Doyle and I smelled it again when we visited Fitzmaurice’s room last Monday. That was where we came across Fitzmaurice’s curious collection of female attire – much of it large enough to be worn by a man. Dr Doyle had observed that the clothes worn by the woman found in the alley were too large for her – and were a working woman’s clothes, while the body of the victim, her complexion and her hands, suggested she was an older lady of some refinement.’

  ‘How could a man do such
a thing to his wife?’ asked Henry Labouchere.

  ‘To his wife’s body, Labby – to a lifeless corpse. Sir Freddie loved his wife, I am certain of that. He loved Prince Eddy, too, and cherished the prince’s memory – and used his wife’s cadaver as an instrument, a tool, a means to draw a line under the unfounded slurs against the prince he loved and so rescue the prince’s honour for eternity.’

  ‘Extraordinary,’ said Labouchere.

  ‘I believe Bunbury planned all this with care,’ continued Oscar. ‘He wanted Jack the Ripper to strike again in the run-up to Prince Eddy’s thirtieth birthday in anticipation of the lurid press speculation that the anniversary might reignite. He chose New Year’s Eve.’

  ‘But why did he choose Chelsea and not Whitechapel?’ asked George R. Sims.

  ‘There, I think, he had no choice. He was an old man: he could struggle from his friend’s room in Paradise Walk to dump the body in a darkened alley close by, but he couldn’t get a carriage to take it from Chelsea to Whitechapel – at least, not undetected. That is why, I am sure, he felt the need to replicate so carefully, so precisely, the exact murder of Martha Tabram. He wanted there to be no misunderstanding. This was to be the handiwork of Jack the Ripper – a living monster, not a dead prince. Bunbury had read the horrific details of the killing of Martha Tabram in August 1888. We all had. The newspapers had been full of them. Every savage stroke had been detailed in the coroner’s report. Bunbury knew them all by heart.’

  ‘Forgive me, Oscar,’ said Sims, ‘but some of us in the press later concluded that Martha Tabram’s murder was not the work of the Ripper. I recall Macnaghten telling me that Jack the Ripper was responsible for just five killings – and Tabram’s wasn’t one of them.’ Sims turned towards the chief constable. ‘Isn’t that right, Melville?’

  ‘That’s what I thought once,’ replied the policeman quietly.

  ‘But Bunbury was not privy to Chief Constable Macnaghten’s thinking,’ said Oscar. ‘Nor, George, to yours. What he recalled was what he had read in the press – a poor woman in a dark alley, brutally cut to pieces and stabbed thirty-nine times. It was the number that lodged in his memory. . . So, with precision, counting the strokes, he recreated that murder that Sunday night – and went back to his friend Fitzmaurice’s room to burn his apron in the grate. By Monday lunchtime he was back at his club. On Tuesday morning, the second of January, he will have read about the discovery of the body in the newspapers. On the Wednesday, from his club, he wired home to Yorkshire to tell his servants that their mistress had passed away and to report that he would be returning home with her body for the burial in due course.