The Posing Playwright

by David Field

  ‘The pleasure to me was being with those who are young, bright, happy, careless, and free. I do not like the sensible and I do not like the old.’

  ‘You did the honours to the valet and the groom?’

  ‘I entertained Taylor and his two guests.’

  ‘In a private room, of course?’

  ‘Yes, certainly.’

  ‘Did you give them an intellectual treat?’

  ‘They seemed deeply impressed.’

  ‘During the dinner did you become more intimate with Charles than the other?’

  ‘I liked him better.’

  ‘Did Charles Parker call you “Oscar”?’

  ‘Yes. I like to be called “Oscar” or “Mr. Wilde”.’

  ‘You had wine?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Was there plenty of champagne?’

  ‘Well, I did not press wine upon them.’

  ‘Now, after dinner, did you say, referring to Charles Parker, in the presence of Taylor and William Parker, the brother, “This is the boy for me”?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘And did you ask Charles, “Will you come with me”?’

  ‘No. After dinner I went back to the Savoy Hotel, but I did not take Charles Parker with me.’

  ‘Did you not drive him to the Savoy?’

  ‘No, he did not come to the Savoy at all.’

  ‘Did any of these men who visited you at the Savoy have whisky and sodas and iced champagne?’

  ‘I can’t say what they had.’

  ‘Do you drink champagne yourself?’

  ‘Yes; iced champagne is a favourite drink of mine, strongly against my doctor’s orders.’

  ‘Did improprieties take place there?’

  ‘None whatever.’

  ‘What was there in common between this young man and yourself? What attraction had he for you?’

  ‘I delight in the society of people much younger than myself. I like those who may be called idle and careless. I recognize no social distinctions at all of any kind; and to me youth, the mere fact of youth, is so wonderful that I would sooner talk to a young man for half-an-hour than be — well, cross-examined in court.’

  ‘Do I understand that even a young boy you might pick up in the street would be a pleasing companion?’

  ‘I would talk to a street Arab, with pleasure.’

  ‘And take him into your rooms?’

  ‘Be it so...’

  ‘When did you see Charles Parker last?’

  ‘I don’t think I have seen him since February of last year.’

  ‘Did you ever hear what became of him?’

  ‘I heard that he had gone into the army — enlisted as a private.’

  ‘You saw in the papers of the arrest of Taylor and Parker?’

  ‘Yes; I read that they were arrested.’

  ‘You know that they were charged with felonious practices?’

  ‘I knew nothing of the charges.’

  ‘That when they were arrested they were in company with several men in women’s clothing?’

  ‘I read of it in the newspapers that two men, in women’s clothes, music-hall artistes, drove up to the house and were arrested outside.’

  ‘Did you not think it a somewhat serious thing that Mr. Taylor, your great friend, and Charles Parker, another great friend, should have been arrested in a police raid?’

  ‘I was very much distressed at the time, and wrote to him, but the magistrates took a different view of the case, because they dismissed the charge. It made no difference to my friendship for him.’

  ‘When did you first meet Fred Atkins?’

  ‘In October, 1892. He told me he was connected with a firm of bookmakers. He was about nineteen or twenty. I was introduced to him in the rooms of a gentleman in Margaret Street, off Regent Street. I did not know him through making bets. I did not ask him to dinner on the first day I met him. I met him at a dinner given by another gentleman whose rooms I met him in first. I was friendly with Atkins on that occasion. I called him “Fred” and he called me “Oscar.” He was in employment, but apologized and said he neglected his business.’

  ‘Did he seem to you an idle fellow?’

  ‘Well, yes. But he was ambitious to go on the music-hall stage. We did not discuss literature. I would not have allowed him to. The art of the music-hall was as far as he got.’

  ‘Did you ask him to go to Paris with you?’

  ‘I must explain. One Sunday I saw him and the gentleman, who has been mentioned, lunching at the Cafe Royal. I was going to Paris on my own account in reference to the publication of a book. This other gentleman was also going to Paris about a position on Dalziel’s Agency. It was suggested that we should all go together, as he had promised to take Atkins. It was arranged that we should go on a Monday, but subsequently the gentleman found that he could not go until Tuesday or Wednesday. Then, as Atkins seemed very much disappointed, the gentleman asked me if I would take Fred over. I said, “With the greatest pleasure,” and I took him.’

  ‘How long had you known Atkins then?’

  ‘About a fortnight. We went by the Club train. I paid for his ticket, but the money was refunded to me afterwards by the gentleman. I did not suggest to Atkins that he should go as my secretary — ridiculous, it’s childish to ask such a thing. I took him to the same rooms I occupied in the hotel — 29 Boulevard des Capucines. I engaged three bedrooms, having one in reserve. They all three opened on to each other. I never asked Fred to copy some manuscript for me. I took him to lunch at the Cafe Julien. He was practically my guest, as representing the gentleman I have mentioned.’

  ‘After lunch did you suggest that Atkins should have his hair curled?’

  ‘He suggested it himself, and I said it would be very unbecoming, and I told him it was a silly thing to do, an absurd thing. I should have been very angry if he had had his hair curled.’

  ‘You dined with him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Gave him an excellent dinner?’

  ‘I never had anything else. I do everything excellently.’

  ‘Did you give him plenty of wine at dinner?’

  ‘If you mean, did I ply him with wine, I say “No!” It’s monstrous, and I won’t have it.’

  ‘Did you ask him to promise that he would say nothing about going to Paris?’

  ‘No. I thought it was the great event of his life, as it was.’

  ‘Did you consider Atkins respectable?’

  ‘Respectable? Yes. I thought him pleasant and young. He was good-natured, and was going on to the music-hall stage. I heard him sing. He was interesting.’

  ‘Was he alone when he came to you at St. James’s Place?’

  ‘No; I think he was accompanied by the young actor. I will swear that Atkins was not alone in the room with me.’

  ‘Did any improprieties ever take place between you and Atkins?’

  ‘None whatever.’

  ‘Do you know Walter Grainger?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How old is he?’

  ‘He was about sixteen when I knew him. He was a servant at a certain house in High Street, Oxford, where Lord Alfred Douglas had rooms. I have stayed there several times. Grainger waited at table. I never dined with him. If it is one’s duty to serve, it is one’s duty to serve; and if it is one’s pleasure to dine, it is one’s pleasure to dine.’

  ‘Did you ever kiss him?’

  ‘Oh, dear no. He was a peculiarly plain boy. He was, unfortunately, extremely ugly. I pitied him for it.’

  ‘Was that the reason why you did not kiss him?’

  ‘Oh, Mr. Carson, you are pertinently insolent.’

  ‘Why, sir, did you mention that this boy was extremely ugly?’

  ‘For this reason. If I were asked why I did not kiss a doormat, I should say because I do not like to kiss doormats. I do not know why I mentioned that he was ugly, except that I was stung by the insolent question you put to me and the way you have insulted me thr
oughout this hearing. It was a flippant answer. No indecencies ever took place between myself and Grainger. I went down in June, 1893, to stay at a cottage at Goring. I brought over Grainger as under-butler. He had asked me to get him a situation. I never on any occasion asked him to come into my bedroom. I don’t know where the butler I had then is now.’

  ‘Did you know a masseur at the Savoy named Antonio Migge?’

  ‘Yes. He used occasionally to massage me in the morning. I stayed at the Savoy in March, 1893, but never on that occasion brought boys into my bedroom there.’

  ‘Did you ever bring boys into your rooms at the hotel in Paris?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Or into your sitting-room?’

  ‘What do you mean by boys?’

  ‘Boys of eighteen or twenty?’

  ‘Oh, yes; many called to see me.’

  ‘Did any of them come late at night — twelve or one o’clock — and stay till four in the morning?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘Is it not true that there has been a scandal at the Savoy Hotel?’

  ‘None whatever.’

  ‘We shall see about that, Mr Wilde. Remember that we have witnesses of our own to lead, who shall tell us the truth of these matters. But now I see by the clock, my Lord, that it is rapidly approaching the hour at which the good gentlemen of the jury must be relieved of their duties for the day. If my friend has no more witnesses, I would propose to commence my opening address as the first item in this trial tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Very well, Mr Carson. Mr Bailiff, please adjourn the court until ten o’clock of tomorrow forenoon.’

  As Jack made his way out of the front door of the Old Bailey, a good thirty minutes after the main rush for the staircase, he heard a familiar voice boom out behind him.

  ‘I trust you found that more entertaining, Sergeant?’

  He stopped and turned round, to allow a smirking Carson to catch up with him.

  ‘I must apologise for my manner at dinner time, Mr Carson, but we police officers are used to matters proceeding more quickly in the cases in which we are giving evidence.’

  ‘That is because you only see your small chapter of the overall novel.’ Carson smiled, then assumed a look of mock self-chastisement as he added, ‘Dear me, I seem to have adopted Mr Wilde’s literary outlook on life. I hope that it’s the only bad habit of his I’ve acquired.’

  ‘He seemed to walk straight into your gunfire,’ Jack observed. ‘He was denying things he hadn’t even been accused of, such as being alone in hotel rooms with young men.’

  Carson allowed the smirk to widen. ‘The advantage of exchanging copies of our pleadings in writing to counsel for the other side, without having them formally read out at the start of the trial. Wilde knows what we’re going to get from our witnesses, and he feels obliged to deny it all in advance, since it’s his only opportunity to go into the witness box. But as you rightly point out, it creates a great air of suspicion when he appears to be denying events of which only he could be aware.’

  ‘It makes my job seem much simpler by comparison,’ Jack conceded. ‘I don’t think I’d have the patience to play a witness like a fish, the way you are called upon to do.’

  ‘Hopefully we’ll be hauling him in tomorrow morning.’ Carson smiled as he made to walk to the open door of the cab that was awaiting him. ‘We may even succeed in doing so without calling a single witness. And so I bid you a good afternoon.’

  The supper things had been washed and put away, and Jack and Esther were settling down to their late night cocoa ahead of retiring for the night, when they were alarmed to hear a heavy pounding on their front door. Jack placed his trouser braces back over the shoulders of his shirt and went to answer the summons in his stockinged feet, while Esther brushed down her nightgown and listened in surprise as Jack demanded to know why Percy was making enough noise to awaken the entire building, quite apart from their three sleeping children.

  ‘Any tea in the pot?’ Percy demanded gruffly as he stalked determinedly down the hall carpet and into the kitchen. He saw how Esther was dressed, and his face softened. ‘Sorry. Were you preparing for bed?’

  ‘Why the late hour?’ Jack asked. ‘Come to think of it, aren’t you supposed to be in Crewe?’

  ‘I was, until I caught the last Euston train in order to get back here for an early start tomorrow, armed with a letter of authorisation from Bray to stick under the noses of those bone-heads in charge of the Cheshire force. I haven’t even been home yet.’

  ‘So you won’t have eaten?’ Esther asked.

  Percy shook his head. ‘But don’t worry about me,’ he reassured her, ‘I can swallow some of Beattie’s poison when I get home.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Esther insisted as she lit the gas oven and bent down to lift a casserole dish from inside it. ‘There’s plenty of brisket stew left, and to judge by Jack’s face when I served it he won’t mourn its absence on the leftover dinner table tomorrow. Now sit down, and let me make you some cocoa.’

  ‘So what’s the problem in Cheshire?’ Jack asked.

  Percy grimaced. ‘I think I know what happened to Stranmillis’s railway carriage, and where it can be found, but the bovine plods that constitute the Cheshire Constabulary are demanding something in writing from the Yard before they’ll agree to drain a salt lake, sour the surrounding land, and delay the reopening of a potential source of local employment.’

  ‘This threatens to be a long night,’ Jack muttered.

  ‘What was that about a lake?’ Esther asked as she served Percy a generous portion of stew in one of her best bowls, cut him several thick slices of cottage loaf, then reached for the notepad and pencils that she kept hidden on the top of shelf of the kitchen cupboard in case Lily was tempted to draw fairies all over her carefully compiled notes of the case.

  ‘First things first,’ Percy explained between grateful mouthfuls. ‘The guard on the Crewe to Holyhead leg of Stranmillis’s train journey reported a brief delay at a set of signals near a place called Beeston, which we know from Jack’s researches is the place where Stranmillis has his estate, and his recently re-opened salt workings. Further researches at Crewe, and with the signalman at Beeston, revealed the continued existence of a sidings and branch line leading off the main line down to the mine workings a few miles or so east of Beeston.’

  ‘And that’s where you think the Pullman was taken?’ Jack asked.

  Percy nodded, while Esther was adding eagerly to her notes. ‘I then visited the salt workings themselves and confirmed that they have a locomotive that’s in full working order, and more than capable of heaving a single carriage down the branch line into the salt works.’

  ‘The lake?’ Esher prompted him.

  Again Percy nodded. ‘When I got down to the mine site, I met up with the resident foreman — and his very unpleasant guard dog — and was shown round. Just to the front of what will become the new pit head, as we may call it, is a large salt lake, which I was advised is the result of the flooding which has also affected the mine shaft, and was the reason why salt extraction was originally abandoned there. But now they’ve brought in pumping gear, and the foreman reckons that there’s only twenty feet or so of salt water — “brine”, they call it — left to pump out, then the mine can re-open. Meanwhile you have a twenty foot deep salt water lake in which you could easily, and conveniently, hide a Pullman carriage.’

  ‘The locomotive pushed it off the line, you mean?’ Jack enquired.

  Percy shook his head. ‘That wouldn’t have sent it far enough in to hide it. They have a steam crane on the site, and because they weren’t expecting any police investigation they didn’t bother to conceal the fact that said crane had recently travelled down to the lake. If it were positioned between the line and the lake, it could have been used to lift the Pullman from the track, swing it through one hundred and eighty degrees, and drop it into the lake.’

  ‘You’d need a large crane,’ Jack objec
ted.

  Percy nodded. ‘Believe me, it’s a monster, and capable of lifting a Pullman carriage.

  ‘Did you question the site foreman about all this?’ Esther asked.

  Percy frowned. ‘When he was armed with a dog that could take on a horse? What do you think? I was there on my own, remember. But he gave himself away good and proper, and that’s when I beat a hasty retreat. When I was leaving he said that he hoped that we found his Lordship’s carriage, when I’d not mentioned anything about the circumstances of his disappearance. And certainly not anything about a carriage.’

  ‘So he was obviously involved?’ Jack concluded.

  ‘It couldn’t have been done without him,’ Percy confirmed, ‘particularly not since, in addition to any other duties he may have, he’s the locomotive driver.’

  ‘But to detach the Pullman from the train in the first place,’ Esther pointed out unnecessarily, ‘they needed to halt the train.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Percy nodded, ‘and it seems from what the signalman told me that it could have been done using a special device called an “Annetts Key”. Here’s a set of instruction on its use for you to study, Esther, but to keep it brief, this key can be employed to change the points at the junction between the main line and the sidings. What I can’t work out is how they did it without the knowledge of the signalman on that stretch of line, who quite frankly is too stupid to have lied convincingly when I questioned him. He told me, what’s more, that when the Key comes out of the socket in his signal box, it effectively disables all his signals. That couldn’t have happened without his knowledge, yet he denies any use of the key during his night shifts last month, when the coach disappeared.’

  ‘Not last month,’ Esther reminded him as she glanced down at her notes. ‘This is April, and the coach disappeared on the twenty-second of February.’

  Percy stared back at her for a few seconds, then smacked the ball of his hand against his forehead and let fly a string of oaths that even made Jack blush.

  ‘Sorry,’ Percy said with a red face, ‘but I just realised what a stupid mistake I made when talking to the signalman. He may not have been the one on the night shift when the train must have been held up briefly — it could have been his opposite number! They work twelve hour shifts, rotating monthly, and I forgot to ask if that was a calendar month or a block of four weeks. You can see now why we need a third head on this case, to avoid us making misleading assumptions.’