‘Indeed,’ he said, peering into his instrument. ‘Conan Doyle is a considerable admirer of your work.’
‘And I of his.’
The doctor transferred his attention to my left ear. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘You told me.’ I flinched once more as the otoscope probed farther. ‘I assume it was you who introduced Atitis-Snake to the plot of “The Final Problem”?’
‘Atitis-Snake?’ I said. ‘I do not follow you.’
The doctor completed his examination and stepped back to look me in the eye. ‘Atitis-Snake claims that it was Conan Doyle’s account of the struggle between Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls that inspired him to fling Warder Braddle to his death over the balustrade outside your cell. You did not know that?’
‘I did not,’ I exclaimed, dumbfounded. ‘It’s absurd. It’s lunatic.’
The doctor chuckled. ‘I imagine that’s exactly what Atitis-Snake hopes the jury will think.’
I shook my head in disbelief. ‘At his last trial, as I recall, Atitis-Snake claimed that he was Napoleon avenging himself on an unfaithful wife. This time he is claiming to be Sherlock Holmes casting Moriarty to his doom – is that it? The notion is preposterous. Will he be wearing a deerstalker and smoking a meerschaum pipe in the dock?’
‘Atitis-Snake is not so deluded as to present himself as Sherlock Holmes. He claims to be Professor Moriarty – “the Napoleon of crime”.’
I laughed. ‘So there is a method to his madness . . .’
Dr Maurice fetched an ophthalmoscope from his bag and, with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, held my right eyelid open. ‘Atitis-Snake is no more mad than you are, but perhaps better at playing the game. Your letter to the Home Secretary was a model of sanity. You will have to reconcile yourself to completing your sentence here.’ He peered into my other eye. ‘It is not so long now. Ten months and then you will be a free man.’
He returned his instruments to his bag and stood back once more, looking down at me indulgently. ‘There is no obvious damage to your eyes. There’s the deterioration that age brings, but no signs of incipient disease.’
‘The poet Milton went blind in prison,’ I said.
Maurice smiled. ‘That might have been the line to take with the visiting committee. “Milton, thou shouldst be living at this hour!”, “I am – locked in cell C.3.3. Release me!” It’s too late now. You missed your opportunity. You are not going blind and you’re no more John Milton than Atitis-Snake is Professor Moriarty.’ He snapped closed his bag. ‘But your right ear is more of a problem. There’s blood and pus: inflammation of the middle ear – Otitis media.’
‘Otitis media!’ I exclaimed. ‘That is a name to rival Atitis-Snake! I collect extraordinary names, doctor. Yours is curiously disappointing. At Trinity College, Dublin, I knew a surgeon who gloried in the name of Bent Ball.’
‘Professor Bent Ball?’ said Dr Maurice. ‘He is famous. I have his magnum opus – Rectum and Anus: Their Diseases and Treatment.’
‘A gift from Conan Doyle?’ I asked.
‘No. Believe it or not, a birthday present from my mother. I was consulting it only the other day.’
We both laughed.
The prison surgeon put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Beyond your ear, which should mend with time, there is nothing wrong with you. Look at you. You are laughing.’
‘I am laughing because here and now I am happy – in the civilised company of a civilised man. I feel alive.’
The doctor clenched his bony fist and gently punched my shoulder blade. ‘That’s more like it,’ he said.
‘One can live for years sometimes without living at all, and then all life comes crowding into one single hour.’
Dr Maurice stepped back and took his bag from the table. ‘Command the moment to remain. Sustain the hour.’
‘I cannot, Doctor,’ I said. ‘I do not know how. At this moment, in your company, I can be happy, but tonight, when the moon shines and I cannot see her, and the clock strikes midnight beyond the prison walls, I shall lie on this wretched plank, incapable of sleep, picturing my wife and children, thinking of those I have betrayed and those who have betrayed me, and I will not be happy. I will be a soul in torment.’ I laughed. ‘My moods are somewhat volatile, Doctor.’
‘I understand.’
I looked into the prison surgeon’s charm-filled, walnut-coloured eyes. ‘You are a married man, aren’t you, Doctor?’ I asked.
‘I am,’ he said, tilting his head to one side and tugging at his beard a little nervously.
‘And when you married your wife, did you promise to love and to cherish her always – for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health . . .?’
‘. . . From this day forward, till death us do part . . . Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I did.’
‘And will you keep your promise, Doctor?’
‘I hope so.’
‘I hope so, too,’ I said. ‘A man should keep his promises. I see that now.’
Dr Maurice took out his pocket watch. ‘I must be on my way. Duty calls. C.3.1. has been moved to the infirmary. He is not long for this world, alas.’ The surgeon stepped towards my cell door.
‘I am sorry to hear it,’ I said. ‘Death is all around us.’
‘’Twas ever thus,’ replied the doctor cheerily. ‘I will look in on you again soon . . . If your ear does not clear itself, I will need to drain it.’
‘Thank you, Doctor,’ I said, standing to bid my visitor goodbye. ‘Why did you not come to see me before?’ I asked.
He hesitated. ‘It was the governor’s orders,’ he said simply. ‘The governor – doubtless with the interests of the prison at heart – had convinced himself that Warder Braddle’s death was an accident. That’s what he wanted it to be. My suggestion of somehow involving you in an “investigation” of the matter he considered wholly ill advised. He was not happy that he allowed that initial conference we attended in his office. He was angry with me for proposing it.’
‘So why are you here now? Why are you able to visit me again?’
‘Because Colonel Isaacson has gone.’
I was bemused.
‘Had you not heard?’ asked the surgeon, looking at me in surprise. ‘He has left us – this week. He has been sent to Lewes by way of “promotion”. In the wake of Warder Braddle’s death and in anticipation of what the trial of Atitis-Snake may show the world about life at Reading Gaol, the Prison Commissioners thought it time for a change. Colonel Isaacson is no more.’
‘And the new man?’ I asked.
‘I’ve not met him yet,’ said Dr Maurice. ‘His name is Major Nelson.’
‘Ah,’ I said. ‘A lower rank, but a better name. It has a ring to it.’
The prison surgeon smiled. ‘Good day, C.3.3.’ He pulled open the heavy cell door.
‘And did you take a second look at Braddle’s body?’ I asked as he began to depart.
He stood still for a moment and turned back to look at me. ‘I did,’ he said.
‘And what did you find?’ I asked. ‘Anything you had not noticed before? The little things are infinitely the most important.’
‘Yes, I found something I had not noticed before,’ replied the doctor, smiling. ‘What were you expecting me to find?’
‘Small blisters . . .’
‘That is what I found.’
‘. . . Around the nose and mouth?’
‘That is exactly what I found.’
17
The Nelson touch
Major J. O. Nelson was a good man. I sensed that the moment that I first saw him, at a distance, standing at the front of the prison chapel reading the lesson at our morning worship. He had a voice that was easy on the ear, clear but not declamatory. He read the lesson as if it meant something, as if he wanted us to hear it and understand it. And when he looked up and out over his congregation of convicts, his eyes suggested neither contempt nor insecurity, neither rat nor weasel. He seemed to see us as individual
men and women – which, of course, he could not. Our faces were hidden beneath masks and behind veils. His face was open, wide and weather beaten, lined by life’s adventures, I surmised, rather than her sorrows. He had thick black hair, which he wore en brosse, heavy, arched eyebrows and a walrus moustache. His moustache reminded me of my friend Arthur Conan Doyle. Indeed, much about Major Nelson reminded me of Conan Doyle.
I knew for sure that he was a good man the moment that he first spoke to me. A week or so after his arrival at Reading, towards the end of July 1896, I was summoned to his presence.
‘The governor wants to see you,’ said Warder Stokes.
‘What’s he like?’ I asked, as we marched across the inner yard towards the governor’s office.
‘Silence,’ ordered Stokes. ‘You know the rule.’
‘What’s he like?’ I asked again, lowering my voice.
‘I don’t rightly know,’ said Stokes. ‘He seems decent enough.’
When we reached the governor’s office, I stood to attention as the warder announced me: ‘Prisoner C.3.3., sir.’
Major Nelson looked up from his desk. He was holding a slim, blue-bound volume in his right hand. He held it out towards me and said, ‘The Prison Commission is allowing you some books, C.3.3. Perhaps you would like to read this one. I have just been reading it myself.’
These were the very first words that Major Nelson spoke to me. What a beginning! I stood silent, bereft of speech, tears pricking at my eyes.
‘You must let me have a list of other books that you might like,’ he continued easily. ‘We’ll see what can be done.’ He pushed back his chair and got to his feet. He was not a tall man, but sturdy and brisk in his movements. He came around his desk and stood before me. ‘The Home Secretary is not inclined to grant you an early release, C.3.3.’ He paused and looked directly into my eyes. ‘That does not surprise you, does it?’ I said nothing. ‘You will be with us for another ten months,’ he continued. ‘Let us make the best of it.’ He walked on past me to address Warder Stokes. ‘Does the prisoner have any writing materials in his cell, warder?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Is the cell adequately lit?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Major Nelson turned back towards me. ‘Are you inclined to write, C.3.3.?’
‘Write, sir?’ I stumbled with the words as I spoke them.
‘Write,’ he said ‘other than to the Home Secretary and to your wife’s solicitors. Write something original, something creative?’
‘I hope to write about prison life one day, sir, and try to change it for others, but it is too terrible and ugly to make a work of art of. And I have suffered too much to write plays about it.’
‘A poem perhaps?’ suggested the governor, moving behind his desk once more and resuming his seat.
‘I have an idea for a poem,’ I said.
‘“The Ballad of Reading Gaol”?’
I looked at the prison governor. In that moment he seemed to me to be the most Christ-like man I had ever met. ‘Or “The Nelson Touch”?’ I suggested.
He gave a short, barking laugh. ‘I am not sure the Prison Commission would approve of that.’ He looked up at me ruefully. ‘And do not be deceived by my surname. I come from different stock. There will be no blind eye turned on my watch. You are to be allowed some books, subject to my approval, to keep your mind active – and free from vicious thoughts. If we let you have pen and ink, it will be to a purpose. Your outdoor work is to continue. You have been sentenced to hard labour and there is to be no reprieve. You understand that?’
‘I understand, sir.’
‘Very good. You may go. And watch how you go. No malingering now – and stay away from the boy.’
‘The boy?’
He glanced down at a paper on his desk. ‘There is a boy in E Ward who works in the gardens and as a cleaner on your ward.’
‘Tom?’ I said. ‘E.1.1.?’
‘You know his name and number? How do you know his name?’
‘Everyone knows his name.’
‘You should not use his Christian name. Wipe it from your mind. Keep clear of him.’
‘He is an innocent child.’
Major Nelson looked down again at the paper on his desk. ‘He is fifteen years of age and far from innocent.’ The governor looked up at me. ‘You would do well to remember that you were found guilty of gross indecency and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with hard labour on the evidence of boys who were no older than him when you first knew them. You have been observed with this boy.’ He picked up the paper he had before him. ‘You have been seen “consorting” with him on more than one occasion.’
‘Who says so?’ I cried. ‘This is untrue.’
‘Keep away from him. He is a bad lot. Here, under the very noses of the warders, he has been dealing in illicit tobacco, opiates, alcohol – God knows what. He is to be punished – and you must have no dealings with him of any kind. I am moving him to the stone-breaking yard.’
‘But the boy is sick,’ I protested.
‘No, he is not.’
‘In the infirmary, I heard . . .’ I faltered.
Major Nelson let fall the paper he was holding. ‘I have read Dr Maurice’s report. The boy is quite well now – fit enough to break stones for a day or two, I can assure you.’ The governor picked up the slim blue-bound volume from his desk and held it out towards me. ‘Go – and take the book.’
That night, alone once more in my wretched cell, I felt the refusal to commute my sentence like a blow from a leaden sword. I lay awake, dazed with a dull sense of pain. I had fed on hope and now anguish, grown hungry, fed her fill on me as though she had been starved of her proper nourishment. From that day’s first, brief encounter with Major Nelson, and from his kindness towards me with the book, I recognised, with gratitude, that there were gentler elements in the evil prison air than before, but nonetheless I was where I was, and as I was, immured, broken and disgraced. Prison life makes one see people and things as they really are and that is why it turns one to stone.
The next morning, when breakfast had been cleared and before chapel had been called, I stood crouching by the hatch in my cell door waiting to hear the girlish voice of Private Luck. At the very moment I expected him to speak, he spoke. ‘Good morning, my friend. Today I am planning to tell you of Vikram and the Vampire – it was a favourite tale of Sir Richard Burton in the good old days.’
‘Stop!’ I hissed through the iron door. ‘Stop, Private Luck. Are you my friend? Are you?’
‘Of course I am your friend,’ he answered indignantly. ‘I may be your only friend here, Mr Oscar Wilde. I have killed another man for you – does that not show friendship?’
‘Atitis-Snake, the poisoner, is to be tried for Warder Braddle’s murder,’ I said.
‘That is his story, Mr Wilde, but we know the truth. It is our secret – and you will pay me my one hundred pounds. I know you will because you are a man of honour. You will give me an IOU.’
‘This is madness,’ I cried. ‘Did you speak to the governor about me and the boy? Did you? Did you, Private Luck? Answer me.’
It was a moment before Luck spoke – and when he did I had to strain to hear his whisper. ‘I know you want the boy, Mr Wilde. I will do what I can for you, but it will not be easy. Things are not as they were once upon a time. It will be very expensive.’
‘I do not want the boy,’ I cried aloud, in desperation. ‘I do not want the boy! Do you hear me?’
‘Everyone will hear you, Mr Wilde. Take care.’
‘What have you told the governor? What have you said?’
‘I have told him nothing, Mr Wilde. I have said nothing. I have not seen the governor. I will keep your secret. You will pay me, Mr Wilde, and I will stay silent as the grave.’
18
Punishment
The weeks passed.
In Reading Gaol, where the seasons run their course unnoticed, and in whose garden no bird is ever heard to sing, summe
r turned to autumn, slowly. Each morning, between breakfast and chapel, without fail, like grotesque parodies of Flute and Bottom playing Thisbe and Pyramus in a prisoners’ production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Private Luck and I whispered and called to one another through the wall between our cells. (Our conversations were a habit I could not break; Luck was a personality I could not fathom.) Each night, I lay awake on the wooden plank that was my bed, thinking of all that I had had and lost and knew that I would never have again.
In November I wrote again to the Home Secretary, pleading once more for my release. Even as I wrote I knew it was a futile exercise. Pity seems to beat in vain at the doors of officialdom. Power, no less than punishment, kills what else were good and gentle in a man: the man without knowing it loses his natural kindliness, or grows afraid of its exercise. I looked forward with horror to the prospect of another winter in prison: there is something terrible in it: one has to get up before daybreak and in the dark-cold cell begin one’s work by the flaring gas jet; through the small barred window only gloom seems to find an entrance; and days often go over without one’s being once even in the open air: days on which one stifles: days that are endless in their dull monotony of apathy or despair.
That said, I must acknowledge that with the arrival of Major Nelson the atmosphere within the prison gradually changed – almost entirely for the better. Beyond my fear of Luck, and of what he might say and do, in every other respect, my lot improved. I was allowed more books – and spectacles with which to read them. I was permitted writing materials at all times in my cell. What I wrote would be removed each night before ‘lights out’, but that did not trouble me. I could read Dante at my leisure and make excerpts and notes for the sheer pleasure of using pen and ink. I read Dante every day, in Italian, and all through. It was his Inferno above all that I read. How could I help liking it? Hell, we were in it. Hell: even with Nelson at the helm, that was Reading Gaol. I decided to take up the study of German. (Indeed, prison seems to me the proper place for such a study.)
Oscar Wilde and the Murders at Reading Gaol: A Mystery Page 15