Oscar Wilde and the Murders at Reading Gaol: A Mystery

by Gyles Brandreth

  ‘Did you speak with her?’

  ‘Only for a moment. She had three children with her.’

  ‘Her own children?’

  ‘No – young prisoners. They were in prison uniform.’

  ‘And was the boy, Tom, one of them?’ asked Quilp.

  ‘Oh no. These were younger than Tom. These were ten or eleven years of age at most – at most. They looked no bigger than my boys. I said to the wardress, “Why are they here?” She told me, “They have been convicted of snaring rabbits and cannot pay their fine.”’ With his right hand, Melmoth struck the café table angrily. Quilp steadied his glass of champagne. ‘Can you believe it? Children imprisoned for snaring rabbits! Later that day I told Warder Martin about the children. I asked him to seek them out. I asked him to find out their names and the amount of their fine. I told him I wanted to pay the fine to get them out. I could not bear the idea of those poor children in that vile place.’

  ‘And did Warder Martin do as you asked?’

  ‘He did – and more. He found the children for me and, to the smallest of them, he gave a biscuit.’

  Quilp took a sip of his champagne. ‘That was an act of kindness,’ he said.

  ‘It was an act of folly,’ cried Melmoth. ‘As ill-chance would have it, a senior warder saw Martin give the child the biscuit and reported what he had seen to the governor. Warder Martin was instantly dismissed. I did not see him again. And when I saw Major Nelson on the day of my departure I was too cowed – too craven – too cowardly – to protest. I could not believe that the governor – so good a man – could have done so cruel a thing.’

  ‘He did it “by the book”,’ reflected Quilp, with a shrug. He drank more of his champagne. ‘Did you see the boy again before you left?’ he asked.

  ‘The boy Tom? No.’

  ‘And the dwarf?’

  ‘No, but Warder Stokes told me that he was certain that C.3.4. would be transferred to an asylum.’

  ‘That is something,’ said Quilp, taking out his handkerchief once more and mopping his brow. ‘And you?’

  ‘I left Reading Gaol on the evening of the eighteenth of May,’ answered Melmoth. ‘I was to be released “officially” from Pentonville, the prison in which my two-year sentence properly began. I was allowed to leave in my own clothes. I had my half-hunter and my cigarette case returned to me. I was not handcuffed. Major Nelson wanted to spare me what I had endured at Clapham Junction on my way to Reading, so two warders took me by cab from the prison gates to Twyford Station for the train journey to London. The sun was setting as we left and on the platform at Twyford there were bushes in bud. I walked towards them with open arms. “O beautiful world!” I cried. “O beautiful world!”’ Melmoth laughed at the recollection of it. ‘One of the warders begged me to stop. “Now, Mr Wilde, you mustn’t give yourself away like that. You’re the only man in England who would talk like that in a railway station.”’

  Quilp smiled. Melmoth, still laughing, leant across the table towards him. ‘You do not look well, Dr Quilp, but since you insist on hearing out my story, will you raise your glass and drink to my freedom?’

  ‘I will, sir,’ said Quilp. The two men lifted their glasses and drank from them, deeply.

  Melmoth lit up another cigarette. ‘On the nineteenth of May, early in the morning, I was released from Pentonville – a free man. By nightfall, I was here.’

  ‘You came to France at once?’

  ‘First, I had breakfast – with old friends. Then I went shopping.’

  ‘Shopping?’

  ‘I needed clothes. I bought a blue serge suit – and a fine brown hat, from Heath’s. I bought shirts in assorted colours of the rainbow, eighteen collars, two dozen white handkerchiefs and a dozen with coloured borders, some dark blue neckties with white spots on, eight pairs of socks – coloured summer things . . . and new gloves.’ Melmoth held up his hand and spread his fingers wide. ‘Size eight and three-quarters. My hand is notoriously broad.’

  Quilp looked at Melmoth. He was no longer making notes. He had put down his pen. ‘This was extravagant,’ he said, smiling.

  ‘This was necessary,’ answered Melmoth, earnestly. ‘My brother Willie had all my old clothes – and he had pawned them. My dear sweet wife had sent me money from Genoa for new clothes – and for food and travelling expenses. I bought some scent in her honour – Canterbury Wood Violet from Pritchard’s in St James’s. It is her favourite – and mine. I wanted, for psychological reasons, to feel entirely physically cleansed of the stain and soil of prison life.’ He looked down at the backs of his hands and inspected his well-manicured fingernails. ‘I shopped during most of the day and then, in the evening, after I had run a particular errand, I took the train to Newhaven and caught the night boat to Dieppe.’

  ‘You came here – why here? Why Dieppe?’

  ‘Why not? I had considered escaping to the other side of the world – to Brazil or Brisbane. But my Portuguese is poor and my Australian worse. I thought of Bruges or Brussels or Boulogne. I am proficient in French and alliterative in geography . . .’ He smiled. ‘I had almost settled on Boulogne, but then I learnt that the young man with whom I was once infatuated – the young man whose presence in my life brought about my downfall – was living there, is living there . . . I did not wish to see him. I do not want to see him. If I see him I will never see my sons again – and my wife will take my allowance from me. I need my wife – in spite of everything. Life is a stormy sea. My wife is a harbour of refuge.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Dr Quilp, shifting in his seat, ‘your wife – and your terror of losing your allowance. That had preyed upon you in prison, I know.’ He sat forward at the table and pressed the tips of his fingers against his temples for a moment. He closed his eyes and then opened them wide as if making a determined effort to concentrate. ‘That reminds me. What about Private A. A. Luck,’ he asked, ‘“late of the Bombay Grenadiers”? Was he not at the prison gates to greet you – and demand his hundred pounds?’

  ‘There were two reporters at the prison gates to greet me. One asked me for my immediate plans. “To breakfast on caviar and champagne,” I told him. He appeared shocked. “A proper breakfast is the duty a writer owes to the dignity of letters,” I explained. He seemed none the wiser. The other reporter asked a more discerning question. He wanted to know what I hoped for in the future. I told him that I coveted neither notoriety nor oblivion. He appeared satisfied with that.’

  ‘But there was no sign of Private Luck?’

  ‘No, Dr Quilp, there was so sign of Private Luck.’

  ‘I am surprised.’

  Melmoth paused before responding. He set his cigarette down on the ashtray and moved his glass of champagne so that it stood immediately before him. He sat forward and rested his elbows on the table, placing his right hand across his left. ‘You are not surprised, Dr Quilp. You cannot be.’

  ‘I am,’ insisted the other man.

  Melmoth spoke softly. ‘I know what you are, “Dr Quilp”, and you are certainly not what you claim to be.’ Melmoth gazed steadily at the man facing him. ‘For a brief moment yesterday – fleetingly – I thought you might be Private Luck. I only saw Luck once without his prison cap – and then his face was hidden beneath a layer of rouge and eyeshadow. He was about your height and build – and age. When I saw the powder on your face and considered your newly grown moustache and beard, I realised straight away that you were a man in disguise. For a moment, as I watched you hiding behind your spectacles, I thought you might be Luck – but then I saw the roughness of your hands and knew you could not be.’

  The man said nothing. He did not move. He barely breathed.

  ‘When you introduced yourself to me yesterday,’ Melmoth continued, ‘I was intrigued that, in passing, you quoted The Importance of Being Earnest. I was charmed, even. But I was baffled by your name. Where did you find it? There’s a Quilp in Dickens, of course, in The Old Curiosity Shop – but why Doctor Quilp? Did you know about my father? In Dub
lin, when I was a boy, Dr Wilde was accused of rape by a woman who had once been his patient and his mistress. She published a scurrilous pamphlet in which she called my parents “Dr and Mrs Quilp”. I thought perhaps you knew the story – and chose the name to tease or wound me.’

  ‘No,’ said the man. He spoke softly, too. ‘I had not heard that story.’ He gazed steadily at Melmoth. ‘But my name is Quilp,’ he insisted.

  ‘You are no more Dr Quilp than I am Sebastian Melmoth! Indeed, when you showed me your visiting card, I saw that it had been printed by the same printer who printed mine – a little man called Pascaud who trades not three streets from where we are seated now. You had your cards printed a matter of days ago. You are an impostor.’

  The man raised a hand in protest.

  Melmoth brooked no interruption. ‘A seasoned impostor at that!’ He laughed. ‘For everything you had an answer. When you told me that you were an apothecary and I said you did not have an apothecary’s hands, you said, at once, that your father was a blacksmith! The answer was absurd, but it came to you so readily that I knew that I was dealing with a man to whom the manufacture of instant untruths is second nature.’ Melmoth took a sip of wine. ‘I knew at once that you were not who you claimed to be, “Dr Quilp” – but who were you? And why had you come to see me? “Who is that man?” I wondered. “And what does he want?”’

  The man touched his chequebook. ‘I wanted to hear your story,’ he said. ‘I was ready to pay for it.’

  ‘No,’ insisted Melmoth. ‘You did not want my story. You wanted the story of the murderer Atitis-Snake. You made that clear. You wanted what I knew of Atitis-Snake – nothing more. And by midnight last night you’d heard enough.’

  ‘By midnight we were both exhausted,’ said “Dr Quilp”.

  ‘By midnight, you knew that I knew more than was good for you. And I knew that you knew more than you pretended.’ Melmoth drew on his cigarette and sat back for a moment. ‘For example, I had only mentioned Private Luck’s Sanskrit names once, in passing, and yet, hours later, you recalled them instantly.’

  ‘I wrote them down.’

  Melmoth waved a dismissive hand. ‘You knew them already. You knew the whole story already, “Dr Quilp”. What you sought to discover was what I knew – and when you found that I knew too much you packed me off to bed with a prostitute and a twist of Spanish Fly.’

  ‘It is an aphrodisiac,’ said the man.

  ‘Indeed, famously so,’ said Melmoth, laughing derisively. ‘It is the most notorious aphrodisiac in history. It comes from the Spanish fly beetle, does it not? I believe Cantharis is the Latin name. The correct dose will rouse a man. The incorrect dose will kill him.’

  ‘But Mr Melmoth – Mr Wilde – you are alive . . .’

  ‘And well,’ added Melmoth, with an inclination of his head. ‘I thank you.’ With his thumb and forefinger he picked a stray leaf of cigarette tobacco from his lower lip. ‘I count my blessings. But Achindra Acala Luck is dead. The Reverend M. T. Friend is dead. The Braddle brothers are dead. Your wife is dead.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ The man looked about the deserted café. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘You are quite mad.’

  ‘No, I am not mad,’ said Melmoth. ‘I am as sane as you are – Sebastian Atitis-Snake.’

  The man pushed back his chair. Melmoth held up a hand. ‘Don’t go. There is no point. I know everything.’

  ‘Do you?’ The man spat out the words contemptuously, but he did not move.

  ‘I believe so. You have a wonderful name, Sebastian Atitis-Snake. I think you love it. I think it has been the making of you – at least, the making of your personality. It has also been your undoing. Names do make – and unmake – a man. I know. Were I called John Smith, I would not be Oscar Wilde. And if I cannot be Oscar Wilde, I will be Sebastian Melmoth. My new name has a ring to it – as my old one did. I imagine that’s why you chose the name of Quilp as your nom de guerre. It’s a name to reckon with. Will you say it for me? Say it out loud. Say it with pride. Let it roll off your tongue, Sebastian Atitis-Snake.’

  The man looked about him. The street was all but empty. The café barman and the waiter were nowhere to be seen. ‘Yes,’ said the man, softly, ‘I am Sebastian Atitis-Snake. That is my name.’

  ‘I raise my glass to it,’ said Melmoth, suiting the action to the words. ‘It is a remarkable name – quite special. And I believe that it has made you believe all your life that you, too, are remarkable – quite special. You are one of those in this world who must have his way – who will not be crossed, who cannot be denied. Your belief in yourself is colossal. I know the type – all too well. Your name is unique – and so are you. You believe that you can achieve whatever you want and will stop at nothing to do so.’

  ‘Is that so very wrong?’ asked the man. The anger in his voice had subsided.

  ‘When you tired of your wife, you rid yourself of her. That was wrong.’

  ‘You wronged your wife,’ murmured Atitis-Snake.

  ‘I did not kill her,’ said Melmoth calmly. ‘When you found yourself in prison, you murdered one man – the first Warder Braddle – in the expectation that another, his brother, the second Warder Braddle, would find a way to free you. When he failed you, you took your revenge – you killed him also. That was wrong.’

  ‘I was not going to rot my life away in Reading Gaol,’ said the man angrily. He had removed his spectacles. Visibly his temples throbbed. ‘You were sentenced to two years’ hard labour, Oscar Wilde. I was sentenced for life.’ The man hit the table with a clenched fist. ‘I would be free.’

  ‘Yes – you would have your way, Sebastian Atitis-Snake, always. And to achieve your end you conceived a plan to free yourself that was as dangerous as it was daring.’

  ‘I did,’ breathed Atitis-Snake. ‘I most surely did.’ He raised his glass and drank from it greedily.

  ‘When you did not need to do so, you confessed to the murder of the second Warder Braddle. That was extraordinary. You pleaded “Guilty but insane” – when you must have known that such a plea would fail. It had failed before – at your first trial in front of the same judge. Why should it succeed now?’

  Atitis-Snake shrugged. ‘The idea of posing as a lunatic appealed to me. The idea of claiming that I was “Professor Moriarty, the Napoleon of Crime” amused me.’

  ‘And appealed to your histrionic vanity,’ said Melmoth. ‘And your plea might prove successful. And if it did, so be it. You would go to an asylum – and escape from there. But if it did not, you would be condemned to death. You can have been in no doubt about that.’

  ‘I was in no doubt about that,’ said Atitis-Snake emphatically.

  ‘I believe that is what you wanted.’

  ‘I had a plan.’

  ‘A brilliant plan – and it almost worked, Sebastian Atitis-Snake. Indeed it would have worked had you not encountered another uniquely named self-styled genius along the way.’ Melmoth laughed. ‘My name is Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde,’ he declared, throwing up his hands towards heaven. As he made the gesture a dog ran out from under the archway alongside the café and began to chase a sheet of newspaper that the breeze was blowing down the street. ‘Forgive me,’ murmured Melmoth. ‘I am a little drunk.’

  ‘And I am a free man,’ said Atitis-Snake.

  Melmoth looked at him. ‘You are. And poor Private Luck, late of the Bombay Grenadiers, is dead. He was hanged when you should have been.’

  Atitis-Snake said nothing, but held Melmoth’s gaze.

  ‘I believe the idea of another man hanging in your stead first entered your head on the day that Trooper Wooldridge was hanged. That was the day of your confession. That was the day when word went round the prison that when Wooldridge swung from the rope his neck stretched by eleven inches and his face was distorted beyond recognition. Post-mortem, the hanged man was unrecognisable.’

  ‘I raise my glass to you, Oscar Wilde.
’

  ‘I raise mine to you, Sebastian Atitis-Snake. Wooldridge was unrecognisable post-mortem, but how could you ensure that if another went to the gallows in your place he would not be recognised before he reached the scaffold? Who sees the condemned man at the last? Who is with him at the dreadful moment when the white sack is put over his head and his face is obscured for ever? Four people. Just four. Two special warders – chosen for the very reason that they do not know the prisoner well. The hangman himself – who has never seen the condemned man before. And the prison chaplain – who knows the condemned man very well indeed. Therefore, you eliminate the prison chaplain. You must. And it is easily done. You are a master poisoner. Cantharides is your special friend.’

  ‘It was not easily done,’ said Atitis-Snake. ‘I had to hold a lethal dose of Spanish Fly behind my teeth until I could spew it into the chaplain’s communion wine. I foully burnt my tongue and gums.’

  ‘But you achieved your end.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Atitis-Snake, complacently. ‘I did the chaplain a favour, didn’t I? I sent him to meet his maker.’

  ‘Eliminating a potential witness is relatively easy for the great Atitis-Snake. But how to find your substitute – the man who would hang instead of you?’

  ‘Any man of about the right height and weight and age would do. The prison was full of them.’

  ‘Indeed, but you needed one who was about to be released. You had to choose your man – and choose your moment. You had to leave it to the very last. And you did. You left it until the eve of the execution. You left it until the last time you were taken from your cell. As the warders brought you back from the bathhouse you seized your opportunity. You created the disturbance – the near-insurrection – that brought about your freedom.’

  ‘And how did I do that, Mr Sherlock Holmes?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Melmoth, smiling. ‘Holmes is the clue. As the star prisoners walked towards you along the corridor outside your cell, from beneath your cap you called out, “Hang well, Professor Moriarty!” I knew it would not have been one of them – they were star prisoners, new to Reading Gaol. And Warder Stokes was clear it was not Private Luck. It was a man’s voice that called out – not the shrill voice of an Indian eunuch.’