Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders

by Gyles Brandreth

  We met him that very evening.

  We did not linger among the graves and our return to our hotel was uneventful. As we drove back past the tomb of Cestius, we looked beyond the pyramid to the scrubland where we had left the wretched street boys. There was no sign of them and, from the roadway, the view of their hovel at the edge of the wood was obscured by an elderly shepherd and his unruly flock.

  ‘Perhaps our mystery lock of hair comes from one of those sheep?’ mused Oscar.

  ‘They are goats, Oscar,’ I said.

  Back at the Hôtel de Russie, we took tea (Ceylon tea with Madeira cake), talked of Keats and Shelley (Oscar talked: I listened), and retired to our rooms to bathe and change. Then, while Oscar dozed on his bed, I spent an hour or so working through my seemingly bottomless portmanteau of letters from the admirers of Sherlock Holmes. At seven-thirty, Oscar awoke. At eight o’clock we set off together for the short walk along the Via del Babuino to the newly built Anglican church. We arrived at All Saints to find Dr Axel Munthe — still dressed, it seemed, in the exact costume he had worn the night before — assisting a stout and halting clergyman up the front steps to the church door. As the doctor and the priest paused in the doorway, we joined them.

  Munthe smiled. ‘This is the reverend gentleman of whom I spoke last night,’ he said.

  I nodded by way of acknowledgement. Oscar bowed low and bent forward to kiss the clergyman’s ring.

  ‘I am not a bishop,’ protested the priest, laughing. His voice was sonorous: rich and deep. He spoke good English with a pronounced Italian accent.

  ‘But you are a magnificent Monsignor,’ breathed Oscar, unctuously.

  The priest, a mountain of a man, was impressively garbed in a black cassock edged in purple silk, with a broad purple sash swathing his mighty girth. He had a toad’s face, full and fat, with sensuous lips. His head was bald. His bulging eyes shone. His jowls shook as he addressed us.

  ‘I take it you are Oscar Wilde,’ he rumbled. Moisture spilt onto his lips as he spoke, but his manner was entirely genial. He turned to me and his bulbous eyes widened further. ‘And this must be Arthur Conan Doyle. Munthe has just been telling me all about you — but he did not need to, because I knew all about you already.’

  ‘May I present Monsignor Francesco Felici,’ said Axel Munthe, ‘Maestro delle Celebrazioni Liturgiche Pontificie.’

  ‘By all that’s wonderful,’ cried Oscar, ‘you are Master of Ceremonies to His Holiness.’

  The priest heaved his shoulders and offered a theatrical, self-deprecating shrug. ‘One does one’s humble best.’

  ‘And yet you are here among the Anglicans,’ continued Oscar.

  ‘Missionary work,’ said the Monsignor, with a throaty chuckle. ‘The Holy Father is on his summer retreat, so I am permitted to stray from the confines of St Peter’s. I come here in the hope of converts — and to see my English friends.’

  I said, ‘Your English is exceptional, Monsignor. ‘‘I am learning. We have a small circolo inglese at the Vatican. And one of the ways in which we learn your language, Mr Conan Doyle, is to read your work — out loud to one another, in the sacristy, behind the Sistine Chapel, after Mass.’

  ‘Good Lord,’ I murmured.

  ‘We all admire the great Sherlock Holmes.’

  ‘Dr Conan Doyle is going to be reading to us tonight,’ said Oscar.

  ‘A new Holmes adventure?’ enquired the Monsignor, eagerly.

  ‘No,’ I said, a touch too sharply. The portly priest appeared quite startled. I lowered my eyes. ‘I am sorry to disappoint you.

  ‘You won’t disappoint us, Dr Doyle,’ said a gentle voice at my shoulder, ‘I am certain of that.’

  I turned. It was Catherine English. She looked much younger than she had done the day before — less travel-stained, I suppose, more rested.

  ‘Whatever you have brought to read to us will give huge pleasure, I know,’ she went on. ‘We are simply delighted that you are here. And grateful. Thank you.’ She looked about our little group gathered on the doorstep. ‘Welcome, gentlemen. Monsignor, Dr Munthe, Mr Wilde — welcome.’ She bobbed a curtsey to the priest and shook Oscar and Axel Munthe by the hand. She touched my elbow and led us into the church. ‘It’s very crowded, I’m afraid. We may run out of refreshments and everyone has to talk at the top of their voices because the acoustics are so peculiar.’

  ‘Are we late?’ asked Dr Munthe.

  ‘No, everybody else is early. The English ladies have been arriving since seven o’clock.’

  We had passed through a narrow vestibule and now stood on the threshold of the church, in a side aisle, looking out across a sea of bobbing heads. Some of them were male (and grey and balding in the main), but most of them were female and sporting an extraordinary array of head apparel: hats large and small, feathered and veiled, scarves, toques, bonnets, berets and tam-o’shanters. There must have been a hundred women, at least, clustered in the echoing nave of All Saints.

  ‘It sounds like the monkey house at the zoo,’ said Catherine English, laughing.

  ‘Every Englishwoman in Rome must be here,’ observed Monsignor Felici.

  ‘Of a certain age,’ added Axel Munthe.

  Head held high, Oscar was scanning the scene. ‘Never trust a woman who wears mauve, whatever her age may be, or a woman over thirty-five who is fond of pink ribbons. She will always have a history.’

  ‘Very droll, Mr Wilde,’ said the Monsignor, ‘but I think you’ll find the ladies here are of a different order. They wear brown and grey when they are not wearing black and they come with “hope” rather than “history”. They are of riper years, even the young ones.

  ‘But they love a clergyman,’ said Oscar, amused.

  ‘Even a Catholic priest,’ said the Monsignor.

  ‘Especially a Catholic priest. They know he’s dangerous, yet they feel quite safe with him.’

  ‘In that case, I had better throw myself among them. Come, Munthe, let us mingle with the Englishwomen of Rome. I imagine many of them are your patients already and those that aren’t soon will be.’

  ‘We will catch up with you later,’ said Oscar.

  ‘Of course,’ replied the Monsignor. ‘I must introduce you both to Father Bechetti. He’s very frail, but he’s here tonight. He’s a great anglophile. He speaks perfect English — when he speaks. He will want to meet you, I know. We will see you anon and you must come up to the Vatican. We take English afternoon tea in the sacristy, you know, with cucumber sandwiches.’

  With benign smiles, Monsignor Felici and Dr Munthe took their leave of us and moved towards the nave to join the milling throng.

  ‘I must find Martin,’ said Catherine English. ‘He’ll be hiding in the vestry.’ She touched each of us lightly on the arm. ‘Wait here, would you? I don’t want to lose you. I think we should do the readings sooner rather than later. You are reading first, Mr Wilde — from the pulpit. I thought you wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘I am always at home in a pulpit,’ said Oscar. ‘And I must find you some sherry — if there’s any left.’ ‘And some Italian cheese, I hope,’ added Oscar. Miss English looked across the church and shook her head. ‘It’s all got a little out of hand. We invited everybody and everybody’s come.’ She laughed and raised her eyes to heaven as she moved away. As she went, she turned and waved to us with her fingers.

  ‘She’s smitten, Arthur,’ whispered Oscar, grinning at me wickedly. ‘Congratulations, man.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd, Oscar.’

  ‘And you’re a little in love, too. Don’t deny it.’

  ‘I do deny it, absolutely.’

  ‘When one is in love one begins by deceiving oneself. And ends by deceiving others.’

  ‘That’s not my way, Oscar,’ I protested. ‘I am wholly faithful to my wife and you know it.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear it, Arthur. Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect — simply a confession of failure.’

&nbs
p; ‘You are preposterous.’

  ‘I am in earnest.’

  ‘Then I do not like your philosophy. And, most certainly, I do not share it.’

  Oscar smiled and looked around the crowded church. It was well lit, both by candles and by electric light. ‘Do you share my estimation of Munthe’s friend, the bonhomous Monsignor?’

  ‘That he’s no murderer?’

  ‘He’s too stout for murder. But he holds the key, don’t you think? He wears the ring.’

  ‘Yes, I saw a rose-gold band on his finger. But if he’s wearing the ring, it cannot be the ring that was sent to Sherlock Holmes on the severed finger. That’s in your wallet, Oscar.’

  ‘It is a ring exactly like it.’

  ‘There could be scores of rings exactly like it.’

  ‘Possibly, but I doubt it. By the pricking of my thumbs, something tells me His Holiness’s Master of Ceremonies is the man to lead us to the heart of the mystery.’

  ‘I hope so,’ I said, touching the side pocket of my jacket. ‘This dead hand weighs on me heavily.’

  Oscar smiled. ‘I am glad you are keeping it about you, Arthur — it’s wise to do so.’ He touched the pocket of his own jacket. ‘Since sherry is being served in church, would it be bad form to smoke, do you think?’

  ‘Most certainly.’

  ‘They’re eating cheese in the transept and I’m sure I can smell incense burning somewhere,’ he said, looking about him as he pulled a silver cigarette case from his pocket.

  ‘Put your cigarettes away, Oscar,’ I said firmly.

  ‘Remember where you are.’

  ‘You know I smoked a cigarette on the stage of the St James’s at the opening of Lady Windermere’s Fan.’

  ‘For your curtain speech — you told me. You wore a green carnation in your buttonhole and held a lighted cigarette in your mauve-gloved hand. I remember.’

  ‘My enemies were not amused.’

  I smiled. ‘Do you have enemies, Oscar?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, snapping shut the cigarette case and slipping it back into his pocket, ‘and I have just seen one of them on the far side of the nave.’

  I turned quickly to look in the direction indicated by my friend. I saw no one I recognised, except for the Reverend Martin English pushing his way to the edge of the crowd.

  ‘My apologies,’ he called out, as he came towards us. ‘I am an appalling host.’

  ‘You have your flock to attend to,’ said Oscar, pleasantly. ‘They must be entertained.’

  ‘They are entertaining themselves. Listen to them. The House of God has been turned into a house of gossip. I cannot hear myself think above the hubbub. The sherry’s all gone.’

  ‘And the cheese?’ asked Oscar.

  ‘They’ve gobbled the lot.’ The clergyman shook his head despairingly. ‘It’s our moment to take to the stage — if you can face it, gentlemen.’

  ‘We are at your service,’ said Oscar.

  ‘A poem from you, Mr Wilde? And a Sherlock Holmes story from you, Dr Doyle: is that correct?’

  ‘I had something else in mind,’ I said, crisply.

  ‘Oh. No matter. We are very grateful. Come this way, please.’ He led us from the side aisle towards the pulpit steps. ‘I’ll say a few words — very few — then introduce you as our surprise guests.’ He looked at us both with troubled eyes. ‘It is not easy for me here. Thank you for agreeing to this, gentlemen. I am very grateful. Tonight the ladies can talk about you, instead of me. It will make a pleasant change.’

  Anxiously, he shook each of us by the hand. I was clutching the manuscript of the story I proposed to read: it was a Highland adventure, as yet unpublished.

  ‘I wonder if this will be too lengthy?’ I asked.

  ‘If it was about Sherlock Holmes,’ said Oscar, playfully, ‘they’d think it not nearly lengthy enough.’

  ‘Do you have your poem, Mr Wilde?’ enquired the clergyman.

  ‘I have it by heart,’ said Oscar. ‘It is by John Keats.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the Reverend English, widening his eyes, ‘very good.’ He took a long, deep breath. ‘Let us do what we must.’

  He turned and made the sign of the cross and, with a steady step, climbed the narrow stone stairway to the pulpit. As he went, Oscar pointed approvingly at his well-polished black boots.

  ‘Your friend looks after her brother well,’ he whispered.

  From the pulpit, the vicar called the multitude to order. ‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention for a moment?’

  The tentative, seemingly troubled soul that had left us a moment before, now appeared in full command of himself and his congregation. His voice was clear and resonant: the people fell silent almost as he spoke. Peering round from our vantage point behind the pulpit we could see half the nave.

  ‘What do those faces tell us?’ asked Oscar.

  ‘It is difficult to say,’ I replied.

  ‘Exactly,’ whispered Oscar. ‘They do not know what to make of their man — and neither do I.’

  The only joyful face that I could see belonged to Monsignor Felici. He stood no more than ten feet from us, in pride of place, at the front of the crowd, surrounded by a cluster of English ladies of riper years. The papal Master of Ceremonies beamed beatifically as he gazed up at the Anglican vicar of All Saints.

  ‘He exudes the complacency of the righteous, does he not?’ whispered Oscar. ‘How I envy his certainty.’

  Dr Munthe stood on the Monsignor’s right hand and an elderly priest, wearing a black cloak and black biretta, stood on his left. The old man was tall and thin, but his pallid face was wizened and his body bent like a weeping willow. He wore round spectacles with darkened lenses.

  ‘Is that Father Bechetti?’ I asked.

  ‘Is he blind?’ asked Oscar.

  The old priest held on to the Monsignor’s arm with one hand. With the other he held out his empty sherry glass as if he was about to propose a toast.

  ‘Is he simple?’ I wondered.

  ‘Is he our murderer?’ asked Oscar, laughing softly as he spoke. ‘Look at his fingers, Arthur. Look carefully.’

  ‘I see nothing.’

  ‘Neither do I. Father Bechetti wears no rings.’

  ‘In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,’ declared the Reverend English from the head of the pulpit, ‘welcome to the soon-to-be-consecrated church of All Saints, our new and beautiful Anglican parish church here in the heart of Rome — the Eternal City. Let us stand where we are, humbly before God, recalling the eternal verities and bowing our heads in prayer.’

  English spoke with an unassuming authority and the assembly did as it was bidden. The brief prayers done, he thanked those gathered before him for their prompt attendance and their generosity, ‘some of it already manifested, much of it still eagerly anticipated’. (This pleasantry was met with silence. The congregation gazed up at English quite impassively.) When he went on to welcome ‘our honoured guests’, notably the First Secretary from the British Embassy, representing His Excellency the British ambassador, and ‘our friends and neighbours’ from the Vatican, there was a murmur of apparent approval, but news of ‘the surprise presence in our midst of one of the most dazzling literary personalities of our time, Mr Oscar Wilde’ provoked no response at all.

  There was an eerie silence as English climbed down the pulpit steps and, slowly, Oscar mounted them. I felt for my friend as he reached the summit and surveyed the sea of sullen faces that gazed up at him.

  ‘I have been asked to share a poem with you tonight,’ he began, lightly. ‘I am honoured to do so. It is one of the most beautiful poems ever penned — yet, you may be surprised to learn, it is not one of mine.’

  Dr Munthe smiled. Monsignor Felici laughed. I heard an English voice close to the pulpit hiss, ‘The man’s beyond the pale.’

  Oscar glanced behind him and smiled. ‘Nevertheless, here is the poem … It is called “The Eve of St Agnes”.’

  St Agnes’
Eve — Ah, bitter chill it was!

  The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;

  The hare limp‘d trembling through the frozen grass,

  And silent was the flock in woolly fold:

  Numb were the Beadsman’s fingers, while he told

  His rosary, and while his frosted breath,

  Like pious incense from a censer old,

  Seem’d taking flight for heaven, without a death,

  Past the sweet Virgin’s picture, while his prayer he saith.

  He spoke the poem beautifully, liltingly, the words flowing from him like music played upon a cello. Almost at once — before he had spoken even four lines — he held the assembly in his thrall. I watched the fat Monsignor looking up at him, smiling in admiration.

  But as Oscar embarked on the second stanza of the poem and reached the end of the line, ‘His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man’, the old priest standing next to the Monsignor suddenly lurched forward, throwing down his sherry glass so that it smashed violently on the ground. The old man cried out as if in agony, ‘No, no!’ and then he fell, pathetically, in a heap, onto the marble church floor.

  9

  ‘The Wilde effect’

  ‘This is what I call “the Oscar Wilde effect”. The man exerts an unhealthy influence on all who come too close to him.’

  ‘Is that intended as a joke, sir?’ I murmured, through clenched teeth.

  ‘It is the truth, sir. At least, it reflects my experience of Mr Wilde.’

  Four of us carried the body of the old priest from the foot of the pulpit of All Saints to the dimly lit church vestry. I was one of the four, the others being Martin English, the Anglican chaplain; Axel Munthe, the Swedish doctor; and the gentleman who uttered this gratuitous slander at the expense of my friend Wilde.

  ‘Who are you, sir?’ I demanded, angrily.

  ‘Mr Rennell Rodd is First Secretary at the British Embassy,’ said the Reverend English, ‘and, consequently, our principal guest of honour this evening.’

  ‘His remarks do his office no credit,’ I said.

  ‘Please, gentlemen,’ cried Axel Munthe, ‘desist! I have a patient to attend to.’