“Oscar it is, then. Here is my card. I am having an event this very evening.”
“A dinner party?”
“Of sorts. A bacchanal. A feast for all the carnal appetites. I should love it if you came. I could show you so much.”
“You may count upon my attendance.”
“Eight o’clock, Oscar,” the marquess said, turning to leave. “I do hope to see you. Until then I hope my book makes for fascinating reading.”
“Alas, I fear it could never be as fascinating at its author.”
The marquess smiled craftily, and snapped a curt bow before leaving by the same hidden door he had entered. Dizzied by more than just narcotics, Wilde stood for some time, clutching the book, his mind awhirl. He did not remember leaving the shop. He did not remember walking miles through the crowded streets of London. He did not remember the instructions he had given to his driver, Gibson, who returned to the bookstore with the carriage and found him long gone.
Oscar Wilde was besotted.
CHAPTER 21
BEFORE RIGOR SETS IN
Once again, the story plays out in a dreamy riffle of black-and-white images: the vaporous mist tendriling up from the loch’s glassy surface. The young woman with her hair of white fire strolling toward the camera, her bare feet paddling the shallows. A lock of hair falling loose across her lovely face. Her coy smile, as if she feels the greedy eyes pressed up against the glass of the Mutoscope. She looks back at the golden child in the sailor suit. The tinplate boat with its windup propeller churns circles about the chubby legs.…
Somewhere, ten years into a future they will never know, a shop bell jangles.
The hand continues cranking. The images cascade. Then the hand slows. Stops. Turns the crank backward. Time reverses in a way that life cannot. The toy warship churns in retrograde circles about the boy’s legs and then leaps back into his arms.
Ring … ring … ring … Someone is yanking at the bellpull with such vigor the jangling bell threatens to rip loose from the wall.
Jedidiah draws his face away from the Mutoscope, glances up to notice that it is not the shop door. Someone is at the cellar door behind the premises.
The Mutoscope swallows his coin and the cyclopean eye dims into blindness. He abandons the machine, strides across the shop, and tugs at the rope dangling from the ceiling. The trapdoor in the floor flings open. Ducking his head, he tromps down the wooden steps into a workshop lit by hissing gas jets.
Maddeningly, the bell jangles and jangles.
“Yes, yes,” he shouts. “I’m coming, damn you!”
Jedidiah moves swiftly across the workshop to the far wall. He pauses at a bench strewn with half-made toys. The wall above is lined with tools hanging on hooks. One hook, however, is conspicuously empty. He reaches up and pulls on it. At his tug, the hook pivots downward. Somewhere within the wall, a hidden catch releases with a dull thunk. A section of the wall splits open and swings wide, taking half the workbench with it.
He steps through the dark opening into another space, a workshop for a decidedly darker form of work. A restraining chair dominates the central part of the space. Behind it, a smoked glass screen. Directly in front of the restraining chair a white sheet has been hung on the wall—an improvised screen to catch a magic lantern’s projected image.
The bell jangles frantically.
He steps behind the smoked glass screen and tugs at a large handle. At the far end of the room, a tall metal door springs open.
“Why make us wait?” an impatient voice calls as its owner, the handsome Dr. Lamb bustles in, Gladstone bag gripped in one hand. Four funeral attendants dressed in black crepe stagger in behind him, lugging a cheap-deal coffin.
“How long?” Jedidiah asks.
“Less than an hour has elapsed,” Lamb answers. “Still, we must hurry … before rigor sets in.”
The funeral attendants thump the coffin to the floor and hurriedly tear loose the lid, revealing the still-cooling body of the Italian valet in his burial shroud. The kinked neck bears a purpling rope burn. The engorged face is cyanose blue, the tongue hanging loose. The funeral attendants struggle to lift the limp corpse from the coffin and drape it atop a scarred wooden operating table. Dr. Lamb drops his Gladstone beside the corpse, snatches it open, and extracts a scalpel and a bone saw. He looks up at Jedidiah. “You have the heart mechanism ready?”
“Of course.” Jedidiah brings forward the slim metal box, brassy and precisely machined.
Dr. Lamb draws up liquid from a smoky brown bottle into a horse-sized hypodermic. He raises the needle and squirts a fine jet into the air.
“What is that?” Jedidiah asks.
“Adrenaline … along with a powerful coagulant of my own devising. This time, if an artery is cut with a knife or severed by a bullet, the blood will instantly coagulate upon touching the air.”
“So this one won’t bleed out? How do you know it works?”
“The prison infirmary has many inmates lingering at death’s doorway. We had an elderly prisoner afflicted with typhus. Mere days to live. I gave him an injection of the drug. Within seconds, I was able to slice through his femoral artery. It should have produced a gushing fountain but the blood coagulated instantly. I next tried the carotid artery in the throat. The same result.”
“And the prisoner still lives?”
The doctor looks at the toy maker with puzzlement. “Certainly not. He died within minutes. The coagulant is so powerful it effectively turned his blood to stone. Of course, with the blood pressure so high, we will not have the same difficulty.”
And with that, he plunges the needle of the hypodermic into the corpse’s neck and depresses the plunger all the way. That accomplished, he sets the empty syringe aside and snatches up a huge scalpel. “Make ready with the device,” he says to Jedidiah. “My technique is advancing with practice. This one should not take as long as previous.”
He drives the scalpel into the corpse’s thorax until the blade bites into the sternum below, then draws the blade down the chest with the zeal of a butcher slicing a rump roast for an impatient customer. Moments later he has the chest cavity peeled open and the small space resounds to the bone saw’s monotonous rasp.
CHAPTER 22
CAKES AND CORPSES
When the whirling carousel of Oscar Wilde’s mind finally groaned to a shuddering standstill, he found himself sitting at a small table in the window of the Corner House teashop on the Strand. Evidently he had been there for some time, for crowding the table in front of him were no fewer than four towering sandwich stands with each of the three tiers crammed with battalions of tea sandwiches and every description of confectionary, both sweet and savory: deviled eggs, fairy cake, potted shrimp, sticky buns, mince pies, chocolate truffles, sponge cake, lemon bars, macaroons, gâteaux, malt bread, Viennese whirls, and of course, that most English of artery-clogging indulgences: Devonshire clotted crème and scones. He balanced a hot cup of tea upon a saucer. On the table before him stood two teapots, one he had already emptied and another one waiting, fully brewed and ready.
Wilde looked dozily about, fighting the peculiar sensation that his mind had gone out for a wander without him and had only just returned. The surrounding tables were fully occupied, mostly by elderly ladies taking tea. The chatter of hot gossip and the clatter of teacup against china saucer were positively clamorous. Just then, a very weary Conan Doyle trudged up to the table and collapsed in the chair opposite.
“Been looking for you all over. Fortunately, a large Irishman in the window of a teashop is quite conspicuous. I thought perhaps they were trying to raffle you off.”
Wilde spoke around the cucumber sandwich he was munching. “You look beastly.”
“I am exhausted,” Conan Doyle admitted. “I have had quite the day.”
Wilde raised his extravagant eyebrows and paused to dab butter from his lips on his napkin and wash down his mouthful with a sip of Lapsang souchong.
“I have the most extraordi
nary news to share.”
“Although you thought I was idling at my club, I too have news to share,” Wilde mumbled around the mouthful of sandwich he was chewing feverishly. His actions seemed manic, sped-up. Conan Doyle detected a lack of focus about his friend’s eyes and, for the first time, noticed the huge spread of food on the table.
“Good Lord, Oscar! Are you catering for a church fête?”
“I cannot stop eating the cucumber sandwiches. They must put something in them.”
Conan Doyle ogled the celebration of sandwiches and confectionaries. He was a large man whose muscular frame required regular fueling, and the aroma of whipped cream and pastry sugar set him to salivating. Wilde noticed his friend eyeing the feast and said, “By all means, Arthur, feel free to indulge. Even from here I can hear the Doylean stomach growl like a ravening beast.”
“Most kind,” Conan Doyle said. He snatched up a cucumber sandwich and inhaled it. Then followed suit with a chicken curry, and then another cucumber.
A waiter approached. “Pot of tea for you, sir?”
“Earl Grey, please, and a pot of hot water.”
The waiter whisked himself away. Conan Doyle fixed his friend with a stern gaze, leaning over the table as he spoke in a low voice. “I have some shocking news to relate to you concerning our friend Doctor Lamb.”
Wilde waved a hand. “Please can we not mention that ghastly business whilst we are dining.”
Conan Doyle snatched another sandwich and crammed it in his mouth. “Theeere wurf no bobby in the coffee.”
Wilde responded in kind: “I’m furry, whash did chewsay?”
Conan Doyle swallowed his mouthful and said. “There was a body in the coffin, but not the right one. Vicente’s corpse had been substituted with that of an older man. Judging by the man’s wasted appearance, I’d wager another denizen of Newgate.”
Wilde paused mid-chew, his long face a parody of itself. He swallowed noisily, wiped his mouth on a napkin, and said, “Oh dear. That is a very disturbing turn of events.”
“And your news?”
“After you abandoned me at Newgate, I followed the marquess.” Wilde saw the question framed in Conan Doyle’s eyes and added, “I suspected it was no coincidence he attended the execution this morning.”
“And what happened?”
“I did as your Sherlock Holmes chappie would do. I followed him,” Wilde announced theatrically.
“Whatever do you mean?”
“I followed his carriage. He went straight from Newgate to Holyfield Street, where he stopped in at a bookshop.”
“So he is an avid reader. What of it?”
“A bookshop on Holyfield Street.”
Conan Doyle shook his head blankly.
Wilde sighed. “How may I put this delicately? I am referring to a gentleman’s bookshop.”
Realization sparked in Conan Doyle’s eyes. “Good lord! You mean a pornographic bookshop.” He had spoken a little too loudly, attracting disapproving glares from the matrons chatterboxing on the next table. He lowered his voice and continued: “You didn’t go inside … did you?”
Wilde made a pained face. “No, I went home and breakfasted on goose pâté and toast points and therefore have nothing to report—of course I went inside, Arthur! That is what following means!”
Wilde then relayed in detail the story of his bookshop encounter. At first Conan Doyle shifted uncomfortably at the description of the pornography, but then his eyes widened at the description of Wilde’s discovery of the secret bookshop-within-a-bookshop.
“Your Holmesian observation of the marquess’s pentacle necklace was astute. He claims to be an acolyte of all things occult. In fact, we made an exchange.”
Conan Doyle’s frown drooped his moustaches comically. “An exchange? What kind of exchange?”
“I signed his copy of Dorian Gray. In exchange he gave me a copy of his own book.”
Wilde reached across the cake trays to hand his friend a small leather volume.
“Necromancy: The Art of Raising the Dead?” Conan Doyle read aloud. “You mean he claims he can—”
“Raise the dead, Arthur. Yes, I thought the title rather gave it away.”
“You cannot believe he truly possesses such abilities?”
“If not the marquess, then apparently someone in London does. How else do you explain the restless noctivigations of Charlie Higginbotham, who maintains a very busy social calendar for a dead man?”
“You honestly believe this young man can raise the dead?”
“I honestly believe he believes so.”
Conan Doyle flipped open the small volume and scanned a few lines. It seemed pretentious gobbledygook. “Have you read it?”
“I read the first sentence. It contained a semicolon. I could read no further. The semicolon is unquestionably the ugliest piece of punctuation in the English language. It is neither full stop nor comma, and as such a mongrel construction. Furthermore, no one from Jonson forward can agree upon its use. I ceased reading. Such an early appearance of a semicolon did not portend for a pleasant read.”
Conan Doyle snapped the book shut and traced a finger across the gold pentagram embossed upon its cover. “I would like to share this with my new acquaintance.”
“Your lady friend, the medium?”
“We are having dinner tonight. She is conversant in matters of spiritualism, the occult, witchcraft, necromancy.”
“What well-educated lady in English society is not?”
“I suppose you could join us.”
Wilde shook his head. “I, too, have a dinner invitation. I am to journey to Hampstead, to the ancestral seat of the DeVaynes. What the evening holds for me I cannot guess at.”
CHAPTER 23
A DINNER DATE TO REMEMBER
They drew the usual stares, but Conan Doyle no longer cared. He sat across the dinner table from Miss Jean Leckie, whose lovely head floated buoyantly on the exquisite curve of her long neck. They had returned to the scene of their first assignation, the Tivoli restaurant, and in the welcoming glow of the Palm Room’s electric lights, the young woman’s hazel-green eyes sparkled with delectation. After a dinner of watercress salad, oysters, and champagne, they had desserted on truffles drizzled with chocolate. Now he watched the tip of her pink tongue lick the chocolate from her spoon. She noticed his stare and stifled a guilty smile beneath her napkin.
“I must apologize, Doctor Doyle. Most unladylike. I assure you, my mother brought me up to have better manners.”
“Arthur,” he scolded gently. “You must call me Arthur.”
She rested the hand gripping her spoon upon on the table. Quite unconsciously, he reached out and placed his hand atop hers. “It gives me great joy to make you happy, Jean.”
He gazed into her eyes, a little too deeply. She looked down and drew her hand away.
He knew his behavior was appalling. Ridiculous even. He was a public figure. A well-known author. People were staring. Damn them, he thought. Let them stare.
“I do have a question for you, Jean.”
She looked up, her eyes brimming with hope. “Yes?”
Conan Doyle drew the small leather volume from his inside pocket. “I thought I might make use of your encyclopedic knowledge of the occult.”
Her expression faltered, but he failed to notice. She smiled gamely and said, “I would hardly compare myself to an encyclopedia, but perhaps I may be able to help.”
Conan Doyle handed the book across the table to her. She opened to the title page. Her eyes swept the gothic type and she looked up in surprise.
“Necromancy! How very dark!”
“You are familiar with the term?”
“My father had a comprehensive library. As a young girl I was expressly forbidden from reading certain books.” She flashed a wicked smile. “Of course, those were the books I read first.”
She dropped her eyes to the page and began reading. Conan Doyle contented himself to watch as she read the first page a
nd then the second. At the third page, her eyes flickered as she scanned a line over and over. She closed the book and looked up at him, her expression unreadable.
“What do you make of it?”
“Is this something you are reading for research? A new book you are planning?”
“Ah, yes,” Conan Doyle fibbed. He could not endanger her by going into the details of his current adventure.
“Very heady stuff.”
“The book purports to have knowledge of a ritual to raise the dead.”
“Yes,” Jean replied. “It requires the sacrifice of a virgin.”
“Ah!” Conan Doyle replied, suddenly embarrassed.
The young woman reached across the table and placed her hand on his. “Fortunately, I have a brave, strong man to protect my virtue.”
Conan Doyle was struck speechless. From the sparkle in her eyes, it seemed clear she was offering him a gift.
* * *
It was fully dark by the time Wilde’s carriage rolled up to the gatehouse of the walled grounds encompassing the DeVayne estate. The gatekeeper who emerged from the tiny cottage proved to be a feral-looking man dressed in antique garb complete with knee britches and a leather tricorn hat. Wilde dropped the carriage window to speak to him and was alarmed to see a huge blunderbuss balanced in the crook of his arm.
“Good evening. My name is Oscar Wilde.”
“Arrrr,” the gateman replied as he scratched a bushy sideburn with long, horny fingernails.
“You have, no doubt, heard of me.”
“Arrrr,” the gatekeeper replied, by which Wilde could not tell if he meant yes or no.
“I am here at the personal invitation of the marquess.”
“Arrrr.”
“Might I inquire … why the weapon? Are you expecting armed raiders?”
“Arrrr. Ye know about the marquess’s menagerie?” the man asked in an accent so rustic it was practically sprouting stalks of corn.
“Menagerie?”
“Animals. He collects ’em. Running loose on the grounds.” The gatekeeper patted the blunderbuss fondly. “That’s why oi got this.”
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