Oscar Wilde and the Nest of Vipers
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‘Inspector Boone of Scotland Yard – your man with the twisted lip, Arthur. He is out there pursuing vice – and missing murder. This will give him something useful to do.’
‘I thought he was watching Prince Albert Victor,’ I said.
‘He has been – among others. And, believe it or not – or so he told me on the Dover train, when you two young gentlemen were fast asleep – I, Oscar Wilde, am one of the “others”. While you slumbered, he as good as accused me of unnatural vice. He told me that one day he would prove to be my nemesis. The words these policemen know!’
Oscar reached out to Conan Doyle and put his arm on the doctor’s shoulder. ‘Arthur, you are too good for this world.’
‘Never mind that,’ said Conan Doyle. ‘Let’s get to Inspector Boone. We need the police, Oscar. We need a dose of reality.’
‘We do,’ cried Oscar and his eyes were suddenly full of tears. ‘A dose of reality – and then a bucket of champagne. Who needs cheese straws? We shall dine at the Café Royal on oysters and Perrier-Jouët. Case closed.’
‘The man is a murderer, Oscar. Not a prince or a vampire, but a murderer.’
‘Yes,’ said Oscar, ‘I know. And a poor girl lies dead in that room because of him. But he was impossibly handsome, wasn’t he? And even men of the noblest moral character are susceptible to the influence of the physical charms of others. Have I said that to you before? It’s true nonetheless – as I fear you will discover one day. Even you will discover it, Arthur. Even you.’
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Telegram sent to Constance Wilde at 16 Tite Street, Chelsea, at midnight on Friday, 21 March 1890
HOW WAS THE SCOTTISH PLAY? HOW WAS IRVING? HOW IS BRAM? HOW ARE YOU MY DARLING WIFE? PARIS PALLS. LONDON CALLS. RETURNING SUNDAY. ALL WELL. BERNHARDT DIVINE AS EVER. OSCAR WILDE AS ALWAYS
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From the Evening News, London, first edition, Saturday, 22 March 1890
CURIOUS DEATH IN SOHO
The dead body of a young man was discovered in the early hours of this morning in the stockroom of the Portuguese wine shop at 17 Wardour Street, Soho.
The young man, as yet unnamed but believed to be in his mid-twenties and of smart appearance, had apparently been drowned to death in a full cask of malmsey wine from the Madeira islands, in the manner of the notorious death of the Duke of Clarence in Shakespeare’s play, Richard III. According to the police, the present case has all the appearance of a tragic accident and foul play is not suspected.
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Telegram sent from the Langham Hotel, London, to Louisa ‘Touie’ Conan Doyle in Southsea, at 9 a.m. on Saturday, 22 March 1890
RETURNING TO SOUTHSEA THIS MORNING. ALL WELL. SO HAPPY. I LOVE YOU DEAREST. HEART AND SOUL. NOW AND ALWAYS. FOR EVER AND A DAY. ACD
Author’s Note
Arthur Conan Doyle married Louisa ‘Touie’ Hawkins in 1885. She suffered from tuberculosis and died in 1906. In 1897 Conan Doyle met the second great love of his life, Jean Leckie. He married her ten years later, in September 1907, fourteen months after Touie’s death. He had five children: two with his first wife, three with his second. In 1902, in recognition of his services to the Crown during the Boer War, he was knighted. He died on 7 July 1930, aged seventy-one.
Oscar Wilde married Constance Lloyd in 1884. They had two sons: Cyril (1885–1915) and Vyvyan (1886–1967). Constance died on 7 April 1898, aged forty, in Genoa, following unsuccessful spinal surgery. Oscar, having served a two-year sentence of imprisonment with hard labour for homosexual offences, was released from Reading Gaol in 1897 and died in exile, in Paris, on 30 November 1900, aged forty-six.
Robert Sherard, whose father was the natural son of the 6th and last Earl of Harborough and whose mother was the granddaughter of William Wordsworth, was twice divorced and three times married. He wrote poetry, short stories and detective fiction, and biographies of Emile Zola, Alphonse Daudet and Guy de Maupassant, as well as Oscar Wilde. He died on 30 January 1943, aged eighty-one.
Bram Stoker married Florence Balcombe in 1878. They had one son and a marriage lasting thirty-four years. Stoker was Henry Irving’s manager at the Lyceum Theatre in London for twenty-seven years. He published Dracula in 1897 and died on 20 April 1912, aged sixty-four.
Jean-Martin Charcot was the foremost neurologist of his time and the first to describe and name multiple sclerosis, among several other conditions. He died on 16 August 1893, aged sixty-seven.
Jane Avril was under Charcot’s care at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in 1880s, but her claim to fame lies in the posters of her created for the Moulin Rouge by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in the 1890s. She died on 16 January 1943, aged seventy-four.
Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, married Princess Alexandra of Denmark on 10 March 1863, when he was twenty-one and she was eighteen. They had six children, the oldest of whom was Prince Albert Victor, known as Eddy, who was created Duke of Clarence and Avondale in the summer of 1890 and who died of pneumonia on 14 January 1892, aged just twenty-eight.
The Prince of Wales succeeded Queen Victoria as King Edward VII on 22 January 1901. Ever tolerant, Queen Alexandra allowed the last of her husband’s many mistresses, Alice Keppel – great-grandmother of the Duchess of Cornwall, the present Princess of Wales – at his bedside as he lay dying. He was succeeded by his second son, King George V, great-grandfather of the present Prince of Wales.
Edward VII died on 6 May 1910, aged sixty-eight. One hundred years later, the manuscript of Oscar Wilde and the Nest of Vipers was delivered to John Murray of London, sometime publisher of Arthur Conan Doyle.