I get up to hug him. “Oh, Oscar! I’ve missed you!”
He gives me this huge smile and then immediately puts his hands to his mouth to cover his bad teeth as he giggles, “I’ve so missed you, too, Nellie-girl.”
As we hug one more time before sitting down, the doggie he’s carrying gets squished between us, again.
“Oh, you poor thing … what’s your name?” As I pet the little fellow, he paws me and licks my fingers. “Oscar, he isn’t wearing purple nail polish?”
“Of course! It must match his cape. Nellie, meet Lord Dudley.”
“Lord Dudley … okay, I suppose that fits.”
“Isn’t this place magnificent? Look at all its beauty!” Oscar surveys the place as if he’s admiring his kingdom. He’s always been attracted to beauty. “This place is a tour de force. There is no other like it in the world.”
“I know. It’s the first to have hydraulically powered lifts, air-conditioning, and its own steam-pumped artesian well. The hotel bored three hundred and sixty-five feet below the basement floor into the chalk-basin and with the help of two fourteen-horsepower pumps they are able to pump twenty-five thousand gallons of water into iron tanks in the cupola tower that distributes hot and cold running water to every bedroom. That, my dear Oscar, is truly amazing.”
“Yes it is. How did you…”
I love surprising Oscar with my knowledge since he believes us poor Americans are so ignorant, so I continue. “You must know that Sir James Langham built a mansion on this site in 1820, subsequently named Langham Place, because it’s ninety-five feet above the Thames high water mark on fine gravel soil, making it healthier than the peat bogs in Belgravia nearer the Thames. In fact, this area is not only regarded as the healthiest in London, but has a much lower death rate than any other of the city’s districts.”
Poor Oscar just sits looking at me confounded. I almost break down and tell him when I was waiting for him I overheard a gentleman explaining in detail, to his dinner companions from Italy, about the place.
“Nellie, you never cease to amaze me.”
“Why thank you. What also impresses me is they have telephones, a real rarity anywhere, a post office, two libraries that have up-to-date newspapers and journals from around the world, public lavatories, a railway ticketing and shipping office, all under one roof. And their employees are qualified to converse in every language, from pure Yankee to High Dutch. I wonder if this is the way all hotels will be one day.”
“Maybe, but they will never have the beauty like this place.” Once again Oscar pauses, sweeping the room with his eyes, soaking in all its exquisiteness. “Art, which comes in all forms—paintings, sculptures, people, décor—has one purpose, to display beauty, and this place does it magnificently. I believe we are nothing but God’s canvas. And it’s amazing what some of us do with it. Look at the elderly ladies here…” He pauses for a moment and nods at one and then another.
“They all have gigantic tiaras and parrot noses.”
“Oscar!” But I couldn’t help laughing. He’s right.
“Thank God I won’t end up looking like that truculent and red-faced old gentleman covered all over with orders and ribbons. Did you know that the romantic novelist Marie Louise de la Ramée or Ouida, as she liked to call herself, lived here for four years before she died? What a marvelous eccentric! One day she invited me to her room. She was lying on her bed wearing only a sheer, green silk, sinister nightgown, surrounded with masses of purple flowers and candles. She refused to have the black velvet curtains drawn; claimed the obtrusive daylight made it hard for her to think. Couldn’t help but love a lady who said she did all her best work in bed!”
Oscar laughs with such delight I can’t help but laugh myself.
“Your first American to be a guest here was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Samuel Langhorne Clemens, or better known to the public as Mark Twain, stays here whenever he comes to London. In fact, my own novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, that will soon be out was negotiated with the publisher at this very table. Also present at that dinner was Arthur Conan Doyle, the writer of the Sherlock Holmes stories.9 Have you read his mystery stories?”
“No, not yet.”
“Well, you must. It will sharpen your detecting skills.”
“Congratulations on your book. What is it about?”
“The philosophy of beauty. It’s about what one can choose to do with his life and how he can either destroy it…” Oscar pauses for a moment, as if his life is passing him by.
As much as I hate silence, especially awkward ones like these, I keep quiet for his sake. He is a dear soul who has to endure a lot of cruelty and criticism from society, yet somehow he manages to keep his humor and love for life or, more appropriately, beauty. I wish I was as strong as him.
“… or try to make it worthy. I think it is a masterpiece. One might say it’s as lovely as a Persian carpet, and as unreal. I must say, the publisher was a bit disappointed that he didn’t get all the words he wanted. It’s true we had agreed on a manuscript of a hundred thousand words, but after I completed it I informed him that there were not a hundred thousand beautiful words in the English language.”
“And I imagine that you used all the beautiful ones in your book. I shall rush and buy it the moment I see it out. However, Oscar, I must say, you have me a bit confused.”
“How so, my dear?”
“Well, with your story being published, something you’ve always wanted, which would make, I believe, life good; in your telegram you said that you are incognito, ducking trouble, that sort of thing. What’s up?”
“I’m hiding in plain sight.”
16
“Ah, yes, I should have thought of that. Why are you hiding in plain sight?”
“That thing called love that the immortal Dante said moved the sun and other stars. Unfortunately, that which can move heavenly bodies can sometimes cause utter ruin and devastation among us mere mortals.”
“Which translates to…?”
“As my miner friends in Leadville would say, I got caught with my pants down.”
I am afraid to ask if it had anything to do with buggery … because I am absolutely certain that it does. I called poor Oscar a “sodomite” the first time I met him, that’s before I got to know him and realized that his choice of lovers is a private matter about which no one has the right to throw the first rock. Regardless of Oscar’s distaste for the hypocrisy of our legal system that is heavily influenced by religion—the law still has severe penalties for men who mate with other men.
“I met a young ang—no, not an angel, an Adonis whose appearance on even a bright day is as if a more brilliant sun had suddenly risen in the sky. And his looks … they are as if the gods had molded him from ivory and rose leaves. When I met him I had a strange feeling that Fate had in store for me exquisite joys and deep sorrows. I was not let down. Unfortunately, Nellie, as our first ancestors learned in Eden and I have discovered in this matter, behind every wondrous thing that exists there is something tragic. I like to think of it as there always being a snake in paradise.”
“He loves someone else,” I say, barely above a whisper, hoping to bring down his own volume.
“Oh no!” he booms. “It’s his damn father. Even in that raw colony across the pond, you’ve heard of the Marquis of Queensbury.”
“I believe we adopted the Queensbury rules of boxing as a matter of fact … gloves, no punches in the clinch, that sort of thing.”10
“Yes, yes. What a vulgar creature he is—the marquis. He has a son who is the glorification of all that is beautiful and pure and the creature embraces a sport in which men sweat and bleed and punch each other and there is a ten-second count for a knockout.”
This goes on for ten minutes while Oscar moans about the damage to his soul, how when one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one’s self, and one always ends by deceiving others. His lamenting is what the world calls romance. Now, because of all this tangled web his lov
er wove, he is in hiding because the Queensbury marquis is out to practice some of his pugilistic talents on Oscar for “corrupting” his son.
Somewhere between Oscar’s breaths for air, I manage to direct the conversation to Hailey and he is an attentive audience as I start with news of Hailey’s suicide and end with being mugged for her diary. I tell him that I suspect Hailey was killed by a wealthy man to hide their affair.
“It’s karma,” he says, when I am finished.
“Karma?”
“Your consistent ability to stumble onto murder wherever you go. There is no other explanation for why people come to a violent end around you.”
“You think my karma killed Hailey?” My features pucker, ready for tears.
“Oh my … no, no, no. Of course I didn’t mean that.” He reaches over and pats my hand. “That was a bad choice of words on my part. Your karma couldn’t hurt a flea. You care too much for people. It’s not your fault that they die.”
“You’re saying I somehow had a hand in them being murdered.” My emotional state breaks.
Oscar quickly hands me his pink handkerchief before I flood dinner with my tears. “Nellie, you are taking this all the wrong way. Lord knows you try to prevent it and you do end up saving lives. You saved mine.”
That stops my tears and I remember why I love this gentle giant. “No, Oscar … you saved my life and that’s why I need your help again.”
“You’re in danger?”
“No, I don’t think so, but I can’t let Hailey’s killer get away with murder or allow the people who knew her to think she took her own life when she didn’t. That would be horrible.”
With my emotions back in control, I tell Oscar the news story about a health doctor and a society woman.
“Ah, yes, the Lady Winsworth matter,” he says. “It was front page news until the next juicy story showed its head. You’ve heard of Dr. Lacroix, Anthony Lacroix? No, of course you haven’t, you’re a parochial colonist and only interested in what happens on your side of the pond. Where should I start?”
“At the beginning—with the doctor.”
Our waiter sets down a crystal bowl of water on the floor for Lord Dudley. Oscar waits ’til he leaves and puts in on the table. “I can’t let him out of my hands. He’ll go socializing with the people.”
“I believe you. Now, back to the matter at hand.”
“Ah, yes, Dr. Lacroix. He has a mineral spa in Bath near the ancient Roman ruins. He sells a substance that my miner friends in Leadville, Colorado, with whom I bellied up to the bar during my American tour, would call ‘snake oil’.”
“We have quite a few salesmen of that type, and not all in western mining camps.”
“Aqua Vitae.” Oscar smacks his lips as if he can taste the name. “The Waters of Life is a mixture made from the waters the doctor gets from the mineral springs and his ‘secret’ ingredients.”
“What’s his snake oil?”
“I’ve heard it’s animal organs.”
“What?”
“Most animals are much faster and more powerful than humans. Rejuvenation researchers seek the essence of animal organs that will revitalize humans.”
“Yuck. Sounds disgusting. People drink that stuff?”
“They do if they want to stay young and beautiful or in the case of men, still virile in old age. And can afford it. Youth is not cheap or pretty on the dark side of middle age.”
“You’re telling me this doctor mixes up a batch of animal organs and people pay to swig it down? Is this poison what killed the society lady?”
“What killed the society lady is still an open question at the coroner’s office, but the newspapers tried the doctor already and found him guilty. Something I’m quite familiar with. Anyway, Lady Winsworth was an actress over forty, maybe older, she never told, at least truthfully, not only because she married Lord Winsworth, first baronet of Barberry, who, if I’m correct, is a few years younger than her, though she looks much younger. She was also very vain. It was imperative to her that she keep her youthful beauty. Being willing to try anything, the Fountain of Youth rejuvenation that Dr. Lacroix sold fit the bill. What she died of still puzzles the medical examiner. From your experiences as a crime reporter, you would know the coroners’ doctors have very limited scientific resources.”
“So, who or what do you think killed her?”
“I don’t know. But I’m sure that she was having an affair with Dr. Lacroix.”
“That’s a perfect motive for the husband to kill her. But how do you know she was having an affair with the doctor?”
He grins. “My study of human nature tells me. A woman desperate to reassure herself that she wasn’t growing old, a younger man who may hold the secret to her maintaining her beauty and who himself is considered attractive by women in general.”
“And is there a jealous husband in this scenario?”
“Yes, the police are considering that angle, especially since he had a lover, who is quite a bit younger than Lady Winsworth. But I understand that he was quite devoted to his wife despite his wanderings because she was popular in social circles, an area in which he fared badly. He got lucky and made his pile in a South African gold mine, but his father had been a Liverpool dockworker. It was the gold strike that got him the baronet title after he spread around some of his ample abundance to the Queen’s favorite causes. But, it was Lady Winsworth’s popularity that got him in with the cream of society. He doesn’t have the best of personalities. He’s not just a bull in a china cabinet, but a mean bull.
“Now, while there’s been no charges against Dr. Lacroix officially filed, and the case is still open, I can tell you that Lacroix has more to fear from Lord Winsworth than a police investigation. Winsworth is a rough and tumble guy, the kind who knows you can’t make an omelet without cracking eggs. From what I’ve heard of the man, Dr. Lacroix would end up floating facedown in the river if Winsworth gets his hands on him.”
I winced at the image of a body facedown in the water. “This Lacroix sounds like a charlatan.”
“I’m not sure. I’ve heard things from both sides of the aisle about him. He believes in rejuvenation, taking years off of people, turning back the clock a bit. And he knows that most people will sell their soul for continual youth. It’s people like Lady Winsworth and the rest of the men and women that gave me the inspiration for creating Dorian Gray.”
Oscar continues in his musical voice and with that graceful wave of the hand that is always so characteristic of him. “I’ve been expounding on my beliefs about beauty for years. The Picture of Dorian Gray is just a … oh, how would one say it … a culmination of my spoken thoughts put down in the written word. My book discloses how our desire to keep young and beautiful leads us to do things we never dreamed we’d do and how in the end it destroys us. Well, it makes no difference, doctors—and witch doctors—have been practicing the art for thousands of years. The Ebers Papyrus, a three-thousand-year-old Egyptian medical book talks about using the organs of animals to give humans the power and strength of beasts. They used the organs of bulls, for example, to improve human vitality.”
“That’s a lot of bull.” The pun is shameless on my part, but I can’t help it.
“Don’t be so certain. There’s a very prominent French-American doctor in Paris named Brown-Séquard. He’s renowned worldwide for his work with the human nervous system, yet, like Lacroix, he believes that rejuvenation can be accomplished with human beings.”
Oscar leans across the table for his next pronouncement and I know it will be a bombshell.
“To revitalize his sex life, he personally takes an extract he prepares from the testes of a bull.”
“Oh God.” I can’t hold back a giggle.
“He claims it enhances his virility. And there’s a Liverpool fighter named Billy the Bull who claims he takes a teaspoon of bull semen before every fight and says it’s made him a champion. I, myself, have no problems in the area of male sexuality, but I’ve been
considering—”
“Oscar, spare me the details! Please, just tell me more about this Dr. Lacroix.”
“That’s about all I know. He’s a doctor who has tuned in on a need aching to be filled—eternal youth. Let me tell you something about youth. There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth! Women want to return to the blush of youth and beauty, men want back those halcyon days when they bedded the headmaster’s daughter and then went on to row for Oxford. And they will pay anything to get it. Naturally, rejuvenation is restricted to only the rich because the poor are too busy finding food and shelter to worry about what they look like. Nowadays, people know the price of everything, and the value of nothing.”
“You’re cynical, Oscar.”
“Nellie, my dear, society runs on looks. I know, now, that when one loses one’s good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything. Shocking, but true. One day you will discover I am merely honest in a world in which people hide their motives deeper than their money.” He reaches across and pats my hand. “Nellie, dearest, you have fled my tirades.”
“No, I’m just confused, which isn’t an uncommon state of mind for me. I find a connection between the doctor in Bath and Hailey hard to swallow. Bath is what, over a hundred miles from here, two or three hours by train? And while the story about the doctor and the society woman may titillate London society where the names of the people are known, it’s not the sort of story that would interest readers on the other side of the Atlantic for long.”
“Nellie, as I so adequately put it in my book, the search for beauty is the real secret of life. That said, my dear, this is not just a story about a doctor in Bath and a London society woman, but a story about a doctor who is trying to sell eternal youth, something even you barbaric Americans would find interesting.”
Before I can object, he holds up his hand. “As you get older you will understand. In the meantime, if you change your mind I have a friend in Bath, Lady Callista Chilcott, who I’ll refer you to if you want to follow up on gossip about the doctor. I know she has been treated for that terrible disease called ugly old age by the doctor.”
The Formula for Murder Page 7