‘It opens on 19 May,’ he announced, ‘my thirty-fifth birthday—it’s a present to myself. And it’s all about you, Oscar!’
Oscar inclined his head in acknowledgement. ‘How clever of you, Charles, to give the public what they want.’
‘It’s a burlesque, Oscar—a satire on Lady Windermere‘s Fan. It’s a little sharp at times, but Bram assures me you won’t mind.’
‘Praise makes me humble,’ answered Oscar, ‘but when I am abused I know that I have touched the stars.’
At 7.30 p.m., the hour at which the Socrates Club dinner was customarily served, Oscar enquired of Byrd, ‘Are we all gathered? There only seem to be thirteen in the room.’
‘My guest is late, Mr Wilde,’ answered Byrd, wincing as he spoke. ‘It’s not like him to be late. My profound apologies. He will be here in the instant.’
Oscar glanced down at the piece of paper on which he had drawn up the seating plan for the dinner. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said, ‘“David McMuirtree” … I’ve not met him before, have I?’
‘I don’t believe so, Mr Wilde,’ said Byrd, looking anxiously towards the door.
‘He appears to know you, Oscar,’ I said.
‘You’ve met him, Robert?’
‘Briefly,’ I replied, ‘just the once.’
‘McMuirtree?’ said Charles Brookfield, raising an eyebrow. ‘I recognise the name. Is he a gentleman?’
‘He’s what you’d call “half-a-gentleman”, sir,’ said Byrd, apologetically. ‘His mother was a lady, but his father was a footman.’
‘A footman!’ exclaimed Oscar. ‘How delightful. How tall?’
Byrd looked confused. ‘I don’t follow you, Mr Wilde.’
‘How tall was McMuirtree’s father? Do you know? The taller the footman, the greater his remuneration.’
‘I don’t know about the father, Mr Wilde, but McMuirtree must be over six foot.’
‘I’m delighted to hear it,’ said Oscar, who was more than six foot himself. ‘Is your friend a footman like his father? I’ve no objection to dining with a footman, needless to ,say, but I’m not sure Mr Brookfield could cope.
Byrd gave a nervous laugh. ‘Oh, no, sir. David McMuirtree’s a boxer. He works the fairgrounds. I know him from my time on the halls. He was a champion in his day. I believe he once had the honour of going a round or two with Lord Queensberry. He’s never been in service, I assure you. He’s a fine figure of a man. You’ll like him, Mr Wilde.’
At this point, a tall, broad, handsome man of about forty appeared in the dining-room doorway. His head and face were totally clean-shaven and his dark brown skin had a sheen to it like polished chestnut. His nose was prominent, but unbroken; his eyes were blue-black, but warm. His evening dress was immaculate. He wore a green carnation in his buttonhole.
‘I like him very much,’ said Oscar.
‘I thought you would,’ muttered Byrd, evidently relieved. ‘Shall I have dinner served, Mr Wilde?’
‘If you would, Byrd. Thank you.’ Oscar stepped across the dining room and shook McMuirtree cordially by the hand. ‘Welcome to our little club, Mr McMuirtree. Socrates taught us that there is only one good and that is knowledge; and only one evil, ignorance. Already, I feel better for knowing you.’
‘Thank you, Mr Wilde,’ said McMuirtree, bowing his head and speaking in a tone so hushed that he was barely audible.
‘There’s no need to whisper here,’ said Oscar, genially. ‘You are among friends.’
‘I fear I have no choice but to speak like this,’ answered the boxer in the softest of whispers. ‘My vocal chords were destroyed some years ago in a bout in Birmingham. I was hammered in the neck by a lunatic.’
‘I am sorry to hear it,’ said Oscar, lowering his voice to match McMuirtree’s.
‘Not everyone plays by the Queensberry Rules,’ said the boxer with a smile.
‘Indeed,’ said Oscar. He turned to the room and clapped his hands together loudly.
‘Hush!’ cried Bosie. ‘The chairman speaks!’
‘Gentlemen,’ said Oscar, ‘kindly take your seats. Dinner is about to be served. You will find name cards at your places. The seating plan is my responsibility, but the menu and choice of wines, as ever, have been left to Byrd. He rarely lets us down.’
When we had all found our places, Oscar took up his position at the head of the table and clapped his hands once more. ‘Welcome, gentlemen, welcome. I should explain to newcomers, this is a club virtually without rules. To keep Wat happy, you are even allowed to come dressed as you please. We shall say Grace tonight because we are honoured to have a man of the cloth among us—’ he nodded towards George Daubeney—’and, as ever, we shall have a loyal toast because Her Majesty is always present in our hearts. Other than that, we have no formalities no speeches—and you may say whatever you please—’ Oscar looked directly at David McMuirtree—’you may whisper whatever you please, knowing that whatever is uttered or undertaken in this room tonight remains between us.’
A rumble of ‘Hear, hear!’ ran around the table, interrupted by Bosie who called out, ‘We have no rules, Oscar, but we do have one tradition.’
‘Do we?’ asked Sickert.
‘Of course we do,’ said Bosie. ‘Oscar’s game.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Oscar. ‘After dinner, we play a game.’
‘What’s it to be tonight, Oscar?’ asked Bosie. ‘Have you decided?’
‘Indeed,’ said Oscar, ‘I have it in hand … or as Mrs Robinson might say, I have it in my “unhappy hand”… “Murder” is the game we shall be playing tonight. Mr Daubeney—George—will you be so kind as to give us Grace?’
The seating plan
for the Socrates Club dinner at
the Cadogan Hotel on Sunday 1 May 1892
Oscar Wilde
Edward Heron-Allen
Arthur Conan Doyle
Willie Hornung
Robert Sherard
The Hon. the Rev. George Daubeney
Charles Brookfield
Lord Alfred Douglas
Lord Drumlanrig
Bram Stoker
Bradford Pearse
Walter Sickert
David McMuirtree
Alphonse Byrd
CHAPTER THREE
THE GAME
Byrd’s dinner was exemplary. I noted down the wines in my journal especially: with the fish, an extraordinarily silky white Burgundy; with the beef, an 1888 Margaux so mellow that even Charles Brookfield conceded it had ‘merit’. Absurdly, with the brandy, port and liqueurs, Oscar insisted that Byrd also serve a carafe of ‘Vin Mariani’, a curious concoction, the colour of dung, made from cheap Bordeaux wine treated with coca leaves.
‘What’s this?’ Brookfield asked as Byrd offered him a glass.
‘It’s not compulsory,’ said Oscar from his end of the table. He had the gift of being able to listen to several conversations simultaneously.
‘But what is it?’ insisted Brookfield. ‘It looks disgusting.’
‘It’s a cordial favoured by His Holiness the Pope, ‘Oscar explained.
‘Well, we’re not in Rome now,’ said Brookfield, waving Byrd away and reaching for the port decanter.
‘Nor in Oporto,’ murmured Oscar. ‘I asked Byrd to serve the Mariani in honour of Dr Doyle. I believe the beverage contains cocaine. I thought Arthur might care to introduce it to his friend, Sherlock Holmes.’
Conan Doyle laughed obligingly. ‘I’d better try a glass then.’
‘Her Majesty the Queen is apparently partial to it, also,’ said Oscar.
‘Never mind the wine, Wilde,’ said Brookfield, turning his port glass slowly in his hand. ‘What about this game of yours?’
‘Oh yes, Oscar,’ cried Bosie. ‘Let’s play the game!’
‘Are you sure it’s a good idea, Oscar?’ asked Conan Doyle, leaning towards Oscar while casting his eyes in the direction of the ‘delicate-minded’ Willie Hornung.
Oscar addressed the table. ‘Arthur has reservations ab
out our game, gentlemen. Last month we played “Mistresses”—and the good doctor felt unable to participate.’
‘I did not feel it was seemly,’ said Conan Doyle quietly.
‘It was most unseemly, as I recall,’ said Sickert. ‘I think that was the idea.’ He turned to his neighbour, McMuirtree, the boxer, to explain. ‘Oscar invited us all to select the mistress of our choice. As I recall, he picked Joan of Arc.’
‘What has this to do with Socrates?’ enquired Brookfield, helping himself to a further libation of port.
‘Socrates taught us that the greatest way to live with honour in this world is to be what we pretend to be.’
‘I don’t follow you,’ said Brookfield.
‘Oh, but you do, Charles,’ said Oscar, ‘in everything.
‘Come on,’ cried Bosie. ‘Let’s play the game!’
‘Very well,’ said Oscar. He looked towards Conan Doyle and whispered, with a kindly smile: ‘It’s only a game, Arthur.’
‘Very well,’ said Conan Doyle, nodding to Oscar and patting the back of Willie Hornung’s hand by way of offering his young friend reassurance. ‘Half a glass of this Mariani wine of yours, Oscar, and I seem to be up for anything.’
‘Good man,’ said Oscar, getting to his feet. He stood quite steadily at the head of the table and, with an amused eye, surveyed the thirteen of us seated before him. ‘“Murder” is the name of our game this evening. It was Socrates who first suggested that death may be the greatest of all human blessings, and tonight, gentlemen, we are to visit that blessing upon the victims of our choice. Do I make myself clear?’
There was a general murmur of assent.
‘Does everyone here have a pen or pencil about his person?’ Oscar asked.
Brookfield muttered to his neighbour, ‘We’re in the schoolroom now, are we?’
Oscar went on: ‘Mr Byrd will pass around the table presently and give each of you a slip of paper and, should you require it, a writing implement. Onto your blank slip of paper—unseen by your neighbours—you are invited to write down the name of the person or persons you would most like to murder.’
‘I like this game,’ boomed Bradford Pearse. ‘What’s the name of the theatre critic on the Era?’
‘When you have written down your victim’s name,’ Oscar continued, ‘Byrd will pass around the table once more, collecting your slips of paper and placing them safely in this collection bag.’ He held up a small plum-coloured velvet bag, the size of a hand. ‘He will then, on my instruction, draw out the slips of paper, at random, one by one, and read out each name in turn. Our task then, gentlemen, will be to work out who wishes to murder whom.‘
‘And why,’ suggested Charles Brookfield, licking the tip of his pencil.
‘Indeed,’ said Oscar. ‘And why.’
‘Will you be playing, too, Mr Chairman?’ enquired Lord Drumlanrig. ‘Are you allowed to choose a victim, also?’
‘Naturally,’ said Oscar, sitting down, taking his fountain pen out of his coat pocket and subscribing his victim’s name to his slip of paper with the deliberation of a statesman signing an international treaty. ‘There is nothing quite like an unexpected death for lifting the spirits.’
While we wrote the names of our proposed victims on the small slips of paper provided to us by Alphonse Byrd, a curious hush fell upon the room. I wrote down the name of my victim-of-choice instantly, without giving the matter much consideration. I then looked about the table and watched the others. Most appeared rapt in concentration, like students taking an exam by candlelight. Bosie was sucking on his pencil, apparently much amused by the thought of who was to be his victim. Bradford Pearse, the actor, was contemplating whatever he had written with what seemed like wary satisfaction. Wat Sickert looked to me to be drawing a sketch of his victim. Like Bosie, Sickert was evidently amused by his choice of prey. Everyone-even the cynical and supercilious Brookfield and mild-mannered Willie Hornung gave the impression of total absorption in the task in hand. Only Arthur Conan Doyle looked disengaged. He held his pen, unopened, in his left hand and stared vacantly ahead of him, fixing his empty gaze between Lord Drumlanrig and Bram Stoker on the blank wall beyond.
‘Suddenly it’s quiet as a graveyard in here,’ whispered McMuirtree.
‘Oh,’ said Sickert, smiling slyly, ‘I can hear the Angel of Death flapping her wings.’
Oscar looked up. ‘Nowhere is there more true feeling, and nowhere worse taste, than in a graveyard,’ he said.
Bosie suppressed a giggle. ‘That’s very good, Oscar. Is it one of yours?’
Oscar was folding his slip of paper in two and placing it in the collection bag. ‘It deserves to be,’ he said, ‘but it isn’t, I’m afraid. I first heard it in Oxford years ago. At Balliol, more’s the pity.’ He held up the velvet bag for Byrd to take it from him. ‘Are we all done?’ he asked.
‘We are,’ boomed Bradford Pearse.
‘This is rather fun,’ said Willie Hornung, polishing his pince-nez with a corner of his napkin.
‘I’m glad you are having a happy evening, Willie,’ said Oscar. ‘Help yourself to another glass of Mariani wine.’
When Byrd had been around the table and each of us had placed his folded slip of paper into the collection bag, Oscar took a teaspoon and clinked it against the side of his brandy glass. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘the moment is upon us. If your glasses are all charged and your cigars are lit, we shall proceed with the game.’ He turned to Byrd who was standing at his right shoulder. ‘Mr Byrd, if you would be so kind, please draw the first slip from the bag and read out the name thereon inscribed.’
Byrd pulled back his cuff—as a magician might to show his audience nothing was concealed up his sleeve—and plunged his hand into the bag. He let us see his fingers rummaging about inside the bag and then, with a self-conscious flourish, pulled out a slip of paper and held it close to his eyes.
‘This is fun,’ repeated Willie Hornung, sitting forward in his place.
Oscar smiled at the young man and then looked up at Alphonse Byrd. ‘Mr Byrd,’ he said, ‘be so kind, would you, as to read out the name of our first murder victim?’
Byrd scrutinised the paper in his hand and looked out across the room. The night manager of the Cadogan Hotel was not an impressive figure—he had the stooped shoulders and watery eyes of a man defeated by life—but he had once been a professional performer and in that brief moment, holding the slip of paper in one hand and his magician’s bag in the other, he commanded our attention with an authority that even the great Robert-Houdin might have envied.
Oscar killed the moment. ‘Byrd,’ he snapped, ‘we’ve heard the pin drop. Read out the name.’
Flinching momentarily, as though Oscar had suddenly struck him across the ear, Byrd did as he was bidden. ‘The first victim is to be “Miss Elizabeth Scott-Rivers”,’ he announced.
The silence in the room that, a moment before, had been so expectant—exhilarating, almost—now became uncomfortable. Every one of us present was familiar with the name of Elizabeth Scott-Rivers. Miss Scott-Rivers was the unhappy bride-to-be abandoned a week before her wedding day by the Hon. the Reverend George Daubeney, my particular guest at the Socrates Club dinner that night. She was the jilted maiden—an heiress and the only child of elderly parents who had predeceased her—who had gained the sympathy of the public, and the braying approbation of the press, when, in the High Court of Chancery, she had sued her former fiancé for breach of promise, won her case and brought the wretched man to his knees and the brink of financial ruin.
‘Well, well …’ said Oscar with a sigh. Conan Doyle put his fingers to his eyes and shook his head. George Daubeney was seated on my right. I rested my hand on his arm. ‘Next!’ commanded Oscar.
Suddenly, violently, Daubeney pulled his arm away from me and got to his feet, knocking over a glass of the absurd Mariani cordial in the process. ‘I’m so sorry, gentlemen,’ he blurted out. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking of. I despise the woman. I hate her.
But I wish her no harm. I should not have introduced her name to this game like this. It was inexcusable. May God forgive me. May you forgive me. I have drunk too much.’
Oscar raised his right hand and held it aloft, like a bishop pronouncing the blessing. ‘Be seated, George. Calm yourself. You can’t have had more than a glass.’
I put out my hand and took Daubeney’s arm once more. I pulled him back into his chair. ‘I’m a fool,’ he muttered. ‘A bloody idiot.’
‘Come,’ said Oscar briskly, ‘let us go on. And please remember, gentlemen, that the aim of the game is for the rest of us to guess who has chosen whom as a victim, not for the putative perpetrator of the crime to offer an immediate confession.’ Daubeney sat, in heavy silence, gazing disconsolately at his empty glass. ‘Byrd,’ said Oscar, ‘draw out the next victim’s name if you please.’
Byrd produced a second slip of paper from his bag and read out the name, this time with rather less ceremony. ‘“Lord Abergordon”,’ he said.
‘Who?’ asked Heron-Allen.
Byrd repeated the name: ‘Lord Abergordon.’
‘A curious choice,’ said Oscar, taking a sip of brandy.
‘Who is he?’ asked Sickert.
‘We neither know nor care,’ boomed Bradford Pearse.
‘He’s an elderly and obscure member of the government, I believe,’ said Bram Stoker.
‘He won’t be much of a loss then,’ said Heron-Allen, with a wry smile.
‘Very droll, Edward,’ murmured Oscar. ‘You’re getting the idea. Next, if you will, Mr Byrd—kindly maintain the momentum.’
Byrd produced the third slip of paper, and smiled, and read out the name: ‘“Captain Flint”.’
‘That’s more like it,’ said Oscar.
‘Who’s Captain Flint?’ asked Willie Hornung.
‘The hotel parrot,’ said Bosie. ‘He’s the moth-eaten creature who sits in that cage by the porter’s desk. He’s impertinent and garrulous and deserves everything that’s coming to him. I wanted to murder my father, of course, but Oscar said I couldn’t, at least not on a Sunday, so I chose the parrot instead.’
Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death Page 3