‘I shall come,’ I said, wondering at once how I was going to raise the necessary funds. ‘The cause is just. I had no idea there was so much danger associated with women’s clothing.’
‘This is not in aid of the Rational Dress Society, Robert. On Sunday we are soliciting support for the Earl’s Court Boys’ Club. They want a boxing ring and Bosie has asked me to pay for it! His father is the president of the Boys’ Club and Bosie, when not wanting to murder the Marquess, is anxious to ingratiate himself with him. I am doing what I can to help.’
As we approached the Cadogan Hotel, we found a party of young ladies clustered on the front step. ‘How wan they look!’ exclaimed Oscar in hushed tones. ‘I imagine they are Americans starting out on the Grand Tour. American ladies on leaving their native land adopt the appearance of chronic ill-health under the impression that it is a form of European refinement.’
‘You are very droll, Oscar,’ I whispered as we were about to plunge through the assembly of pale young women.
‘And adroit, I like to think,’ said Oscar, suddenly taking my right elbow and steering me away from the hotel entrance. ‘Down here!’ he commanded. Adjacent to the hotel’s front steps was a narrow gate set into iron railings. Beyond the gate were steep stone steps leading down to the hotel’s kitchens. ‘Lay on, Macduff!’ hissed Oscar. ‘This way we will avoid the Yankee maidens and the yabbering parrot.’
For a man who was undoubtedly overweight and professed an abhorrence of all forms of exercise, Oscar Wilde was surprisingly nimble. I led the way down the steps and he followed, not so much steadying himself with a hand on my shoulder as propelling me on my way. Evidently, Byrd was expecting us and, through the basement window, must have seen our feet descending. When we reached the kitchen door, he was standing at it. He bobbed his head smartly towards Oscar, as an equerry might to a prince, and said, ‘Welcome, Mr Wilde. We have everything ready.’
‘Good day, Byrd,’ said Oscar, responding to Byrd’s bow with a curious twitch of his nostrils. ‘Do I smell smoke?’ he muttered.
‘This way, gentlemen,’ said Byrd.
I sniffed the air. I detected a trace of something, but I said nothing.
Byrd led us through the hotel’s vast, dark and deserted kitchen, along a wide, high-ceilinged corridor to a cavernous pantry beyond. It was a room without windows, dimly lit by oil lamps. There, seated at the end of a long, narrow, deal table that ran the length of the room, was David McMuirtree, the boxer, Byrd’s friend and guest from the night before. On the table before him was a coil of rope, a candle in a holder and an assortment of jam jars half filled with variously coloured liquids. In his hand McMuirtree was holding a fiercely burning taper: its blue-green flame shot several inches into the air. As we entered the room, abruptly McMuirtree dropped the taper into one of the jam jars. The flame hissed and sizzled as it died.
‘Ah,’ said Oscar, glancing at Byrd, ‘the source of the smoke …’
David McMuirtree stood to greet us. The man’s appearance quite took us off our guard. He was completely naked from the waist up and his broad, hairless chest and long, muscular arms glistened with oil. He smiled at us, and bobbed his head just as Byrd had done, and said, ‘Good afternoon, gentlemen,’ in his strange, rasping, hoarse whisper.
‘Good afternoon,’ said Oscar, smiling also. ‘Byrd told us you were half-a-gentleman. Now I see it is the upper half.’
McMuirtree laughed awkwardly and reached behind him for the towel that was hanging over the back of his chair. ‘I don’t follow you,’ he said, starting to rub himself clean.
‘You have the torso of a gentleman,’ said Oscar.
‘I’ll take it as a compliment. What does that mean?’ asked McMuirtree.
‘No tattoos,’ said Oscar. ‘You earn your living as a fairground fighter. I would have expected your body to bear witness to your calling, but I see no scars, no blemishes, and no tattoos.’
‘You are very observant,’ whispered McMuirtree, pulling on a plain white cotton shirt and tucking its tails into his black corduroy trousers. ‘I have some scars, but the light is dark in here. I have no tattoos because my body is my stock-in-trade. I live by it— and I do what I can to show it off to best advantage. Hence my shaven head and chest and arms.’
‘And hence the oil?’ asked Oscar.
‘No,’ said McMuirtree. ‘The oil is for a different purpose.’
Oscar looked steadily at McMuirtree, but said nothing.
‘We’ve been playing with fire, Mr Wilde,’ continued the boxer, ‘and all in your honour.’
‘My honour?’ said Oscar, raising a quizzical eyebrow.
‘We’ve been trying out material for your Sunday afternoon benefit, Mr Wilde. The oil is a veneer that protects my skin while I pass a burning flame across it. I may be eating fire in Tite Street on Sunday. We’ve come up with a varied programme that I trust will meet with your approval. If it does, we shall run through it with Mrs Wilde when we see her tomorrow. It’s some years since Alphonse and I have tried our hand at a number of these tricks, but it’s amusing to rediscover old friends. Sawing one’s assistant in half is amusing. Playing with fire is amusing. You like to be amused, do you not, Mr Wilde?’
‘Most of all, I like to be charmed,’ said Oscar.
‘Indeed,’ whispered McMuirtree, smiling. ‘That also is one of our specialities.’ As he spoke, the coil of rope on the table before him appeared to twitch, and suddenly, inexplicably, apparently unaided, one end of the rope lifted itself slowly into the air and, like a cobra rising from a snake-charmer’s basket, rose high above the table. Oscar and I gazed at the spectacle in astonishment. McMuirtree clapped his hands and the rope fell instantly to the table. ‘Alphonse—refreshments for our guests, if you please!’
Fortified by brandy and beer, Oscar and I spent two full hours seated in the pantry of the Cadogan Hotel being—as Oscar put it—’ wholly charmed and vastly amused by Messrs Byrd and McMuirtree’s box of tricks’. I had understood that Byrd was the magician and McMuirtree the assistant. However, as they took us through the programme of ‘drawing-room illusions’ that they proposed presenting in Tite Street the following Sunday, it became abundantly clear that, even if Byrd was to be the principal performer, McMuirtree was the driving force within the partnership.
As the afternoon wore on, we became aware of various members of the Cadogan’s kitchen staff passing along the corridor outside the pantry, returning to their duties. At what turned out to be a little after half past five, there was a sharp knock on the pantry door and a red-cheeked, freckle-faced young man wearing a chef’s bonnet, put his face into the room and said, “Scuse me, Mr Byrd, but we’ll be needing the pantry now.’
‘We’re nearly done, Hawkins,’ said Byrd.
‘We are done!’ Oscar declared, reaching out for me to help him to his feet. He turned to our hosts and beamed upon them. ‘Thank you for a memorable afternoon, gentlemen. Your programme meets with my approval in its entirety. You are to have a rendezvous with my wife tomorrow, you say? I am sure she will be equally delighted with all that you have to offer. And, if your delivery matches your description, I believe my sons will be especially enchanted by the “Illusion of the Vanishing Lion”, particularly as performed on Mrs Ryan’s ginger tom-cat. We’re in for a treat come Sunday. The readiness is all.’
It was six o’clock but still light when we reached the street outside the Cadogan Hotel. ‘They know their business, those two,’ mused Oscar as he peered up and down the roadway in search of a passing cab.
‘They’re an odd couple,’ I said, ‘an improbable duo.’
‘Yes,’ said Oscar, reflectively, ‘what is the true hold one has upon the other, I wonder?’
‘Shall we walk back to Tite Street?’ I suggested. ‘The air will do us good.’
‘Forgive me,’ cried my friend, waving to the two-wheeler that was now coming out of Pont Street and heading towards him. ‘I am meeting up with Bosie. We’re off to the Lyric, to see The Mountebank
s Gilbert without Sullivan. I imagine it’ll be the usual story, but at least the tune will be different. You go to Tite Street, Robert. Look after Constance for me, there’s a dear. I shall see you at lunchtime tomorrow—at the Chelsea Arts Club, at one. Don’t forget.’ He clambered aboard the two-wheeler. ‘I may even see you later tonight, Robert. I don’t plan to be late. Bosie and I will have a bite at Kettner’s and then I’ll be home. Tell Constance, would you? She’ll understand. Have a happy evening. I must go now. Forgive me. Au revoir, mon ami! Forgive me! ‘And, with a wave from the carriage window, and looking suddenly refreshed, my friend was gone.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘THE OCCASIONAL CAPRICE’
I forgave him. Oscar Wilde was an easy man to forgive. Constance forgave him, too—time and again.
That evening she and I had supper together at Tite Street. There was no need for a chaperone: it was as if Oscar was with us all the while. All evening we talked only of him. Constance spoke of Oscar as a mother might of an adored child. He was perfection: he could do no wrong in her eyes. She simply marvelled at his genius and counted herself ‘so blessed’ that he was there, the father of her children, the centre of her universe. That he needed time away from home—to write, to think, to see his friends—was wholly understandable. She had no complaints. She was simply grateful that ‘a mind so large’ and ‘a spirit so generous’ should be part of her life at all. She told me, solemnly: ‘Oscar and I both believe in the concept of a seven-year marriage contract, renewable if, but only if, both parties wish it. Oscar and I agreed to embark on our second seven years together last May. As Mr Browning says, “The best is yet to be.”‘
At eleven o’clock I told her it was time I returned to my room in Gower Street. As, reluctantly, I rose to take my leave I remarked, ‘Oscar will be home soon, I expect.’
‘No,’ she answered, smiling. ‘He’ll not be back tonight. He’s with Bosie. He’ll stay in town, I’m certain. And I’m glad of it. He gets tired. Oscar needs his beauty sleep. He is very beautiful in his way, is he not?’
‘It is you who are beautiful, Constance,’ I replied. ‘Goodnight.’ And I kissed her on the lips.
She laughed. ‘You are such a romantic, Mr Sherard. No wonder Oscar adores you so!’
In the morning—it was Tuesday morning, 3 May 1892; the sky from my window was blue, the sun shone brightly I awoke early and spent two hours scratching away at my novel. As soon as I had managed to set down three hundred words, I set off again for Chelsea. I had decided I could not afford a cab and horse-drawn bus journeys in central London in those days were interminable. To while away the hour it took to travel from Oxford Street to the King’s Road, I bought the early edition of the Evening News. A vivid account of Monday morning’s dramatic fire at 27 Cheyne Walk featured over two columns on the front page. There was a photograph of the unfortunate heiress, Elizabeth Scott-Rivers, taken at the time of her eighteenth birthday, and another, taken more recently, of Inspector Archy Gilmour of Scotland Yard. Gilmour was quoted extensively, lamenting ‘this tragic accident’ and praising the courage of the London Fire Brigade, whose prompt attendance at the scene had prevented the conflagration from spreading and so saved both life and property. There was no reference of any kind to the Hon. the Reverend George Daubeney.
I did not reach the Chelsea Arts Club until nearly one-thirty. The club, still in its infancy, was then located on the ground floor and basement of 181 King’s Road, an undistinguished, flat-fronted Georgian house immediately adjacent to the newly built Chelsea Town Hall. I found Oscar with his artist friend, Walter Sickert, in the club mess room, in the studio at the back of the house. They were sitting together, alone, at the far end of the communal dining table. They were drinking Algerian wine, eating Angels on Horseback (oysters wrapped in bacon served with buttered toast) and discussing Degas.
‘Day-gas?’ expostulated Wat Sickert. ‘Day-gas? His name is not Day-gas, Oscar! You know full well—because I have told you so, often—Gas is the name of the French town from which the artist’s ancestors come. The name was originally spelled “de Gas”. That is how it should be pronounced. Why do you persist with this Day-gas business, Oscar?’
‘To annoy you, Wat,’ answered Oscar, raising his glass in a mock-toast to the young artist.
‘To insult him, more likely,’ riposted Sickert. ‘He is a great man. He deserves to be treated with respect.’
‘His art I respect,’ said Oscar coolly, looking up and seeing me, and beckoning me to join them at the table.
‘You’ve not forgiven him his gibe, I know,’ said Sickert, wiping his luxuriant moustache with the back of his hand.
‘I like to think it was intended as a jest rather than a gibe,’ said Oscar. He turned to me as I took the chair next to his and laid my newspaper on the table. ‘The great Edgar Degas, to whom I had the honour of being introduced by Wat some years ago, said of me: “Oscar Wilde? Il a l’air de jouer Lor’ Byron dans un théâtre de banlieu.” [‘Oscar Wilde? He gives the impression that he’s playing Lord Byron in a suburban theatre.] I thought the line amusing. As you can see, I committed it to memory.’
‘You thought the line insulting,’ said Sickert, laughing, ‘You’ve not been able to forget it.’
‘How was the comic opera?’ I asked Oscar, thinking it diplomatic to change the subject and prompted perhaps by Wat Sickert’s wonderful appearance. Wat was undoubtedly handsome, with sea-green eyes and honey-coloured hair, but there was something slightly ludicrous about his elaborately groomed moustaches. He was wearing a guardsman’s old scarlet tunic open at the collar, with a bright green kerchief loosely tied about his neck. He looked like a character from a music-hall monologue: a love-lorn Bohemian soldier down on his luck.
Oscar sniffed and took a sip of wine. ‘Gilbert had one joke which I’ve forgotten and Cellier had no tune which I recall all too vividly. It was not a night to reckon with …’ He looked at me and smiled. ‘Whereas you and Constance, Robert, as I understand it, had a most charming soirée, a cosy diner à deux at Tite Street.’
I blushed, foolishly, like a guilty schoolgirl. Wat Sickert growled with pleasure as he poured me a beaker of the Algerian wine. ‘Ah, so you too are sweet on the delectable Mrs Wilde.’
‘Yes,’ said Oscar, an impish grin revealing his horrid teeth, ‘Robert is competing with Edward Heron-Allen for my wife’s affections. I fear it may come to a duel.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Oscar,’ I protested, ‘I’m a married man.’
‘We’re all married men,’ cried Sickert, raising his glass in a toast. ‘Here’s to blessed monogamy— reasonably tempered by the occasional caprice!’ He clinked his glass against mine and looked up and saw Lord Alfred Douglas making his way across the room towards us. ‘Talk of the devil!’
Bosie, looking like a befuddled cherub, was yawning as he approached. ‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ he drawled, ‘I’m sorry I’m late.’
‘Good afternoon, Bosie,’ said Oscar. ‘We’ve dined, as you can see.’
‘Yes,’ replied Bosie, sweeping his blond fringe back over his forehead and sitting himself down next to Sickert. He leant forward and tapped my copy of the Evening News. ‘And you’ve read the paper?’
‘I have,’ I said, opening it out and laying it in the middle of the table.
‘I saw it earlier,’ said Oscar. ‘The report of the fire is graphic if not illuminating.
‘Never mind the fire,’ said Bosie. ‘Look at the Stop Press.’ He took the newspaper and flicked it over and pointed to the Stop Press column on the back page. ‘Look,’ he said again.
I read out the brief news item.
GOVERNMENT MINISTER DIES
Lord Abergordon found dead yesterday afternoon in the library of the House of Lords. Prime Minister issues statement expressing Government’s ‘profound shock and regret’.
‘Who the deuce is Lord Abergordon?’ asked Wat Sickert, waving an empty wine bottle above his head in a vain attempt to catch the club steward
’s eye.
‘Under-Secretary of State for War,’ said Bosie casually.
‘And the second name on our list of murder victims,’ added Oscar.
‘What?’ said Sickert, putting down the empty bottle.
‘He was a ridiculous old man,’ said Bosie.
‘You knew him?’ I enquired.
‘Quite well, as it happens. He was a friend of the family. My father and he were very hugger-mugger. Had been for years. He was my brother’s godfather. Drumlanrig despised him. Doubtless that’s why, when we were playing Oscar’s game, he picked him as his “victim of choice”.’
‘Did he?’ asked Oscar sharply.
‘I think so. I don’t know,’ said Bosie, taking Oscar’s glass from him and draining it. ‘At the time I assumed so. Who else would think of murdering an old nincompoop like Abergordon?’
Oscar had drawn the newspaper towards him and was studying the news item intently. ‘Where is your brother now?’ he asked.
‘I am not my brother’s keeper, Oscar. I’ve no idea. The House of Lords, I imagine. Drumlanrig loves his politics. He’s quite the coming man, you know: Lord Rosebery’s little helper.’
‘Do you think your brother could have murdered this man, Abergordon?’ asked Sickert, waving the empty bottle about his head once more.
‘Don’t be absurd, Wat. Francis wouldn’t hurt a fly. I imagine Lord Abergordon was killed by an excess of luncheon. One Welsh rarebit too many that’ll be what did for him. He never could resist a savoury. He was a fat old fool—as you’d expect. He was a mainstay of the government. He’ll have died in a red leather armchair, sound asleep beneath the open pages of the Sporting Life.’
‘My condolences to his godson,’ said Oscar, easing his chair away from the table, ‘and to Lady Abergordon, if there is one.
Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death Page 7