Philip Astley (whom my grandfather knew) used no wild animals in his shows. He was a horseman— and an acrobat. He invented the circus ring to display his riding skills to best advantage. He realised that by galloping in a tight circle he and his fellow-riders could generate a centrifugal force that would help them maintain their balance while standing on the bare backs of their steeds.
As our hansom trundled slowly down Victoria Street in the Thursday evening rush-hour traffic, I tried to share my enthusiasm with Oscar. He was not interested.
‘I seem to recall Sickert telling me that Monsieur Degas also adores the circus,’ he said wearily.
‘Oh yes,’ I replied warmly, ignoring his wan smile and gently raised eyebrow. ‘The French all adore the circus. In France they regard Astley as a hero. They call him “Le roi des cirques”. He died in Paris, you know.’
‘Astley’s dead?’ said Oscar, feigning surprise. ‘Long dead. He is buried at Père Lachaise.’
‘That tells us nothing,’ Oscar replied dismissively.
‘They’ll take anybody there.’
When we reached Astley’s amphitheatre, Oscar instructed our driver to set us down at the stage door. ‘No wonder Conan Doyle wants to kill off Holmes,’ he grumbled as he clambered down from the cab.
‘The lot of the private detective is not an easy one. He sighed. ‘We’re now going to have to run the gauntlet of another surly stage doorkeeper. Will it be a bearded lady? Or a two-headed dwarf? More probably a hapless acrobat who has succumbed to arthritis.’ He handed our driver two shillings. ‘I really cannot bear the ugliness of the world,’ he said. The cabman touched his cap and nodded in agreement.
But, for once, Oscar was mistaken. The stage doorkeeper was no grotesque. He was a handsome young African boy, a shiny-faced youth with huge eyes and brilliant white teeth. ‘By all that’s wonderful!’ cried Oscar. ‘I expected to find Cerberus at the gates of Hades. Instead I find an old friend. Robert, this is Antipholus!’
The boy—he must gave been fifteen or sixteen years of age sprang to his feet and, emerging from the stage doorkeeper’s cubby-hole, bowed low to us both. Oscar shook the lad warmly by the hand and at once reached into his waistcoat pocket to find a sovereign to present to him by way of greeting.
The youth beamed at Oscar. ‘Thank you, Mr Wilde. You’ve not changed.’
‘Whereas you’ve grown, my friend,’ said Oscar, spinning the boy around and inspecting him. ‘Antipholus was a boot boy at the Savoy when first we met,’ he added by way of explanation. ‘Now he appears to have run away to the circus .’ He looked into the boy’s face anxiously. ‘What are you doing here, Antipholus?’
‘I’m going to be a clown, Mr Wilde,’ said the boy happily.
‘Oh, Mary, Mother of God!’ cried Oscar. ‘A clown! A clown!’ He clapped his hands over his eyes. ‘What’s wrong with the youth of today, Robert?’ he wailed. ‘I fear for the future of the empire.’
The boy looked at Oscar and began to giggle. ‘You really haven’t changed, Mr Wilde,’ he laughed. ‘It was you who told me that if I was to succeed in life I’d have to learn to walk a tightrope. I’m only doing what you told me.’
Oscar’s eyes were pricked with tears, but he was smiling. ‘May the gracious Lord forgive me,’ he cried. ‘It seems it’s all my fault!’
Suddenly the laughing boy looked anxious. ‘Oh, Mr Wilde,’ he said, ‘I hope you haven’t come to see the circus? The circus has gone to Blackpool for the summer.
‘No, Antipholus.’ Oscar raised his fists and punched the air playfully. ‘We’re here for the boxing. We’re in search of a Mr David McMuirtree.’
‘“Mighty McMuirtree—David and Goliath”?’
‘Is that what he’s called?’
‘He’s inside, sir. With his lordship.’
‘With “Lord” George Sanger?’ I chipped in, eager to show off my circus knowledge.
‘I think not,’ said Oscar, looking at me despairingly.
‘Oh, no, sir,’ said the boy. ‘“Lord” George is in Blackpool. This is a real lord. I’ll take you through. Follow me.’
We followed the boy through a heavy metal door and down some shallow steps. ‘Mind your heads! ‘he called as he ducked down sharply and led us under a stone arch and into a long, dark, low-ceilinged, narrow, curving corridor. The walls were of bare brick; the ground underfoot was sodden.
‘It smells of rats,’ said Oscar.
‘They come back as soon as the dogs are gone, ‘explained Antipholus. He laughed. ‘It’s worse than the Savoy kitchens here. Don’t stop unless I tell you. Whatever you tread on, keep moving.’
‘Are there no gas lamps?’ I called. The boy and Oscar were some way ahead of me. I could barely discern their figures in the gloom.
‘“Lord” George runs a tight ship.’ The boy giggled. ‘Don’t worry—we’re nearly there.’
‘The stench is unbearable,’ said Oscar.
On the ground a creature scuttled past me. ‘This is hideous, Oscar,’ I hissed.
‘This is the circus, Robert.’
‘Stop!’ cried the boy. ‘We’re here!’ Through the gloom I could just see the outline of his head. ‘Come,’ he called, pushing open a door at the end of the tunnel. Immediately beyond the door were heavy black curtains. They were rough to the touch and. smelt of rotten apples and sawdust. Antipholus pulled them back and released us from our hole into the vast arena of Astley’s amphitheatre.
I had expected the place to be a blaze of light— the shining palace I remembered from my childhood. Instead, it was a deserted cathedral, as dark and cavernous as Fingal’s Cave. It took a moment for our eyes to adjust to the half-light. We appeared to have entered the arena from beneath the stage: we were at ground level, facing the auditorium, standing at the outer edge of the circus ring, in the centre of which was what, for a brief instant, I took to be an altar.
It was not an altar, of course. It was a large square dais, raised some four feet off the ground. And standing on the dais, leaning on the ropes of what I now realised was a boxing ring, was the arresting figure of David McMuirtree. He was quite naked. His powerful arms, his broad shoulders, his wide chest—brown and hairless—glistened with sweat. ‘Mr Wilde, Mr Sherard,’ he rasped, ‘Welcome to the Ring of Death!’
I looked back to the curtains beneath the stage. Antipholus had disappeared.
‘We’ve disturbed your rehearsal,’ said Oscar, apologetically, removing his hat in some confusion and bowing awkwardly.
McMuirtree murmured: ‘I’m a fighter, not an actor, Mr Wilde.’ He picked up a plum-coloured dressing gown that was lying in the corner of the ring and, without hurrying, slipped it on. ‘I don’t rehearse. I train. I practise. I’ve been sparring with Lord Queensberry. You know one another, I’m sure.’
Out of the gloom on the far side of the ring stepped the squat and anthropoidal figure of John Sholto, 8th Marquess of Queensberry. With small white hands he was tucking his shirt-tails into his grey-check flannel trousers. His cuffs were loose; his feet were bare. He sniffed contemptuously and furrowed his thick black eyebrows. Not acknowledging my presence, he looked directly at Oscar and grunted his name: ‘Wilde.’
Oscar stepped forward and bowed once more, this time less awkwardly. ‘Your Grace,’ he murmured, ‘An unexpected pleasure. I’ve just seen Lord Drumlanrig—in Eastbourne.’
Queensberry sniffed again and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. ‘I believe you see more of my sons than I do, Mr Wilde. Doubtless you have the time.’
‘Time—’ Oscar began … But his aphorism was still-born.
‘Time waits for no man,’ grunted Queensberry, picking up his stockings, boots and jacket from the side of the ring. He ducked nimbly between the ropes and jumped down into the arena. Casting his jacket over his shoulder, without turning back towards us, he strode steadily up one of the gangways and out of the auditorium. He called to McMuirtree as he went:
‘Good day, my friend. We’re making progress. O
n Monday we make history.’
When he had gone, McMuirtree stood smiling, gazing after him. ‘He’s a great man,’ he said, in his curious croaking voice, ‘but he lacks charm.’ He turned and looked down towards Oscar. ‘Whereas you, Mr Wilde—you always have something charming to say.’
‘When men give up saying what is charming,’ Oscar answered, ‘they give up thinking what is charming. I hope I’ll never do that.’
I was still reflecting on the charmlessness of the departed marquess. ‘Is he really such a great man?’ I asked.
‘If you’re a boxing man, he is, Mr Sherard, no question. The Queensberry Rules have transformed the game, turned it from near-lawless brawling into something approximating a sport.’ McMuirtree held his arms out wide and looked about him. ‘We call this “The Ring of Death” because that’s what it used to be. Men fought like dogs and fought to the death—no holds barred. The crowds jeered them on. The referees did nothing. It was brute force and staying-power that won the day. Now, thanks to Queensberry, skill has a chance. Strategy, too. Psychology, even. Prize-fighting was licensed barbarism until his lordship came along. It’s taken him more than twenty years to get the rules established, but on Monday we have our show bout here and, if all goes well, after the summer, for the first time, the heavyweight championship of the world will be decided under the Queensberry Rules. Have no doubt: as long as grown men fight, the Marquess of Queensberry will be remembered.’
‘He has joined the ranks of the immortals then,’ said Oscar, lightly.
McMuirtree had gathered up two pairs of boxing gloves. He stood at the edge of the ring holding them aloft for us. ‘Care for a friendly knock-about, gentlemen? No biting, gouging, wrestling allowed— strictly Queensberry Rules.’
‘No, thank you,’ Oscar protested, waving his hands anxiously in the air. ‘I’m not one for the martial arts.’
‘But you have a boxer’s build, Mr Wilde,’ said McMuirtree, bending down and stepping between the ropes. He jumped to the ground in front of us. ‘And something of a reputation.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ said Oscar, laughing. I sensed that my friend was unnerved by McMuirtree’s physical presence. He was also thrown because he had run out of cigarettes.
‘I’ve heard the stories,’ said McMuirtree, fixing Oscar with his eyes.
‘The stories?’ repeated Oscar.
‘How at Trinity College, Dublin, the class bully sneered at your poem and you struck him across the face—and how, when honour had to be satisfied with fists in the open air, within moments you had floored him. How at Magdalen College, Oxford, when philistine students came mob-handed to break up your room, you threw them bodily down stairs-each and every one.’
Oscar stepped back and looked at McMuirtree in amazement. The boxer, still holding the gloves in either hand, turned to me. ‘Your friend Mr Wilde plays the aesthete, Mr Sherard, poses as a shrinking violet, but he’s nothing of the sort. He can use his fists, I know. He can use a gun, I know. He’s a fine shot.’.
‘Have we met before, Mr McMuirtree?’ asked Oscar quietly.
‘We have, Mr Wilde. At a shooting party in Connemara. In November ‘79. With the Hicks-Beach family. The shooting was good.’
Oscar appeared quite flustered. ‘I’m afraid I don’t recall,’ he said. ‘Please forgive me.’
‘Nothing to forgive,’ said McMuirtree genially. ‘It was a large party and, in my experience, you’re only half noticed when you’re only half-a-gentleman.’
Oscar appeared dumbfounded.
‘Are you from Connemara?’ I asked, feeling that, somehow, my friend needed rescuing. It was so rare for him not to be in command of every conversation.
‘No,’ said McMuirtree, ‘I’m from Dublin, like Mr Wilde. I was brought up in Clare Street, a stone’s throw from Merrion Square. I’m three years older than Mr Wilde. I’ve known of the Wilde family all my life. Mr Wilde and I once had a sweetheart in common.’
Gradually Oscar was recovering himself. ‘Oh?’ he smiled. ‘Who would that be?’
‘Florrie Balcombe, of course.’ McMuirtree turned to me. ‘She was the prettiest girl in Dublin.’
‘She was indeed,’ said Oscar. ‘I had no idea you knew her.’
‘I did not know her as well as I would have liked. I only kissed her the once. I did not know her as well as you did, Mr Wilde. Nor as well as Mr Stoker.’
Oscar laughed. ‘Bram got the better of us both. He married her.’
A silence fell among us. ‘You don’t by any chance have a cigarette on you, do you?’ asked Oscar.
David McMuirtree, naked but for a dressing gown, let the two pairs of heavy boxing gloves he was holding fall to the ground and, with his fist tightly clenched, reached his right hand out towards Oscar’s right ear. Oscar flinched. McMuirtree laughed and pulled his fist away and held it out in front of Oscar and slowly opened it. There, lying in the palm of his hand was a single cigarette. ‘Player’s Navy Cut, Mr Wilde—not a gentleman‘s cigarette, but the best I can do.’
Oscar clapped his hands with delight and took the cigarette and lit it at once, drawing on it with deep satisfaction. ‘I’m much indebted to you, Mr McMuirtree,’ he said. ‘You are a phenomenon, sir. I had come to offer you counsel, but it’s clear you don’t need my help. I’m certain there’s nothing I can tell you that you don’t already know.’
McMuirtree bent to the ground to retrieve his gloves. ‘Is this about your game?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ said Oscar. ‘My foolish game of “Murder”.’
‘Don’t take it seriously, Mr Wilde. I don’t.’
‘Perhaps you should,’ I ventured.
‘“Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow”— is that not so, Mr Wilde?’
Oscar looked at McMuirtree appraisingly. ‘You attended my lecture on The New Philosophy?’
‘I did,’ answered the boxer. ‘I am interested in modern philosophy.’
‘And modern psychology, too, I think,’ said Oscar, holding McMuirtree’s cigarette out before him and turning it between his fingers. ‘You are interested in men’s impulses. You like to know what drives them.’
‘I am a fighter by trade, Mr Wilde. I look for men’s weaknesses—and their strengths. I did not go to the University as you did, but I can read. I read the modern psychologists. I have William James’s The Principles of Psychology on my bedside table.’
Oscar laughed. ‘And I have one of his brother’s mighty tomes on my bedside table, too. Who in England now abed needs a sleeping draught while the James brothers are busy scribbling?’
Obligingly, McMuirtree croaked a small laugh of his own. From the side pocket of his dressing gown he produced another cigarette and handed it to Oscar.
‘You are a remarkable man, Mr McMuirtree,’ said Oscar, nodding his thanks and immediately lighting the second cigarette from the first. Pugilist, psychologist, philosopher—but even you are not invulnerable.’
‘You think I am in danger?’ rasped McMuirtree, evidently amused.
‘I am concerned for your safety, Mr McMuirtree,’ said Oscar solemnly.
‘Do not be.’
‘I feel responsible. Last Sunday you came to our club dinner, as our guest, in good faith …’
‘And I left in good heart. And I’m safe and sound as you can see.’
‘But Mr McMuirtree,’ Oscar persisted, ‘on each successive day since Sunday last something “unfortunate” has befallen each successive victim.’
‘Is the bearded actor dead then?’ asked the boxer.
‘Bradford Pearse has vanished,’ said Oscar.
‘We fear the worst,’ I added.
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said McMuirtree. ‘I liked the man.’
‘Did you know him?’ asked Oscar.
‘Our paths had crossed,’ answered the boxer. ‘I know a lot of people.’
‘The point is,’ said Oscar, sucking from the first cigarette a final inhalation of delight before drawing at once upon the seco
nd, ‘if this is murder and there’s a chronology to it, you’re next, Mr McMuirtree. Tomorrow is your turn …’
‘Tomorrow,’ said McMuirtree, smiling, ‘Or Saturday or Sunday or Monday—wouldn’t you say? I was named four times, after all.’
‘You were,’ said Oscar. ‘Why do you think that was?’
‘I have no idea. None at all.’
‘Who might have chosen you as their victim?’
‘I cannot tell you, Mr Wilde. I’ve not the least notion.’ He turned and began to walk towards the gangway. He motioned to us to follow. ‘Mr Charles Brookfield might have done so, I suppose,’ he suggested, without much conviction. ‘Brookfield’s temper was certainly uneven that night. I don’t think he appreciated having the club secretary—not quite a gentleman—seated on his right. I don’t think he enjoyed sitting opposite me. I know he was irritated by my green carnation.’
‘When we played the game, Mr McMuirtree,’ asked Oscar, ‘who did you chose as your particular victim?’
‘Oh, I played safe. Queensberry Rules. I don’t punch below the belt. I chose Eros, god of love.’
‘Eros?’ queried Oscar. ‘Eros is a curious choice for a prize-fighter.’
‘Come, Mr Wilde. It’s not only the disciples of aestheticism who know that love’s a devil.’
We had reached the top of the gangway. McMuirtree held open a glass-fronted polished oak door that led to the amphitheatre’s mirrored entrance hall. ‘If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I must go and change.’ Evidently our audience was at an end. ‘Thank you for coming by. Thank you for the warning.’
Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death Page 15