Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death

by Gyles Brandreth

  When the crush had evaporated and I had bidden Sickert and Stoker goodnight, I went to join Oscar on the stairs. As I approached, I noticed Charles Brookfield, on the far side of the stairway. He was standing talking to a diminutive man who was dressed not in evening clothes but in a brown serge suit. Oscar noticed him too.

  ‘Charles! Charles!’ he called. Brookfield began to slip quietly down the marble steps, eyes forward. ‘Charles!’ cried Oscar. ‘Don’t run away.’

  The actor stopped and looked about him, affecting not to know the direction from which he was being summoned.

  ‘Charles!’ Oscar called out again. ‘Good evening!’

  ‘Ah! Oscar!’ Brookfield made his way over to where Oscar and I were now standing. ‘I didn’t see you there. I was on my way to the cloakroom.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Oscar. ‘It’s too warm a night for a coat.’

  ‘Always playing the detective, eh, Oscar?’ said Brookfield, cocking an eyebrow. ‘Who killed the parrot at the Cadogan Hotel last Tuesday morning? That’s what I want to know.’

  ‘How did you enjoy the play at the St James’s Theatre this Saturday night?’ answered Oscar. ‘That’s what I want to know.’

  ‘Come to The Poet and the Puppets, Oscar, and you’ll find out. Come to the opening—on the nineteenth. I’m sending you tickets. You’ll have an amusing evening, I think. And no speech from the author at the end of it—that I guarantee.’

  ‘You did not approve of my speech on the opening night of Lady Windermere?’

  ‘I was not alone,’ said Brookfield, drily.

  ‘Was it the tone or the content that met with your displeasure?’ asked Oscar. ‘Or my lighted cigarette?’

  ‘All three.’

  ‘You’re an old-fashioned thing, Brookfield. You think you’re as modern as tomorrow, but in fact you’re mired in everything that’s yesterday. Yes, the old-fashioned idea was indeed that the dramatist should appear at the end of the play and merely thank his kind friends for their patronage and presence. I’m glad to say that I have altered all that. The artist cannot be degraded into the servant of the public. While I have always recognised the cultural appreciation that actors and audiences have shown for my work, I have equally recognised that humility is for the hypocrite, modesty for the incompetent. Assertion is at once the duty and the privilege of the artist.’

  ‘Thank you for that, Oscar,’ said Brookfield, nodding his head. ‘Most enlightening.’

  ‘Not at all, Charles.’

  ‘Goodnight, Oscar.’ Brookfield turned and descended the now empty staircase, waving a hand in the air as he went. ‘But don’t forget our challenge … Who killed the parrot? That’s the question. There’s thirteen guineas riding on it, as I recall.’

  ‘Goodnight Charles,’ called Oscar. ‘I trust you’ll find the cloakroom hasn’t closed.’

  Without looking back, Brookfield marched through the theatre’s swing doors and out into St James’s. We watched him go.

  ‘Why make an enemy of him, Oscar?’ I asked.

  ‘Because I cannot make him my friend, Robert.’

  The theatre foyer was now deserted. A pale young man in evening dress—the theatre’s assistant manager—was working his way up the staircase, turning down the gas lamps one by one. Suddenly, from behind us, two silent women in shabby coats appeared. For an instant, I took them for Miss Bradley and Miss Cooper unexpectedly returned in a new disguise. In fact, they were cleaning women. One, equipped with a mop and bucket, set to work at once on the Sienna marble floor. The other, with a heavy broom, began briskly to brush each tread of the Indian carpet on the stairs.

  ‘Look at them,’ whispered Oscar. ‘How plain they are! How ugly! And yet quite young. Industry is the root of all ugliness.

  ‘Come, Oscar,’ I said, taking my friend by the arm. ‘We must go.’

  ‘What for?’ he cried. ‘To drink champagne while they toil and labour here?’ He felt inside his trouser pocket and, from it, produced two brand-new five-pound notes. He unfolded them.

  ‘Don’t be absurd, Oscar,’ I hissed. ‘That’s three months’ wages.’

  ‘What’s absurd is that we can afford everything, Robert, and all they can afford is self-denial.’ He went over to each of the women and presented her with a five-pound note. Both looked at him, in silence, utterly bemused. ‘With the compliments of Lady Windermere,’ he said. ‘Goodnight, ladies. Thank you.’

  The pavement outside the St James’s Theatre was clear. Across the street, Charles Brookfield was standing alone, with his back to us, looking into the window of the wine merchant, Demery & Holland.

  ‘Did you happen to catch sight of his “friend”?’ Oscar asked.

  ‘On the stairs just now? The man in the brown suit?’

  ‘Yes—an ugly little man with a sallow complexion and ferret’s eyes.’

  ‘I think he’s employed at that Turkish bath in Baker Street,’ I said.

  ‘Really?’ said Oscar. ‘You surprise me.’ We watched Brookfield walk on alone up St James’s towards Piccadilly. ‘Whoever he is, he seems a curious companion for a man of Brookfield’s refinement.’

  A pair of two-wheelers trundled past.

  ‘Has Constance gone home?’ I asked.

  ‘She has—with the Brookes and Heron-Allen.’ Oscar glanced at me and smiled. ‘I shall be going home myself tonight,’ he said.

  I smiled too. ‘I’m glad to hear it, Oscar.’

  ‘It is necessary, I think.’

  ‘Are you very anxious for her safety?’

  ‘No, not yet—at least, not while McMuirtree’s living. No, Robert, you’ll be amused by this … I’m going home tonight because of something one of my boys said.’

  I found a match to light his cigarette. ‘Out of the mouths of babes …’

  ‘Indeed. I was telling them stories last night of little boys who were naughty and made their mother cry, and what dreadful things would happen to them unless they became better—and what do you think one of them answered? Cyril asked me what punishment should be reserved for naughty papas who did not come home till the early morning, and made their mothers cry far more!’

  I laughed. ‘Wise child. Shall I hail you a cab, Oscar?’

  ‘Not quite yet,’ he said, taking my arm and steering me away from St James’s into King Street. ‘We have an appointment at the stage door.’

  ‘Now?’ I asked. ‘Won’t the actors have gone home?’

  ‘They will. It’s not them we’ve come to see.’

  ‘It’s me!’ hissed a voice in the darkness.

  There was a street lamp nearby and a lighted gas lamp on the wall by the stage door, but I could see no one. ‘It’s me!’ hissed the voice once more. ‘Down here.’

  I looked and then I saw his eyes shining in the gloom. It was Antipholus, the black boy from Astley’s Circus. He was hidden in the doorway, crouching on the ground. As we approached, he sprang to his feet and saluted Oscar.

  ‘How now my little tightrope-walker? What news on the Rialto? Where’s Mr McMuirtree been since your last report?’

  The boy stood smartly to attention. ‘At the Ring of Death all afternoon, sir—training, training hard, working up a sweat. Lord Queensberry came by and stayed for half an hour. Then Mr McMuirtree bathed and dressed and took a cab across town to the Cadogan Hotel.’

  ‘You followed him?’

  ‘I followed him.’

  ‘How?’ I asked. ‘Not in a cab, surely?’

  The lad giggled. ‘No, sir! On my bicycle. I held on to the back of Mr McMuirtree’s cab and was pulled along, all the way, door to door.’

  ‘And were you seen?’

  ‘Not by Mr McMuirtree, sir. I hope I know my business.’

  ‘What happened at the Cadogan?’ asked Oscar.

  ‘He went in with an assortment of coloured boxes.’

  ‘Stage properties, I expect,’ said Oscar, ‘for tomorrow’s entertainment.’

  ‘Then he came out again and took the sam
e cab back to Astley’s. The round trip cost him two shillings.’

  ‘And then?’ asked Oscar.

  ‘And then, when he should have changed and come here to the theatre as you’d told me to expect, Mr Wilde, he met up with the Reverend George instead.’

  ‘Is that what you call him?’ I asked. ‘Do you like the Reverend George?’

  ‘Well enough, sir. He’s our padre. He’s a bit sweet on Bertha, but you know what clergymen are. He tips like a gentleman anyway.’

  ‘And what did Mr McMuirtree and the reverend gentleman do?’

  ‘They went off together—to The Bucket of Blood.’

  ‘The Bucket of Blood?’ I queried.

  Oscar laughed. ‘The Lamb and Flag in Rose Street, Robert. You really have led a very sheltered life.’

  ‘Why is it called The Bucket of Blood?’ I asked. My friend gave me a pitying look. ‘Because of the bare-knuckle fighting that goes on there— professional fights, for money, but strictly non-Queensberry Rules.’ He turned back to the boy. ‘How long were they there?’

  ‘All evening. Till just now. I watched the Reverend George go on his way and then I followed Mr McMuirtree back to his digs behind the circus. I heard the key turn in his lock. I watched the window. I saw the candles put out. He should be safe enough till morning, Mr Wilde—unless, of course, he’s murdered in his sleep.’

  ‘Thank you, Antipholus,’ said Oscar, handing him a coin. ‘Here’s your shiny shilling.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ‘MADAME LA GUILLOTINE’

  David McMuirtree was not murdered in his sleep. Indeed, when next we saw him—on Sunday afternoon in Tite Street for Oscar’s fund-raiser—he was brim-full of life. He crackled with energy. Nominally, he was there merely to play his part in the entertainment as Alphonse Byrd’s illusionist’s assistant, but his bearing and demeanour were hardly those of a humble hired hand. While Byrd, all dressed in black, stood at the far end of the Wildes’ crowded first-floor drawing room, silently guarding his magician’s table like an undertaker in attendance on a coffin, McMuirtree, also dressed in black, moved easily among the throng, nodding here, smiling there, like the son of the family welcoming distant relations to the wake. McMuirtree was noticeable because of his commanding height and fine physique. He was memorable because of his shaven head, warm blue-black eyes and curious, rasping speaking voice.

  ‘He’s very striking,’ remarked Willie Hornung, standing by the fireplace, tucking in to a fruit sorbet while surveying the scene.

  ‘He is an odd mixture,’ I said. ‘I can’t fathom him. He has the build of a prize-fighter—’

  ‘And the manners of a Don Juan,’ added Conan Doyle, scratching his moustache with the stem of his pipe. ‘I’d watch him.’

  ‘We’re all going to,’ said Walter Sickert, smiling slyly. ‘He’s the star attraction.’

  ‘Not today,’ I ventured. ‘Tomorrow, maybe, at Astley’s Circus when he has this gala bout to display the merits of the Queensberry Rules. But today, I think, he’s somewhat further down the bill. He’s the magician’s assistant.’

  ‘He’s the one we’ll watch all the same,’ said Sickert, helping himself to a second iced cream from the sideboard. ‘I’m a connoisseur of the halls. McMuirtree has what it takes.’

  Conan Doyle sniffed and lifted himself up and down on his toes. ‘Do you think so? I wonder.’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Sickert. ‘We’re talking about the man for a reason—there’s something about his presence that compels our attention.’

  ‘Yes,’ harrumphed Doyle. ‘His cockiness.’

  Willie Hornung laughed and pushed his pince-nez further up his nose the better to observe McMuirtree’s progress.

  Sickert waved his dessert spoon in the air. ‘I’ve seen him fight—just the once. And I’ve met him— just the once, when I sat next to him at dinner last Sunday. I barely know him, but he’s made his mark on me. Why? Because, in his way, he’s an artist-in the ring and out of it.’

  ‘He’s not a very subtle artist, is he?’ I said. McMuirtree, as I spoke, was being greeted by our hostess. He raised Constance’s hand to his lips as though they were old friends.

  ‘Always remember Whistler’s golden rule, Robert—”In art, nothing matters so long as you are bold.”‘

  If David McMuirtree was a star attraction that afternoon, he was not without competition. For a start, he had the Wilde boys to contend with. Oscar and Constance had decked out their sons in fancy dress. They were in orange and green velvet suits, with frilly shirts and buckled shoes. Cyril was costumed as Little Lord Fauntleroy and his younger brother, Vyvyan, because of his naturally curly hair, was dressed to represent the little boy in Sir John Millais’s famous painting, Bubbles. The boys themselves, as they explained to everyone who stopped to admire and pet them, would much have preferred to come dressed in their matching sailor suits (made of real naval cloth with lanyards with real knives at the end of them), ‘but this is what Papa wanted and this is Papa’s party’.

  In terms of his own apparel, ‘Papa’ had certainly taken note of Whistler’s golden rule. The colour of Oscar’s frock coat and trousers was ultramarine blue; his waistcoat was of gold brocade; his tie was crimson; his buttonhole was a columbine flower set against a fan of cymbalaria leaves. The ‘tout ensemble’, he explained, was inspired by his cufflinks—’they came to me from Wat Sickert … They are exquisite, are they not? He won’t tell me where he found them … We all have our secrets.’

  The cuff-links were enamel, exquisite and extraordinary. They each featured a near-perfect miniature reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting, The Virgin of the Rocks. As Oscar explained, his eyes filling with tears as he did so, the colour of his frock coat matched the colour of the Madonna’s mantle; his waistcoat was inspired by the Christ child’s swaddling clothes; his tie was of the same hew as the angel Uriel’s cloak; and his buttonhole included plants depicted in the painting—’columbine to symbolise the holy spirit and cymbalaria representing constancy.’

  Conan Doyle sucked hard on his pipe as Oscar held his cuff up to his friend for closer inspection. ‘I’m not sure that I approve, Oscar,’ he grumbled.

  ‘And why not?’ asked Oscar.

  ‘I’m not sure that I know,’ muttered Doyle. ‘It doesn’t seem quite right, that’s all.’

  ‘When’s the magic starting, Papa?’ Little Lord Fauntleroy was tugging at his father’s sleeve.

  ‘Now!’ said Oscar. ‘This very minute!’ And he gathered up his sons and led them to the end of the room where Alphonse Byrd and David McMuirtree were standing waiting to begin their performance. The audience—there were some thirty of us in all-found chairs or stools to sit on, or leant against the piano or the mantelpiece. Constance sat on a sofa near the performers, with her friend, Margaret Brooke, and Mrs Robinson, the clairvoyant, on either side of her, and Charles Brooke and Edward Heron-Allen perched on the sofa’s arms. Miss Bradley and Miss Cooper, in immaculate gentlemen’s evening dress, sat cross-legged on the floor at the front of the crowd, with Bosie and Lord Drumlanrig and Vyvyan and Cyril at their side. At the last moment, as the clock on the landing struck five, Arthur, the butler, Mrs Ryan, the cook, and Gertrude Simmonds, the boys’ governess, crept in at the door to watch the show.

  Unbidden, the room settled, and Oscar spoke. His voice was low-we had almost to strain to hear him—and in his eyes there were still the remnants of tears. ‘Once upon a time,’ he began, ‘there was a magnet … and in its close neighbourhood were some steel filings.’

  ‘He’s going to tell a story!’ cried Cyril.

  ‘Hush!’ said Constance lifting her finger to her lips.

  Oscar raised his voice a little. ‘One day two or three little filings felt a sudden desire to go and visit the magnet, and they began to talk of what a pleasant thing it would be to do. Other filings nearby overheard their conversation and they, too, became infected with the same desire. Still others joined them, till at last all the filings began to di
scuss the matter, and more and more their vague desire grew into an impulse. “Why not go today?” said some of them; but others were of the opinion that it would be better to wait until tomorrow … Meanwhile, without their having noticed it, they had been involuntarily moving nearer to the magnet, which lay there quite still, apparently taking no heed of them.’

  Oscar reached into his pocket for his silver cigarette case. ‘And so they went on,’ he continued, his eyes darting about the room as he spoke, ‘all the time insensibly drawing nearer to their neighbour … And the more they talked, the more they felt the impulse growing stronger, till the more impatient ones declared that they would go that day, whatever the rest did. Some were even heard to say that it was their duty to visit the magnet, and that they ought to have gone long ago. And while they talked, they moved nearer and nearer, without realising that they had moved. Then, at last, the impatient ones prevailed, and, with one irresistible impulse, the whole body cried out, “There is no use waiting, we will go today. We will go now. We will go at once.” And then in one unanimous mass they swept along, and in another moment were clinging fast to the magnet on every side. Then the magnet smiled—for the steel filings had no doubt at all but that they were paying that visit of their own free will.’

  Oscar paused, and looked about the room, and smiled, and lit his cigarette.

  ‘Bravo, Papa!’ called Little Lord Fauntleroy, leading the applause.

  Conan Doyle, sucking on his pipe, leant over to Wat Sickert and murmured: ‘Who did you say was the “star attraction”?’

  Oscar bowed his head briefly, then threw it back, drew slowly on his cigarette and, through a cloud of pale grey smoke which he did nothing to wave away, went on: ‘What has drawn you here today, ladies and gentlemen, is your generous impulse. Together, this afternoon, we have raised more than thirty pounds for the benefit of the Earl’s Court Boys’ Club. Thanks to you, these lads—rough boys, working-class boys, street urchins some of them will be able to acquire discipline, fitness and skill by learning to box in a proper boxing ring, with real boxing clubs and according to the Queensberry Rules!‘ This time it was Drumlanrig and Conan Doyle who led the applause.