In the cab to Tite Street, as we scanned the press, and Oscar clucked and tutted at what he read, I suggested that, perhaps, we should try to keep the papers away from Constance.
‘The prose style is appalling, Robert, I agree,’ Oscar answered, shaking his head despairingly. ‘We must protect my lamb as best we can. She is quite sensitive.’
‘Be serious, Oscar.’
He looked at me and smiled. ‘We can hardly keep last night’s massacre a secret, Robert. McMuirtree was a guest in our house two days ago. His sudden death—the horrific manner of his murder—the servants will be speaking of little else … But I agree—there is still no need to tell Constance about the Socrates Club dinner and my foolish game and its deadly consequences …’
‘Should we not warn her, if her life is in danger?’
‘To what purpose? In my experience, a worry shared is a worry doubled. In any event, I believe she is safe enough till Friday.’
At Tite Street, Arthur the butler greeted us at the front door. ‘I was sorry to hear about Mr McMuirtree, sir. Nasty business.’
‘Indeed, Arthur. Very nasty. Is Mrs Wilde about?’
‘She is upstairs, sir. Luncheon will be served in fifteen minutes.’
We made our way upstairs. Oscar went on to the second floor, ‘to spend a penny’, he said archly, and to find his wife. I let myself into the first-floor drawing room. It was my favourite room at Tite Street. It was, by the standards of the time, extraordinarily uncluttered. The white wallpapered walls were hung with etchings by James Whistler and Mortimer Menpes. The unique ceiling was Whistler’s work as well: it featured an awning of peacock feathers! I made my way over to the painted grand piano that stood in the corner of the room and looked out onto the Wildes’ small and somewhat barren back garden. As I stood by the window I was overcome by a curious sensation … I felt I was being observed by an unseen power; I became conscious of an invisible ‘presence’ nearby.
I turned and looked about the room. There was no one there. I turned back and gazed out of the window once more. Again I felt a hidden ‘presence’. I looked down towards the floor. My eyes followed the painted white skirting board to the fringed edge of the white velour curtains that framed the window. Beneath the curtain’s fringe I saw a pair of feet in leather ankle boots.
Appalled, unthinking, I pulled back the curtain and grabbed the figure lurking there. I took him by the throat and threw him to his knees. Then I saw who it was. I barked at him: ‘What the devil are you doing here?’
Slowly, Edward Heron-Allen got to his feet, dusting down his trousers and adjusting his collar. ‘Steady on, old boy,’ he said. ‘This ain’t your house, you know.’
I looked at the man and felt my gorge rise with loathing. He was so at ease with himself, so self-assured, so complacent.
‘What the deuce were you doing behind that curtain?’ I demanded.
‘Waiting for Constance,’ he said lightly.
He made me burn with rage. ‘Waiting for Constance?’ I repeated angrily.
‘We were playing a game of hide-and-seek. We play games together. It’s quite natural. It’s what brothers and sisters do.’
‘You are not Mrs Wilde’s brother,’ I hissed at him.
‘Would that I were,’ he said. ‘I love her as a man should love his sister—easily, without complication.’
‘I don’t understand you,’ I said.
‘I see that,’ said Heron-Allen. ‘You love Constance, too—but your love is tinged with guilt. You don’t love her as a brother. You love her as a man loves a woman—you love her with desire in your heart, with lust in your eyes. And that’s not easy for you because you love Oscar also and Constance is Oscar’s ever-faithful wife.’
‘I don’t know what you’re saying.’
‘It matters not,’ said Heron-Allen. ‘Lust and love are particular interests of mine, that’s all.’
‘Along with violin-making, cock-fighting and the forbidden literature of Persia,’ I added, making no attempt to conceal my contempt.
‘In the matter of the no-man’s-land between lust and love, we can learn much from the Persians,’ he said, moving past me towards the mirror that hung above the fireplace. He peered into the looking glass. With delicate hands he adjusted his hair. With his tongue he moistened his forefinger and carefully pushed back each of his eyebrows. ‘In matters of carnality, other cultures have much to teach us. I have studied bestiality, you know—congress between man and beast. And necrophilia. Where lust ends and love begins … it’s all very intriguing.’
‘And is this the sort of stuff with which you edify Mrs Wilde,’ I asked, ‘when you two are playing your “games” together?’
‘No,’ he laughed. ‘Of course not. Mrs Wilde and I are friends—true friends. That’s all. My wife has been away for a month, visiting her sister and her sister’s new-born baby. Oscar is always otherwise engaged. Constance and I have made time for each other because we take delight in each other’s company. We play together and are happier because of it. In England only children are allowed to play. That is a pity.’
Suddenly, the drawing-room door was opened. It was Constance, looking as lovely as I had ever seen her. ‘Is this where you two have been hiding?’ she chided. ‘Luncheon is served. Come now. Oscar is growing impatient.’
Over lunch—pea soup, griddled lamb chops, and blackcurrant-and-apple pie—I said very little. Edward Heron-Allen said a great deal. Oscar, drinking white Burgundy, and Constance, drinking lemonade, looked on him with unaffected admiration as though he were a favourite child, an infant prodigy. The range of his interests was certainly extraordinary and the depth of his erudition undoubtedly impressive. In fairness, I could not fault him either on grounds of decorum or discretion. We talked of McMuirtree’s murder, inevitably, but Heron-Allen glossed over the most horrific details of the boxer’s death and went out of his way to steer the conversation towards sunnier topics: the beauty and intelligence of the Wilde children, the origins of the English eating apple, the subtlety of Mozart’s late violin sonatas, the absurdity of the new paintings at the Royal Academy, the prospects for Mr Irving’s King Lear, Oscar’s continuing triumph at the St James’s.
After lunch, Constance invited Heron-Allen to join her and her boys for a walk in Hyde Park. To my astonishment, Oscar (who regarded a stroll down Piccadilly as a two-mile hike and a two-mile hike as an utter impossibility) proposed that he and I should join them.
‘Oscar,’ exclaimed his wife, as amazed as I was, ‘what on earth has come over you?’
‘Don’t I say in my play that health is the primary duty of life?’ Oscar answered, getting to his feet and breathing deeply while placing his fingers lightly across his diaphragm. ‘I think a post-prandial perambulation will be most invigorating.’ He exhaled slowly and then, apparently exhausted, began to feel in his jacket pocket for his cigarette case. ‘But you may be right, my dear—going as far as the park might be overdoing it. Perhaps we could just amble up the road to Brompton Cemetery?’
‘Take the boys to a graveyard, Oscar?’ said Constance, furrowing her brow. ‘Something has come over you!’
‘Not the graveyard,’ said Oscar quickly. ‘The allotments to the south of the graveyard.’
‘Do you have allotments nearby?’ asked Heron-Allen with enthusiasm. ‘I should love to see your allotments.’
Together, Oscar and I burst out laughing.
‘What is so funny, gentlemen?’ Constance enquired reprovingly.
Oscar spluttered: ‘Edward saying he’d love to see our allotments … I believe he means it.’
‘I do,’ said Edward Heron-Allen, seriously. ‘The development of urban horticulture is a particular interest of mine.’
It took us no more than half an hour to reach the small plot of allotments to the south side of Brompton Cemetery. Oscar and Heron-Allen led the way, with Oscar proudly pushing his older son, Cyril, along the street in a child’s chariot while Heron-Allen carried his godson, Vyvyan, on hi
s shoulders. Constance and I followed behind them, arm in arm. It was a delightful walk. Heron-Allen was right: when Constance held my arm tight as we crossed the road my feelings towards her were indeed tinged with guilt.
The allotments, when we found them, were an unimpressive sight: ten small plots of ground, each no more than fifteen feet square, all overgrown, all unkempt. ‘These do not look much loved,’ said Heron-Allen sadly, lifting his godson to the ground. The two Wilde boys scampered around the allotments happily, jumping across the beds, sniffing at what flowers there were, pulling at the greenery. Almost at once, at the edge of the allotments, by the railings that bordered the cemetery, the boys discovered a small mound of newly turned earth and began to poke at it with small sticks of wood. ‘Is this a sand-castle, Papa?’ asked Cyril.
‘No,’ said Oscar, ‘I think it is a parrot’s grave.’
Constance did not hear him. She was talking with Heron-Allen. ‘It’s all a bit sad, is it not?’ she said.
‘There’s nothing sadder than an unloved garden,’ said Heron-Allen.
Vyvyan ran up to his mother holding a handful of weeds and grasses. ‘I’ve picked a posy for you, Mama,’ he announced, bowing low and presenting his mother with his little bunch of greenery.
‘Thank you, my darling,’ said Constance, moved by her child’s offering and bending down to kiss the little boy. ‘Perhaps Uncle Edward can tell us what you’ve picked for me.’
Constance handed the green posy to Heron-Allen, who examined it carefully.
‘There are herbs here, as well as weeds,’ he said approvingly. ‘Well done, godson.’ He knelt down beside the boy and, like a good teacher, took him through each leaf in turn. ‘This, I think, is wild carrot. This, believe it or not, is the leaf of a parsnip. You can eat the parsnip, but you can’t eat the leaf. This leaf you can eat, however. It’s delicious.’ He bit into the curly sprig of vegetation. ‘It’s called parsley.’
‘Correctly known as “petroselinum”,‘ added Oscar, bringing Cyril over to join in the lesson. ‘We Wildes are all classicists, Edward. My boys have been Latin scholars ab ovo.’
Heron-Allen laughed obligingly. ‘Well,’ he went on, ‘this then, I think, is conium maculatum. It’s a pretty flower, but you mustn’t eat it.’ He pulled out the smooth green stem and threw it onto the bank. ‘But this one—which isn’t quite so pretty—is really delicious.’ He held the delicate leaf beneath Vyvyan’s nose and scratched it. ‘Can you smell it? It’s very good for you. It’s foeniculum vulgare.’
‘Common fennel?’ I guessed.
‘Indeed,’ said Heron-Allen, getting to his feet.
‘Beloved of the Persians also. They call it “raaziyaan”.’
On the return journey to Tite Street, Constance walked ahead pushing Cyril in the chariot, with Heron-Allen, with Vyvyan back on his shoulders, at her side. Each time they crossed a road I felt an absurd pang of jealousy as the young solicitor put out his hand to touch and steady Constance’s slender arm.
As we walked, Oscar and I smoked our cigarettes, but said very little. As we turned into Tite Street itself, Oscar paused. ‘There’s much to be done between now and Friday, Robert. We know who killed the parrot, don’t we?’
‘Do we?’ I asked.
He smiled. ‘I think we do … But who killed David McMuirtree? That’s the question. And why? And the blades that slashed the poor man’s wrists … were they cockspurs?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
QUESTIONS
At the end of the afternoon Edward Heron-Allen went on his way. The family gathered at the front door of 16 Tite Street to wave him off. Oscar embraced his young friend warmly; the two boys threw their arms around his legs to try to prevent him from taking his leave; I watched Constance tenderly stroke his ear and cheek as she kissed him goodbye.
‘I must go, too,’ I said, when Constance had taken the children upstairs for their bathtime and fairy stories.
‘A glass of champagne before you go?’ suggested Oscar. He went to the end of the corridor and called down towards the kitchen: ‘Arthur!’ He took me into his red-and-yellow study on the ground floor. The floor was cluttered with untidy heaps of papers and tottering piles of books. Like an overweight frog hopping between lily-pads, Oscar negotiated his way across the room towards his celebrated writing desk—the desk at which Thomas Carlyle had written his History of the French Revolution. ‘Look at this,’ he said.
‘What is it?’
Between his thumb and forefinger he held up a tiny curved object that looked like the clipping of a fingernail encased in silver. ‘It is a Mexican cockspur—according to Heron-Allen. It’s the pride of his collection, apparently. He brought it over this morning. He thought I’d be intrigued to see it.’ He handed me the miniature blade. ‘Take care,’ he said. ‘It’s razor-sharp.’
I examined the shiny cockspur carefully—it was highly polished: it gleamed—and returned it to Oscar who placed it back upon the desk. ‘So many questions, Robert,’ he murmured. ‘So many questions and so little time.’
‘If this is a race against time, Oscar,’ I said, lowering my voice, ‘if you truly believe that your life could be threatened on Friday, is your visit to Oxford tomorrow essential?’
‘It is,’ he said, not looking at me but picking up a book from the top of one of the piles and leafing through it. ‘And not just for Bosie’s sake.’
‘Who killed the parrot, Oscar?’ I asked. He said nothing, but carried on reading. ‘Who killed the parrot?’ I hissed.
He looked up at me. ‘You’re beginning to sound like Charles Brookfield, Robert.’
‘But if you know, Oscar, you must tell me.’
He laughed. ‘Now you’re beginning to sound like Bosie. You must write your own essay, Robert: test the evidence yourself, Robert; make your own deductions; come to your own conclusion.’
‘Ah …’ I said, smiling, leaning back and folding my arms across my chest. ‘You don’t know for certain, do you?’
He snapped shut his book. ‘You are right, Robert. I think I know, but I am not certain. I am not at all certain. As Socrates reminds us, true knowledge exists in knowing that we know nothing. The jigsaw is still a jumble. There are secrets still waiting to be found out.’
Arthur the butler arrived with the Perrier Jouët.
He placed the champagne tray on the side-table by the study door and bowed towards his master. Oscar bowed back.
‘Pour the wine, Robert. We need to empty the bottle and clear our heads. Do you have your pencil and notebook handy?’
As we drank the sparkling wine—it was wonderfully crisp and cool: ‘as pure and yellow as a May moonbeam,’ said Oscar—I took a note of my friend’s instructions. While he was to be in Oxford, I was to remain in London. I was to return to Byrd at the Cadogan Hotel and reserve the private room there for a dinner on Friday night. Oscar told me to instruct Byrd to invite all those who had been present at the Socrates Club gathering on Sunday 1 May to return to the Cadogan for a special dinner—’a commemorative dinner’—on the evening of the thirteenth. ‘Tell Byrd there will be fourteen for dinner, as before. Tell him I want the same menu as before and the same wines.’
‘And the same seating plan?’ I asked.
‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘You can tell Byrd that I shall look after the placement. And, Robert, you can contact Inspector Gilmour at Scotland Yard and ask him if he might be free to join us. Ask him to bring a fellow officer as his guest.’
‘You want the police at the dinner?’
‘Yes,’ he said, looking into his champagne somewhat dreamily. ‘Without David McMuirtree and poor Bradford Pearse, we’ll be two short at table.’
He stepped carefully between the lily-pads of books and papers and stood gazing out of the window onto Tite Street. ‘And while you’re with Gilmour, try to find out what progress he is making in rounding up the “notorious villains” he suspects of McMuirtree’s murder. And see if he’s had any news from Eastbourne—from either the po
lice there or the coastguards.’
I emptied my glass and returned it to the tray. ‘I shall be busy,’ I said, pocketing my pencil and notebook.
‘I hope so,’ he replied, turning to me and smiling. ‘And, if you’ve time, perhaps you could call on more of our witnesses. We’ve not interviewed young Willie Hornung. We’ve not heard all that Wat Sickert has to say.’
‘Will they have “secrets”, Oscar?’
‘They will have secrets, Robert—that is certain. Whether their secrets are relevant to the case in hand—that is the only issue.’ He looked back out of the window. ‘And here is your two-wheeler,’ he announced, ‘on cue.’
‘I didn’t order a two-wheeler,’ I said, surprised.
‘I know,’ he answered, beaming at me. ‘I did. It’s my treat.’
‘When did you order it, Oscar?’ I asked suspiciously.
‘Just now,’ he said.
‘Just now?’ I repeated, bemused.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Just now.’
I looked at him. The wine had given colour to his cheeks. He appeared suddenly exultant.
‘When Arthur brought in our champagne,’ he explained, ‘I gave him the signal. It’s an arrangement we have. I bring my hands together by way of a salaam. If I bring together the four fingers of each hand it means that I require him to go out into the street and find me a four-wheeler. If a two-wheeler is required, in my salaam I just press together the tips of two fingers from each hand.’ He bowed towards me and brought his hands together by way of demonstration. ‘I knew that you needed to get home after we had had our drink. I thought you might appreciate a cab. That’s all.’
Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death Page 26