Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death

by Gyles Brandreth

  ‘You are extraordinary, Oscar.’

  ‘I like to think so,’ he said happily. ‘And you are a good friend, Robert—although you do need to learn to be a little more observant.’ From his jacket pocket he produced his green snakeskin wallet (it was his favourite) and extracted three pound notes. He held them out towards me. ‘Your expenses for tomorrow, my friend. Don’t protest. You have very little money and I have plenty. If I don’t give it away now, it will merely be stolen from me in the fullness of time.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I’ll keep a note of what I spend.’

  ‘Don’t! For God’s sake, don’t!’ He sounded quite alarmed at the prospect. He put his arm about me as he walked with me towards the door. ‘You’re not a bank clerk, Robert. You’re not a bookkeeper. You’re a published poet, the great-grandson of a laureate. You of all people should know that ordinary riches count for nothing. Ordinary riches can be stolen from a man. Real riches cannot. In the treasury-house of your soul there are infinitely precious things that may not be taken from you.’

  I looked at his flushed face and smiled. ‘Have I heard that somewhere before, Oscar?’

  ‘Did we drink the champagne too quickly?’ he asked, kissing me on the forehead. ‘Goodbye, Robert.’ He waved me on my way. ‘If I get back in time tomorrow night, we’ll take a nightcap at the Albemarle. Shall we say ten o’clock—eleven at the latest? Meanwhile, bonne chance, mon brave!’ As I stepped into the waiting two-wheeler, he called out: ‘I don’t think Heron-Allen’s our man, do you?’

  I did not know what to think. I did not know where to begin my thinking. Oscar made a fine detective because, though he was a poet, he was also a classicist. His way with words was elaborate and ornate, flowery and full of fanciful flourishes, but his way of thinking was precise. He was not just a spinner of fine phrases: his understanding of grammar and syntax was profound. He had a poet’s imagination, a painter’s eye, an actor’s ear and a scholar’s nose for detail and capacity for close analysis. On the following morning—the morning of Wednesday 11 May 1892—I was grateful that, at least, I had a written note of his instructions.

  I did exactly as he had bid me. I began the day by taking a cab to the Cadogan Hotel in Sloane Street. I saw Byrd and asked him to make the necessary arrangements for the Socrates Club dinner on Friday night. He assured me he would be happy to oblige. From the hotel, I telephoned Arthur Conan Doyle and, from him, got the details of where I might expect to find his young friend, Willie Hornung. From Sloane Street I took another cab to Fleet Street and found Hornung, in his shirtsleeves and pince-nez, sitting in the darkest corner of the ill-lit basement offices of a ‘popular publication’ of which I had never heard.

  Hornung, it transpired, was the recently appointed assistant editor of the Gentlewoman: An Illustrated Weekly Journal for Gentlewomen. The poor fellow, perched on a high stool, inky pen in hand, managed to look distraught and despairing at the same time. ‘I can’t stop to talk,’ he said, putting down his pen and running his hands anxiously through his thick fair hair. ‘I have to finish an article about chewing-gum by lunchtime. Chewing-gum! I ask you! They say it’s all the rage in America and that over here by Christmas every forward-thinking gentlewoman will be chewing Mr Wrigley’s extraordinary sweetmeat. I just don’t believe it but the editor insists. He’s an ogre. I wish I’d taken the job on Forget-Me-Not. That’s another women’s weekly, but it’s mostly pictorial. I would only have had to write captions for photographs. Arthur said I should go for this job—so I did. But I’m not enjoying it, I can tell you. I’m not enjoying it a bit.’

  I stood for a few minutes with the unhappy youth in his desultory corner, consoling him with the thought that Oscar had served his time as editor of a women’s magazine, while plying the poor boy with questions about the night of 1 May and pressing him to reveal to me his ‘secrets’. He said he remembered very little about the Socrates Club dinner. He had been ‘rather overwhelmed’ by the occasion. He did recall that Bradford Pearse, who sat opposite him during dinner, appeared to have drunk a great deal and he recollected what he described as ‘an unhappy exchange’ between Charles Brookfield and Arthur Conan Doyle.

  ‘Can you remember what was said?’ I asked.

  ‘Arthur was saying that he thought that Oscar had missed his vocation, that Oscar—had he so chosen-could have become a private consulting detective quite as brilliant and perceptive as Sherlock Holmes. Brookfield scoffed and said, “Oscar Wilde as a detective is a preposterous notion. Indeed, Oscar Wilde as a person is a preposterous notion. Oscar Wilde is a charlatan.”‘

  ‘He said this at dinner?’

  ‘After dinner, as we were preparing to leave. I imagine he was drunk.’

  ‘Did Conan Doyle rebuke him?’

  ‘Arthur was very calm, very dignified. He said. “Mr Brookfield, history will show you that the so-called charlatan is always the pioneer. From the astrologer came the astronomer, from the alchemist the chemist, from the mesmerist the experimental psychologist. The quack of yesterday is the professor of tomorrow. Mr Wilde is by no means preposterous. He is merely ahead of his time.”’

  ‘And what did Brookfield say to that?’

  ‘“That’s a very pretty speech, I’m sure, sir, but it don’t change my opinion of Mr Oscar Wilde.”‘

  As he spoke, Hornung kept looking over his shoulder as if fearing the imminent arrival of the monstrous editor he was employed to assist. ‘Forgive me, Robert,’ he said. ‘I must get back to my chewing—gum.’

  ‘And what about your “secret”?’ I asked. ‘Oscar says everybody has a “secret”. What’s yours?’

  Hornung laughed nervously and pushed his pince-nez up his nose. ‘Oscar already knows mine. It’s my name …’

  ‘Your name?’

  ‘I call myself William—everyone knows me as Willie—but that’s not my first name.’

  ‘And that’s your secret?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, running his hands through his hair again.

  ‘And what is your first name?’ I asked.

  ‘Ernest,’ he said. ‘My name is Ernest. Oscar seemed to think that was very funny indeed.’

  I left Hornung and walked in the spring sunshine from Fleet Street to the Strand, down Savoy Hill to the Embankment, past Gatti’s in the Arches (George Daubeney and Wat Sickert’s favourite music hall), past Charing Cross railway station, to Scotland Yard. Inspector Gilmour was not in his office and not expected back before dusk. He was out on a case— in the East End’, on the trail of some ‘notorious villains’—and his deputy and his deputy’s deputy were both with him. According to the desk sergeant, an amiable officer of riper years, I could expect ‘progress in the matter of the McMuirtree murder any minute now—certainly within the week’. I left Gilmour a note, signed on Oscar’s behalf, inviting him to come to dinner at the Cadogan Hotel on Friday night, at half past seven, bringing one of his deputies with him.

  From Scotland Yard I walked on towards Westminster Bridge where I picked up another cab and travelled on to the King’s Road, to the Chelsea Arts Club. I found Walter Sickert in the club mess room, the large studio at the back of the building, sitting alone with a plate of ham and pickled onions and a bottle of Algerian wine. He was reading a letter when I arrived. He looked up at me with tears in his sea-green eyes.

  ‘Get yourself a glass,’ he said, pushing his bottle of wine towards me. ‘I am reading a letter from a friend of mine in Paris. He knew Van Gogh—the Dutch artist who killed himself.’

  I poured myself a glass of wine.

  ‘Van Gogh’s paintings are so full of life, so full of sunshine and colour, and yet the poor man was so wretched in this world that he killed himself.’ He waved the letter he was holding in my direction. ‘Do you know what Van Gogh’s dying words were? “La tristesse durera toujours .”’

  ‘“The sadness will last forever,” ‘I translated.

  ‘No,’ said Sickert, raising his glass to his lips. ‘“The sadness will never go away.
” There’s a difference …’ He skewered a pickled onion with his fork. ‘Do you think Bradford Pearse felt like that?’

  ‘Have you had any news of Pearse?’ I asked.

  ‘None,’ he said. ‘Has Oscar?’

  ‘I don’t believe so.’

  Sickert blew his nose on a huge blue handkerchief and nodded towards the small, torn buff-coloured envelope that lay beneath his letter on the table. ‘Oscar sent me a wire. He said you might drop by. Oscar’s a good man—a touch absurd, of course, but fundamentally good.’

  I smiled. It was amusing to hear Wat Sickert, with his outsized bow-tie, his yellow spats and waxed moustache, describe Oscar as ‘a touch absurd’.

  Sickert went on: ‘I have known Oscar since I was a boy. He used to come on holiday with us, you know. He was wonderful to my mother when my father died. Mother was inconsolable—until Oscar came to call. He talked to her of my father with such sweetness, such gentle humour. He taught her how to laugh once more.’ He wiped more tears from his eyes and waved the empty wine bottle in the air in the hope of attracting a waiter’s attention. ‘Of course, some people can’t abide Oscar—think he’s the most dreadful bore. Wasn’t it you who told me that Victor Hugo actually fell asleep during one of dear Oscar’s wittiest set-pieces?’

  I laughed. ‘It was.’ The waiter arrived with a fresh bottle. ‘Of course,’ I added, ‘Monsieur Hugo was very old at the time.’

  Sickert recharged our glasses. ‘Let us drink to Oscar,’ he said. ‘He’s a great man. And a darling. And a good friend, too. He’s going to unravel the secret of these mysterious deaths, you mark my words. Who killed the parrot? Who pushed poor Bradford Pearse to his doom? Who slashed the boxer’s wrists? I’ve no idea—none at all!—but Oscar will uncover the truth, I know it. He has a genius for this kind of thing.’

  I took one of the pickled onions from Sickert’s plate. ‘Gilmour of the Yard is also on the case,’ I said.

  Sickert put down his glass dramatically, splashing wine onto the table. ‘Forget Gilmour of the Yard,’ he expostulated. ‘Oscar will do it—alone, unaided. Two artists sit side by side painting the same subject. Only one of the paintings works. Whistler taught me that. Whistler used to say that “the bogey of success only sits on one palette”. Oscar will do it single-handed.’ He laughed and poured more wine into his glass. ‘Which is fortunate as, sadly, I have no help to offer. No useful recollections, no helpful aperçus. I must drink up and return to my studio. What are you doing this afternoon, Robert? I am discovering the delights of a new model this afternoon. I am spending the rest of the day with skin that’s quite unblemished, with tiny ankles, lissom thighs, a slim waist and breasts so firm and small that they might be a boy’s … Have you ever painted a virgin, Robert?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m not an artist.’

  ‘Or slept with one?’ he added, waving his glass in the air. ‘It amounts to the same thing.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS

  At eleven o’clock that evening, my head aching from a surfeit of Algerian wine, I made my way into the smoking room of the Albemarle Club, 36 Albemarle Street, Piccadilly. To my surprise, Oscar was already there. He was standing by the fireplace, his right elbow resting gently on the oak mantelpiece, his right hand nursing a large glass of brandy. He was not alone. Seated in the low leather armchairs on either side of the fireplace were the Douglas brothers. Bosie, who appeared to be wearing tennis clothes, was lying back languidly, his arms flopping on to the floor, his head cast to one side, his eyes closed. Francis, Lord Drumlanrig, by contrast, was in evening dress, sitting forward on the edge of his chair, his face flushed and his eyes alert. He was gazing resolutely towards Oscar.

  ‘You’ve not forgotten us,’ cried my friend, as I arrived. ‘We thought perhaps you had.’ Oscar, I sensed at once, was in a teasing frame of mind.

  ‘How was Oxford?’ I asked, going to the sideboard and helping myself to a weak brandy and soda. ‘Have you made progress?’

  ‘Oxford,’ said Oscar, who looked extraordinarily fresh given the lateness of the hour and the length of his day, ‘was all that we dared hoped for. Our essay, I’m proud to tell you, Robert, was considered Alpha material. Socrates, Spinoza, Saint-Simon, Sappho— we brought them all into play and Bosie’s tutor was suitably impressed. The dear old gentleman did not appear to notice that our references were chosen entirely for their alliterative allure. He chewed happily on his handkerchief throughout our reading and offered us each a glass of sherry at the end of it.’

  ‘You read Bosie’s essay out loud for him?’

  ‘I wrote it; I read it; Bosie takes the credit. It is extraordinary what you can get away with if you try. I’m sure Sickert will have shared Whistler’s maxim with you: “In art, nothing matters so long as you are bold.” In my experience, that’s true in life as well.’

  Lord Drumlanrig was still gazing fixedly at Oscar. He was twenty-five years old. He was not as beautiful as his younger brother. Francis Drumlanrig had what Oscar called ‘utilitarian good looks: they serve, they don’t inspire’. The young aristocrat shifted further forward on his chair. ‘If that’s all, Oscar,’ he said, somewhat awkwardly, ‘I’ll be on my way. I must look in on Lord Rosebery before midnight. I’m expected. Thanks for the drink.’

  He got to his feet and offered Oscar his hand. Oscar took it and held it and turned to me. ‘Francis kindly joined us after dinner,’ he explained. ‘I had some questions for him and he has answered them all—most helpfully. I have to say he submitted to my cross-examination with an extraordinarily good grace.’ Oscar let go of the young man’s hand. ‘He blushes. He is embarrassed. There is no need. I asked Lord Drumlanrig if he had met the late David McMuirtree on any occasion prior to the 1 May gathering of the Socrates Club. He acknowledged that he had just the once. It was a secret meeting, a brief encounter, an assignation on Westminster Bridge—arranged by McMuirtree at McMuirtree’s request.’

  The young peer stood to attention, with his arms at his side, his cheeks burning, his eyes now firmly fixed on the empty fire grate.

  Oscar went on: ‘McMuirtree told Lord Drumlanrig that rumours were circulating—rumours of a most unsavoury nature, rumours suggesting that the older man was exerting an unnatural influence over the younger. As you know, Lord Drumlanrig is Lord Rosebery’s political secretary. McMuirtree warned him that certain people—the Marquess of Queensberry among them—were saying that Lord Drumlanrig and Lord Rosebery were lovers.

  ‘I denied any wrongdoing,’ said Drumlanrig hoarsely, still staring into the grate. ‘I denied it absolutely.’

  ‘He denied it absolutely,’ repeated Oscar gently. ‘He told McMuirtree not to meddle in matters that did not concern him. He told McMuirtree to mind his own his business. He told him so in no uncertain terms.’

  ‘Did he threaten him?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Francis Drumlanrig, turning and looking at me with dark, bewildered eyes, ‘I threatened him—in a manner of speaking. I threatened him, but I did not murder him.’ He bent over and picked up a newspaper from the floor. ‘I must go now, Oscar. Forgive me. Goodnight, Oscar. Goodnight, Sherard.’

  ‘Well …’ I said, with a sigh, after Drumlanrig had gone. ‘Well, well …’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Oscar. ‘There is much to ponder. And I imagine, Robert, there is also much to report. We’ve had busy days the both of us.’ He drained his glass and put it on the mantelpiece. ‘Let’s to bed now. I’m sleeping at the club tonight. I’ll pick you up in Gower Street at noon.’ He put his arm around me and led me towards the door. ‘Come, let’s tiptoe out. We’ll leave Bosie sleeping here. His triumph in Oxford has exhausted him.’

  I was exhausted, too. And foolish. I reached my room in Gower Street as midnight struck and yet I did not put out my lamp until gone three in the morning. First, I allowed myself to be distracted by re-reading and attempting to draft a reply to yet another importunate letter from my estranged wife’s solicitor; next, I
decided to write up my journal while the events of the day were still relatively fresh in my mind; finally (and fatally!) I began to read a licentious volume George Daubeney had encouraged me to buy on one of our visits to the Librairie Française. When, eventually, sated with the absurd antics of the libidinous nuns and novices of the Couvent de la Concupiscence, I put the book aside and closed my eyes, I fell asleep almost at once. I was dead to the world for nigh on nine hours. It was Oscar who woke me, rat-tatting on the front door with his sword-stick.

  I looked out of my window and waved down to him. He was dressed immaculately, wearing a dove-grey frock coat and lemon-yellow gloves. (He kept clothes in an assortment of London clubs and hotels.) He raised his black silk top hat to me and indicated the four-wheeler at the kerbside that awaited us. I threw on my clothes—the clothes I had worn the day before !—and ran down the stairs to join him.

  ‘I’ve not had time to shave,’ I apologised as I climbed into our carriage.

  ‘No matter,’ he said. ‘We are going to a public house. Your appearance is exactly comme il faut.’

  ‘I must look like a scarecrow,’ I said, realising that I had not even brushed my hair, ‘whereas you, Oscar, you look so … civilised.’

  He chuckled. ‘With a high hat and a well-cut frock coat anybody, even an accountant, can look civilised.’ He fingered the rosebud in the lapel of his coat. ‘I am rather pleased, however, with my buttonhole. This rose is named in honour of Saint Joan of Arc. Tomorrow is the thirteenth, her feast day. Today, this rosebud is white. Tomorrow, the flower will open and you will see petals as red as fire.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Tomorrow is the thirteenth,’ I said. ‘Friday the thirteenth.’