‘Quite,’ said Oscar. ‘Unlucky for some.’
I turned and looked him this extraordinary, supremely intelligent, highly educated, profoundly civilised man. ‘You really are deeply superstitious, aren’t you?’
‘I take some of it with a pinch of salt,’ he said.
I laughed.
He looked at me earnestly. ‘The truth is: I love superstitions, Robert. They are the colour element of thought and imagination. They are the opponents of common sense. Common sense is the enemy of romance. Leave us some unreality. Do not make us offensively sane.’
Our four-wheeler turned southwards into the Charing Cross Road. ‘Where are we going now?’ I asked.
‘Nowhere very romantic, alas. To a public house in Wellington Street to have beer and sandwiches with Bram Stoker and Charles Brookfield. They are the last of our “witnesses”.’
‘What about George Daubeney?’ I asked. ‘Have you cross-examined the Honourable Reverend?’
‘Not yet. He and I are having a tête-à-tête this afternoon—at his suggestion. He has something to show me. Something he tells me will please me greatly.’
‘Am I invited, too?’
‘No, Robert. Whatever he has to offer is, apparently, for my eyes only.’
‘He’s a curious sort of clergyman, isn’t he?’
‘Not at all,’ cried Oscar. ‘In my experience they’re all obsessed with carnality and corruption. I think they regard it as their stock-in-trade. The bishops are often the worst.’
I was beginning to feel more awake. Oscar’s banter was reviving me—and his quirkiness, his lightness of touch and his easy acceptance of the foibles of others were serving to remind me of why I found him to be the best company in the world.
As our four-wheeler trundled down Charing Cross Road towards the Strand, at his behest I gave Oscar a brief account of my encounters of the day before. When I’d done I said: ‘I’m afraid I didn’t make much progress, Oscar. I’m not in your league, alas. Nor that of Sherlock Holmes.
‘Forget Holmes,’ said Oscar genially. ‘You covered the ground, and covered it well. I’m grateful.’ He slapped me on the knee by way of congratulation.
‘And you?’ I asked.
‘I made some progress, I believe,’ he said lightly, looking out of the carriage window. Our four-wheeler had stopped momentarily: our horse appeared to have been distracted by a road-side water-trough. Oscar turned back to me. ‘What did you make of young Drumlanrig?’ he asked.
I hesitated.
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘Can I follow Whistler’s advice?’ I asked. ‘Can I be bold?’
He laughed. ‘Are you going to tell me that Lord Drumlanrig is our murderer?’
‘It’s possible, is it not?’ I said. ‘They are a strange family the Douglases … moody, headstrong, touched with madness …’
‘Indeed. “Douglas” in Gaelic means “dark water”, you know. And “Nomen est omen” is my philosophy. But of all the members of the family I’ve encountered thus far, Francis Drumlanrig seems to me to be the least touched with madness, the most down-to-earth.’
‘But Francis Drumlanrig chose his godfather, Lord Abergordon, as his victim—and Lord Abergordon is dead. By his own admission, Francis Drumlanrig threatened David McMuirtree—and David McMuirtree is dead’
Our carriage began to move once more. Oscar lit a cigarette and nodded to me as if to say, ‘Go on.’
I went on, uncertain as to whether or not I should. ‘Francis Drumlanrig,’ I said slowly, ‘is heir to the Marquess of Queensberry … is he not?’
‘He is.’
‘But Francis is estranged from his father because his father does not much care for the kind of company the young man keeps. Lord Queensberry does not much care for the likes of Lord Rosebery and …’ I hesitated.
‘… the likes of Oscar Wilde?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘The Marquess of Queensberry does not approve of either of his sons’ intimate association with Oscar Wilde. If Francis Drumlanrig were to rid the world of all the Wildes, would that not endear the young earl to his monster of a father?’
‘Ingenious, Robert, as well as bold,’ said Oscar, smiling at me benevolently.
Encouraged, I went on: ‘Aside from the parrot, there were six people on the list of victims. Who else had a motive to murder at least four out of the six?’
Our four-wheeler was drawing to a halt. Oscar threw his cigarette to the floor and extinguished it under foot. ‘Oh, Robert,’ he cried, pushing open the carriage door. ‘Beware of dangerous assumptions!’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean: do not assume that anyone had a motive to murder more than one of the victims’
I helped my friend out of the four-wheeler. ‘I do not follow you,’ I said.
‘Could our murderer not simply have had just one victim in mind—and be busy murdering all the rest simply to cover his traces, to cause confusion in his wake, to throw sand in our eyes?’
I stood with Oscar on the corner of Wellington Street and the Strand and looked up at the cloudless sky. I was perplexed.
Oscar paid off our cab and led the way into the saloon bar of the Duke of Wellington public house. ‘Beer and sandwiches,’ he murmured unhappily as we entered the crowded, smoke-filled room. We saw Bram Stoker at once. He was standing at the bar, looking towards the door, waiting for us. There was no sign of Charles Brookfield.
‘He sends his apologies,’ said Stoker, handing us each a pint pot of warm, dark ale.
‘Does he?’ asked Oscar, looking down at the beer with wide eyes and undisguised mistrust.
Stoker laughed. He was a big bear of a man. He was as tall as Oscar—six feet two inches at least— and quite as broad, but while Oscar seemed overweight and flabby, Stoker appeared well-built and strong. He was deep-chested and broad-shouldered. When he laughed, his whole frame shook. ‘No, Oscar, you’re right,’ he growled through his laugh and, with the back of his nails, he scratched at his untidy red beard. ‘Brookfield does not send his apologies. He‘s simply decided not to join us.’
Stoker picked up his pint pot and led us towards a boxed stall in a dark corner at the back of the room. Set out on a table within the stall were knives and forks, plates, wine glasses, napkins, one dish overflowing with cuts of cold meat, another piled high with portions of dressed crab and two open bottles of Alsatian wine. ‘Take a pew, gentlemen,‘ said Stoker amiably. ‘I’ve never thought of Oscar as much of a sandwich man.’
‘By all that’s wonderful,’ purred Oscar gratefully, lowering his bulk onto one of the benches within the stall. ‘My spirits soar. Thank you, Bram.’
Stoker struck a match and lit two candles in the centre of the table. He had bright blue eyes and ruddy farmer’s cheeks. He smiled at me. ‘Oscar and I go back a long way. His parents were very good to me in Dublin when I was a boy. Sir William Wilde was something of a hero of mine.’
‘My father was an author and antiquarian as well as a medical man,’ Oscar added by way of explanation.
‘He was a great man, a good man, a strong man, ‘said Stoker, filling our wine glasses, ‘until the case broke him.’
‘“The case”?’ I queried. ‘Was Sir William by way of being something of an amateur sleuth also?’
‘No,’ answered Oscar, smiling. ‘Sir William was by way of being something of a professional ladies’ man. “The case” was an unfortunate libel action. My father stood accused of having chloroformed and raped a female patient. It wasn’t true, of course, but that he and the lady in the case had enjoyed an illicit, if consenting, relationship could not be denied. The case ruined him. Bram is correct. It “broke” him.’
‘There’s a lesson there for us all, gentlemen,’ said Stoker, beaming across the table at us. ‘Keep out of court at all costs. Cheers!’
We raised and clinked our glasses. ‘Now,’ said Oscar, helping himself to a portion of dressed crab,’ explain to me why Brookfield is not here.’
�
�He has an aversion to you, Oscar—it’s as simple as that. He is obsessed with you, but can’t stand the sight of you at the same time! I imagine at the Socrates Club dinner, when we played that infernal game of yours, you were his intended victim. He is insanely jealous of you. We all are.’ Stoker looked at me and winked. ‘I have been ever since I was a young man.’
‘This is balderdash, Bram,’ said Oscar happily, helping himself to a further portion of dressed crab. ‘Poppycock.’ He looked at me. ‘I’m the one who was insanely jealous. Stoker here stole my sweetheart—saw her, stole her, swept her off her feet.’
‘I had the advantage of years, Oscar,’ said Stoker.
‘Yes,’ replied Oscar, sniffing the wine with satisfaction, ‘I have that consolation.’ He took a sip of the Alsace and placed his glass back on the table. He leant towards me confidentially. ‘Florrie Balcombe—Mrs Stoker—is very beautiful.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I have been to first nights at the Lyceum. I have seen the gentlemen in the stalls and in the balconies standing on their seats to get a better view of her.’
‘Constance Lloyd—Mrs Wilde—is very beautiful, too’ said Bram Stoker, without affectation.
‘Indeed,’ I said, my cheeks suddenly reddening.
‘Robert is a little in love with my wife,’ murmured Oscar, gently patting the back of my hand.
‘I’m not surprised,’ said Bram Stoker. ‘I imagine most men are.’
‘And yet,’ said Oscar, leaning back in the stall and lighting his first cigarette since we had taken our seats, ‘one man wants to murder her.’
‘It can’t be so,’ said Stoker. ‘I won’t believe it.’
‘Yes, it is so,’ said Oscar quietly. He leant forward towards our host: ‘Who did you choose as your “victim”, Bram, when we played my wretched game?’
‘“Old Father Time”,’ answered Stoker, smiling. He tugged on his beard ruefully. ‘I shall be forty-five this November.’
‘And what is your “secret”, my friend?’
‘My secret? My secret is laughable. My secret is that in my heart I am still only twenty-five.’
‘Oh,’ said Oscar, draining his glass. ‘In my heart I’m not yet nineteen.’
We finished the two bottles of Alsatian wine and ordered a third. We talked of youth and beauty, of fine wine and good food. Bram cautioned Oscar against a third helping of dressed crab. Dressed crab, he claimed, had led him to dream of vampires; we talked of Charles Brookfield’s satire on Lady Windermere’s Fan and of Walter Sickert’s paintings of actresses en deshabillée; we talked of George Daubeney and house fires and women’s undergarments—Bram’s grandfather had been a manufacturer of ladies’ stays. We talked of parrots and monkeys and murder—Bram had been given a pet monkey by W. S. Gilbert and spoke of an acquaintance of his [Sir Richard Burton (182 1—1890), translator of the Arabian Nights.] who admitted to murdering a stranger once, ‘casually and without cause’. It was a wonderfully congenial lunch, and we touched on many topics peripheral to our ‘case‘, but I was not sure how much solid progress we had made.
At three o’clock, however, standing once more on the corner of Wellington Street and the Strand, Oscar expressed himself well satisfied. Bram Stoker had returned to the Lyceum (to the rehearsals for Mr Irving’s King Lear), having insisted on paying for our entertainment (‘I got the girl, Oscar—you may have the dressed crab’) and having agreed to be in attendance at the Cadogan Hotel the following evening for what he called ‘the extraordinary extra gathering of the Socrates Club’.
‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Oscar, ‘Bram called out merrily, as he strode away from us up the street towards the theatre. ‘And have no fear … I’ll deliver Brookfield to the dinner for you—that much I promise.’
‘What now, Oscar?’ I asked.
‘Be free, my Ariel! At least for this afternoon … Go back to Gower Street. Get to grips with your wife’s solicitor. I’m looking in briefly on Inspector Gilmour. I need to be certain he’ll be with us tomorrow night. Then I have my assignation with the Hon. the Reverend George Daubeney—in Beak Street, behind the arras. He assures me I’ll not be disappointed … And then, Robert, believe it or not, I am going home. I am returning to the bosom of my family. I shall be dining with my wife tonight.’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ I said, suddenly shaking my friend warmly by the hand. ‘That’s as it should be, Oscar. And tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow is the thirteenth,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow is another day.’
‘Shall we take breakfast?’ I asked.
‘No, not tomorrow,’ he said, waving his swordstick towards a passing cab. ‘Tomorrow, Robert, I shall be spending the day in Eastbourne. I shall be taking the early train. And you, Robert, if you would be so kind, if you can spare the time, will be spending the day in Tite Street. Mr Heron-Allen will not trouble you. Mrs Heron-Allen is back in town, so Mr Heron-Allen, also, is returning to the bosom of his family … Tomorrow, Robert, I need you to be Constance’s guardian angel. Go to Tite Street tomorrow morning at ten o’clock, Robert. And, until I send you word, do not let my wife out of your sight.’
The seating plan
for the Socrates Club dinner at
the Cadogan Hotel on Friday 13 May 1892
Oscar Wilde
The Hon. the Rev. George Daubeney
Willie Hornung
Edward Heron-Allen
Lord Alfred Douglas
Arthur Conan Doyle
Lord Drumlanrig
Robert Sherard
Walter Sickert
Inspector Roger Ferris
Bram Stoker
Charles Brookfield
Inspector Archy Gilmour
Alphonse Byrd
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH
In south-west London, Friday 13 May 1892 was as Sunday 1 May had been: a crisp, cold day, though the sun shone clear and bright. I did as Oscar had asked. I arrived at 16 Tite Street, Chelsea, at a minute before ten o’clock. Arthur the butler seemed to have been expecting me, but Constance did not. When Arthur showed me into the first-floor drawing room I found Mrs Wilde seated at the table by the window, reading a book.
She looked up and, as she saw me, she cried out:
‘Robert! What a lovely surprise! You’ve just missed Oscar. He’s gone to Eastbourne. You will stay and visit with me instead? I am so happy to see you. Edward’s wife has come home. He’s returned to his nest. I’ve no one to play with. I’m all alone.’
She closed her book. She got to her feet and ran towards me and kissed me lightly on the mouth. She thought nothing of it, I am certain: it was just her way. I held her in my arms. I felt the warmth of her body against mine. I revelled in the softness of her touch. Oscar had told me, not long before—one night, at the Albemarle Club, when we had drunk two bottles of champagne that he could no longer love his wife as a husband should. ‘I don’t blame her, poor creature—I blame nature,’ he said. ‘Nature is disgusting. It takes beauty and it defiles it. It defaces the ivory-white body we have adored with the vile cicatrices of maternity. It is loathsome. It befouls the altar of the soul.’
I had known Constance for eight years, since the time of her engagement to Oscar, and, to me, her allure had increased, not diminished, across the years. She was now thirty-four and her figure was a touch fuller than it had been in the days of her virginity, but time and motherhood had given her a bloom—a radiance—that she had lacked as a girl. When I first met her, her natural loveliness was masked by her natural reticence. She was pretty, but she was so shy she was almost gauche. Now she was beautiful and, though still sometimes awkward among strangers, as a rule she had a composure—an unassuming self-confidence—that I found utterly compelling. Oscar was my dearest friend: being with him was always exhilarating, but, to be candid, it was not always comfortable. In Oscar’s company I was often on edge: in Constance’s company I was always at ease.
When I released her from my arms, she did not move
away from me. She looked up into my eyes and smiled. I wanted to kiss her again. Instead, I glanced towards the table by the window and said, ‘What are you reading?’
She blushed. ‘My own book, I am ashamed to say!’ She broke from me and, laughing, covered her face with her hands. ‘I have been reading my own stories, Robert!’
‘Is this your new book?’ I asked, moving with her to the table. ‘I loved your first book, as you know.’
‘They were children’s fairy stories, Robert,’ she teased. ‘You can’t have “loved” them!’
‘I did,’ I insisted. ‘What is the new book called?’
She picked up the slender volume, bound in blue leather, and passed it to me. ‘A Long Time Ago,’ she said. ‘More fairy stories. Oscar has been most complimentary about them.’
‘I shall be, too!’ I declared. ‘Read me one, will you, Constance?’ I pressed the book into her hands. ‘Read them all to me!’
‘You are ridiculous, Robert,’ she said, but she did as I asked.
We sat together all morning, side by side, at the table in the front window of Tite Street. The stories were delightful, as charming and fantastical as Oscar’s own fairy tales, but not quite so melancholy, nor so baroque in their phrasing. Each time Constance finished one of the tales, I pressed her to start another. Each time she protested; each time she acquiesced. And while she read, turning the pages of the book with her right hand, I held her left hand in mine. Now and then, as she read, she lifted her eyes from the page and smiled at me. Once, when I had laid the back of her hand flat against the table and was slowly caressing her palm with the tips of my fingers, she asked: ‘What are you doing, Robert?’
‘I am studying the lines on your hand,’ I said. ‘I want to know what the future holds for you.’
She closed her fingers over mine. ‘Do not look too close,’ she said. ‘Even Mrs Robinson will not tell me all that she sees hidden in my hand.’
At a little after twelve noon, Gertrude Simmonds, the boys’ governess, knocked on the drawing-room door. She was holding little Vyvyan Wilde by the hand. She had come to ask if Mrs Wilde wanted to join her sons for luncheon and to enquire whether or not I would also be of the party.
Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death Page 28