On 11 August 1873, from the estate of the late Thomas Wood Esquire, of Gray’s Inn Road, London WC, Joseph and Mary Skipwith received an ex gratia payment of three hundred and fifty pounds in final recognition of services rendered. Susannah Wood, his acknowledged natural daughter, received the title deeds to a freehold property known as The Castle, Harbour Street, Broadstairs, Kent, together with an income of eighty pounds per annum guaranteed for life.
Mr and Mrs Skipwith were satisfied with their reward. Mr Skipwith said it was ‘sufficient’, but he said it, according to Susannah, with an unwonted touch of colour in his cheeks, suggesting to her that the sum exceeded his wildest expectations. Susannah herself was overwhelmed by her inheritance. “I did not know what happiness was, Mr Wilde, until that moment. Happiness is freedom. My father gave me this house and, in so doing, he set me free. He gave me a home of my own; he gave me an occupation; he gave me an income; he gave me happiness. And I never knew him.”
The Castle was one of several seaside properties owned by Thomas Wood. When Susannah acquired it, it was a dilapidated rooming house. Within two years of her ownership, before the summer of her twentieth birthday, she had transformed it into a respectable residential and visitors’ hotel. “This was my castle, Mr Wilde.”
“And when, one day, a prince came to your castle,” said Oscar, “for a moment your happiness was complete.”
She laughed through her tears. “How did you know?” she asked.
“I am myself the writer of fairy tales,” said Oscar. “I know how they begin. I know how they end. I weep for you. What was he called, your prince?”
“His name? William O’Donnell,” said Mrs Wood.
“William O’Donnell?” repeated Oscar.
“Yes,” she said. “He was just a boy—”
“But he had beauty?” suggested Oscar.
“Yes,” she said, eagerly, placing her hand on his. “How do you know all this?”
“I know nothing,” said Oscar, “but I surmise…Your prince was a lighthouse keeper…”
Susannah Wood started suddenly and put her hands to her mouth in astonishment.
“He was young,” Oscar went on, “he was beautiful, he was brave. And he died at sea.”
“How do you know?” she gasped. “I have told no one.”
I was equally amazed. “How do you know this, Oscar?” I asked.
Oscar turned to me and smiled. “Look about you, Robert,” he said. “What do you see upon the parlour walls? What did you observe as we passed through the hallway?”
I looked around the dingy room. “Pictures?” I hazarded. Now I saw that the walls were covered with a profusion of framed pictures of various shapes and sizes.
“Yes, Robert, “pictures”—prints, etchings and engravings, lithographs and mezzotints. And do you not see? Mrs Wood has chosen these pictures, not for their artistic merit—the quality of the art is indifferent—but for their subject matter. Have you not noticed that every one of these pictures depicts a similar scene—either that of a lighthouse or that of a shipwreck? Mrs Wood has created a shrine to her secret sadness.”
“No sooner had I found him,” she said, as if to herself, “than I lost him. And now I have lost my Billy, too.”
Oscar got to his feet and moved closer to the chair where Mrs Wood was seated. He placed his right hand upon her shoulder. “When we find Billy’s body, I promise you this,” he said solemnly. “If you so wish, Billy, too, shall be laid to rest in the sea—the sea that, as Euripides says in one of his plays about Iphigenia, washes away the stains and wounds of the world.”
Susannah Wood turned and looked up toward Oscar. “I do not entirely follow you, Mr Wilde.”
Oscar smiled. “I would be sorry if you did,” he said. “I imagine Euripides is not much read in Bromley.”
“No,” she said, a little confused, “but we had the complete works of Dickens in Bromley—as well as the Bible.”
“Indeed,” said Oscar, with a small sniff. “I am not surprised.”
Suddenly, Susannah Wood clutched at Oscar’s hand and began to weep once more. “Oh, Mr Wilde,” she sobbed, “will you find whoever has done this terrible thing?”
“I will,” said Oscar. “You have my word.”
Gently, he broke away from the grieving mother and turned to me. “Come, Robert,” he said, “we have work to do. We must leave Mrs Wood to her sorrow and return to London.”
“I must come with you,” she cried, getting to her feet.
“No,” said Oscar, firmly, “not yet. It is too soon. The time will come, no doubt, but there is nothing you can achieve in London now.”
“But I must help you, Mr Wilde, in every way I can.”
Oscar was standing by the parlour door, examining one of the larger prints of a storm at sea. He turned back and looked steadily at Mrs Wood. “You can answer me one more question, if you will…”
“Gladly,” she said. Her eyes were dry again. Her head was held high.
“Your prince—young William O’Donnell—was the father of Billy Wood?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“But when William O’Donnell died at sea, he did not know that he had a son?”
“No, he did not.” She shook her head. “Poor William,” she sighed. “He had no idea. How could he? It was all so sudden.”
Oscar offered her a reassuring smile. “When did you first meet William O’Donnell?” he asked.
“We met in August—the August that I came here, the August of my eighteenth birthday. I had only been at The Castle a matter of days. He came to call, ‘to introduce himself’, he said. He found me on my hands and knees, scrubbing the front doorstep. I remember his first words to me. ‘Good morning, Mrs—or is it Miss?’ Even then I wore a wedding ring and dressed as a widow; it was a mask I hid behind. It made me feel more secure and older than my years.”
For a moment, Mrs Wood put her hands to her eyes, then she smiled wearily and lowered them again.
“He raised his cap to me. His hair was golden. He told me he was the lad from the North Foreland lighthouse and that he was collecting subscriptions to help fund the lifeboat stationed in Viking Bay. He told me he worked on the lifeboat himself. His smile was wonderful, Mr Wilde. He was so handsome. Willingly, instantly, I promised him a shilling a month for the lifeboat. I invited him into the house, into this room, and offered him a glass of lemonade. We became friends that afternoon and, within days, we had become lovers, also.”
She paused and gazed down at the rings on her finger. “Who knew of your friendship?” Oscar asked.
“No one. It was our secret. The Castle was our secret kingdom. Yes, we were children, living in a fairy tale of our own making. I was eighteen. He was seventeen. We were so young. We played together. We laughed and sang together. And we lay together. We knew it was a sin, and yet…How could it be a sin when it was so natural and it made us both so glad to be alive?”
Oscar was studying the inscription beneath the print on the parlour wall. “So William died barely five months after your first meeting,” he said, “on the night of 7 January 1874, in the great storm that drove the Dolphin aground on the Goodwin Sands.”
“Yes,” she said. “Three lifeboats set out to rescue the sloop in that terrible tempest. Five men lost their lives. William was the youngest. I discovered that I was with child three weeks later. I told no one who the father was. I bore the child—and the shame of seeming to be a widow bearing a child out of wedlock—alone. Alone, Mr Wilde. No one knew my secret. No one knows it still, except for you and…Edward O’Donnell.” She flinched as she spoke the name.
“The brute that we saw in the street?” I asked, looking up from my notebook.
“Yes,” answered Mrs Wood. “He does not know the truth for certain. I have admitted nothing. But he has guessed. And he knows he has guessed right.”
“This Edward O’Donnell,” said Oscar, “he is William O’Donnell’s father?”
“No, he is my William�
��s elder brother and, when he is in drink, he is as heartless and cruel as my William was tender and loving. Edward O’Donnell has been my tormentor these past two years.”
“Two years?” Oscar queried.
“When William died and Billy was born-, Edward was abroad. He was ten years William’s senior. At sixteen, he had joined a French steamer and gone to Canada to seek his fortune. At first he prospered, and then, in Montreal, living among the French, he learnt to drink. Eventually, all but destitute, he found a ship that would bring him home. I did not know of his existence until two years ago.” Suddenly, another wave of grief came crashing down upon her. “That man has ruined my life,” she sobbed, “destroyed it. He ruined Billy’s life, too. If Billy is dead, it is Edward’s doing.”
“Calm yourself, madam,” said Oscar. “I have told you: whoever is responsible for Billy’s death shall be brought to justice.”
“Directly or indirectly, Edward O’Donnell is responsible,” she cried. “He took him to London. He corrupted him. He introduced him to a man called Bellotti and, through him, to a life of vice. I am so ashamed. Until he came into our lives, we were innocent.”
“Calm yourself,” said Oscar, “you are innocent still.”
“No, I am not,” cried Mrs Wood. “I took Edward O’Donnell to my bed. He forced himself upon me and I acquiesced. I acquiesced, Mr Wilde. He said, as William’s brother, that he had the right.” She was weeping uncontrollably now. “He said, if I did not submit to him, he would share my secret with the world. I should have let him. What would the world have cared? Instead, I submitted to him in his rage and in his drunkenness. He came to the house holding a letter that William had sent to him fourteen years before. It was no more than a note, a few lines, but it told him that William had met me—that I was a widow ‘with a fortune’ and ‘the love of his life’…Edward guessed the rest, and took advantage of it. I let him live here with us. I gave him shelter. I gave him money. Because he was William’s brother, because he was Billy’s uncle, his flesh and blood, I let my poor child fall under his sway. I let him take my Billy to London. Billy wanted to discover the world and make his fortune. I let him go. God has punished me for my weakness, for my sinfulness. The Skipwiths were right. God is not mocked.”
Her grief had turned to anger, but, just as swiftly, she took control of herself. Wiping her eyes once more and straightening her dress, she extended a hand to Oscar and said, “Forgive me, Mr Wilde. You and your friend have come here with good intent and I have laid my sorry, broken heart before you. You must go back to London now. I know that.”
Oscar looked about the room one final time. “We shall return before long,” he said, “when we have news. Meanwhile,” he asked, “will you be safe?”
“Yes,” she said, “I am of no interest to Edward O’Donnell now. He has done his worst. He cannot harm me further. Besides, he needs me still. Even in his drunkenness, he knows that. He has a room beside the kitchen. He has a key to the basement door. He comes and goes as he pleases. Often I do not see him for days on end. When he first arrived, he was sometimes sober and I grew fond of him because he had something of my William’s look about him. He is William’s brother. He is Billy’s uncle. He has ruined us, I know it—but he is all I have.”
As soon as Mrs Wood had closed the front door of The Castle behind us, Oscar said, “There is a telegraph office at the railway station, managed, no doubt, by a veritable Mr Jingle. We will send a wire to Fraser before we catch our train. I will confess the matter of the ring to him. We will tell him of O’Donnell—and Bellotti, too. He will have little choice but to see us again now.”
9
A Candle at the Window
But Aiden Fraiser did have a choice, and he exercised it.
By the time we reached the Albemarle Club it was gone midnight. The front door was locked and the windows looking onto the street were in darkness, but Oscar rang the bell nevertheless. Almost instantaneously, Hubbard swung open the door and stepped back, obsequiously, to admit us, murmuring as he did so, “You’ll be wanting a nightcap, Mr Wilde?”
“Thank you,” said Oscar, pressing a coin into the servant’s hand, “you deserve one, too.” (I never saw Oscar fumbling in his pockets for change. Effortlessly, like a professional prestidigitator, he appeared always to have precisely the appropriate coin ready between his fingers at the exact moment required.) “You’re closing up, I know. We’ll just perch in Keppel Corner. We’ll not keep you late, I promise. Any messages for me?”
“Four telegrams, sir,” said Hubbard, with satisfaction. “I’ll bring them to you directly, sir, with the champagne.”
The Albemarle had not yet been equipped with electric light. We sat, in sepulchral gloom, beneath a single gasolier, in Keppel Corner, an alcove adjacent to the club’s main staircase. The alcove took its name from the handsome youth—with amused eyes and a pleasing mouth—whose fine portrait, said to be by Sir Godfrey Kneller, adorned the back wall. Aged just nineteen, Arnold Joost van Keppel was brought to England from Holland in the retinue of King William III. He was the king’s catamite—reputedly. Certainly, he was one of the sovereign’s favourites. Aged twenty-six, in 1696, he was created 1st Earl of Albemarle. Whenever he saw the portrait, Oscar would offer up a small sigh and whisper, “I was adored once, too.”
Hubbard brought the champagne and the telegrams. Oscar examined the envelopes in turn. “We shall start with this one, I think,” he said, tearing open an envelope. “It is indeed from our friend—if that is how we should view him.” Oscar passed the telegram to me. I read it with some incredulity: MUCH REGRET CANNOT SEE YOU IMMEDIATELY. WILL MAKE CONTACT IN DUE COURSE. REGARDS FRASER.
“What is the meaning of it?” I asked.
“And what is the meaning of this?” countered Oscar. He had opened the second envelope. “A second communication from Inspector Fraser—this one, it seems, despatched exactly an hour after the first.”
“He’s had second thoughts?”
“A further thought, in any event,” said Oscar, reading out the policeman’s second wire: REST ASSURED YOU WILL UNDERSTAND ONCE I EXPLAIN. FRASER.
“He wishes to reassure us,” said Oscar. “I wonder why?”
“He fails to reassure us,” I exclaimed, “utterly! Edward O’Donnell is on the loose. He could commit a further atrocity.”
Oscar put down his glass and gazed at me, wide-eyed.
“O’Donnell is not our murderer, Robert.” He laughed.
“Come now, man, you cannot think that?”
“But I do,” I protested. “We have seen him. We know what he is like. We have heard Mrs Wood’s story—”
“O’Donnell is a brute and a drunkard.”
“Precisely.”
“Robert, whoever murdered Billy Wood was not a drunkard. I found Billy’s body lying neatly on the floor, his arms folded across his chest, guttering candles arranged around him. Not twenty-four hours later you visited the scene of the crime yourself—and smelt the beeswax polish on the floor. The body was gone—there was order in the room, cleanliness, and not a shred of evidence to be found, bar the fleck of blood that Arthur discovered high up on the wall. None of this could have been the work of a shambling drunkard such as Edward O’Donnell.”
“But Mrs Wood said he was responsible—”
“Indirectly, perhaps. He may have brought the boy to London on the fatal day. Yes, Robert, O’Donnell may help lead us to the guilty party, but he is not the murderer himself: of that I’m certain.”
“Mrs Wood said it was O’Donnell who had introduced Billy to Bellotti and—”
“Yes,” said Oscar, interrupting, “I was intrigued by that because Bellotti, you will recall, told us that he had met Billy two years ago when he stayed at The Castle. Do you think Mrs Wood had forgotten Mr Bellotti’s summer sojourn at her hotel?”
“Possibly,” I ventured.
Oscar laughed. “I think not, Robert. A presence like Mr Bellotti’s is neither easily overlooked nor quickly for
gotten.”
“Are you saying that Mrs Wood was lying to us?” I asked, incredulous.
“I am saying, Robert, that in the matter of murder no one is to be trusted. As the plot thickens, remember that—above all else. Deception is the order of the day. Why, look at me! I took that wedding band from Billy’s lifeless finger within minutes of his murder—his hand was still warm, his fingers still soft and pliable. Did I tell Conan Doyle about the ring? Did I mention it to Fraser?”
“You had your reasons,” I said. “Mrs Wood might not have believed that Billy was dead if you had not produced the ring.”
“Indeed,” said Oscar. “I had my reasons—just as Susannah Wood has her reasons for telling us it was Edward O’Donnell and not she who introduced her unfortunate son to Gerard Bellotti.”
“We will return to Bellotti, I presume?” I asked. “We will question him further?”
“In due course,” replied my friend, casually.
“And should we not interview O’Donnell ourselves if Fraser will not?”
Oscar smiled and, languidly, raised his glass of champagne in my direction. “I do not believe that you or I, Robert—robust as we are—would get very far interrogating a brute such as Edward O’Donnell.”
“Well then,” I said, “who is your third telegram from? Perhaps Inspector Fraser has decided to come to our aid after all.”
Oscar tore open the third envelope. “No,” he said, perusing the contents, “this is from Stoddart—my American publisher. He wants me to write a hundred thousand words—by November! He is absurd. There are not a hundred thousand beautiful words in the English language.”
“Will you do it?” I asked.
“I must,” he sighed. “I need the money.” He leant towards me with the bottle of champagne and topped up my glass. “Work, Robert, is the curse of the drinking classes. We must pay for our pleasures. Mr Stoddart is offering me an advance of a hundred pounds.”
2007 - Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders Page 8