2007 - Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders

by Gyles Brandreth

  Sergeant Ritter stood immobile with the lamp still held high, illuminating the dead body.

  “Escort these gentlemen to their cab, Ritter,” Fraser instructed him. “And retrieve my travelling case while you’re about it. I’ll not be going home till late tonight.” Ritter came back across the cell towards us. As he stepped nearer, holding the lamp aloft, O’Donnell’s body vanished into the gloom and the white light fell onto Fraser’s face. “Make haste, man. I’ll wait here to guard the body. On your return bring a knife. We’ll cut him down together. Bring the constable with you, too. Now go. Go!”

  Neither Oscar nor I spoke.

  “Goodnight, gentlemen,” said Fraser, as we turned to depart. “I will see you tomorrow, at six, as we arranged. Goodnight now. I am sorry you have had to witness this, but at least it’s over. The horror is all done. Case closed.”

  Sergeant Ritter—saying nothing, though wheezing with every step—led us back along the dank, pestilential passageway to the tomblike police station entrance and out into the lively London street beyond. We left Aidan Fraser in darkness with the dead body of Edward O’Donnell.

  “I think I shall go to church tomorrow,” Oscar announced, peering out of the cab window as we passed the entrance to the Savoy Theatre and hotel. The pavement was crowded with noisy playgoers, braying toffs in evening dress, chattering suburbanites in their Sunday best, emerging—evidently well satisfied—from a performance of The Gondoliers.

  “To pray for the souls of the departed?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he answered, “and to light a candle to St Bathild—and to St Aidan of Ferns. Monday is his feast day, remember.”

  “I remember.”

  “‘Feast days—and temptation’, Robert. That’s what it’s all been about.”

  “So you tell me, Oscar, though, for the life of me, I can’t see why.”

  “You will, Robert, you will.” He smiled at me benevolently. “St Aidan is another of our blessed Irish saints. There is a bronze reliquary in which his bones are on display in a side-chapel in St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. Tomorrow I shall pay his spirit my respects in St Patrick’s, Soho Square. It’s a new church, but a fine one.”

  “It’s a Catholic church, Oscar. Are you looking to Rome for salvation?” I asked, bemused at the turn our conversation was taking.

  “No, not yet.” He laughed. “But John Gray is. He is taking instruction at St Patrick’s. He speaks highly of the priest-in-charge. And of the aura of spirituality that pervades there. He says it’s largely due to the incense they use. He claims it’s the richest incense in London and that the young thurifer at St Patrick’s spreads it about the church with evangelical zeal.” Oscar clenched his fists one above the other as though grasping the chain of a thurible and, suiting the action to the word, casting his eyes towards heaven, wafted imaginary frankincense about the back of the cab with gay abandon.

  I laughed—and then thought back to the grotesque visage of Edward O’Donnell hanging in the police cell half a mile away, and marvelled at Oscar’s capacity for turning from tragedy to comedy in what seemed no more than the twinkling of an eye.

  Our cab had reached the Haymarket. The West End was busy with Saturday-night revellers. Our progress was slow. Oscar had commanded the driver to take us to Albemarle Street. He had proposed a nightcap. Now he changed his mind.

  “Forgive me, Robert,” he said, “I am suddenly weary—and mindful of the hour. You have your journal to write and I must pen a letter to Susannah Wood. I might yet catch the midnight post.” He called up to the cabman, “On to Gower Street, driver, by way of Soho Square. We’ll drop off my friend, then you can take me on to Chelsea, to Tite Street—if you please.”

  His mention of Soho Square triggered a memory, but even as it came into my mind Oscar anticipated it. (Perhaps Mrs O’Keefe was right; perhaps he was a mind-reader.) “The man who assaulted me that night in Soho Square,” he said, “the night when John Gray came to my rescue—you recall?”

  “I’ll not forget John Gray’s sailor suit,” I answered. “I’ll not forget that night—or the days that followed.”

  “You were convinced that my assailant was Edward O’Donnell, were you not?”

  “Yes,” I said, “though you denied it.”

  “And doubtless you thought that the man who followed us in Albemarle Street was O’Donnell, too?”

  “You know I did.”

  “It was not O’Donnell.”

  “Very well,” I said, “but if it was not O’Donnell, who was it?”

  “I will tell you tomorrow, Robert. I think we have both had enough excitement for one day.”

  It was early, not yet eleven o’clock, when we parted that Saturday night. It was late the following morning—gone noon, nearer one o’clock-when next I heard from Oscar. I was in my room, lying on my bed, unshaven, reading, when the doorbell rang. It was a boy from the telegraph office with a wire from my friend: URGENT. MEET ME AT THE CORNER OF COWLEY STREET AT 3.15 PM NOT BEFORE. OSCAR.

  I reached Westminster at three o’clock. It was Sunday 30 January 1890 and spring was in the air. The London fog had lifted; the sky was eggshell blue; the soft white clouds would have warmed my great-grandfather’s heart. I wandered into the garden adjacent to the House of Lords (searching in vain for a host of golden daffodils!) and strolled there idly until I heard the clock on Big Ben strike the quarter. I crossed the road and made my way along Great College Street. I had a spring in my step. I was warmed by the sunshine; I was exhilarated by the prospect of meeting Oscar and discovering what his telegram portended; I was conscious that I was twenty-eight—and glad to be alive. (When I had arrived home at Gower Street the night before, I had found a letter awaiting me from Kaitlyn. She was in London once more; she hoped to see me—”so much,” she said, “so much!” She had underlined the words.)

  I found Oscar part-way down Great College Street, at the turning into Cowley Street, standing by a cab, a two-wheeler, talking with the cabman. He was wearing his bottle-green overcoat with the astrakhan collar and carrying his black malacca cane. He greeted me warmly. I could see that he looked well; there was a sparkle in his eye.

  “I know I am unseasonably dressed, Robert—but, unlike you, I left the house at dawn. This gallant cabman has been my Sancho Panza since break of day.” From his coat pocket, he produced a coin and passed it to the driver. He fished into his pocket again and this time produced two lumps of sugar, which he held out on the flat of his hand, proffering them to the cabman’s horse. “When England becomes a republic, Robert, and I am emperor, this horse—my faithful Rosinante—will be among the first to be appointed senator. She is what none of our current legislators appears to be: hard-working, discreet and aware of her limitations!”

  “You are on song today,” I remarked.

  “I have been to early mass,” he said. “I am refreshed.”

  “Your prayers were answered?”

  “Prayers must never be answered, Robert! If prayers are answered, they cease to be prayers and become correspondence…”

  “But the priest-in-charge was all that you had hoped for?”

  “He had a fine profile, certainly, but remember, Robert, it is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.” He called up to the cabman. “What time is it?”

  Tied with string to the side of his seat, the cab driver had a clock whose face was the size of a saucer. He peered down at it. “Now? Twenty-two minutes past, sir.”

  “Thank you, cabby,” said Oscar. “Three minutes to go.”

  “And where are we going?” I asked.

  “Can you not guess?”

  “To 23 Cowley Street, I assume.”

  “Yes,” he said, suddenly in earnest. “Yes, we are to revisit the scene of the crime.”

  “Why?”

  “To put the truth to the test—as I promised.”

  There was nothing playful about his manner now. “What time is it, cabby?”

  “Twenty-five past, sir—ju
st on.”

  “Come, Robert. Let us see what we shall see. You shall be the witness.” He called up to the cabman: “We’ll not be long—ten minutes perhaps, fifteen at most. I thank you for your patience. Come the republic, you’ll have your reward!” The cabman touched his cap and nodded obligingly. The horse bared its teeth and offered up a snort of appreciation. Oscar tucked his arm into mine. “Come, Robert, we have reached what I believe our friend Holmes would call ‘the end-game’.”

  We had turned into Cowley Street. It looked so pleasant: ordered and peaceful, flooded with pale sunlight. We were standing in the middle of the cobbled roadway, facing number 23.

  “Hush!” he whispered. “Do not speak. Look!” With his cane he pointed to the window on the first floor. “The sun is shining, but the curtains are drawn. Come. Say nothing. Come.”

  We crossed the street and stepped up to the doorway. Oscar stood for a moment gazing at the lintel above the door. “Are we to ring?” I asked.

  “Hush, Robert. Speak not a word.” He put his left forefinger to my lips. “I have Bellotti’s key, as you will recall, but we may not need it.” He spread out his hand and gently pushed at the front door. Slowly, noiselessly, it swung open. “As you see…” he whispered. “Come.”

  Now with his finger held to his own lips, he led me across the threshold. We stood for a moment in the entrance hallway. The house was silent; dust danced in the shaft of sunlight that shone through the window above the doorway onto the stairs ahead. Carefully Oscar closed the front door behind us and, with an inclination of his head, indicated that I should go forward and start to mount the narrow staircase to the first floor. With every step, the boards beneath my feet cracked like rifle shots echoing round a valley and, behind me, as he climbed, Oscar’s heavy breathing became louder and more rapid. We’ll wake the dead, I thought, but I said nothing. At the top of the stairs, on the uncarpeted landing, we stood together, silently, side by side.

  The door facing us—the door to the room where, five months before, Oscar had discovered the body of Billy Wood—was closed. We listened and heard nothing. We stood quite still as Oscar caught his breath. I looked at my friend and smiled. He returned my smile and handed me his cane. With both hands he swept back his thick and wavy chestnut hair. Taking a deep breath, he then lightly, almost delicately, knocked at the door and, without waiting for an answer, opened it wide.

  The room was as hot as a furnace and fragrant with incense. We stood in the doorway, adjusting our eyes to the gloom. By the light of half a dozen candles, we saw, stretched out on the floor before us, the naked body of a young man. The young man was John Gray. And standing over him, by his head, was a second man. He was naked, also. It was Aidan Fraser. He held an open razor in his hand.

  At our entrance, John Gray rolled over and reached beyond the candles for his clothes. Aidan Fraser threw down the razor and turned towards us with outstretched, supplicating arms.

  “Oscar,” he cried, “this is not as it seems. Let me explain! For pity’s sake, let me explain!”

  “There is no need,” said Oscar. “I understand, Aidan. I understand it all.”

  Oscar put his hand on my arm and drew me gently from the room.

  “Come, Robert, let us reclaim our cab. We have seen all we need to see.” He pulled the door close shut behind him and, silently, led me down the stairs.

  25

  “Feast days—and temptation…Do you now see, I Robert?”

  “I fear I do not see at all, Oscar. I am utterly lost. I know I must seem to you intolerably obtuse at times, but I have to confess I am wholly confused by what we have just witnessed—confused and horrified.”

  He smiled at me and opened the cab door. “Your innocence does you credit, Robert.” He called up to the driver: “Charing Cross Station, if you please, cabby, then on to Bedford Square. What time is it now?”

  “Twenty to the hour, sir.”

  “Good. Good!” He clambered into the cab after me and settled back into his seat with a look on his large and fleshy face that combined exhilaration with contentment. He patted my knee. “Don’t look so anxious, Robert. We are nearly done.”

  “I am bewildered, Oscar, bewildered and appalled. What will Veronica make of this?”

  “You must not tell her,” he said sharply, “not yet.”

  I lowered my voice. I felt that what we had witnessed in that upstairs room in Cowley Street was shaming and corrupt, and that by witnessing it we had somehow shared in the shame, tasted the corruption.

  “John Gray and Aidan Fraser are lovers…” I whispered.

  “Or might have been,” he said. “I fear we have interrupted their first tryst.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “Mean?”

  “Gray lying naked on the floor…the candles…the incense…”

  “It means…” Oscar was gazing out of the cab window, across the river Thames. “It means…to some, love is a sacrament, I suppose.” He said it casually, almost as though it were a passing thought.

  “A sacrament?” I snapped. “And the razor in Fraser’s hand—what part does that play in this sacrament?”

  “I do not know. I hazard a guess, that’s all. Our friends were acting out a drama of their own imagining: the tale of the priest and the acolyte, perhaps. The priest prepares the acolyte by shaving his body before it is anointed with holy oil. The razor is used in the act of purification…The purification is the prelude to the consummation…”

  “It’s barbaric!”

  “Barbaric? No, it’s very English, Robert—or should I say ‘British’? They probably played some such game at Fettes when Fraser was a lad.”

  “How can you make light of this, Oscar? It is grotesque.”

  “It is a playful ritual, Robert, nothing more. The English love ritual. Have you watched a game of cricket? Have you followed a hunt in this country, Robert? The English cannot hunt as other nations do: to bring food to the table. No! The English ride to hounds, in crimson coats, blowing bugles, chasing a defenceless fox. And when they have cornered their prey—and sacrificed it to their own peculiar gods—they smear the blood of the poor creature they have killed onto the face of the youngest child in their midst. It is grotesque, and not to your taste or mine, but to the English it is not a crime—it is a way of life.”

  “Oscar, Oscar!” I cried, still in hushed tones, fearful lest the cabman overhear us. “John Gray and Aidan Fraser were not riding to hounds. They were not playing cricket. They were engaged in unnatural vice. They were naked. They were aroused.”

  “Really? I did not notice.” Nonchalantly, Oscar flicked a thread from the sleeve of his coat.

  “What we have just witnessed is a scene of degradation. It is abhorrent. It is vile!”

  “Is it vile, Robert? Is it really? John Gray is a handsome youth. You have seen him. He is as beautiful as a Greek god, you must acknowledge that. John Gray was a temptation to Aidan Fraser—and Aidan Fraser yielded to temptation. Is it so wrong? Is not the true and certain way to get rid of a temptation to yield to it? Resist it and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself. Every instinct that we strive to strangle broods on the mind and poisons us. The body sins once and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification…”

  “Oscar,” I protested, “are you trying to tell me that we have just been witnessing Aidan Fraser engaged in an act of ‘purification’? You go too far!”

  “I am telling you that what we have witnessed is Aidan Fraser—on the eve of one of his feast days—proving his mortality by succumbing to the temptation of forbidden fruit. That is all. The circumstances may be a little unusual, a trifle baroque perhaps, but the story itself is as old as the Garden of Eden—and they wore no clothes there either, Robert! Indeed, as I understand it, it was years before sailor suits were introduced to paradise.”

  “Why do you make light of this, Oscar? Why do you defend their conduct? Why?”

  I spoke fiercely—an
d too loudly. For a moment, an uneasy silence fell between us. We looked out of our separate windows, listening to the harsh rumble of the cab’s wheels and the steady clip-clop of the horse’s hooves. We were passing along Whitehall. Sunday strollers—old soldiers, young men in boaters, women pushing perambulators, a boy with a wooden hoop—were moving to and fro, taking advantage of the unseasonable sunshine.

  Oscar turned back to me and touched me on the knee. “I do not defend their conduct, Robert,” he said quietly, “I explain it.” He looked me steadily in the eye and smiled. “It is important to understand others if one is to understand oneself.”

  I looked at my friend and marvelled at him. “You are a phenomenon, Oscar,” I said, “but sometimes I believe you are too understanding, too generous, too kind.”

  “Too kind?” he repeated. “One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.”

  “Do you care nothing for John Gray and Aidan Fraser, then?”

  “I care for John Gray. He is my friend. I care for him deeply. I care nothing for Aidan Fraser. Nothing at all. He is a murderer.”

  “Whoa!” The cab came to an abrupt halt.

  “Oscar! Oscar! What are you saying?” Shocked and astonished at his words, I leant forward urgently, but he held up his hand to silence me.

  We had reached the forecourt of Charing Cross Station. Oscar opened the cab door. “I am alighting here,” he said, smiling. “I have cigarettes to buy and two trains to meet.”

  I tried to hold him back. “But if Fraser—”

  “No questions now, Robert,” he said, closing the cab door. “I had thought it would all be obvious to you, but if it is not, so much the better. You have work to do.”

  He was standing on the pavement looking in at me through the open window of the two-wheeler. My mind was all awry; he appeared at his most self-possessed. “You are to go to Bedford Square,” he instructed, “the cab is paid for. You are to collect Miss Sutherland for her birthday party, exactly as planned. Tell her nothing of what has transpired today. Tell her nothing of last night. Nothing, nothing at all. Do you understand me? Talk of Millais, talk of Pasteur, talk of anything—but do not speak of murder. Be with her as you always are. Look into her beautiful eyes and murmur those sweet nothings you murmur so well. Tell her one of your friend Maupassant’s short stories: that should keep you both occupied for an hour or two! Go, my friend—and thank you.” He put his arm through the carriage window and shook me warmly by the hand. “The part you have played in all this has been more valuable than you know. Justice will be done tonight. Go now. Go. Do not let Miss Sutherland out of your sight, Robert—and bring her to Lower Sloane Street at six-fifteen. At six-fifteen, mark, not a minute before. Farewell.”