2007 - Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders

by Gyles Brandreth

  “What?” he protested. “You brought the matter to me, Oscar. It was your affair, not mine.”

  “I know you better than that, Arthur. Come now, man, admit it.”

  “Admit what?”

  “I brought the death of Billy Wood to your attention—but you sent me to meet your friend Aidan Fraser at Scotland Yard. You had your suspicions about him, did you not? Suspicions, but no proof. You could not question him yourself—he was your friend. So you set me about the case, you unleashed me as your bloodhound. And to put the scent in my nostrils you even discovered the first ‘clue’: the tiny drops of blood upon the wall. Those specks of blood: no one saw them but you. No one needed to see them. Whether they were real or imagined, they served their purpose.”

  “You amaze me, Oscar,” said Conan Doyle. “I believe you must be one of the most remarkable men of our time.”

  “Well, if you think that of me, I know you will oblige me with a favour.” He looked towards the doorway. Veronica Sutherland had gone. Policemen were moving to and fro. “When Inspector Gilmour has removed Fraser’s body, I have one last duty to perform. I promised Susannah Wood that she would see her son today and she shall. Let us—you and I—lay Billy’s body beneath clean sheets, with a cloth about his neck, and let us take her to see her boy one last time.”

  “Very well,” he said.

  “Sherard and I will then escort the poor woman back to Charing Cross. In the fullness of time, Billy is to be buried at sea—the sea that ‘washes away the stains and wounds of the world’.”

  “Euripides?”

  “Indeed. You are a credit to the University of Edinburgh, Dr Doyle. And, this afternoon, Mrs Doyle has earned her place among the angels! When we’re done, will you and Touie be so kind as to accompany Constance back to Tite Street? I would be so grateful.”

  “By all means.” Doyle was about to shake Oscar by the hand but thought better of it and, instead, with a clenched fist, tapped him gently upon the shoulder. “Well done, my friend. Case closed.”

  “And John—” Oscar turned to John Gray who was standing by the curtained window with Aston Upthorpe. “Would you see Mr Upthorpe home?”

  Oscar took the parcel that Constance had been holding and handed it to the elderly artist. “What’s this?” Upthorpe enquired.

  “Christening gifts,” said Oscar, “for Fred and Harry. You remember? Cigarette cases. Would you present them to them for me?—with my love.”

  28

  Postscript

  “I am a fool, Oscar.”

  The clocks of tie Albemarle Club had struck eleven. My friend and I were seated, facing one another, either side of the fireplace in the smoking room; the fire was burning low; the crackle and smell of the burning wood was comforting; the chill of the champagne was comforting, too. It was Sunday night and the club was all but deserted. Hubbard had served us, as obsequiously as ever, and—taking his cue (and a half-sovereign) from Oscar—had withdrawn, pulling the smoking-room doors closed behind him.

  “She did not love me, Oscar.”

  “She did not love you, Robert.”

  “And yet today, only today, this very afternoon—in her room in Bedford Square, I lay in her arms. It was a fairy tale.”

  “Indeed.”

  “A fairy tale come true! It was real. It happened. Her love-making, Oscar…it was exquisite!”

  “I have no doubt. The fact of a poet being a poisoner is nothing against his verse.”

  “But she did not love me—I see that now. She used me. These past five months, she has been using me…”

  He lay back in his chair, examining the purple plume of smoke as it rose from his Turkish cigarette. “She has,” he said, smiling at me kindly through half-closed eyes. “Poor Robert!”

  “But today, this afternoon, when we lay together—was it not different? Was she using me then?”

  “In England,” said Oscar, reflectively, “a woman who is with child cannot be sent to the gallows…”

  “Surely,” I cried, “surely you do not think——”

  “But I doubt that she will hang,” he went on, paying me no heed. “She is a woman, after all, an unfortunate woman brought low by the betrayal and depravity of the man she thought she loved. She killed her fiancé’s catamite and down at the Old Bailey, that’s hardly a capital offence. Some might say she has done the state some service!”

  “She has done me a service, at least,” I said, leaning toward him fervently. “I have learnt my lesson. I shall not love like that again.”

  “Oh, Robert,” he cried, “you shall and you must! Keep love in your heart—always! A life without love is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring. A man should always be in love, Robert. Always.”

  “But I see now that what happened this afternoon—what I thought was love, was not…”

  “Yes,” he said, “there is an important distinction to be made between the act of love and the sins of the flesh. Love is all and the sins of the flesh are nothing…My friend John Gray appears to be an expert on the distinction. Perhaps you should take his counsel.”

  I drained my glass. “Don’t speak to me of John Gray,” I exclaimed. “I do not begin to understand him. How he and Fraser…Words fail me.”

  Oscar threw his cigarette into the fireplace and immediately set about lighting another. “When it comes to John Gray and Fraser, Robert, I fear I am the guilty party.”

  “What do you mean—‘the guilty party’?”

  “I needed to prove to myself that Fraser was indeed a lover of men. And I wanted you to be my witness. This morning, you recall, I attended mass at St Patrick’s in Soho Square. I confess: I did not go solely for the good of my soul. I went because I knew that I would find John Gray there—and so I did. And I asked John Gray if he would do my bidding—and I knew he would.”

  “Your bidding?”

  “I asked John Gray to seduce Aidan Fraser.”

  “What?” I shook my head in disbelief.

  Oscar offered me his teasing half-smile. “I guessed it might be easily done,” he continued, “and it was. When he awoke this morning, Aidan Fraser felt a sense of freedom that he had not known for many months. Bellotti was dead, O’Donnell was dead—the case was closed. He could move on, at last. It was a day for celebration—and the eve of the feast of St Aidan. When I met John Gray at mass I asked him to send an immediate note to Fraser, inviting Fraser to join him at Cowley Street at two o’clock this afternoon. I asked John Gray to take candles and incense with him in the hope that Fraser might be tempted to recreate with John Gray the sacrament that he had enjoyed with Billy Wood…”

  “And he did as you asked? He did your ‘bidding’. Why?”

  “Because he worships me!”

  “He worships you?” I repeated, incredulous.

  “It is bizarre, I agree, Robert, but it is true!” He laughed and sat forward in his chair. From his coat pocket he produced a letter, which he passed to me. “Read,” he said, “read, Robert! It is from John Gray, addressed to me, given to me by him in Tite Street on New Year’s day. The ink is violet, the paper cream, but the sentiments are anything but vulgar. Read!”

  I read. “From the moment I met you, your personality had the most extraordinary influence over me. I was dominated, soul, brain, and power, by you. I worshipped you. I grew jealous of everyone to whom you spoke. I wanted to have you all to myself. I was only happy when I was with you.”

  There was much more—much more!—in the same vein. I handed the letter back to my friend, who folded the paper carefully and kissed it lightly before returning it to his pocket. “It is beautifully phrased, is it not? With John’s permission, I propose to include it, word for word, in the story I am writing for friend Stoddart. My hero, Dorian Gray, was ‘made to be worshipped’. According to John Gray, so am I!”

  “He is a most peculiar young man,” I muttered, taking a deep s
ip of my champagne.

  “He is handsome and idolatrous, Robert. He sought me out to worship me! And once he had found me, he would not let me go. You recall my visits to the thirty-seven morgues and mortuaries of the metropolis? They were not the solitary expeditions that I led you to believe, Robert. John Gray was my constant companion. And, bless the boy, as he travelled about with me and as he learnt of my determination to achieve justice for Billy Wood, he resolved to prove his own passionate devotion to my cause by solving the crime himself—single-handedly! It was to be his gift to me, an offering to be laid at my shrine.”

  “Is this possible?”

  “Oh, yes, Robert, in the sere and yellow days of my decrepitude I shall be able to say, ‘I was adored once too’! When you caught sight of John Gray at Ashford railway station, lurking in the carriage next to ours, he was on his way to Broadstairs to interview Susannah Wood. He was conducting his own, independent, investigation. Of course, we forestalled him. We encountered Susannah Wood first. John Gray’s secret mission came to naught. He saw on us the platform with Mrs Wood and dared not leave the train for fear of giving the game away. Poor boy, he was obliged to stay put and travel on to Folkestone—to no avail!”

  “And today he was ready to commit the act of darkness with Fraser—all on your account?”

  “Indeed, though he confessed to me that he was strangely drawn to Fraser in any event. They shared a mutual weakness for candles and for incense—for transubstantiation and for Rome. They were, as Bellotti would have put it, ‘bread and butter’.”

  “‘Bread and butter’?”

  “In point of fact, given John Gray’s humble origins, I believe the correct phrase is ‘bread and dripping’. What I mean, Robert, is that they were ‘compatible’. John Gray was more than willing to play the boy Beatrice to Fraser’s Dante!”

  “Yes, Oscar,” I said, refilling his glass and then my own, “I take your meaning.”

  “I am happy to know John Gray, and I am not sorry to have known Aidan Fraser. It was you, Robert, you know, who led me to an understanding of Fraser and of this case…”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you, Robert Sherard, my friend—when you told me that your New Year resolution was to follow your heart, wherever it might lead. That is what Fraser did, quite literally. In this life, nothing is serious except passion and Aidan Fraser was passionate in his love for Billy Wood. I have learnt many lessons these past five months. No, Robert, I am not sorry to have stumbled upon this case…”

  “Oscar,” I said, sitting back in my chair, nursing my glass of champagne, pondering whether or not I dared ask the question that I had long wanted to ask, “you still have not told me how you came to be visiting 23 Cowley Street that afternoon at the end of August.”

  His brow furrowed. “But I have told you, Robert, several times. I had an appointment with a pupil, a student of mine, a young lady…”

  “A young lady?”

  “A young lady. My god-daughter, in fact.”

  “Your god-daughter? I did not know you had a god-daughter! Is this the truth, Oscar? Or is this goddaughter another figment of your extraordinary imagination, like so many of your sundry aunts?”

  “My god-daughter is real, Robert, and very special—and very dear to me. She is a golden ray of sunshine, full of life and energy and warmth. She is as gifted as she is lovely. She is only fifteen, but already she is a talented actress.”

  “Why have I not met this paragon?”

  “Because, poor darling, she has been in hiding. She is French—”

  “French?”

  “Yes, Robert, une jeune française tres belle. She came to England to escape her father but he pursued her. I gave her sanctuary as best I could. I found her a room in Soho Square. I gave her money. I gave her lessons. I have been teaching her English—and drama! She has a natural gift. Sometimes I taught her and Billy Wood together. They were of an age. She could play Juliet to his Romeo. To see them together was extraordinarily affecting.”

  “You taught her Shakespeare—in Cowley Street?”

  “I taught Billy Wood there also. I taught them together. Billy Wood had expected to come to Cowley Street on 31 August for one of our lessons—we often met at Cowley Street on a Tuesday afternoon. But, a few days earlier, I saw Billy and told him I was cancelling our appointment for the thirty-first. I did not tell him why. I simply said that on that afternoon I now found that I would be ‘otherwise engaged’. The truth was that I needed to see my god-daughter alone. She had a special audition to prepare for and I wished to give her my undivided attention. I did not mention my god-daughter’s audition to Billy because I feared he might be envious. That was a mistake—as it turned out, a fatal one. Because I had cancelled my lesson with him, simply saying I was otherwise engaged, Billy assumed, naturally enough, that I would be elsewhere on 31 August—and consequently he reckoned 23 Cowley Street would be unoccupied that afternoon and so, unexpectedly, available for other purposes, different delights…I do not know—I cannot know—but I surmise that it was Billy who proposed to his ‘uncle’ that they should meet that afternoon in Cowley Street. Billy, of course, had a key.”

  “And Fraser had a key?”

  “Indeed. And, customarily, I had a key also. But on 31 August I had lent my key to my god-daughter. That’s why I had to knock on the door to gain admittance.”

  “You gave your god-daughter lessons in Cowley Street. You found her a room in Soho Square. You gave her money. Yet you did not take her home to Tite Street?” I asked. “You did not offer her sanctuary there?”

  “I did not, Robert,” he said sternly, “and for a reason. I felt it would be asking too much of Constance.”

  “Ah,” I said. “And why is that?”

  “Because my god-daughter’s family history is not entirely respectable. My god-daughter is the child of what you would term ‘a daughter of joy’.”

  “Forgive me, Oscar, I do not follow you.”

  “My god-daughter is the child of Marie Aguetant.”

  “By all that’s wonderful—” I gasped. “Perhaps you are her father, Oscar?”

  “Would that I were, Robert! But I am not. The child’s father is a brute by the name of Bertrand Ramier. He was once a soldier—a man of action and a man of valour, by all accounts—but when he left the army he turned to drink and then to crime. It was about twenty years ago, with some of his ill-gotten gains, that he bought himself a share in the Eden Music Hall—and it was there that he met Marie Aguetant. They became lovers. They had a child. And then, one day, in a drunken rage, he murdered his mistress. Another man was charged with the murder and was executed for the crime. But it was Ramier who killed Marie Aguetant. I know. Odile saw it happen.”

  “Odile?”

  “That is my god-daughter’s name—or was, until she came to England. Now she is called Isola. She has been rechristened, after my sister.”

  “And her father?”

  “He is the man you saw following us down Albemarle Street. He is the man who attacked me that night in Soho Square. He is the reason she has been in hiding—moving about London, from one set of digs to another, under cover of darkness or hidden behind a mask.”

  “Behind a mask?” I repeated.

  “Yes,” he said, “a grotesque carnival mask. Did you not glimpse it when you were keeping watch on us, Robert?” I looked down into the bottom of my glass. “Oh, Robert! Did you mistake the mask for the face? You cannot have done! You know how I abhor ugliness!”

  I blushed and he read my mind.

  “You are not a fool, Robert. You are my friend—and a truer friend no man could ask for. I am so glad I persuaded Hubbard to bring us two bottles of champagne tonight. We have much cause to celebrate.”

  “Do we?” I asked, as he poured me more wine, spilling a little on my knee.

  “We do, Robert! “The case is closed”—and we are alive and well and beautiful, after our fashion…And we are friends…And we are free!”

  “And Isol
a?”

  “My little sister? She is free and with the angels. She is one of them, I’m sure.”

  “I meant your god-daughter…”

  “Ah, yes, Isola O’Flahertie…That is her stage name. Striking, is it not? She is free also, I am happy to say. Her father has been returned to France, courtesy of Inspector Gilmour of Scotland Yard. There is more substance to these red-headed men of forty than I realised, Robert. Archy Gilmour is a good man. I promised to deliver Aidan Fraser and Miss Sutherland to his safe-keeping—and in return he promised to deliver Bertrand Ramier to the Paris prefecture. We have both kept our word. For Billy Wood, justice has been done. And my little goddaughter is free, and safe at last.”

  “Am I to meet her?”

  “You are, Robert, and very soon. I hope you will come to her opening night.”

  “Her opening night?”

  “Did I not tell you? I took her to meet Mr Irving at the Lyceum. I think you caught sight of us on our way there, did you not? He is producing a new play based on The Bride of Lammermoor —I am sure I told you this. He sought my help. He was in need of a gifted and beautiful girl to play the ingenue and I proposed Isola. She auditioned for him and he was entranced. Think of it, Robert—my god-daughter is to be Henry Irving’s leading lady!”

  “Congratulations!” I said.

  “I want you to come to the first night,” he said. “I have tickets!”

  “It will be a pleasure, Oscar.”

  “It is in two weeks’ time—on Monday 14 February, the feast of St Valentine.”

  “I will be there,” I said, raising my glass to him. “I will be there, Oscar. It will be an honour, my dear, good friend.”

  “And bring Kaitlyn!” he cried, clinking his glass against mine. “You told me she had returned to London, did you not? Bring Kaitlyn. Bring her, Robert. A man should always be in love!”

  Biographical Notes