‘And spent one.’ He looked at me and smiled. ‘Without regret. Pleasure will be paid for. And pleasure must be had. An inordinate passion for pleasure is the secret of remaining young.’
‘As I’ve heard you say before.’
He offered up a theatrical sigh. ‘You see what I am reduced to, Arthur? Repeating my own lines! I need to buy time to create some new turns of phrase. It’s very difficult to be original when one is in debt.’
‘And you have a plan?’ I suggested.
‘I do.’
‘And it involves me?’ I asked.
‘It does.’
‘And Mr Macnaghten?’
‘And Chief Constable Macnaghten – yes, indeed. Macnaghten is to lead us to our crock of gold, Arthur.’
‘The chief constable is a neighbour of yours? Tite Street is an unusual address for a policeman.’
‘Macnaghten is an unusual policeman. He’s intelligent. He’s cultivated. He’s educated.’
I laughed. ‘Does that mean he was at Oxford with you?’
‘No, he went to Eton – that’s a start. And then he went to India to manage his father’s tea estates in Bengal.’
‘He’s a planter turned policeman – that’s a curious kind of career development.’
‘He’s a polymath, with private means. He could do anything. Apparently, he was spotted by a district judge in Bengal who recognised his potential and when Macnaghten decided to come back to England with a view to being of some service to his country, the good judge pointed him in the direction of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Metropolitan Police. He’s now their Chief Constable – and only just turned forty.’
‘Is he a family man?’ I asked, fearing for a moment that Macnaghten might turn out to be one of Oscar’s good-looking enthusiasms suddenly brought into play because of the absence of Lord Alfred Douglas.
‘A family man? Very much so. He has fourteen brothers and sisters.’
‘And isn’t in love with any of them, I hope?’
Oscar giggled. ‘He is happily married to a very pretty girl called Dora, the daughter of a canon of Chichester, and I believe they have several small and no doubt delightful children. The family is a model of respectability.’
‘You like him?’
‘I think I do.’
‘And trust him?’
‘Absolutely. He has a walrus moustache, Arthur, to rival your own.’
‘And this Chief Constable Macnaghten is to help us make our fortune?’
‘Correct, my dear friend. You’re as sharp as Sherlock Holmes today. I need money and you need money.’ He looked at me slyly, his mouth half full of potted shrimp. ‘You have a poorly young wife at a nursing home in Switzerland, do you not? She requires care and attention, I’m sure – and that comes at a price.’ He took a sip of wine and smiled at me solicitously. ‘How is Touie, by the way?’
‘She is bearing up, thank you – and asks to be remembered to you. And to Constance.’
‘And you have children, don’t you, one of each?’
‘Yes,’ I said, smiling. ‘Mary and Kingsley. Well remembered.’
‘And they need nursemaids – and education. Obviously nothing that is worth knowing can be taught, but, even so, schools must be found and paid for. You could bring in more money by writing another of your Sherlock Holmes stories, but you appear disinclined to do so ...’
‘I’ve had enough of Holmes.’
‘Very good. But you still need an income.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Exactly. I reckon you need a story that will outsell all that you have done before – and I need a play that will draw the town.’
‘And somehow your Chief Constable Macnaghten can supply us with both?’
‘I believe so,’ murmured my friend, almost purring with pleasure at the prospect.
‘And how exactly, Oscar, will he do that?’
‘By the simple expedient of helping us to identify the most celebrated, the most vile, the most notorious, the most repugnant, the most popular criminal of the age – Jack the Ripper. Was there ever a more promising start to a new year?’
3
Paradise Walk
I rapped my beaker of white Burgundy down on the picnic basket and laughed out loud. ‘We are to unmask Jack the Ripper?’
Oscar glanced up anxiously towards our coachman. Above the rattle of the metal wheels on the roadway, and through the steadily streaming rain, there was no possibility of him overhearing us. Nevertheless, Oscar lowered his voice and leaned in towards me conspiratorially. ‘We are to assist the police with their inquiries,’ he confided, and our reward will be to discover all that they know.’
I gazed at my friend in astonishment. ‘But the police know nothing, Oscar,’ I protested. ‘If they knew anything, they’d have made an arrest by now. They’ve been searching for this so-called Jack the Ripper for five years – longer – and they’ve got nowhere. They don’t know who he is or where he comes from, they don’t know if he’s alive or dead, they don’t even know for certain how many murders he may have committed. They have no idea what his motives might have been. Remember, the most difficult crime to track is the one which is purposeless. The police know nothing, Oscar – nothing!’
‘They know more than you think, Arthur.’
‘Oh, really?’ I said doubtfully.
‘My man Macnaghten is now in charge of the case.’
‘As you say.’
‘The point is: he’s new to it. He was still in Bengal in ‘eighty-eight when the murders started. He’s come to it with a fresh mind.’
‘And fresh information? That’s what wanted, surely?’
‘He’s exploring “a range of possibilities”, he tells me. He’s been charged with producing a definitive report to put an end to all the lurid speculation – and to get at the truth. And when he does, you will want to write it up, Arthur.’
‘If he gets to the truth, it will certainly be a story,’ I conceded.
‘“It was the best of crimes, it was the worst of crimes” – that’s your opening line.’
‘As you keep telling me,’ I laughed.
‘It has a ring to it.’
‘A Dickensian ring, Oscar.’
My friend drained his beaker of wine. He had now emptied the flask. ‘I never rated Dickens, as you know. One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing. But there’s no denying Mr Dickens’ popularity. His books have sold in their hundreds of thousands. With Case Closed – The Truth about Jack the Ripper, or whatever we call it, we can do likewise. You will write the book. I will write the play. The public loves a blood-curdling melodrama. Look at the stage adaptation of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: standing room only in London and New York.’
‘Your man Macnaghten is the officer in charge of the case?’
‘Yes.’
‘And if and when he uncovers the truth, he has agreed to share it with us – exclusively?’
Oscar was peering out of the window. We had reached Chelsea Hospital on our right: Tite Street was approaching. ‘Not exactly – but we’re near neighbours and fast becoming firm friends. He’s told me a little about the case – and about the report he’s writing – and asked for my assistance – so I am seizing the opportunity. Hence our two o’clock appointment.’
‘Your two o’clock appointment, Oscar. He’s not expecting me, I think.’
‘What do you mean?’ My friend looked at me, perturbed.
‘That telegram just now,’ I said, ‘the one purporting to come from Macnaghten. It wasn’t from him at all, was it?’
‘What do you mean, Arthur?’
‘You sent it to yourself, didn’t you?’
Oscar had replaced his empty beaker in the picnic basket. His hands fluttered before him like moths trapped in a bottle. He was evidently embarrassed. ‘How did you guess?’
I laughed. ‘I recognise a charade when I see one, Oscar. That nonsense of the bellboy dropping the sixpence. Yo
u set it up too elaborately. He did it too obviously. You’d primed him.’
‘He’s not a very good actor, I’m afraid.’
‘Nor are you.’ I smiled. ‘For a moment I was almost taken in by your display of Holmesian omniscience, but it was all too pat. I smelled a rat. And now I’ve worked it out. The telegram was a ploy to intrigue me, wasn’t it? A device to get me involved? Macnaghten isn’t expecting me at all, but for some reason you don’t want to see him on your own. Am I right?’
Oscar dropped his hands in his lap and shook his head in contrition. ‘You’re quite right, Arthur. I didn’t think you’d agree to come with me to meet Macnaghten and talk of murder if you hadn’t been invited – hence my playful subterfuge. It was just one of my little games.’
‘Murder isn’t a game, old friend.’
‘I don’t know,’ he answered airily, packing up the remnants of our picnic and returning them to the basket. ‘There’s nothing quite like an unexpected death for lifting the spirits.’
‘You’ve said that before, too.’
We both laughed. ‘Thank you for coming,’ said Oscar. ‘I’ll confess I have been oddly anxious about seeing Macnaghten on my own.’
‘Did he ask you to come on your own?’
‘Not in so many words. He said he wanted to talk about the case “confidentially”. But if we arrive together, he can have no objection to your presence. He will be happy to meet you, I’m certain – and who knows where the interview may lead?’
‘Are we here?’ I asked, as the four-wheeler juddered once more to a stop.
We had reached the corner of Dilke Street and Tite Street, residential thoroughfares just off the embankment, fifty yards from the river’s edge. Our coachman jumped down from his driver’s seat and opened the carriage door. ‘Something’s up, sir,’ he said. ‘The street’s closed.’
We peered out into the rain. A knot of shadowy figures was standing on the pavement and a line of four or five uniformed policemen was straddled across the roadway. There was a hubbub of men’s voices and, in the distance, the shrill sound of short, sharp repeated blasts from a police whistle.
I recognised the signal. ‘They’re calling for a Black Maria,’ I said. ‘It’s either an arrest or a body.’
‘Wait here,’ said Oscar to our driver, as we clambered out of the four-wheeler. I opened up my umbrella and, huddled beneath it, we made our way towards the line of police.
‘Is Tite Street closed?’ asked Oscar.
‘Not if you’re a resident, sir. It’s Paradise Walk that’s closed. There’s been an incident.’
‘There’s been a murder, Mr Wilde,’ said a voice from behind us, ‘in the alley that leads to the back of your house – and mine.’
We turned towards the voice and I raised the umbrella so that we could see the figure addressing us. He was a tall, handsome man of about forty years of age, with strong, clean features, a firm jaw, an unfurrowed brow, sandy, somewhat receding hair, startlingly clear blue eyes – and, as Oscar had told me, a moustache much like mine. He wore a khaki-coloured greatcoat that glistened in the rain and brown leather gloves. He raised his hat as he shook Oscar by the hand. He nodded to me. ‘Melville Macnaghten,’ he said, ‘Chief Constable, Metropolitan Police CID.’ I liked his manner immediately.
‘Arthur Conan Doyle,’ I replied, ‘Doctor.’
‘I know the name, Doctor,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Is it doctor of medicine?’
‘It is.’
‘May I impose upon you for a moment, Doctor?’ He did not wait for my reply. He was a man accustomed to command. ‘Kindly follow me, if you would. I doubt you’ve seen worse, Doctor. It’s an horrific crime. We need to remove the body as soon as possible, but a note from a medical man in situ could prove useful – if you don’t mind. Come this way.’
Briskly, he led us into Tite Street, beyond the line of policemen and away from the group of gawping bystanders. He stopped at the first corner, by a large red-brick building, where two more policemen were standing guard. This is the Shelley Theatre – you’ll know it, Mr Wilde. And this is the alley that leads to Paradise Walk. She’s down here, poor woman – or what remains of her. It’s a messy business, Mr Wilde. You won’t want to look. Wait here. I’ll take the doctor down.’
We left Oscar standing beneath my umbrella and I followed Macnaghten along Shelley Alley. It was muddy and stinking, littered with refuse, broken orange boxes and old vegetables, some fifty yards long but no more than three feet wide – as narrow as the narrowest calli in Venice, and as dark: the buildings on either side rose four storeys high.
At the far end of the alley stood three more policemen, bunched together, hovering over the body of the dead woman. One held an umbrella above her head; another lit a spirit lamp to help me see the full horror of her butchered corpse.
‘Careful, Doctor,’ said Macnaghten, ‘there’s blood everywhere.’
‘I see,’ I said.
‘Have you a notebook?’
‘I have,’ I said, pulling it from my coat pocket. ‘Is this where you found her? Has she been moved?’
‘A knife-grinder found her. Local man. He sometimes leaves his cart in the alley. No one’s touched the body.’
It was a hideous sight – the worst that I had ever seen.
I crouched down and inspected the poor creature’s bloodied remains as dispassionately as I could – from head to toe. Her hair was largely hidden by a cheap, black bonnet, but what I could see of it was grey. Her brow was deeply lined; her skin was pale; her eyes were mercifully closed. Her muddied, bloodied face had been slashed three times: from top to bottom, from her nose to her chin, across her mouth; from left to right, from cheekbone to jaw; from right to left in the same manner. The major wound – the one that killed her, cutting through the carotid artery and all but severing her head – was a mighty gash across her neck that ran from ear to ear.
Her clothing – a black jacket that looked too big for her, a long, dark green skirt and brown petticoats – was torn and in humiliating disarray. Her torso, trunk and private parts were cruelly exposed and fouled with congealed blood. Her feet were bare.
On my travels in West Africa, I had heard stories of ritual killings, but nothing had prepared me for the catalogue of cruelty I was recording here: the woman’s thin and ageing body had been slashed and cut so vilely. I noted:
6 wounds to the neck and upper torso
5 wounds to the left lung
3 wounds to the right lung
4 wounds to the heart
5 wounds to the liver
5 wounds to the spleen
6 wounds to the stomach
5 wounds to the upper thighs and private parts
‘She has been slaughtered and then disfigured,’ I said. ‘With each wound the entry point suggests a right-handed assailant.’
‘A man, I assume?’
‘Or a remarkably strong woman. The neck has been cut cleanly – but with tremendous force. It will be a man.’ I looked up at Macnaghten. ‘It always is.’
‘Not quite always,’ said Macnaghten.
I closed my notebook. ‘It will be a man,’ I said, ‘I am sure of that. The stabbing is concentrated on the breasts, the belly and the reproductive region. There are thirty-nine wounds in all.’
‘Thirty-nine, you say?’
‘Yes. Is that significant?’
‘It might be.’ I glanced up at the chief constable once more. ‘And can you smell anything?’ he asked.
‘Beyond the stench of death and the foul smell of the alley?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A faint smell of lavender?’
I sniffed the air above the poor woman’s ruined cadaver. ‘No,’ I said, ‘nothing.’
I stood up and felt a moment’s giddiness as I did so. Macnaghten put out a hand to steady me. ‘Thank you, Doctor,’ he said. ‘We’ll do a complete examination at the morgue, but this is most helpful.’
‘From the state of the blood,’ I added, ‘and the degree of rigor
mortis, given her apparent age and the cold weather, I would reckon the attack took place some twelve hours ago.’
‘That’s what we’d assumed. Thank you. Will you write up a brief report?’
‘By all means.’
The chief constable nodded to his men and I followed him back along the alley to where Oscar was awaiting us, smoking one of his Turkish cigarettes.
‘How was it?’ Oscar asked.
‘Horrible,’ I answered. ‘The work of the devil.’
Macnaghten looked at Oscar and raised an eyebrow. ‘We can forget our two o’clock appointment, Mr Wilde. Shall we meet at six instead? Would that be convenient for you? At my house?’
‘I will be there,’ said Oscar.
‘Good,’ said Macnaghten pleasantly. ‘We will meet at six, then. And bring Dr Doyle. He could prove invaluable.’
4
16 Tite Street
‘Starvation, and not sin, is the parent of modern crime,’ said Oscar, lighting another Turkish cigarette from the dying embers of the last.
We were continuing up Tite Street, from the corner at the end of the alley in which the woman’s body had been found, towards Oscar’s house at Number 16. The rain had stopped and Oscar had given me back my umbrella.
‘This crime was not caused by starvation,’ I said. ‘Depravity not hunger is the author of the horror I’ve just seen.’
‘The perpetrator may not have been starving, but the victim most probably was. What sort of woman was she?’
‘Not easy to tell. She had been savagely disfigured. She was quite thin, I grant you, but was that age rather than hunger? Yes, her clothes were cheap and mean, and yet ... I don’t know what makes me feel this, but there was something of the lady about her.’
Oscar laughed. ‘You feel it because you are a gentleman, Arthur, and cannot really believe ill of any woman. She will have been a poor bedraggled creature of the night, murdered on New Year’s Eve by a vicious, drunken reveller – or by her pimp ...’
‘Her “pimp”?’ I looked at Oscar, surprised by the word he used. ‘This is a respectable part of town, surely?’
Oscar Wilde and the Return of Jack the Ripper Page 2