Oscar Wilde and the Return of Jack the Ripper

by Gyles Brandreth

  ‘The girl can’t be more than twenty.’

  ‘Exactly,’ cried Oscar, his eyes suddenly ablaze. ‘And how old are you now, Arthur? Thirty-four, thirty-five going on forty. You are old before your time, my friend. I know how it is. I am five years older than you. The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty becomes sluggish as time passes. Our limbs fail, our senses rot.’ He picked up a spoon from the table and studied his own reflection in it. ‘We descend into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were too much afraid and the exquisite temptations that we had not the courage to yield to.’ He waved his spoon at me admonishingly. ‘Youth! Youth! There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth! Olga is twenty, a slim gilt girl, as perfect as a lily, as supple as a leopard, and yours for the asking, Arthur.’

  ‘Enough of this, Oscar,’ I hissed at him. ‘Pull yourself together, man. We have work to do.’

  Oscar put down the spoon and looked up at the young waiter who had just arrived with our breakfast. ‘The tragedy of old age, Martin, is not that one is old, but that one is young.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the waiter, pouring Oscar his coffee.

  My friend looked across to me, took a deep breath, sighed slowly and smiled benignly. ‘You are quite right, Arthur, we have work to do,’ He pulled out his pocket watch to inspect it. ‘Indeed, we have an appointment to keep. At twelve noon. In Tooting, of all places.’

  ‘Tooting?’

  ‘We are going to the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum.’

  ‘We are expected?’

  ‘I have sent the superintendent a telegram.’

  ‘Has he replied?’

  ‘No, not yet, but I have told him to expect us at noon. He will be pleased to see us, I am sure. You are our calling card, Arthur.’

  ‘I rather think Sherlock Holmes is our calling card, but never mind.’ The Langham breakfast was a good one: devilled kidneys with fried bread and roasted, sliced tomatoes. ‘The Surrey County Lunatic Asylum is where Ostrog was detained – yes?’

  ‘Precisely. And we are going there to discover when he was released and why.’

  ‘And how he comes to be working now at the Russian Circus.’

  ‘That’s not so surprising. It is a Russian circus and he is Russian. His release from the asylum is what’s curious. I’d understood from Macnaghten’s notes that he was to be detained indefinitely.’ Oscar put down his knife and fork to light a cigarette. ‘I take it you saw Macnaghten yesterday?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And how was he?’

  ‘Frustrated,’ I said. They have made no progress in identifying the body from Shelley Alley.’

  ‘None at all?’

  ‘The police doctor who examined the poor woman in the morgue confirmed what I thought – she is an older woman and not a prostitute. The hue and texture of her skin suggest that she was well-to-do, not a working woman, but her clothing and her bonnet suggest otherwise.’

  ‘So she had fallen on hard times – and recently?’

  ‘So it would seem. But as to who she might be, as yet there are no clues. No one has been reported missing whose appearance remotely matches hers.’

  Oscar contemplated his Turkish cigarette as I finished my breakfast. ‘And did you discuss the Whitechapel murders with Macnaghten?’ he asked.

  ‘Only briefly. He is anxious to complete his report as soon as may be. Rumour is rife at Scotland Yard that our friends in Fleet Street are about to run a whole series of newspaper articles deriding the police’s failure to apprehend Jack the Ripper and naming suspects “hitherto unknown”. Macnaghten wants to have all his facts lined up before the gentlemen of the press do their worst.’

  ‘He made no objection to letting you have the piece of the apron that had belonged to Catherine Eddowes?’

  ‘None whatsoever. He did not even enquire why you wanted it.’ I had finished my devilled kidneys. I looked at my friend. ‘Why do you?’

  Oscar smiled enigmatically. ‘You shall see,’ he said, blowing a thin plume of pale purple smoke into the air above him. ‘All in good time.’

  Breakfast done, and Martin the waiter over-generously tipped, we repaired to our rooms. I wrote a note to send to my wife in Switzerland, giving her a partial account of my adventures since my return to England at the weekend. (You suppose correctly: I did not mention the young acrobat, Olga, or Oscar’s absurd proposition regarding her.) I also scribbled a note to Mrs Stocks, the good lady who had been keeping house for us in South Norwood since my wife had been taken ill, forewarning her that I might yet be delayed a day or two further on business in town.

  At 11.00 a.m., as agreed, I met up with Oscar once more in the foyer of the hotel. I found him deep in conversation with the bellboy, Jimmy. The moment I arrived, the lad ran off.

  ‘I have just been giving Jimmy his New Year present,’ said Oscar.

  ‘And what did you give him?’ I asked.

  ‘A silver cigarette case.’

  ‘That was somewhat extravagant.’

  ‘Oh yes. It was absurdly expensive. I had it inscribed.’

  ‘Was that wise?’

  ‘I hope not.’

  My friend laughed his teasing laugh and said, ‘Come. I am looking forward to saying to the cab driver, “To the lunatic asylum, my man, and don’t spare the horses.”’

  As it turned out, there was only one horse, but it took no more than fifty minutes for our two-wheeler to convey us from the heart of town in Portland Place to Springfield Park on the Tooting-Wandsworth borders, the near-rural setting for the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum. During my training and early years as a doctor I had visited a number of such grim establishments, but this one, at least in appearance, was much less forbidding than I might have expected. The grounds were generous, gracious almost, with wide gravel walkways around well-kept lawns. The asylum itself featured twisted chimneys and variegated brickwork, all designed in the Tudor style, so that it looked uncannily like Hampton Court Palace. The superintendent looked uncannily like King Henry VIII.

  Dr Gabriel was the good man’s name – and I sensed at once that he was indeed a good man who had his patients’ interests at heart. He was tall, broad and bearded, with a cheery, rubicund face, a benevolent manner and a trick of winking jovially by way of punctuating his conversation. He had large hands, with tufts of reddish hair above his knuckles, and a strong handshake – which I appreciated, but at which I noticed Oscar wince visibly. He was awaiting our arrival on the front steps of the asylum and appeared delighted to see us.

  ‘Welcome, welcome,’ he said, in a booming voice. ‘It is always good to have the sane among us. We have a thousand lunatics here and the first of the idiot children will be arriving in the spring. We are going to have two hundred of them. We are building extensions all the time. We are very popular with the frail and the foolish, but less so with the unafflicted – which is why your visit is all the more welcome. Come inside.’

  Dr Gabriel escorted us into the building, through a spacious, galleried entrance hall (the walls hung with what appeared to be large, indifferent portraits of his predecessors) and down a long but light, high-ceilinged corridor towards his office. To our left, through tall windows, we could see some of the patients wandering about or sitting on benches in an inner courtyard. They were a mixture of men and women of assorted ages and, at first glance, looked like anyone one might expect to see in a public park. On closer inspection, however, their abnormality was evident: they were wearing overcoats over nightshirts or pyjamas; their hair was unkempt; they were either completely still, standing or sitting like statues, or moving their limbs awkwardly, jerkily, like marionettes; their eyes were either utterly vacant or staring wildly. What was most unnerving was that, though there must have been several dozen of them, each one seemed to be in a world of his or her own.

  On our right, as we paced the corridor alongside the amiable superintendent, we passed a series of closed doors. From one of them, an elderly woman emerged and, suddenly
seeing us, emitted an awful cry, like the sound of a fox at bay, and immediately scurried back from whence she came.

  ‘Do your inmates roam free?’ asked Oscar.

  ‘Some do,’ boomed Gabriel. ‘Others – like your man Ostrog – the homicidal maniacs and the like – are kept under lock and key, strictly confined, for their own protection as well as ours.’

  ‘You are familiar with the details of Ostrog’s case?’

  ‘Oh yes, I know all about Ostrog.’ Gabriel chuckled. ‘I’ve got his file out to show you. From your telegram, I gather that’s what you’re after. As you know, the police believe he may be Jack the Ripper.’

  We had reached the last door in the corridor. Dr Gabriel produced a ring of keys from his waistcoat pocket and used two of them to unlock the door. ‘This is my office,’ he said, gesturing to us to step inside.

  The room we entered was gloomy and airless, not so much the office of a superintendent of a lunatic asylum as the library of a university professor. There were crowded oak bookshelves from floor to ceiling on three sides of the room and above the wooden mantelpiece what appeared to be Holman Hunt’s The Light of the World, his celebrated painting of Christ standing at a long-unopened door preparing to knock.

  ‘I know that picture,’ I said.

  ‘It’s a copy,’ said Gabriel, ‘the work of a lunatic, but rather well done and not without its resonance in a place like this.’

  Oscar and I peered up at the painting.

  ‘We have just had electricity installed throughout the asylum,’ continued Dr Gabriel. ‘Look, I can press a button here and illuminate The Light of the World.’

  The room was suddenly ablaze with electric light. Dr Gabriel chuckled at his own joke and indicated two leather chairs to the side of his desk. ‘Let me get you a sherry and tell you what I can.’

  Oscar winced once more as he accepted the superintendent’s generous glass of brown sherry. ‘Most kind,’ he said.

  ‘And we’re most honoured,’ said Gabriel, raising his glass to each of us in turn and seating himself behind his desk. ‘I don’t really know your work, Mr Wilde. I don’t get to the theatre as much as I’d like. I have to content myself reading the reviews. I read your brother’s stuff in Vanity Fair. He’s a drama critic, is he not?’

  ‘Those who can do,’ Oscar murmured into his sherry glass, ‘those who can’t criticise.’

  ‘Of course,’ continued our host cheerfully, ‘it goes without saying that I am an avid reader of the Strand Magazine and a great admirer of Mr Doyle and the adventures of Sherlock Holmes.’

  I did not look in Oscar’s direction for fear he might be wincing yet again, but I acknowledged Dr Gabriel’s compliment with a small bow. He winked at me and lifted a sheaf of papers from the top of a stack of paperwork on his desk. ‘I telephoned Macnaghten at Scotland Yard when I received your telegram and he tells me he is more than happy for me to give you whatever assistance I can.’ He winked once more. ‘What do you wish to know?’

  ‘Everything,’ said Oscar.

  ‘Well,’ said Gabriel, tugging gently on his beard and looking down at the papers, ‘we can start with Ostrog’s history – or as much of it as we have here.’ He picked up the top sheet and studied it. ‘He was born in 1833, according to the records. He is Russian by birth, but apparently speaks several European languages – Russian, Polish, German, French, English – and, while we know him as Michael Ostrog, he appears to be known to the authorities – and to have operated – under a host of aliases. Bertrand Ashley, Ashley Nabokov, Max Gosslar, Max Sobieski, Count Sobieski, Dr Grant ... to name but a few.’ The superintendent lowered the paper he was holding, looked up at us and smiled. ‘I think we can take it he is neither a count nor a doctor.’

  ‘Is he a “confidence man” then,’ asked Oscar, ‘or merely a man who suffers from delusions?’

  ‘Both, I think it’s safe to say,’ answered Dr Gabriel, with another wink. ‘He first comes to the attention of the police in 1863 – in Oxford. Under the name of Max Gosslar he is found guilty of a theft from an Oxford College and sentenced to ten months in prison. He comes out and moves to Cambridge, where we find him sentenced to three months in prison. In July 1864, he turns up in Tunbridge Wells, now under the name Count Sobieski. This time he is sentenced to eight months.’

  ‘These are light sentences,’ I suggested.

  Dr Gabriel nodded. ‘And minor crimes. Petty stuff. Small-time theft.’

  ‘No sign of homicidal mania?’ asked Oscar.

  Dr Gabriel chuckled. ‘Not yet.’ He scrutinised the papers once more. ‘It gets a little more serious in January 1866 when Ostrog is in court again, this time on charges of fraud. Interestingly, he is acquitted. But he isn’t out of trouble for long. On March the nineteenth that year he steals a gold watch and other items from a woman in Maidstone.’

  ‘Is there any violence?’ enquired Oscar. ‘Did he assault the woman?’

  ‘No, no violence. At this stage in his criminal career, he appears to be a mild-mannered man, quietly spoken, respectably dressed.’ Gabriel returned to the paperwork. ‘Where are we? 1866. He isn’t caught until August, it seems, by which time he had committed a string of similar thefts, as a consequence of which he is sentenced to seven years in prison.’

  Oscar sniffed. ‘This sounds more like Mr Dickens’ Fagin than our Jack the Ripper.’

  Dr Gabriel nodded. ‘There’s no indication of mania thus far. But seven years’ incarceration can change a man. In 1873 Ostrog is released from Chatham Gaol and, when he is next arrested, he is found to have a gun on him.’

  ‘Does he use it?’ I asked.

  ‘He threatens to use it as he’s being arrested and, as a consequence, in January 1874, he is sentenced to ten years in prison. He’s out again in 1883 and we don’t hear anything more of him until 1887 when he is arrested once more – this time for stealing a metal tankard – and sentenced to six months’ hard labour. This is the first time we find the word “mania” cropping up in the police reports.’

  ‘What exactly is “mania”?’ Oscar asked.

  ‘It’s a form of madness characterised by bursts of great excitement, euphoria, delusions

  ‘It sounds rather delightful.’

  ‘A mild burst of mania can be exhilarating,’ said Dr Gabriel, with a wink, ‘but heightened mania leads to over-activity, loss of control, loss of reason, frenzy, hysteria and, ultimately, violence. The problem is that it comes and goes and we don’t quite know what triggers it or how to keep it under control.’ He turned back to his paperwork. ‘On March the tenth 1888 Ostrog was released from prison, apparently “cured”. He then went missing for nine months. The next we hear of him he is in Paris where he is arrested for theft and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment on November the eighteenth 1888.’

  ‘So,’ said Oscar, sitting forward, ‘between March and November 1888, at the time of the Whitechapel murders, nothing is known of Michael Ostrog or his whereabouts.’

  ‘Correct, Mr Wilde, but because he is reckoned to be a dangerous man, a serial offender, a violent criminal and has apparently been sighted in the East End of London, police begin to wonder if he might not be the elusive Jack the Ripper.’

  ‘The police suspect him,’ I said, ‘but they cannot prove anything.’

  ‘There is no evidence of any kind against him.’

  ‘What about the bag of knives and surgical instruments he is said to have carried about with him and his record of violence against women?’ I asked.

  ‘Rumour and hearsay. None of it can be substantiated.’

  Oscar asked: ‘Why does Macnaghten call him a homicidal maniac?’

  ‘He once threatened the police with a gun – and he is subject to bouts of mania. There is no doubt of that. And because of that, when he comes out of prison in Paris and returns to London in 1890, the Metropolitan Police decide to keep an eye on him – and the next time he is in trouble – it’s another petty theft – the authorities decide that enough’s enough �
� and Michael Ostrog is arrested, taken off to the magistrates’ court, found “incapable and insane” and committed here to the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum. That was almost three years ago, April 1891.’

  ‘But he’s not a homicidal maniac – in your view, Doctor?’

  ‘There’s no evidence that he is – or ever was – but once the tag had been attached to him, it suited the police to think of him as such. He was a petty thief, a fantasist, probably delusional, possibly dangerous. He was certainly a nuisance when he was at large. It was arguably for the good of the community to have him locked up here – homicidal maniac or not.’

  ‘And when was he released?’ asked Oscar.

  Dr Gabriel put down his papers. ‘He hasn’t been released. He’s in our asylum at Her Majesty’s pleasure. I imagine he will be incarcerated here until the day he dies.’

  11

  Face to face

  ‘Can we see him?’

  ‘May we speak with him?’

  Oscar and I spoke at the same time – and with an almost comical urgency.

  Dr Gabriel laughed and pushed back his chair. ‘I can take you to see him now, but he won’t speak to you. He won’t speak to anybody. He hasn’t spoken a word since he arrived.’

  ‘What?’ cried Oscar. ‘He’s not uttered a word in three years?’

  ‘Not a word.’

  ‘He’s become dumb?’ I asked.

  ‘No. He makes noises. He whimpers. Sometimes he laughs. Not often. If he’s in pain, he cries out.’

  ‘In Russian? In Polish?’

  ‘In no discernible language. He makes noises – as an animal might. He’s like an animal – like a wretched old dog whose spirit has been broken. You’ll see.’

  Dr Gabriel got to his feet and, with a cheerful wink, said, ‘Shall we?’ He turned off the electric lights (bringing darkness to The Light of the World) and we followed him out of the gloom into the corridor once more. He doubled-locked the office door and led us back to the main entrance hall and then down a steep and narrow flight of stone steps.