I kissed her and she turned away at once, as if to hide the tears in her eyes. She ran after Salazkin who had already reached the door where Michael Ostrog was waiting, holding his master’s cane and hat. She did not look back and, suddenly, she was gone.
All that afternoon and evening I thought of her. As I stood with Oscar at the bar of the Anarchists’ Club, drinking small glasses of flavourless spirit, eating small wedges of beetroot doused in vinegar, while my friend filled the air with sound, Olga filled my head. Even as Constance arrived with Walter Wellbeloved and Oscar’s brother Willie in tow, and Oscar’s torrent of words became louder and more turbulent, I heard the hubbub, but I was not listening.
As we left the club to walk across Oxford Street and on through Soho towards the theatre, I was conscious of Oscar’s fury at Willie’s unexpected presence and his alarm that ‘Queensberry’s spy’, as he now called him, was observing our departure from across the street, but when Constance put her arm through mine and whispered, ‘You’re in a dream today, Arthur, and Oscar’s in a bate,’ I simply smiled at her vacantly, and answered, without thinking, ‘Yes, I suppose so.’
At the theatre, Richard Mansfield had arranged a box for our party. I sat at the back of the box, on the banquette, alongside Willie, who made the occasional sardonic remark, to which I failed to respond. The auditorium was far from full, but the audience – friends of the company and other members of the theatrical profession – was enthusiastic and attentive and, while I did not focus on the plot of the drama or the detail of the dialogue, I felt the force of Mansfield’s portrayal of Napoleon. The actor had undeniable presence’.
As soon the curtain fell at the end of the first act, reckoning I should make some sort of contribution, I said, ‘He’s playing it well, is he not?’
‘He’s a brutal murderer,’ barked Oscar, ‘notwithstanding the veneer of sophistication.’
‘Who?’ I asked. ‘Mansfield?’
Oscar laughed. ‘Bonaparte, Arthur. His wars cost some six million lives. He was callous. He was cruel. He was arrogant. He led men to the slaughter while smirking at his own epigrams.’
‘He came up with some choice ones,’ said Willie. ‘“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake” is a wonderful line. It’s one of my favourites.’
‘Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit,’ said Oscar.
During the second interval I said nothing. I returned to my reverie as Oscar turned the conversation from ‘mass murder of the Napoleonic kind’ to ‘our own capacity to kill’ and enquired of a bewildered Wellbeloved under what circumstances he would be ready to slaughter someone and what means he would use and whether his preference would be to take the life of a man or of a woman.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ answered Wellbeloved. ‘Those stories of human sacrifice and drinking blood . . .’
‘Ignore Oscar,’ said Constance soothingly. ‘He is in one of his provocative moods.’
‘Could you kill a man, Oscar?’ asked Willie.
‘With my own hands? I doubt it. I lack the courage. I might give the order to another, I suppose.’
‘Don’t say that, dearest,’ said Constance, leaning over to her husband, ‘even in jest.’
‘If you want a thing done well, do it yourself,’ said Willie.
When the performance was over, Oscar led us out of the box and down the corridor towards a baize-covered door that opened immediately onto the side of the stage. We were plunged from bright light to half-darkness. ‘I know this theatre,’ he declared. ‘Follow me.’ With his right arm raised like a tour guide escorting visitors around St Peter’s in Rome, he pushed his way through a small crowd of chatting supernumeraries and stagehands smoking cigarettes, and took us across the wings, through another door and down a narrow flight of metal steps.
‘Let the path be open to talent,’ murmured Willie as our party followed in Oscar’s wake.
‘Is that another of Boney’s bons mots, brother? You appear to have swallowed the Dictionary of Quotations whole.’
‘Hush, you two,’ scolded Constance.
‘We are here,’ announced Oscar triumphantly.
‘And you are expected,’ cried Richard Mansfield. The actor, in his dressing gown, stood in the doorway to his dressing room holding an open bottle of champagne in his hand. ‘Perrier-Jouët, Oscar. I got it in for you especially. There’s another in the bucket.’
‘Thank you, my friend. And thank you, too, for the performance of a lifetime. I had thought of Napoleon as a poisonous pygmy. You made him a giant – heroic in the first act, human in the second, and in the third, a fallen demi-god. You were magnificent!’
Mansfield, his face glowing through a mask of sweat and Pond’s cold cream, beamed at Oscar and tossed his head lightly from side to side like a frisky pony. ‘Come in one, come in all. Did the performance live up to your expectations, Dr Conan Doyle? I hope so. Entrez. My dresser will pour the champagne.’ He handed over the bottle to a handsome young Malay who served each of us with glasses that I noticed were engraved with a Napoleonic ‘N’ surmounted by an imperial crown.
‘What did you really think, Oscar?’ asked the actor, now wiping his face with a towel and addressing my friend through the looking glass above his dressing table.
‘You were Napoleon,’ said Oscar with conviction.
‘What did you make of the play?’ asked Mansfield, raising an eyebrow and looking in my direction.
Oscar answered for me. ‘The play is nothing,’ he declared. ‘You, Richard, are everything!’
‘Too kind,’ breathed Mansfield contentedly, and then, slowly, carefully, reverentially, with both hands and each finger extended, he lifted his wig off his head and held it up before him as though he were a priest raising the host before his congregation. He placed the wig on top of a skull that stood on the dressing table next to an open cigar box that served as the container for sticks of make-up. As he did so, he caught my eye in the mirror and winked. ‘Yorick’s skull,’ he said. He turned towards me and picked it up to show me. It looked quite hideous: a gaunt, grey death’s-head sporting Napoleon’s distinctive pate lopsidedly. ‘The skull is actually that of John Wilkes Booth,’ he said.
‘The man who assassinated Abraham Lincoln?’
‘The very same. He was an actor, too, of course – though less well known than his celebrated brother, Edwin.’
‘Perhaps not now,’ said Oscar, peering down at the skull.
‘You used it for your Hamlet?’ asked Constance.
‘I did.’
‘How did you acquire it?’ asked Oscar.
‘I bought it from Tom Norman. He specialises in these things. Do you know him?’
‘I know him,’ volunteered Walter Wellbeloved from the back of the crowd in his curious, musical voice. ‘A good man.’
‘I agree, sir,’ said Mansfield. ‘He is leaving the country, you know. He is not appreciated here – but I love him. Look at this!’ From within the cigar box, the actor scooped up a glass phial half-filled with a reddish-brown liquid. He held it up to one of the gas lamps at the side of his looking glass.
‘What is it?’ Constance asked.
‘The blood of the Emperor Napoleon!’
‘Good grief,’ cried Wellbeloved.
‘Can you be sure?’ asked Oscar.
‘You saw the performance, Oscar. What do you think? I take a sip of the blood before the curtain rises every day.’
I raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
‘Tom Norman acquired the blood from the grandson of Sir Hudson Lowe, governor of St Helena when Napoleon died.’
‘I imagine it cost you a pretty penny,’ said Oscar.
‘And not only in the cash I handed over to Norman – but more so in the cost to my reputation. It was because of my repeated visits to Norman’s emporium that I gained a reputation as a Whitechapel habitué and consequently was accused of being Jack the Ripper.’
‘Ah,’ Oscar nodded sympathetically.
‘Would you like to play him on stage?’ asked Willie.
‘Jack the Ripper? Oh, yes!’ cried the actor. ‘What a part! Immortal Jack! I would kill for the role.’
‘Would you now?’ said Oscar playfully.
Mansfield laughed. ‘You know what I mean, Oscar. Napoleon, Richard Crookback, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – these are the parts for me. The name is known, but the man isn’t. By playing him, I would reveal him. Who is he, this inhuman human? “Who is Jack the Ripper?” That should be the title. You must write the play, Oscar.’
‘Perhaps I will,’ answered Oscar, raising his glass in Mansfield’s direction.
‘More champagne, Haziq – and the photographs!’
Mansfield’s dresser emptied the remains of the second bottle of Perrier-Jouët into our champagne flutes and then, with some ceremony, presented each of us with a handsome quarto-sized card containing a signed photograph of our host in his costume as Napoleon.
‘Oh,’ cried Oscar happily, ‘I love photographs like these. When I went to America to lecture, you know, I had to have two secretaries, one for autographs, one for locks of hair. Within six months the one had died of writer’s cramp and the other was completely bald.’ We all laughed. Oscar turned to me. ‘Oh, Arthur,’ he said, ‘do show our friends that charming picture of your children. It is so delightful.’
‘Please, Oscar,’ I protested, ‘this is hardly—’
‘I’d love to see a picture of your little ones, Arthur. Do show us.’
Pressed by Constance, I produced my photograph and passed it around the group, murmuring embarrassed apologies as I did so. Each in turn studied the small picture and made gently appreciative noises.
‘A boy and a girl,’ said Mansfield good-humouredly. ‘You’re a lucky devil.’
Willie surprised me by remarking, ‘It is only for the quality of his wife and the fact of his children that I envy Oscar. Nothing else.’
When we left the theatre, accompanied to the stage door by Haziq the dresser, Oscar, now in high spirits, proposed dinner at Kettner’s: ‘Foie gras and sole Careme, followed by soufflé a la Josephine – something light yet Napoleonic, don’t you think?’
I professed exhaustion, made my excuses, kissed Constance, saluted Willie and Wellbeloved, promised Oscar I would not be late for our appointment in the morning, and, alone (mercifully alone!), walked down Shaftesbury Avenue, around Piccadilly Circus and along Regent Street, back to the Langham Hotel.
I had a beef sandwich and a glass of beer in the hotel buttery and then retired to my room and went directly to bed. It can’t have been later than eight o’clock.
I pressed my face into the pillow and willed myself to sleep. I wanted to dream of Olga.
31
Paradise Walk
I slept soundly until nine o’clock on Monday morning. As I awoke, unbidden, one of Oscar’s favourite lines came into my head: ‘They’ve promised that dreams can come true – but forgot to mention that nightmares are dreams, too.’
I got up, dipped my face into a basin of cold water, shaved and dressed. For once, I did not join my friend for breakfast. Instead, I rang the bell and ordered coffee in my room. It was strong and welcome. As I drank it, I sat at the table by the window and wrote a letter to my wife. I told Touie how much I loved her and how greatly I missed her and the children. I told her something of my week’s adventures, but not everything, of course. (Some doors are best left forever closed.) I shared with her my frustration at having spent a week in town – and seven nights at an expensive West End hotel – on what felt now like a wild-goose chase in pursuit of fools gold. I told her how much I was looking forward to returning to our home in South Norwood that afternoon and to getting back to my own desk – my dear old desk’ – and to proper work. As I signed and sealed the letter, I repeated out loud the words that I had said to myself on the afternoon I had taken tea with Olga: ‘We cannot command our love, but we can our actions.’
I took the letter down into the street to catch the mid-morning post. I could have given it to one of the porters or the bellboy, but I wanted to post it myself – the postbox was no more than thirty yards from the hotel’s front entrance and the day was a fine one. The sky was clear, the air bracing.
My small task done, as I turned back from the postbox, feeling curiously exhilarated, I found myself almost face to face with the man who had been set to spy on Oscar. We were walking towards one another. Our paths crossed. His eyes did not meet mine and it took me a moment to realise who he was. When I did, I turned back and called out to him: ‘Good morning, sir.’ He stopped, but said nothing. ‘May I ask what your business is?’ He neither turned nor spoke. ‘You are making a nuisance of yourself, sir,’ I continued, ‘loitering here as you do, following my friend as you have been.’ Still the man said nothing. Nor did he move. I walked back towards him. He stood stock still, almost to attention. From the way in which he held his arms and shoulders I recognised a military bearing. I walked beyond him and turned back to confront him. His features were clean-cut; his hair was fair; his eyes were blue; there was a small scar across his forehead. ‘What’s going on?’ I asked.
‘I cannot tell you, sir,’ he replied, in a voice much more measured than I expected, ‘but it is for the best, I do assure you.’ He nodded, touched the brim of his hat and walked briskly on. I watched him until he turned into the first side street and disappeared. The moment he was gone, I felt as if I had been in the presence of an apparition.
I returned to my room, packed my few things into my overnight bag, settled my bill (which was far smaller than it should have been) and, at twelve noon, as the clock struck, found Oscar lounging in the hotel foyer, with his hat and coat across his lap, ready to set off for our picnic in Paradise Walk. He was wearing a suit of charcoal grey, and sporting a purple bow tie, loosely worn, with an amaryllis buttonhole to match.
‘You’re dressed in your Sunday best,’ I said admiringly.
‘It’s a picnic in honour of royalty,’ he replied, rising slowly from the couch and taking a bow. ‘I’m glad you approve.’ He held out his arm. ‘Feel the quality of the cloth, Arthur. It’s from Kashmir. Made entirely of goats’ hair, if you please. But doesn’t smell of goat at all.’ He giggled. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’
It was certainly soft to the touch.
‘And you,’ he continued, looking me up and down with a doubtful eye, ‘appear to be wearing exactly what you were wearing yesterday.’
‘The shirt is fresh,’ I protested.
‘And are you going somewhere?’ He prodded my bag with his ebony cane. ‘What is the meaning of this?’
‘I’m going home after lunch, Oscar. I must. You know that.’
‘You haven’t paid your bill, have you?’
‘I’ve tried, but I fear you anticipated me. You must let me know what I owe you.’
‘You should not have paid your bill, Arthur.’ He waved his cane at me reprovingly. ‘It is only by not paying one’s bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.’ He smiled. ‘I never pay my bills – on principle.’
‘But you appear to have paid most of mine,’ I protested.
He laughed. ‘That is different. I’ve involved you in this business. I should take care of any expenses that you might incur in the process,’ He donned his hat and turned towards the door. ‘Our carriage awaits. Bring your bag if you must. I don’t know how you can consider abandoning the field as we stand on the very brink of victory, but there it is. En avant! To be late today really would be lese-majesty.’
When we were ensconced in the back of the two-wheeler and on our way to Chelsea, I looked at my friend as he sucked happily on his Turkish cigarette and observed, ‘You seem remarkably mellow this morning, Oscar.’
‘I had a good dinner. Constance was charming. Willie was almost bearable. And I’m thinking we can eliminate Walter Wellbeloved from our inquiries. He is a sentimental milksop and virtually a vegetarian.’
‘I though
t he believed in human sacrifice.’
‘Only when “absolutely necessary” to appease the gods – and in his experience, apparently, it has never been remotely necessary. At all the rituals he masterminds it seems the gods are quite satisfied with a standard Old English hen – well plucked and lightly broiled.’
‘He eats chicken, then?’
‘No, that’s what he offers up to the gods. He doesn’t touch meat himself. And he confessed, when we were well into the third bottle of Mr Kettner’s finest Meursault, that whatever he might have said in the past to impress young acolytes, he has never even seen a chalice of human blood, let alone drunk from one.’ Oscar grinned at me mischievously. ‘And the poor fellow’s gone off fish entirely since he lost his beloved mermaid.’
‘The hapless Rosie? Do you think he drowned her?’
‘It’s possible – they were alone at sea together in a beautiful pea-green boat. But why would he? It’s clear that he loved her and she – poor deformed creature – doted on him. He misses her dreadfully and Mrs Mathers, for all her psychic prowess, is no substitute.’
‘He’s an odd one, all the same. And known to have been in and around Whitechapel at the time of each the Ripper murders.’
‘Indeed – but the same could be said of so many. Our thespian friend, Mr Richard Mansfield, among them . . .’ Oscar turned eagerly towards me. I was amused to see him so relishing our conversation. ‘What did you make of Mansfield, Arthur?’
‘He’s a fine actor.’
‘Undeniably. One of the best. But what of the man?’
‘I was confused. As I recall, the first time we encountered him he was consumed with rage and about to beat you black and blue. But at Sims’ party and yesterday at the theatre . . .’
‘Yes,’ Oscar chortled. ‘He could not have been friendlier, could he? It was as if, having shown us his Mr Hyde, he was determined we should see his Dr Jekyll.’
‘Of course, you disarmed him at the theatre with your avalanche of praise.’
‘Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the sexes. But even before I spoke, he was wanting to endear himself to us. He had the champagne open and the signed photographs waiting.’
Oscar Wilde and the Return of Jack the Ripper Page 22