‘But you took him to Whitechapel on occasion?’ Oscar persisted. ‘That’s how the stories started.’
‘We did. He had a taste for the oriental. He had “a soft spot for smooth skin”. That was the line he used. Witty, eh? Dalton always downplayed the prince’s intelligence – said his mind was “abnormally dormant”. Far from it. Prince Eddy wasn’t intellectual, but he had an enquiring mind. He truly wanted to “taste of all the fruit”. We went to Whitechapel to smoke the occasional opium pipe and to seek out the company of Chinese sailors. They had no idea who he was and he loved that.’
‘And you loved him.’
‘We did,’ said Sir Freddie, gazing wistfully at the portrait on the mantelpiece.
‘Were you alone?’ asked Oscar.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Was this special bond confined to just the pair of you – you and Festing?’
‘We knew him best, we loved him most,’ Sir Freddie nodded, ‘but, yes, there was a third – and I think you knew him, Oscar. James Kenneth Stephen.’
‘The poet? Yes, I knew him. He kindly supported my candidature for membership of the Savile Club. That was a few years ago. But I remember him. He was a nice man.’
‘He was Prince Eddy’s tutor at Cambridge. He was only four years the prince’s senior, but they became close friends.’
‘Were they lovers?’
‘I don’t know. All I do know is that when Stephen heard the news of the prince’s death, he was overwhelmed by grief. He refused to eat and died twenty days later, aged just thirty-two.’ The baronet turned to look at his friend in the taffeta ball gown. ‘I think that’s what Festing is doing now – not eating, just waiting to die.’
‘Shall we raise our glasses to the prince?’ said Oscar.
‘Yes,’ said Sir Freddie. He held out his glass towards the picture on the mantelpiece. ‘To the memory of His Royal Highness Albert Victor Christian Edward, Duke of Clarence and Avondale – our Prince Eddy. Happy birthday, darling boy.’
33
Home
Oscar heaved his body into the back of the two-wheeler and collapsed onto the leather banquette with an exaggerated sigh. ‘We should have coupled that with a toast to those that loved not wisely but too well.’
‘What an extraordinary experience,’ I said, moving my portmanteau from the seat and sitting down next to my friend. ‘I’m quite drained.’
‘Likewise. Drained. And ravenous. Those hideous Scotch eggs . . .’
‘You handled it all superbly, Oscar.’
He laughed wheezily and, letting out a slow, deep breath, he patted me on the arm. ‘Thank you, Arthur. You didn’t do so badly yourself. For one dreadful moment I thought we were destined to spend the morning en travestie, trussed up like a couple of Ugly Sisters from the pantomime.’ He took his cane and banged it up against the roof of the carriage. ‘Back to the Langham Hotel, driver, if you please,’ he called.
‘No, not for me. I’m going home now. I must. Drop me at an underground station when we pass one.’
‘What, no lunch? You can’t seriously be contemplating returning to South Norwood on an empty stomach.’
‘I have to go home, Oscar. I’ve matters to attend to, work to do. I’ve a living to earn.’
‘Write this up and your fortune’s made. I’m planning the play already. Mansfield’s ready to play the part – eager, in fact. You heard him say so yourself yesterday.’
I laughed. ‘I did indeed.’
‘We’re just tying up loose ends now. We need to see Druitt’s sister and then I think we can safely say “case closed”.’ He turned and looked at me, bright-eyed. ‘You can’t go home without lunch, Arthur. I won’t let you. And the Langham will do us proud. What do you fancy? Lobster bisque, spring lamb, pink, cut slantingly to the bone, with really crisp roast potatoes, buttered carrots, peppery cabbage slightly underdone, and a gravy just like the one your dear old grandmother used to make . . . How does that sound?’
I resisted the temptation. And Oscar, generously, had the two-wheeler take us all the way to London Bridge so I might catch the fast train to Norwood Junction.
As we travelled across town, we reflected on the morning’s bizarre encounter. I asked my friend how he had first come to meet these two unlikely courtiers.
‘They’re not “unlikely” really. They are almost typical, in fact. A royal court’s a curious place. Everyone you meet there is a tad improbable. I first met Fitzmaurice and Bunbury many years ago. The Prince of Wales hosted a dinner to which I was invited. They were there. I sat between them.’
‘How well do you know the Prince of Wales?’
‘He’s been to our house – to take part in an experiment in thought-reading, of all things. Lily Langtry brought him. They were close – for a time. But, as you know, nothing lasts. Neither summer nor winter, nor the passion of love. And rides on the merry-go-round of royal romance are customarily of quite brief duration.’
‘Are you and the prince still friends?’
Oscar cocked an eyebrow and grinned. ‘We were never “friends” in the way you mean. Royalty offer you friendliness, not friendship. There is a difference. You and I are friends, Arthur, and I believe we always will be. I’ve known a lot of good men in my time, but none, I think, as decent as you. “Steel true, blade straight” – that’s what it should say on your gravestone.’
When we reached the railway station, I clambered down from the two-wheeler and extended a hand to my friend. He shook it warmly. ‘The moment there’s news I’ll wire you,’ he said. And don’t forget next Saturday night – it’s goodbye to the circus. My farewell supper for our Russian friends. I’ll get Mansfield and George R. Sims to join us. Make a bit of a party of it. You can say au revoir to your little Russian acrobat then – if you don’t slip up to town for a secret tryst meanwhile. But if you can resist the Langham spring lamb you can probably resist anything. Goodbye, old heart.’
As I stepped under the stone archway to enter the station booking hall, I turned back to wave, but the two-wheeler was already gone.
Within the hour I was back home in South Norwood. It was good to be home. In many ways I had enjoyed my week on the trail of Jack the Ripper in the company of Oscar Wilde, but I was exhausted by it, too – exhausted by Oscar, by his wit and his exuberance, by his appetite and his perversity – and dispirited by the fog of London, by the macabre world of police mortuaries and East End opium dens, by the grim spectacle of young women, cruelly disembowelled, and old men absurdly dressed in ball gowns.
When I reached Norwood a light rain was falling, but it did not matter. As I walked down the hill from the station, I felt it washing away the grime of the metropolis. As I turned into Tennison Road I had a spring in my step. It was good see my familiar front door, good to turn the key in the latch, good to find my darling Touie’s face smiling up at me from the small framed photograph of her that I kept on my desk in the study. It was especially good to be back at that desk again.
The house was in good order and well-aired. Mrs Stocks, our part-time housekeeper, had everything spic and span, with flowers in the hallway, fresh linen on the bed and my kind of simple fare waiting for me in the larder. As a man eats, so shall he write. I had enjoyed reading my friend Wilde’s short stories – they tasted of foie gras and lobster bisque. Mine, I fancy, taste more of corned beef and pickled onions.
For the next few days, I ate simply and worked well. I completed my story for The Idler and started on another. Now and again I thought of Olga and wondered whether I would indeed see her one last time that coming Saturday. Now and then in my mind I turned over elements of the case we had been investigating, but felt as baffled by it all as Macnaghten and his men seemed to have been. The recollection of Oscar asserting merrily that we were ‘just tying up loose ends now’ made me smile.
I was alone with my breakfast boiled egg on Thursday morning when I heard from him. The postman called at 8.00 a.m.: Oscar’s was the only letter he had to deliver.
Over the five years of our friendship, we had not corresponded much, but I recognised his precise, elegant hand at once:
16 Tite Street
10.i.94
My dear Arthur,
I have news — but before I share it, how are you? Are you working hard? To work, to work: that is your duty. And your pleasure, too, I trust. Work never seems to me a reality, but a way of getting rid of reality! I have returned to Tite Street — in the interests of economy — but I shall not stay here long. My boys are delightful, but they are noisy. They make work difficult and meals impossible. To be able to live at home I need to send my sons to boarding school and my wife to Biarritz – or perhaps to Switzerland to join yours? – but, alas, at present I have not the means. I am in the purple valleys of despair and no gold coins are dropping down from the heavens to gladden me. I am overdrawn at the bank and last night a tax collector called here at the house.
‘Taxes! Why should I pay taxes?’ I cried.
‘But, sir,’ he said, ‘you are the householder here, are you not? you live here, you sleep here.’
‘Ah, yes, but I sleep so badly.’
The man simply did not comprehend. I gave him my brother Willie’s address and said I was sure he would give him better satisfaction than I was able to do. you are so wise to have retreated to the country, Arthur (I am assuming Norwood is the country: I have never been) — London is now become so very dangerous: the barking of tax inspectors at dusk is distressing, the roaring of creditors towards dawn is frightful, and I hear this morning that solicitors are getting rabies and biting people.
It really is intolerable the want of money. I have concluded that wanton extravagance is the only remedy – and to that end for Saturday’s late supper I have ordered the finest wines and the costliest dishes that the Langham’s sommelier and chef de cuisine can produce for our delectation. I am also thinking, as it will be the thirteenth, we should have thirteen at table — viz
ACD and OW
Ivan the Terrible and little Olga
Richard Mansfield and brother Willie (because Mansfield admires him and Constance will insist I invite Willie. She is anxious for a family reconciliation’. I cannot invite Constance herself, alas, or Willie will expect his fiancée to be invited too — and there are limits!)
George R. Sims and Freddie Bunbury (if he’s up to it — we can take it that Festing Fitzmaurice won’t be — what would she wear?) — and Labby, perhaps? He is frightfully pompous, but he can be amusing and he knows Salazkin. What do you think?
And Mr Dodgson/Lewis Carroll? I feel the evening needs the sense of a Mad Tea Party and it is always charming to have a ‘celebrity’ at this kind of gathering, don’t you agree? (Sims will bring him if you approve the idea.)
I don’t believe the Prince and Princess of Wales will be able to make it at this short notice, so: Wellbeloved and Mrs Mathers?
And then Macnaghten, of course. That’s thirteen, I think. I want Macnaghten there because, as my party piece, after we’ve eaten, I thought I would ‘reveal’ the true identity of Jack the Ripper. We need to impress Mansfield with a coup de théâtre — so he commits to the play there and then and we can secure an advance on royalties!
I put down the pages of my friend’s letter and said out loud, ‘The man’s gone mad.’ I laughed. I got to my feet and cleared away my breakfast things and, briefly, unlocked the back door and stepped into the garden. The air was biting. There was frost on the grass like icing on a cake. I stood, legs apart, hands on hips, head held high, and breathed deeply. I noticed the water-butt frozen over and, suddenly, found swimming into my mind’s eye the men I’d known fourteen years before when I was a boy of twenty and had signed on as the ship’s surgeon on the whaler Hope that took us from Peterhead to the Arctic Circle. I thought of those men and their courage and endurance and of how they risked death by day and night – not just from hypothermia (the cold was excruciating) but from the ever-shifting floes of ice that could slice a man in half. And then I thought of Oscar and Willie and Labby and the rest and roared as I might have done at the music hall.
My head cleared, I returned to the kitchen, poured myself another cup of tea and picked up Oscar’s letter once more:
My news — my real news — is quickly told. We can eliminate Montague Druitt from our list of suspects. As you know, he was Macnaghten’s prime candidate entirely because his suicide came hard on the heels of the last of the initial Whitechapel killings. Mary Jane Kelly was murdered at Miller’s Court on 8 November 1888. Montague Druitt threw himself into the Thames on or soon after 1 December 1888.
That Druitt took his own life is not in question. When his body was recovered there were four large and heavy stones found in each of his coat pockets and when his rooms at Blackheath were searched a suicide note was discovered. It read: ‘Since Friday I felt I was going to be like Mother, and the best thing for me was to die.’ Mrs Druitt had been committed to the Manor House Lunatic Asylum in the spring of 1888.
Macnaghten’s thinking was simple: Druitt was a medical man with a lunatic mother. He could wield a scalpel and had lunacy in his blood. Shortly after the Miller’s Court murder Druitt took his own life and the Whitechapel murders ceased. Ergo Druitt is Jack the Ripper!
Druitt, of course, was not a doctor and while he was certainly fearful that his mind was giving way as his mother’s had done, he could not have murdered Mary Jane Kelly in Whitechapel on 8 November because he was in Bournemouth staying with his sister at the time! She told me so yesterday afternoon — and can furnish witnesses to the fact should they be required.
As he had promised, Qeorge R. Sims supplied me with Miss Druitt’s address. She had earlier declined Sims’ invitation to provide an interview for publication, but she was ready to meet me — indeed, she was eager to do so. I sent her a telegram on Monday and she travelled up to town on Tuesday. I gave her tea at the Savoy. She is a timid soul — a typical English spinster: unpretty, unpowdered, approaching forty — but with a great appetite for scones! She had refused to meet Sims — and had said very little to the police when Sergeant Thick went to question her four years ago — but she was happy to meet me because her brother had given her my book of fairy stories shortly before his death and ‘The Happy Prince’ is ‘the saddest and most beautiful thing’ she has ever read! Her brother, it seems, often spoke of me — recollecting my notoriety at Oxford! — and she was anxious to unburden herself to me because she sensed I would be ‘in sympathy’ with her brother and his tragedy.
In a nutshell, Druitt was a barrister but not a sufficiently successful one. To supplement His income, he took to tutoring at a boys’ school near his digs in Blackheath. He taught Latin and Greek and coached the Cricket XI. (At Winchester and New College he’d been a cricketer of distinction.) Unfortunately, at Blackheath Druitt developed a tendresse for the captain of the school cricket team — a youth by the name of Dickinson. Even more unfortunately, the tendresse was reciprocated and an affaire ensued. Druitt was thirty-one, the boy was seventeen. Druitt knew that it was wrong — knew that it was madness — but could not stop himself. He confessed all this to his sister, his ‘only friend in the world’ — his mother being confined in the asylum, his father having died a year or two before and his elder brother not being the sort of chap to whom one makes this kind of confession. Miss Druitt did not sit in judgement on her brother’s behaviour — ‘the heart has its reasons’, she said, fluttering her eyelashes — but she urged him ‘to take control of himself’ and to resign from his post at the school and remove himself from harm’s way at the earliest opportunity.
Druitt promised he would do so and arranged an appointment with the school’s headmaster for Friday 30 November. What occurred at that meeting his sister does not know — but such was her brother’s emotional state at the time, she fears he may have ‘told his whole story’. When his body was found he had a cheque in his wallet for £50. Miss Druitt believes the school may have paid him off to ensure his silence.
Th
e school did not want a scandal. And Druitt’s family did not want a scandal either. What Miss Druitt told me she had also told her other brother – William Druitt, a solicitor — but he would not believe it (‘Monty was a sportsman and gentleman’, etc.,) and told her to say nothing ‘for the honour of the family’. He preferred the false truth that Montague Druitt was Jack the Ripper to the worse truth that he was a lover of young men!
Miss Druitt keeps a diary and it accompanies her everywhere — she said, rather amusingly, ‘one must always have something sensational to read in the train’ — and showed me her diary entries for the dates in August and September when the first four of the Whitechapel killings occurred. Montague Druitt was playing cricket in Wimborne on each of the dates in question and stayed with his sister in Wimborne overnight. On the night of the Miller’s Court murder, 8/9 November, Druitt was again with his sister in Bournemouth and that evening two of her friends joined them for a game of Russian Whist. She volunteered the names and addresses of these ladies — ‘both highly respectable’ — should they be required.
So, Arthur, the upshot is: we can forget Montague John Druitt altogether.
Ditto John Pizer, better known as ‘Leather Apron’.
Having concluded my interview with Miss Druitt and taken her by hansom to Waterloo to catch her train home, I instructed the cab to take me on to Whitechapel where (so I was advised by Sims) I would find Pizer at the Soup Kitchen for the Jewish Poor. This is where he holds court as the man who was once ‘thought to be Jack the Ripper but turned out not to be’! I found him without difficulty: he is well known among the regulars. He was tucking in to a supper of bread and kosher sardines, but did not appear to resent my intrusion and he assured me he would tell me ‘anything I wanted to know’ in return for a shilling. I gave him half-a-crown and he proceeded to give me his ‘turn’. It was Henry Irving as Shylock done for the halls. He is an ugly-looking brute: small, thickset, with greasy hair and a weasel’s eyes — not easy to understand (he has a thick guttural accent) and impossible to trust. He’s what your man Dr Watson would call ‘a slippery customer’. Indeed, Pizer was a slipper-maker by trade and, when he worked, carried a knife and wore a leather apron as he went about his business — hence his sobriquet. He had had, he acknowledged, a reputation for taunting the Whitechapel prostitutes — they claimed he was an extortionist and threatened violence against them for money: he denies it — and, when the murders started, word spread like wildfire that it was Leather Apron ‘what done it’. In fact, he had sound alibis for each and every murder and, though questioned by the police, was never at risk of being charged. But for a brief moment he was the most notorious villain in the land— the Star claimed that ‘Leather Apron’ had been named as the murderer by at least fifty of the women who worked on the streets of Whitechapel. The sobriquet made him famous — until another, stronger, more sensational sobriquet came along. Pizer concluded his tale, almost wistfully: ‘When the letters from “Jack the Ripper” appeared in the papers they lost interest in “Leather Apron”.’
Oscar Wilde and the Return of Jack the Ripper Page 24