Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death (15 page)

‘He
does not like me.’

‘That’s
evident—but why?’

‘Envy,’
I chipped in, sitting forward and recovering my breath. ‘Brookfield envies
Oscar.’

Sickert
laughed. ‘We all envy Oscar! I’ve envied Oscar since I was a little boy. Just
because I envy him I don’t go about making snide remarks at his expense, do I?
I don’t put on a play whose sole purpose is to lampoon and belittle him. I
don’t issue preposterous challenges to him for no apparent reason. There’s more
to it than common-or-garden envy, that’s for sure.’

‘Once
upon a time,’ said Oscar, unclasping his cape and letting it fall from his
shoulders, ‘I gave Charles Brookfield cause for offence.’

‘Ah!’ grunted
Sickert, stuffing his handkerchief into his trouser pocket, ‘I thought so. What
did you do?’

‘It was
in New York, some years ago. I was on my lecture tour. He was appearing in a
play. We met at a tea party. He was wearing gloves. It was an
indoor
tea
party. A gentleman never wears gloves at tea. I told him so—publicly. He has
not forgiven me.’

Oscar
was reaching inside his jacket pocket for his cigarette case. We looked at him
expectantly. He found a cigarette—one of his Turkish ones—and put it to his
lips. He said nothing.

‘Is
that it?’ asked Sickert.

‘It is
enough, I think,’ he replied, lighting a match. ‘I wounded Brookfield’s pride.
I humiliated him—in America, in front of strangers. I spoke without thinking.
It was wrong of me and I regret it.’ He turned away from us and looked out of
the carriage window as the railway cottages of south London flashed past.
‘Watch your thoughts, they become words,’ he said. ‘Watch your words, they
become actions. Watch your actions, they become habits. Watch your habits, they
become character. Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.’

‘Do you
think you’ll discover who killed the parrot?’ I asked.

Oscar
turned round and grinned. ‘It’ll cost me thirteen guineas if I don’t! Hand
round the newspapers, Robert. We’ve work to do.’

I had
perhaps a dozen newspapers in my bundle. I divided them up and handed them
round. ‘What are we looking for?’ I asked.

‘Anything
that’s relevant,’ said Oscar. ‘Further and better particulars of the fire in
Cheyne Walk; statements from Inspector Gilmour of the Yard; obituaries of Lord
Abergordon; reports of South American vampire bats having escaped from Regent’s
Park zoo …’

‘You
were not serious about the vampire bats, were you?’ asked Sickert, spreading
out the
Evening Chronicle
on his knees.

Oscar
did not answer the question. His nose was buried deep in the pages of the
Daily
Graphic.
‘Look, gentlemen,’ he announced, with satisfaction. ‘We already
have something … a photograph of the late Lord Abergordon, Under-Secretary of
State for War, on his way to the Epsom Down races with his longstanding friend,
the Marquess of Queensberry …’

‘Is
this significant?’ asked Sickert.

‘Possibly
… According to the
Graphic’s
graphic correspondent the two noble lords
shared “a passionate interest” in all things sporting— ”racing, hunting,
shooting, boxing, mountaineering …” And how about this?’ Oscar rustled the
newspaper with delight. ‘It appears that their lordships first met as young men
back in 1865, “at the time of the tragic death of Lord Queensberry’s younger
brother, Francis … Lord Abergordon was a member of the same fateful Alpine
expedition as Lord Francis Douglas, but happily survived the mountain-side
catastrophe …”‘

‘Is
this significant?’ repeated Sickert, putting aside the
Evening Chronicle.

‘Probably
not,’ said Oscar, lowering the newspaper and smiling at Wat Sickert, ‘but it’s
intriguing, you’ll allow … In
1865,
Lord Francis Douglas dies in a
mountaineering accident and Lord Abergordon happens to be there. In 1892, the
next Francis Douglas Lord Drumlanrig, Abergordon’s godson—says he’d like to see
Abergordon dead and within forty-eight hours he is …’

‘Drumlanrig
named Abergordon as his “murder victim”, did he?’ asked Sickert. ‘I didn’t
know.’

‘Yes,’
said Oscar, ‘according to Bosie. We’ve yet to talk to Francis himself.’

‘But it
doesn’t mean to say he did it—it doesn’t make him a murderer.’

‘Of
course not.’

‘You’ll
recall,’ said Sickert, brushing dust from his trousers with the back of his
hand, ‘that a year or two ago I was chased through the backstreets of King’s
Cross by a posse of prostitutes all crying “Jack the Ripper!” after me.’

‘I
recall,’ said Oscar. ‘You told me.’

‘And
I’m not Jack the Ripper,’ protested Sickert.

‘I
know,’ said Oscar.

‘All
I’m saying,’ said Sickert, ‘is that one shouldn’t jump to conclusions on the
flimsiest of circumstantial evidence.’

‘I
agree completely,’ cried Oscar. ‘I don’t; I haven’t; I wouldn’t; I won’t—I
assure you.’ He waved the newspaper in the air. ‘I’m just intrigued by the
coincidence, that’s all …’

Sickert
sniffed and twitched his moustaches and looked out of the window. We were
passing through Paddock Wood. The platform was deserted.

‘You
never told me, Wat,’ Oscar continued, smiling wickedly,
‘why
it was that
you were wandering the back-streets of King’s Cross in the middle of the night?
Was the danger half the excitement?’

Wat
turned back from the window to look Oscar in the eye. ‘It was not the middle of
the night: it was midnight. I am an English painter: I was looking for English
subjects to paint. I had been sketching at a music hall in Somers Town. I got
lost on my way home …’

‘Were
you dressed as you are dressed now?’

‘Possibly,’
said Sickert. ‘This is a favourite coat of mine. It was winter. I wore a cape
as well.’

‘And
the hat? And those moustaches?’ Oscar chuckled. ‘No wonder the King’s Cross
chapter of the daughters of joy found your appearance alarming! I’m surprised
they didn’t mistake you for one of Bram’s vampires.’ I laughed. Sickert managed
a flicker of a smile. Oscar leant forward and put his hand on his friend’s
knee. ‘Nobody believes that you are Jack the Ripper, Wat. And I don’t believe
that Bosie’s brother murdered Lord Abergordon. What’s more, Scotland Yard
assure us that Miss Scott-Rivers’s death was accidental, Mr Sherlock Holmes
appears to be safe in the hands of Conan Doyle, and I’ve no doubt that when we
reach Eastbourne we will find Bradford Pearse equally safe and sound—in good
health, in good heart and ready to tell us his secret.’

‘His
secret?’ queried Sickert, recovering his composure. ‘He didn’t say anything
about a secret.’

‘We all
have our secrets, Wat,’ said Oscar, smiling. ‘I have mine. You have yours.
Bradford Pearse has his. He confessed as much in his letter.’

‘Did
he?’ said Sickert, clearly perplexed. ‘He told me he was frightened. He made no
mention of any secret.’

‘Are
you sure?’ asked Oscar. He reached into his inside pocket and produced Pearse’s
letter. He opened it and passed it across to Wat. ‘Read the final paragraph
again.’

Sickert
turned to the end of the letter and looked closely at Pearse’s scrawl. He read
the conclusion slowly and out loud: ‘“Come and see me if you can spare the
time. I’m frightened to be honest with you.”‘ He looked at Oscar. ‘It seems
pretty clear to me. The man is frightened. He says so.’

Oscar
retrieved the letter and examined it once more. ‘I wonder …’ he said, reflectively,
‘… Pearse’s lack of precision when it comes to punctuation leaves scope for
ambiguity, I fear. I may be mistaken, but I took it that your friend’s final
sentence was an admission that he is fearful of telling you the truth. He is
saying, “Wat, I’m frightened
to be honest with you”
is he not?’

We reached Eastbourne
Station at a little after half past six. The train ran late. There was a points
failure at Polegate. The recently built Devonshire Park Theatre—the jewel in
Eastbourne’s already well-studded theatrical crown—was situated to the southwest
of the town, a tidy walk from the town centre but only a stone’s throw from the
sea. We arrived at the stage door, at the rear of the theatre, at a minute
after seven. We stood in the street, in fading light, addressing the stage doorkeeper
through a small square grille cut into the stage door at about head height.
From what little we could see and hear of him, he was a lugubrious old codger,
who hailed from Lancashire and gave the impression of having spent a lifetime
working in the theatre, loathing every minute of it. ‘No visitors before the
show,’ he grunted, without so much as glancing in our direction. He was
implacable, moved by neither Wat’s pleading nor, more remarkably, by the rattle
of Oscar’s shiny shillings. ‘No visitors,’ he repeated.

‘Is Mr
Pearse definitely in the theatre?’ Oscar asked, his face pressed against the
grille. The doorman did not answer. We could hear him slurping a beverage of
some kind. He belched slowly as Oscar repeated the question. ‘Is Mr Pearse
definitely in the theatre? We need to know.’

‘He’d
better be,’ grunted the doorman, ‘or who else are they going to murder in the
fourth act?’

As we
abandoned the stage door and made our way around the building towards the box
office at front of the theatre, Oscar shook his head and sighed. ‘As you will
be aware, gentlemen, I have made it my life’s work to
entertain
the
working classes,
enrage
the middle classes and
fascinate
the
aristocracy—but I do believe I’ve just met my match. Accrington ‘Arry here is
in a class of his own, beyond my reach.’

We
secured three seats for the evening’s entertainment without difficulty.
Murder
Most Foul,
‘a modern melodrama in the old tradition’, had failed to draw
the town. Oscar had hoped to be seated in the mid-stalls for the performance,
but Mr Standen Triggs, the theatre manager, who chanced to be on duty, proved
himself to be one of nature’s aristocrats by recognising Oscar the instant we
entered the foyer and being evidently, obsessively, utterly
fascinated
by
him. Mr Triggs was quite overwhelmed by the honour of having so great a man of
letters as Mr Wilde in his theatre and insisted, consequently, that our party
be seated in the royal box, as his personal guests, with his humble self in
awed attendance all evening. From the moment we arrived at the Devonshire Park
to the moment we departed three hours later, I don’t believe Triggs took his
eyes off Oscar once. He gazed upon him, fixated, as though Oscar were the Queen
of Sheba.

Triggs,
as bonhomous and voluble as his stage doorkeeper was dour and taciturn, held a
certain fascination himself. He was a small man in his mid-fifties, dapper in
his dress, dainty in his movements. His diminutive head was quite
extraordinary: it was round like a radish and separated from his shoulders by a
long, thin, stalk-like neck. As he spoke, it bobbed from side to side like a
child’s toy. He was virtually bald; his cheeks were pink and smooth, almost
velvety; his nose was small but sharply pointed, with a red tip that looked as
if it had been applied by means of theatrical make-up; his watery red-rimmed
eyes were perfectly round and disconcertingly protuberant. While he spoke
repeatedly of the ‘great unbridled joy’ he felt at our presence, he seemed all
evening to be on the brink of emotional collapse. His hands shook; sweat
trickled down his face and neck in a constant stream; time and again his
bulging eyes filled to overflowing with heavy tears.

Before
the performance and during each of three long intervals he entertained us in
his office and talked incessantly. His exuberance and enthusiasm were both
comical and touching. He served us a warm and peculiarly unpleasant Alsatian
wine. ‘Excellent, is it not?’ he asked, crying and laughing as he spoke. He
sang the praises of everybody and everything. His theatre, only eight years
old, was ‘probably, possibly—no,
certainly’
the finest Italianate
theatre outside of Italy. His employers-the Devonshire Park and Baths
Company—were, ‘without question’, the fairest, the most decent you could hope
to work for, and, while he had not yet met the new Duke, nor indeed the new
Duke’s new Duchess, he had heard only good things of them— ‘only very good
things,
very
good things indeed’. And as for our friend Bradford Pearse …
‘Ever an Eastbourne favourite … Is there a better provincial player of his
generation and particular build? I think not. Is there a more popular man of
the theatre— present company excepted? I
know
not.’

‘Pearse
is well-liked by his colleagues?’ asked Oscar, whose own eyes now seemed to be
watering (possibly on account of the wine).

‘He
hasn’t an enemy in the world,’ declared Mr Triggs. ‘Indeed,’ he added, leaning
towards Oscar confidentially, ‘so liked and respected—and
trusted—is
your
Mr Pearse that we allow him a privilege allowed to no other player on the
touring circuit …’

Oscar
raised his eyebrows enquiringly.

‘We
permit him to stay on the premises overnight. It’s against all the rules.’

‘He
sleeps here?’ asks Sickert.