Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death (9 page)

‘I was
troubled by something George Daubeney said,’ he answered. ‘That’s all. This
morning, at Tite Street, your
camarade de librairie—the
Honourable the
Reverend—when, for the first time, he described to us seeing the body of
Elizabeth Scott-Rivers through the window of 27 Cheyne Walk, told us that her
face had been “all burnt away” …’

‘I
recall,’ I said.

‘But,
later,’ Oscar went on, ‘when we were at Cheyne Walk and Inspector Gilmour
described the position of Miss Scott-Rivers’s body and told us that the poor
woman’s eyes were most definitely closed, Daubeney then said that was his
recollection also.’

‘I
don’t think the discrepancy is significant,’ said Conan Doyle. ‘The man was
confused. He’d been through a traumatic experience.’

‘Indeed,’
said Oscar. ‘In any event, Archy Gilmour seems certain that foul play is not
involved—and Gilmour’s a good man. Reliable.’

‘Did
Gilmour say that a dozen women a year lose their lives in such-like fires?’

‘He
did,’ said Oscar, producing one of his favourite handkerchiefs from his pocket
(a white handkerchief with a strawberry-coloured border) and giving his nose a
stentorian blow. ‘He did indeed, but I think the figure may be even higher. Two
of my sisters died in such a fire, you know.’

Conan
Doyle sat up and, with a furrowed brow, looked towards Oscar sympathetically.
‘I did not know,’ he said.

‘I did
not know you had two sisters, Oscar,’ I said. ‘I thought you had just the one.’

‘I had
three sisters,’ my friend replied, smiling gently and gazing out of the cab
window for a moment as if to bring the image of them to mind.

Oscar
Wilde was a fabulist—and an Irishman.

He
could tell a tale as only a Dubliner can. When it suited his mood, when he felt
inclined for a such a story, he would invent wholly imaginary friends and
relations for himself and describe them with such complete conviction and so
much circumstantial detail—that only the most diligent and determined
biographer would be able to sort out fact from fancy. I noticed that, often,
when indulging himself in this kind of invention, he produced a prop of some
kind to assist him in the story-telling. My suspicions were aroused by his strawberry-bordered
handkerchief. ‘Three sisters, Oscar? Is this true?’ I demanded.

‘Oh
yes,’ he said, turning to look at me, ‘Quite true. You have heard me speak
often of my little sister, Isola. She died when she was ten. I loved her
dearly. I keep a lock of her hair about me still. But I had two older sisters,
also—Emily and Mary Wilde. My papa was liberal in his favours. As a young man,
before he married my mother, he fathered three illegitimate children, a boy and
two girls. They were brought up as my uncle’s wards, but I knew them as
siblings not as cousins. And I loved them.’

‘And
the two girls were burnt to death?’ asked Conan Doyle, anxiously.

‘They
were,’ said Oscar. ‘I was seventeen at the time. They were twenty-two and
twenty-four and lovely as the day is long. One November night, they went
together to a ball in County Monaghan and Emily danced too near the fire. Her
dress caught light. Mary rushed to save her sister and the flames engulfed them
both. My father never recovered from the tragedy.’ Oscar smiled sadly and
looked me in the eye. ‘I trust you believe me, Robert.’

‘I do,’
I said.

‘They
were lovely and pleasant in their lives and in their death they were not
divided. And it’s because of them that I believe so passionately in the work of
the Rational Dress Society and encourage my darling Constance in her endeavours
in that regard.’

Our
four-wheeler was in Tite Street and drawing up outside Number 16. ‘And speaking
of angels,’ cried Oscar, blowing his nose once more, ‘look who’s here!’

On the
pavement outside the house stood Constance Wilde. She looked as pretty as a
picture, in a summer dress of cowslip yellow decorated and fringed with ribbons
of eggshell blue. On her head she wore a straw boater with, tucked into the
band, a sprig of fresh myrtle. In her way, Constance’s dress sense was as
arresting as Oscar’s—less flamboyant, certainly, but just as original. Her boys
were disappearing through the front door with their governess, Gertrude
Simmonds. As we clambered from our carriage, Oscar murmured, ‘Not a word of
this morning’s adventure, gentlemen—not a word.’

‘Welcome
home,’ said Constance gaily, looking up at her husband with loving eyes.
‘Robert, Arthur—you have timed this well. Luncheon is about to be served.’

Arthur
protested that, alas, he could not stay. ‘South Norwood—my desk—my wife—my
daughter—they all call!’ He declared that he must collect his case and be gone
immediately. He was sure that, in any event, he had outstayed his welcome
already.

Oscar
pressed the good doctor to remain, but Arthur was obdurate. Oscar turned to me.
‘You will not abandon us, Robert?’ he pleaded. I protested that I, too, had a
novel that called, but I did so with less conviction and Oscar was very
pressing. I felt that my friend wanted me to remain for lunch, not so much
because he was hungry for my company, but because he no longer wished to be
left alone with his wife.

Arthur departed for South
Norwood and I stayed for lunch. It was an excellent lunch—watercress soup, followed
by grilled turbot, with cold apple pie and hot custard for pudding and,
throughout it, Oscar was charmingly on song. He spoke of everything and
anything—except for the events of the night before and the drama of the morning.
As a special treat, young Cyril, a month away from his seventh birthday, was
allowed into the dining room to eat with us. Cyril was a delightful child, with
bright, inquisitive eyes and impeccable manners. He did not speak much, but he
listened intently and, when he did give utterance, his contributions to the
general conversation were memorable. At one point, he turned to Oscar and
enquired of his father, ‘Papa, do you ever dream?’

‘Why,
of course, my darling,’ Oscar replied. ‘It is the first duty of a gentleman to
dream.’

‘And
what do you dream of?’ asked Cyril.

‘What
do I dream of?’ answered Oscar. ‘Oh, I dream of dragons with gold and silver
scales, and scarlet flames coming out of their mouths, of eagles with eyes made
of diamonds that can see over the whole world at once, of lions with yellow
manes and voices like thunder, of elephants with little houses on their backs,
of tigers and zebras with barred and spotted coats …’ Eventually, Oscar’s
stream of imaginings ran dry and he turned to his son and asked: ‘But tell me,
what do you dream of, Cyril?’

‘I
dream of
pigs,’
said the boy.

Over
lunch that day we laughed a good deal. It was a fine feast and a happy one.
When we had eaten, Constance took Cyril off for his afternoon rest, and Oscar
and I took a leisurely stroll up Sloane Street, back to the Cadogan Hotel.

‘Why are
we returning so soon to the scene of the crime?’ I asked.

‘There
has been no “crime” as yet,’ said Oscar, emphatically, ‘merely an unfortunate
coincidence. We are returning to the Cadogan to meet up with Alphonse Byrd.
Next Sunday, at Tite Street, Constance and I are hosting another charity
fund-raiser and Byrd has kindly agreed to provide the entertainment—assisted, I
believe, by his friend McMuirtree.’

‘Ah,’ I
said, ‘that explains why I encountered them both at Tite Street the other
afternoon. Constance introduced me, but did not tell me exactly why they were
there.’

‘When
was this?’ asked Oscar, stopping mid-stride. ‘I don’t recall meeting McMuirtree
before last night.’

‘You
were not there, Oscar,’ I explained. ‘You were at the Savoy, I believe, taking
tea with Bosie and his brother. I sometimes think I spend more time at your
home, my friend, than you do.’

Oscar
rose above my chiding. ‘This coming Sunday,’ he said, resuming our walk, ‘tea
in Tite Street will outclass anything dear Cesari at the Savoy has to offer. We
shall be furnishing our guests with hock and seltzer, Robert, perfumed teas,
iced coffees, cucumber sandwiches, lemon tartlets, Madeira cake and, on the
side, a little magic. Mrs Ryan is looking after the comestibles and Mr Byrd is
taking care of the magic. You are invited,
mon ami,
but it’ll cost you a
pound at the door, I’m afraid.’

‘I
shall come,’ I said, wondering at once how I was going to raise the necessary
funds. ‘The cause is just. I had no idea there was so much danger associated with
women’s clothing.’

‘This
is not in aid of the Rational Dress Society, Robert. On Sunday we are
soliciting support for the Earl’s Court Boys’ Club. They want a boxing ring and
Bosie has asked me to pay for it! His father is the president of the Boys’ Club
and Bosie, when not wanting to murder the Marquess, is anxious to ingratiate
himself with him. I am doing what I can to help.’

As we
approached the Cadogan Hotel, we found a party of young ladies clustered on the
front step. ‘How wan they look!’ exclaimed Oscar in hushed tones. ‘I imagine
they are Americans starting out on the Grand Tour. American ladies on leaving
their native land adopt the appearance of chronic ill-health under the
impression that it is a form of European refinement.’

‘You
are very droll, Oscar,’ I whispered as we were about to plunge through the
assembly of pale young women.

‘And
adroit, I like to think,’ said Oscar, suddenly taking my right elbow and
steering me away from the hotel entrance. ‘Down here!’ he commanded. Adjacent
to the hotel’s front steps was a narrow gate set into iron railings. Beyond the
gate were steep stone steps leading down to the hotel’s kitchens. ‘Lay on,
Macduff!’ hissed Oscar. ‘This way we will avoid the Yankee maidens
and
the
yabbering parrot.’

For a
man who was undoubtedly overweight and professed an abhorrence of all forms of
exercise, Oscar Wilde was surprisingly nimble. I led the way down the steps and
he followed, not so much steadying himself with a hand on my shoulder as
propelling me on my way. Evidently, Byrd was expecting us and, through the
basement window, must have seen our feet descending. When we reached the
kitchen door, he was standing at it. He bobbed his head smartly towards Oscar,
as an equerry might to a prince, and said, ‘Welcome, Mr Wilde. We have
everything ready.’

‘Good
day, Byrd,’ said Oscar, responding to Byrd’s bow with a curious twitch of his
nostrils. ‘Do I smell smoke?’ he muttered.

‘This
way, gentlemen,’ said Byrd.

I
sniffed the air. I detected a trace of something, but I said nothing.

Byrd
led us through the hotel’s vast, dark and deserted kitchen, along a wide,
high-ceilinged corridor to a cavernous pantry beyond. It was a room without
windows, dimly lit by oil lamps. There, seated at the end of a long, narrow,
deal table that ran the length of the room, was David McMuirtree, the boxer,
Byrd’s friend and guest from the night before. On the table before him was a
coil of rope, a candle in a holder and an assortment of jam jars half filled
with variously coloured liquids. In his hand McMuirtree was holding a fiercely
burning taper: its blue-green flame shot several inches into the air. As we
entered the room, abruptly McMuirtree dropped the taper into one of the jam
jars. The flame hissed and sizzled as it died.

‘Ah,’
said Oscar, glancing at Byrd, ‘the source of the smoke …’

David
McMuirtree stood to greet us. The man’s appearance quite took us off our guard.
He was completely naked from the waist up and his broad, hairless chest and
long, muscular arms glistened with oil. He smiled at us, and bobbed his head
just as Byrd had done, and said, ‘Good afternoon, gentlemen,’ in his strange,
rasping, hoarse whisper.

‘Good
afternoon,’ said Oscar, smiling also. ‘Byrd told us you were half-a-gentleman.
Now I see it is the upper half.’

McMuirtree
laughed awkwardly and reached behind him for the towel that was hanging over
the back of his chair. ‘I don’t follow you,’ he said, starting to rub himself
clean.

‘You
have the torso of a gentleman,’ said Oscar.

‘I’ll
take it as a compliment. What does that mean?’ asked McMuirtree.

‘No
tattoos,’ said Oscar. ‘You earn your living as a fairground fighter. I would
have expected your body to bear witness to your calling, but I see no scars, no
blemishes, and no tattoos.’

‘You
are very observant,’ whispered McMuirtree, pulling on a plain white cotton
shirt and tucking its tails into his black corduroy trousers. ‘I have some
scars, but the light is dark in here. I have no tattoos because my body is my
stock-in-trade. I live by it— and I do what I can to show it off to best
advantage. Hence my shaven head and chest and arms.’

‘And
hence the oil?’ asked Oscar.

‘No,’ said
McMuirtree. ‘The oil is for a different purpose.’

Oscar
looked steadily at McMuirtree, but said nothing.

‘We’ve
been playing with fire, Mr Wilde,’ continued the boxer, ‘and all in your honour.’

‘My
honour?’ said Oscar, raising a quizzical eyebrow.

‘We’ve
been trying out material for your Sunday afternoon benefit, Mr Wilde. The oil
is a veneer that protects my skin while I pass a burning flame across it. I may
be eating fire in Tite Street on Sunday. We’ve come up with a varied programme
that I trust will meet with your approval. If it does, we shall run through it
with Mrs Wilde when we see her tomorrow. It’s some years since Alphonse and I
have tried our hand at a number of these tricks, but it’s amusing to rediscover
old friends. Sawing one’s assistant in half is amusing. Playing with fire is
amusing. You like to be amused, do you not, Mr Wilde?’