2007 - Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders (13 page)

At once, the good doctor sprang to his feet and shook Oscar heartily by the hand. “I accept your assurance—unreservedly.”

Oscar, rescuing his hand from Doyle’s crippling grasp, turned back to Fraser who remained seated and impassive. “And you, Inspector?”

“I do not know what to say.”

“Come, Aidan,” exclaimed Conan Doyle, “Wilde is a gentleman—he would not deceive us. Take him at his word.” Fraser folded his arms across his chest and looked towards the empty fireplace. The doctor placed his hand on the detective’s shoulder. “We have done as you felt we should, Aidan,” he said. “We have raised the issue; we have cleared the air.”

Fraser did not appear convinced. Suddenly, Oscar laughed, leant towards him and said, “Inspector—Aidan—I shall call you Aidan, for we must be friends—I have only just realised why you are in this unpleasant mood. The pickle you had with your cheese at lunch has disagreed with you!”

Startled, the detective sat back and stared at Oscar. Oscar pressed home his advantage. “You have been irritable and harassed all day, have you not? I believe I know the reason. It has nothing to do with us—and everything to do with a lady. You are expecting a lady to call, are you not? Her visit is causing you some apprehension. She is a strong-willed woman—a lady, I would hazard, who is sufficiently close to you to feel able to reprimand you for your slovenly bachelor habits.”

Fraser gazed at Oscar, with deep suspicion in his eyes. “How on earth do you know this?”

Oscar shrugged his shoulders lightly. “Why else, just before Arthur arrived, would you have removed the vase of fading lilies from this side table and hurriedly begun to dust the mantelpiece?”

“Have you been spying on me?” snapped Fraser. “Explain yourself, please.”

Conan Doyle rubbed his hands together with glee. “No, no,” he chortled, quite his usual self once more, “Oscar has been playing at Sherlock Holmes again. How did you do it, Oscar? Tell us.”

“Look at the cuffs of your shirt, Aidan,” said Oscar with a teasing smile. Fraser raised his hands, warily, and examined his shirt-cuffs. “On the inside of the left cuff what do you see? A small greasy smear that is a combination of dark brown and pale orange in colour, suggesting a right-handed man who has prepared himself a Cheshire cheese and pickle sandwich in something of a hurry. Look at the inside of both cuffs and what do you see? A dusting of rust-coloured speckles. What is it? Rust? No, the dusting is too delicate. Pepper perhaps? Or saffron? Or, look, what have we here on this side table?—a sprinkling of pollen from the stamens of overblown lilies…Aidan is leading a bachelor existence, alone, unattended. It is several days since he has been into his drawing room. Today, however, he has visitors and must prepare the room for them. Naturally, were his visitors merely men, he would not rush to clear away a vase of dead flowers. He is a man himself; he knows other men never notice these things. No, Aidan is expecting a lady to visit him—possibly the lady who brought him the flowers and arranged them for him on her last visit.”

Conan Doyle turned eagerly to Fraser and enquired, “Is he correct?”

Fraser dropped his hands and smiled his perfect smile. “In every particular,” he said. “You are a remarkable man, Mr Wilde.”

“‘Oscar’, Aidan—we must be friends.”

“Oscar,” said the police inspector, getting to his feet and offering Oscar his open hand, “I accept all that you say—of course I do. I warn you, nonetheless, that you are fishing in dangerous waters. I advise you, nonetheless, to pursue the matter no further. And I tell you again what I have told you already: I can do nothing whatever to assist you without a body.”

Conan Doyle sucked on his empty pipe and said dryly, “With Oscar’s powers of observation and detection I have little doubt that, if he chooses, he can solve the mystery, with or without the assistance of Scotland Yard.”

“Possibly,” said Fraser, still with his hand in Oscar’s, still fixing him with his eye, “but at what cost?”

“And to whom?” asked Oscar, returning the inspector’s gaze.

Suddenly, sharply, the front doorbell rang and the tableau by the fireplace broke up.

“Ah,” said Oscar smoothly, “the lady in the case.”

Inspector Fraser moved quickly towards the door to the hallway.

Oscar went on, “I am sure she is a beauty. I believe she has red hair.”

Fraser stopped by the door and stared at Oscar with what seemed to me to be fearful eyes. But his laughter belied his look. “How on earth do you know that?”

From his left waistcoat pocket Oscar pulled out a long strand of fair red hair. He held it aloft between his thumb and forefinger, displaying it to the room as if he were a magician holding out a coloured silk handkerchief before transforming it into a silver-topped cane or a bunch of paper flowers.

“I found this on the coatstand when I was hanging up my hat. Given the length, I took it to be a lady’s. I imagine it came from the hat she wore on her last visit here.”

The doorbell rang once more. Fraser stepped quickly into the hallway and opened the front door wide. When his visitor had removed her hat and placed it next to Oscar’s on the coatstand, Fraser brought her immediately into the drawing room. The lady he admitted was indeed a considerable beauty, and her hair was Titian red. “Gentleman,” he said, “may I present my fiancée, Miss Veronica Sutherland?”

Veronica Sutherland

I
have to confess that Aidan Fraser’s fiancée stole my heart the moment I set eyes upon her. She had a presence that was compelling and a look that took my breath away. Her face was long and lean, yet full of life. Her green eyes were huge and accentuated by the strength of her eyebrows land her aquiline nose. It was a face you would not forget. It was a face that I felt I already knew—and, at the moment of our meeting, I told her so.

As Aidan Fraser presented her to me and I shook her hand for the first time, I found myself saying, quite absurdly, “I know we have not met before, Miss Sutherland, yet I feel that we have because your face puts me in mind of my favourite painting—”

“Oh!” cried Oscar in a mock-wail. “Robert is in love again!”

Veronica Sutherland squeezed my hand, laughed and said, “How thrilling! Which painting? Do tell me!”

“Well,” I stammered, “several as a matter of fact.”

“Robert!” called Oscar. “You go too far!”

“All by the same artist,” I said, stumbling on. “All by Millais—Sir John Millais. Do you know his work? You have the exact look of his favourite model—his sister-in-law, Sophie Gray.”

“Good God,” said Oscar, taking a step towards Miss Sutherland. “You are right, Robert. The resemblance is uncanny.”

“Really?” said Miss Sutherland. “I must see this Sophie Gray. Is she beautiful?”

“She is fascinating,” I said, not knowing quite what I was saying, “entrancing, extraordinary.”

“You shall see her,” said Oscar. “I shall arrange it. Sir John’s studio is not far from here. Robert will take you—won’t you, Robert?”

“Indeed.”

“With Aidan’s permission, of course.”

Miss Sutherland turned to her fiancé. “Who are these wonderful people, Aidan? Where did you find them? Why have you not introduced me to them before? All your usual friends are so dull—except for Dr Doyle, of course. I am always happy to see him.”

She had let go of my hand and was now giving her full attention to Conan Doyle. She had put her arm through his and, with her head to one side, with her enormous eyes she was gazing intently at his smiling face.

I looked around the room and saw that, thanks to her, each of us—including Fraser—was now smiling. Billy Wood, O’Donnell, Bellotti, Cowley Street, Cleveland Street: all had been forgotten. Veronica Sutherland had burst into Fraser’s drawing room like a gust of fresh air. There was an energy about her that was irresistible. We were invigorated by her presence—and held by it, too. She had a natural authority that belied her years and her gender. She was younger than each of us (she was just twenty-four), yet she was in command of us all.

Still linking arms with Conan Doyle, she glanced about her and said, “Aidan, fiancé, husband-to-be: no flowers? No refreshments? No tea for our guests? What have you been thinking of?”

She sighed a theatrical sigh, broke away from Conan Doyle, threw down the book that had been tucked under her arm and, shaking her head of glorious red hair, swept out of the room, crying, “Can men do
nothing
for themselves?”

Minutes later—while we were still standing in a circle by the fireplace, beaming blithely and singing her praises—she returned. She was carrying a large butler’s tray, with, on it, three champagne saucers, one wineglass, one sherry glass, and, in a silver ice bucket filled to the brim with fresh ice, a magnum of Perrier Jouet. “Aidan has a cellar in the basement and an ice house in his garden,” she said by way of explanation. “The cellar is almost empty and the ice house he never uses. It is probably the only ice house in Chelsea and I doubt that he’s been into it once. Has he shown you round the house and garden? He has ten rooms here; he uses three. The kitchen is a disgrace. Do not go. Even the mice find it inhospitable. He’s been in residence a year and still there is no furniture to speak of. Have you seen his bedroom? There’s an iron bedstead in one corner and a cheval looking-glass in the other—and that’s that. There isn’t a hook on the back of the door, let alone a wardrobe. He’s living out of a suitcase. What am I to do with him?”

Conan Doyle laughed. “Marry him!”

“If I must,” she replied, laughing, too. “Open the wine, Aidan. I want to toast your friends. I want to drink to Sophie Gray.” She looked at me and widened her eyes.

“I want Mr Wilde to recite one of his poems for us,” she said turning to Oscar, “or tell us one of his ghost stories,” adding, “you see, Mr Wilde, I do know who you are really…Aidan has told me all about this mysterious murder that you are intent on investigating. Dr Doyle believes you, even if Aidan still has his doubts.” Her candour was disarming. She turned to Conan Doyle and raised her glass to him. “I am so happy to see you, Dr Doyle. We can talk of my hero once more, can we not?”

“Are you, too, an admirer of Sherlock Holmes?” I asked.

“No,” she answered. “I do admire Dr Doyle’s writings, of course, but I did not mean Sherlock Holmes.”

“I believe Miss Sutherland is speaking of Dr Joseph Bell,” said Oscar.

“Indeed,” she said, acknowledging Oscar with a pretty tilt of her head. “How did you know?”

“I saw the book—his book—the one you were reading on the underground train on your way here,” said Oscar, indicating the red-bound volume that she had thrown down on the side table before fetching our champagne.

“How did you know she travelled here by train?” asked Fraser.

Conan Doyle picked up the book and brandished it before us. “Here is Miss Sutherland’s twopenny tube ticket used as a bookmark. Oscar misses nothing.”

“Who is Dr Bell?” I asked.

“A great man,” said Conan Doyle, examining the spine of the volume. “Not only the author of this definitive text—A
Manual of the Operations of Surgery
—but my mentor. He taught me at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh. As a surgeon, he was meticulous. As a lecturer, he had the quality of a mesmerist. As a master diagnostician, I do not know his equal. If anyone is the model for Sherlock Holmes, it is he. Dr Bell instilled in his students the critical importance of the powers of observation. He would have been proud of you, Oscar.”

Oscar smiled contentedly. Oscar was not averse to flattery.

Conan Doyle put down the book and continued: “Dr Bell made an extraordinary impression upon us at our very first lecture. Almost as he began, he produced a glass vial containing a noxious amber liquid and held it aloft before us.” Conan Doyle picked up his glass of champagne as if it had been Bell’s vial. “‘Gentlemen,’ he announced, in his rich Edinburgh burr, “this vial contains a most potent drug. It is
extremely
bitter to the taste—aye. But I want you to taste it! What, gentlemen? You shrink back?” Bell swirled the amber liquid with a finger, like so.” Conan Doyle, with his champagne, suited the action to the word. “‘Naturally,’ said Dr Bell, ‘I do not ask anything of my students that I would not undertake myself. I will taste the liquid before passing it around.’ The great man brought his hand to his mouth and sucked his finger. As he did so his features contorted as though he had sampled poison.”

As he told the tale, Conan Doyle re-enacted the drama before us.

“After a moment, Bell recovered himself and handed the vial to a student in the front row. ‘Now,’ he instructed, ‘you do likewise.’ Each of us in turn dipped a finger into the amber fluid and tasted it. It was indeed an awful brew, repellent to the taste. But when the vial had completed its rounds, Bell looked out over the rows of students spread before him and sighed. ‘Gentlemen,—’ he said, ‘I am deeply grieved to find that not one of you has developed his power of perception, the faculty for observation that I speak so much of, for if you had truly observed me, what would you have seen?’”

Oscar had the answer. “That while you placed your
index
finger into the amber liquid, it was your
middle
finger that found its way into your mouth!”

“Correct!” cried Conan Doyle, clinking the side of his glass against Oscar’s. “You do not miss a trick, my friend. You observe everything! I have decided that I am going to give Mr Sherlock Holmes an even more brilliant older brother and, with your permission, he shall be modelled on you! Holmes is based mostly on Dr Bell, but he has something of Fraser about him also. Holmes’s brother will be entirely you, Oscar—”

“But I am not like Holmes,” Oscar protested. “I am not a man of action. I am indolent.”

“Holmes’s brother shall be indolent then,” replied Conan Doyle. “Do not argue with me. I have decided. It is settled.”

As we all laughed and drank our champagne, I noticed that Miss Sutherland was cradling her copy of Dr Bell’s book to her chest. “Why are you reading Dr Bell?” I asked.

“Because it seems that I am never to sit at his feet,” she said.

Conan Doyle explained: “Miss Sutherland entertained hopes of becoming a doctor. She wished to study at Edinburgh University, but it was not to be.”