Oscar Wilde and the Murders at Reading Gaol: A Mystery (22 page)

He made no reply, but came into the cell and placed his medical bag on my table. He stepped back and stood, with his arms akimbo, looking at me. I looked at him. He was tall and angular, with long legs and arms, and he struck me as more handsome than I had remembered and less diffident. Beneath his fine moustaches, his skin was tanned – he had caught the sun – and his walnut-coloured eyes alive and knowing.

‘You are no longer wearing spectacles, Doctor,’ I remarked.

‘Well observed,’ he said. ‘I am exercising my eyes to make them stronger. Spectacles, I have decided, are a mistake. They make our eyes lazy – and laziness will not do.’

‘And yet I see that you have been sitting in the sun, Doctor, taking your ease.’

He smiled and unlocked his bag. ‘I have been out and about, certainly. I don’t know about sitting in the sun, taking my ease.’

‘I do,’ I said. I was in a teasing mood. ‘The right-hand side of your face is darker than the left, which suggests to me that, on a regular basis, you have been sitting in the same place in the same corner of your garden at the same time of day, catching the sun on the same part of your face – no doubt while reading a good book in your favourite striped canvas deckchair.’

The doctor let his stethoscope fall back into his bag. ‘How on earth do you know that the deckchair is striped?’

‘They mostly are.’

He laughed. His eyes shone even in the gloom of my cell. ‘I salute your genius.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, affecting a modest bow. ‘But I think “genius” may be taking it too far.’

‘No, no,’ he insisted, smiling. ‘“Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognises genius.” The book I am reading is one of yours. Please take a seat and let me examine your ears. Move here nearer to the light.’

I moved my chair and held my head to one side. ‘The book of mine?’ I enquired. ‘Another gift from Conan Doyle?’

The doctor placed his otoscope inside my right ear. I flinched at the coldness of the steel.

‘Indeed,’ he said, peering into his instrument. ‘Conan Doyle is a considerable admirer of your work.’

‘And I of his.’

The doctor transferred his attention to my left ear. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘You told me.’ I flinched once more as the otoscope probed farther. ‘I assume it was you who introduced Atitis-Snake to the plot of “The Final Problem”?’

‘Atitis-Snake?’ I said. ‘I do not follow you.’

The doctor completed his examination and stepped back to look me in the eye. ‘Atitis-Snake claims that it was Conan Doyle’s account of the struggle between Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls that inspired him to fling Warder Braddle to his death over the balustrade outside your cell. You did not know that?’

‘I did not,’ I exclaimed, dumbfounded. ‘It’s absurd. It’s lunatic.’

The doctor chuckled. ‘I imagine that’s exactly what Atitis-Snake hopes the jury will think.’

I shook my head in disbelief. ‘At his last trial, as I recall, Atitis-Snake claimed that he was Napoleon avenging himself on an unfaithful wife. This time he is claiming to be Sherlock Holmes casting Moriarty to his doom – is that it? The notion is preposterous. Will he be wearing a deerstalker and smoking a meerschaum pipe in the dock?’

‘Atitis-Snake is not so deluded as to present himself as Sherlock Holmes. He claims to be Professor Moriarty – “the Napoleon of crime”.’

I laughed. ‘So there is a method to his madness . . .’

Dr Maurice fetched an ophthalmoscope from his bag and, with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, held my right eyelid open. ‘Atitis-Snake is no more mad than you are, but perhaps better at playing the game. Your letter to the Home Secretary was a model of sanity. You will have to reconcile yourself to completing your sentence here.’ He peered into my other eye. ‘It is not so long now. Ten months and then you will be a free man.’

He returned his instruments to his bag and stood back once more, looking down at me indulgently. ‘There is no obvious damage to your eyes. There’s the deterioration that age brings, but no signs of incipient disease.’

‘The poet Milton went blind in prison,’ I said.

Maurice smiled. ‘That might have been the line to take with the visiting committee. “Milton, thou shouldst be living at this hour!”, “I am – locked in cell C.3.3. Release me!” It’s too late now. You missed your opportunity. You are not going blind and you’re no more John Milton than Atitis-Snake is Professor Moriarty.’ He snapped closed his bag. ‘But your right ear is more of a problem. There’s blood and pus: inflammation of the middle ear –
Otitis media
.’

‘
Otitis media
!’ I exclaimed. ‘That is a name to rival Atitis-Snake! I collect extraordinary names, doctor. Yours is curiously disappointing. At Trinity College, Dublin, I knew a surgeon who gloried in the name of Bent Ball.’

‘Professor Bent Ball?’ said Dr Maurice. ‘He is famous. I have his magnum opus –
Rectum and Anus: Their Diseases and Treatment
.’

‘A gift from Conan Doyle?’ I asked.

‘No. Believe it or not, a birthday present from my mother. I was consulting it only the other day.’

We both laughed.

The prison surgeon put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Beyond your ear, which should mend with time, there is nothing wrong with you. Look at you. You are laughing.’

‘I am laughing because here and now I am happy – in the civilised company of a civilised man. I feel alive.’

The doctor clenched his bony fist and gently punched my shoulder blade. ‘That’s more like it,’ he said.

‘One can live for years sometimes without living at all, and then all life comes crowding into one single hour.’

Dr Maurice stepped back and took his bag from the table. ‘Command the moment to remain. Sustain the hour.’

‘I cannot, Doctor,’ I said. ‘I do not know how. At this moment, in your company, I can be happy, but tonight, when the moon shines and I cannot see her, and the clock strikes midnight beyond the prison walls, I shall lie on this wretched plank, incapable of sleep, picturing my wife and children, thinking of those I have betrayed and those who have betrayed me, and I will not be happy. I will be a soul in torment.’ I laughed. ‘My moods are somewhat volatile, Doctor.’

‘I understand.’

I looked into the prison surgeon’s charm-filled, walnut-coloured eyes. ‘You are a married man, aren’t you, Doctor?’ I asked.

‘I am,’ he said, tilting his head to one side and tugging at his beard a little nervously.

‘And when you married your wife, did you promise to love and to cherish her always – for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health . . .?’

‘. . . From this day forward, till death us do part . . . Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I did.’

‘And will you keep your promise, Doctor?’

‘I hope so.’

‘I hope so, too,’ I said. ‘A man should keep his promises. I see that now.’

Dr Maurice took out his pocket watch. ‘I must be on my way. Duty calls. C.3.1. has been moved to the infirmary. He is not long for this world, alas.’ The surgeon stepped towards my cell door.

‘I am sorry to hear it,’ I said. ‘Death is all around us.’

‘’Twas ever thus,’ replied the doctor cheerily. ‘I will look in on you again soon . . . If your ear does not clear itself, I will need to drain it.’

‘Thank you, Doctor,’ I said, standing to bid my visitor goodbye. ‘Why did you not come to see me before?’ I asked.

He hesitated. ‘It was the governor’s orders,’ he said simply. ‘The governor – doubtless with the interests of the prison at heart – had convinced himself that Warder Braddle’s death was an accident. That’s what he wanted it to be. My suggestion of somehow involving you in an “investigation” of the matter he considered wholly ill advised. He was not happy that he allowed that initial conference we attended in his office. He was angry with me for proposing it.’

‘So why are you here now? Why are you able to visit me again?’

‘Because Colonel Isaacson has gone.’

I was bemused.

‘Had you not heard?’ asked the surgeon, looking at me in surprise. ‘He has left us – this week. He has been sent to Lewes by way of “promotion”. In the wake of Warder Braddle’s death and in anticipation of what the trial of Atitis-Snake may show the world about life at Reading Gaol, the Prison Commissioners thought it time for a change. Colonel Isaacson is no more.’

‘And the new man?’ I asked.

‘I’ve not met him yet,’ said Dr Maurice. ‘His name is Major Nelson.’

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘A lower rank, but a better name. It has a ring to it.’

The prison surgeon smiled. ‘Good day, C.3.3.’ He pulled open the heavy cell door.

‘And did you take a second look at Braddle’s body?’ I asked as he began to depart.

He stood still for a moment and turned back to look at me. ‘I did,’ he said.

‘And what did you find?’ I asked. ‘Anything you had not noticed before? The little things are infinitely the most important.’

‘Yes, I found something I had not noticed before,’ replied the doctor, smiling. ‘What were you expecting me to find?’

‘Small blisters . . .’

‘That is what I found.’

‘. . . Around the nose and mouth?’

‘That is exactly what I found.’

17
The Nelson touch

M
ajor J. O. Nelson was a good man. I sensed that the moment that I first saw him, at a distance, standing at the front of the prison chapel reading the lesson at our morning worship. He had a voice that was easy on the ear, clear but not declamatory. He read the lesson as if it meant something, as if he wanted us to hear it and understand it. And when he looked up and out over his congregation of convicts, his eyes suggested neither contempt nor insecurity, neither rat nor weasel. He seemed to see us as individual men and women – which, of course, he could not. Our faces were hidden beneath masks and behind veils. His face was open, wide and weather beaten, lined by life’s adventures, I surmised, rather than her sorrows. He had thick black hair, which he wore
en brosse
, heavy, arched eyebrows and a walrus moustache. His moustache reminded me of my friend Arthur Conan Doyle. Indeed, much about Major Nelson reminded me of Conan Doyle.

I knew for sure that he was a good man the moment that he first spoke to me. A week or so after his arrival at Reading, towards the end of July 1896, I was summoned to his presence.

‘The governor wants to see you,’ said Warder Stokes.

‘What’s he like?’ I asked, as we marched across the inner yard towards the governor’s office.

‘Silence,’ ordered Stokes. ‘You know the rule.’

‘What’s he like?’ I asked again, lowering my voice.

‘I don’t rightly know,’ said Stokes. ‘He seems decent enough.’

When we reached the governor’s office, I stood to attention as the warder announced me: ‘Prisoner C.3.3., sir.’

Major Nelson looked up from his desk. He was holding a slim, blue-bound volume in his right hand. He held it out towards me and said, ‘The Prison Commission is allowing you some books, C.3.3. Perhaps you would like to read this one. I have just been reading it myself.’

These were the very first words that Major Nelson spoke to me. What a beginning! I stood silent, bereft of speech, tears pricking at my eyes.

‘You must let me have a list of other books that you might like,’ he continued easily. ‘We’ll see what can be done.’ He pushed back his chair and got to his feet. He was not a tall man, but sturdy and brisk in his movements. He came around his desk and stood before me. ‘The Home Secretary is not inclined to grant you an early release, C.3.3.’ He paused and looked directly into my eyes. ‘That does not surprise you, does it?’ I said nothing. ‘You will be with us for another ten months,’ he continued. ‘Let us make the best of it.’ He walked on past me to address Warder Stokes. ‘Does the prisoner have any writing materials in his cell, warder?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Is the cell adequately lit?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Major Nelson turned back towards me. ‘Are you inclined to write, C.3.3.?’

‘Write, sir?’ I stumbled with the words as I spoke them.

‘
Write
,’ he said ‘other than to the Home Secretary and to your wife’s solicitors. Write something original, something creative?’