Oscar Wilde and the Nest of Vipers (48 page)

‘Tomfoolery,’ snapped the Prince of Wales, tearing off the band from a fresh cigar.

‘Quite possibly, Your Highness. Onofroff also saw you and your eldest son silhouetted within the dark penumbra.’

‘You told me.’

The prince turned to his son and took the young man’s hand in his.

‘My boy is not a murderer. He has his weaknesses – as I have mine. But he is not a murderer. I know it in my bones.’

‘But once you thought he was – or might be?’ asked Oscar.

‘Yes – because a foolish fortune-teller put the notion into my head years ago. It was twaddle, moonshine. Why would Albert Victor – my prince, my son, my heir, my soon-to-be Duke of Clarence – wish to harm little Lulu Lavallois? All she had ever done was help introduce him to the arts of love. Why would Eddy murder Lulu? Why would he want to harm Helen Albemarle?’

‘Because he’s mad,’ said Prince Albert Victor, letting go his father’s hand.

‘He’s not mad,’ said the Prince of Wales with feeling. ‘He is troubled, that is all.’

The prince looked at Oscar and jabbed his cigar towards him.

‘Why,’ he demanded, ‘should my son choose to murder Lulu Lavallois or Helen Albemarle? In heaven’s name,
why
?’

‘Because he loves you, sir. Because he wants to spare you the pain and disgrace of scandal. Your friends no doubt envy you your mistresses and admire the unbounded vigour of your manhood, but the Great British Public, as it is called, and the verminous British press, lickspittle to a man, take a less charitable and enlightened view of your domestic arrangements. And your son and those who truly hold you dear – your equerry, for example, and your page – know the danger that these wanton women pose to you and your position. These strumpets have distressed the Queen. They have rocked the Crown. Your son will rid you of them before they can ruin you.’

The Prince of Wales shook his head fiercely and sucked hard on his cigar, his small, imperious eyes fixed on Oscar.

‘You are insolent, sir, and wild in more than name. Why should my son – or any member of my household – risk the scandal associated with murder to spare me the scandal associated with adultery? The idea is absurd.’

He turned away from Oscar towards Tyrwhitt Wilson in the window bay.

‘Has the brougham arrived yet? Go into the street and find another.’

‘A moment more, Your Highness,’ said Oscar contritely. ‘I crave your indulgence.’

‘You’ve been indulged enough. We’re getting nowhere, Wilde. I wish to leave before the police arrive. They must be allowed to enquire into the death of this unfortunate lady’s maid without the distraction of my presence.’

Oscar looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘The police will not be here for ten minutes yet, sir. I know that. Please depart at eight o’clock as you had planned. Allow me ten minutes more of your time – I beseech you.’

The prince heaved a mighty sigh and shook his head. ‘Do these unfortunate women have nothing in common besides their association with me?’

‘They have hysteria in common, Your Highness,’ answered Oscar quietly. ‘They have Lord Yarborough and Professor Jean-Martin Charcot in common.’

‘Is that relevant?’

‘No,’ snapped Lord Yarborough, turning his gaze back from the paintings on the wall and confronting Oscar. ‘The Duchess of Albemarle was an hysteric. Her sister is one also. I am treating the sister in Muswell Hill. The duke is generously paying for that treatment. That is the end of the matter. There is no more to it than that.’

‘Why then,’ asked Oscar, ‘is the body lying in the coffin in the adjoining room not the body of the Duchess of Albemarle?’

‘But it is,’ protested Lord Yarborough.

‘For God’s sake, Wilde,’ cried the Prince of Wales. ‘Are you quite mad? We’ve all seen the body – just now.’

‘We’ve seen the head, sir. We have seen the precisely decapitated head of the late duchess placed in the coffin at the top of another woman’s body – a shorter woman, a woman without scars upon her chest. The head is the head of the late duchess. The body, I imagine, is that of a lately deceased patient from Lord Yarborough’s clinic at Muswell Hill. I am sure the patient died of natural causes.’

‘This is outrageous,’ cried Lord Yarborough.

‘Most certainly,’ replied Oscar, ‘but, it seems, not outwith the law. Lord Yarborough is a physician with a licence to dissect. He can cut up bodies in whatever way he pleases – so long as those bodies have come his way legitimately. The Duchess of Albemarle was content to leave her body to science. The remains of her body are now in Lord Yarborough’s laboratory in Muswell Hill, I assume, assisting him in his researches into the causes of female hysteria.’

The Prince of Wales turned to Lord Yarbrough. ‘Is this true?’ he asked.

Lord Yarborough hesitated.

‘Is what Mr Wilde is suggesting true?’ repeated the prince.

‘It is,’ said Lord Yarborough, eventually. ‘In every particular.’

‘But
why,
Yarborough?’

‘Helen had given permission. She knew that her heart was weak. She knew that for her an early death was not an impossibility. And she knew her sister was afflicted with the curse of hysteria, as she was herself. She wished to assist us in our researches in any way she could – for the sake of others like her sister, if not for her own sake. The thought that her body might help us towards a cure for the malady was of some comfort to her.’

‘That I understand,’ said the prince. ‘What I want to know is: why this grotesque charade of attaching one woman’s head to another woman’s body?’

Lord Yarborough gave a bitter laugh. ‘To allay suspicion. I had come to the conclusion that Mr Wilde and his companions had me in their sights as the murderer. Dr Doyle, in particular, convinced himself that I was inducing patients to commit suicide under hypnosis in order to have ready access to their cadavers. When he and Mr Wilde discovered that the Lavallois girl – of whom I had never heard until the night of her death – had once been a patient of Professor Charcot in Paris – albeit it several years ago – they leapt to their conclusion. They decided I was killing these girls to furnish myself with raw material for my research. I was not – and I sought to prove it to them. The open coffin that we filed past just now: that was my idea. The duchess’s body is no longer
in one piece; it has been destroyed by dissection, but her head remains intact. I thought that if Wilde and Doyle could see the poor woman’s apparent corpse laid out before them, they might think twice before turning me in to the police as a murderous body-snatcher.’

‘And was the duke party to this?’

‘He was,’ said Lord Yarborough. ‘He allowed me to take the duchess’s body away last Friday. He permitted this afternoon’s “grotesque charade”, as you rightly call it. He invited Mr Wilde and his companions to be in attendance today at my suggestion. His Grace is my friend – and my paymaster. He funds the clinic.’

‘And you believed, did you not, Lord Yarborough, that it was the Duke of Albemarle – your friend and paymaster – who had murdered his wife?’ said Oscar.

Lord Yarborough looked at Oscar, but made no reply.

‘Yet if he had done so,’ continued Oscar, ‘why would he also have murdered Lulu Lavallois? To create a diversion – to muddy the waters – to throw suspicion on to another? Perhaps.’

The Duke of Albemarle turned to the Prince of Wales. ‘I have known you, sir, all my life. We were boys together. One day I will be your subject. I will always be your friend. You must believe me when I tell you that I am guilty of much, Your Highness, but I am not guilty of murder.’

‘I believe you,’ said the Prince of Wales.

‘And I believe you, too,’ said Oscar, ‘not that, in
your estimation, Your Grace, my opinion need count for much.’

Oscar eyed the clock on the mantelpiece once more and turned his attention to Lord Yarborough.

‘And, my lord, you should know that, whatever Dr Conan Doyle may have thought, I never took you for a murderer.’

I said nothing, but glanced towards Robert Sherard, still guarding the doors to the morning room. From where he stood, he could see through the window into the street. He acknowledged my look of enquiry and shook his head.

‘So,’ said the Prince of Wales, impatiently, ‘Lord Yarborough is not the murderer—’

‘No, sir,’ said Oscar. ‘But inadvertently he led me in the direction of the man who is. Lord Yarborough revealed to me that he is a kinsman of my friend, Robert Sherard. They are first cousins – “bastard cousins” in Robert’s phrase, but “cousins nonetheless”, as my vampire-friend, Rex LaSalle, put it.’

‘Your “vampire-friend”?’ muttered the Prince of Wales.

‘He’s not a vampire, sir – nothing of the sort. Even if such creatures exist, he is not one. He claimed to be one to gain my attention – to be amusing, original,
different
. He wants to be “special”. He feels it is his entitlement. He has many fantastic claims to his credit. He says he has been an actor, but he can’t have been. He speaks of none of his past triumphs. He claims to be an
artist, but if he is, where is the smell of turpentine and oil? He even claims to share my birthday, but knows nothing of the great events associated with the sixteenth of October: the burning of the Oxford martyrs, the guillotining of Queen Marie Antoinette of France, the death of James II of Scotland. And little of my philosophy – though he has studied it. I am one of his curious obsessions. We met – it seemed by chance – in Tite Street, outside my house, on Monday the tenth of March, Your Highness’s wedding anniversary. We spoke of that. We met again, here, at the duke and duchess’s reception. He contrived an invitation – or perhaps he just arrived and, being correctly dressed and wonderfully well favoured, simply walked through the door. Invitation cards were not collected on the night.’

‘This man,’ stammered the Prince of Wales, ‘this vampire-friend of yours – this man is the murderer?’

‘Yes,’ said Oscar, gently. ‘He told me he was a vampire – to intrigue me, so I thought. I asked him who might be his next victim – and he pointed across the crowded room and said it would be our hostess, the Duchess of Albemarle. I glanced in the general direction in which he pointed, but I did not see the duchess – there were so many ladies there. I simply laughed at what I took to be his pleasantry. Now I see that I was his alibi. He had
already
found the duchess and lured her into the telephone room – he is so very handsome – and cut her throat. He liked to play the vampire, so he left
tell-tale incisions in her neck. He ravaged her with his knife, ruthlessly, and then returned to the party to amuse himself in my company.’

‘Can this be true?’ gasped the Duke of Albemarle.

‘I am in no doubt,’ said Oscar. ‘He murdered Louisa Lavallois, too – but that killing, unlike the first, was not premeditated. He saw Mademoiselle Lavallois. He saw His Royal Highness’s easy way with her and he seized his moment. When he caught sight of her returning to join our party after the performance, he slipped unnoticed into the curtained vestibule adjacent to the ante-room to the royal box, followed her into the water closet and murdered her – in exactly the way he had murdered the duchess. He is bold and has nerves of steel. He is fastidious, too. As he went about his work, he made sure that none of his victim’s blood was spilt on his person. And when the deed was done, he left the murder weapon wrapped in a napkin among the sandwiches.’

‘Where are the police?’ I cried. ‘Where are they, Oscar?’

Oscar turned to me. ‘They will be here shortly, Arthur. Once the prince has gone, they will appear.’

‘But LaSalle – he must be stopped.’

‘He has been. I’ve seen to that,’ said Oscar. ‘Poor Nellie Atkins was his final victim. I should have realised he would try to kill her, too. When, during our enquiries, LaSalle returned with us to this house, we saw Nellie up on the landing
carrying linen. She saw us looking up at her and we all saw the terror in her eyes, but I did not realise then, as I should have done, that it was because she had recognised LaSalle as the man she had seen accompanying her mistress into the telephone room.’

‘Who is this man, LaSalle?’

‘He comes from the island of Jersey, Your Highness. I don’t know his name. It’s not LaSalle – I do know that. He stole the name LaSalle from a gravestone. There was a lad about his age called Reginald LaSalle – born in October 1863. Our mutual friend Lillie Langtry knew the real Reginald – they played together when they were children. The boy was killed in a fire in the summer of 1870. I received a telegram from Jersey with the dates and details this afternoon. Our murderer – my vampire-friend – adopted the surname to give himself some sort of identity. I imagine his first name was his own invention – since Rex is Latin for “king”.’

‘Who is this man?’ repeated the Prince of Wales.

‘I really do not know, Your Highness, but he believes he is your son.’

Case Closed