Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death (11 page)

‘There’s
no Lady Abergordon,’ said Bosie, ‘and never has been. The old boy died without
issue and without kin. So condolences are not in order either. Brother Francis
stands to cop the lot.’

‘What?’
cried Oscar. ‘Your brother stands to inherit Abergordon’s estate?’

‘Down
to the last ten thousand acres!’ Bosie looked at Sickert who was still vainly
waving his bottle in the air. ‘I agree with you, Wat. I could use a drink.’

Oscar
got to his feet as, at last, the club steward— an unhappy Creole who had been
given his notice the night before—arrived at the table with a suppressed curse
and a fresh bottle of wine. ‘We shall leave you to your drinking, gentlemen,
‘murmured Oscar. ‘Some of us have responsibilities.’

I got
to my feet as well. I liked Wat Sickert (everybody liked Wat Sickert: he was
like Oscar in that regard) and, on the whole, I found Bosie’s wayward charm
diverting, but I’d fallen out of the habit of being my own man. If Oscar wanted
my company, he had it—whether I had lunched or not. Somehow, without noticing
quite when or how it had happened, I had become Oscar’s creature. Unbidden, I
did his bidding.

As my
friend moved towards the door, I joined him. Discreetly, he pressed a florin
into the waiting hand of the unhappy Creole. With a flourish he turned to wave
farewell to our companions. Bosie was already refilling his glass. ‘See you at
seven o’clock at the theatre, Bosie,’ he called. ‘Bring your brother if he’s
free—he can buy us supper.’ Sickert was lighting a little clay pipe. ‘Thank you
for luncheon, Wat. It was fun. I think Monsieur Day-gas’s
Women at their
Toilette
is my favourite. Good day! We’ll see you on Sunday.’

He
chuckled as we made our way through the club billiard room and down the stairs
into the street. ‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

‘Back
to the Cadogan,’ he said. ‘Constance is meeting Byrd and McMuirtree at three to
review their proposed programme for Sunday’s entertainment. I don’t want her
natural delicacy of feeling to stand in the way of some of their more lurid and
melodramatic effects.’

By cab we reached the
hotel in a matter of minutes. The scene that greeted us there was not so much
lurid and melodramatic as pitiful and grotesque. The hotel reception area—an
oak-panelled hallway no more than twenty feet square—was awash with a sea of
small green feathers. The feathers were everywhere: on the tiled floor, on the
steps to the landing, on the porter’s desk, inside the umbrella stand, trapped
among the lilies in the vase on the window ledge, floating on the surface of the
water of the ornamental fish-tank that stood at the foot of the
stairs—everywhere. As we pushed open the front door on our way into the
hallway, the sudden gust of breeze we brought with us lifted the feathers from
the floor like a sheet being shaken out above a mattress. As the feathers
settled to the ground again, we saw that the floor itself was smeared with
blood from side to side and end to end.

‘What
is the meaning of this horror?’ I gasped.

‘Who
would have thought that one small bird could have so many feathers?’ said
Oscar, shaking his head sadly as he gazed about him.

As we
stood on the threshold of the hallway, transfixed, a young kitchen maid—a girl
of fourteen or fifteen, with ruddy cheeks and tears in her eyes— emerged from
the alcove beneath the staircase facing us. She was carrying a metal bucket and
a mop and was followed by a freckled young lad in uniform— one of the hotel
page-boys—bearing a dust-sheet and dustpan and brush. The boy and Oscar
appeared to know one another.

‘Sorry
business, Mr Wilde,’ said the lad.

‘Indeed,
Nat,’ said Oscar. ‘A very sorry business. Poor Captain Flint. Is the manager
in?’

‘No,’
answered the boy. ‘He’s off sick. Mr Byrd’s on duty. He’s in the office.’

Gingerly,
like boys crossing a stream on stepping-stones, we tiptoed across the scene of
carnage and turned off the hallway into a darkened corridor. ‘It’s here,’ said
Oscar. He knew his way around the Cadogan. The manager’s office had, until
lately, been Lillie Langtry’s ground-floor sitting room. The door to the room
was open. We entered without ceremony. There, standing, grouped together around
the manager’s desk in the centre of the room, were David McMuirtree, Edward
Heron-Allen and Constance Wilde. Seated at the desk facing them, was Alphonse
Byrd, ashen-faced and trembling. He looked a broken man. On the desk before
him, spread out on the blotting-pad like a specimen awaiting dissection, were
the mangled remains of the hotel parrot. The pitiful wings, like stripped
branches of a fir tree, were spread wide. The pathetic head hung from the body
by a single band of bloody tissue. The bird’s eye, like a fish-eye, stared
blindly up at us.

No one
spoke. Oscar crossed the room and went straight to the desk. He leant forward
and, to my astonishment, laid his right hand against the bird’s cadaver.
Tenderly, he held it there.

‘The
poor creature’s stone-cold,’ he said.

‘Does
that signify?’ asked Heron-Allen.

‘It
does,’ said Oscar, quietly. ‘It does. Most certainly.’

‘This
is terrible,’ said Constance, stepping towards her husband and linking her arm
through his.

Oscar
smiled at his wife and asked, ‘When did you get here?’

‘Two
minutes ago,’ she said.

‘Five
at most,’ said Heron-Allen. ‘Constance and I had lunch together—as you know—and
she kindly asked me to accompany her here to see Mr Byrd’s projected magic
show. We arrived at three.’

‘The
appointment was for three o’clock,’ said McMuirtree, huskily. ‘We all arrived
together—’

‘To
find this!’ exclaimed Alphonse Byrd, covering his face with his still-trembling
hands.

‘You came
from outside the building?’ Oscar asked. The three standing figures all nodded.

‘I was
upstairs,’ whispered Byrd. ‘As the hallway clock struck three, I came down and
found the horror that you see—exactly as you see it. The blood and feathers in
the hallway, the parrot’s body on my desk…’

‘Where
was the hall porter?’

‘Both
porters were on the second floor, collecting the trunks belonging to the
American party. We have a group of young ladies from New England departing this
afternoon.’

‘Did
any of them see anything?’

‘I
don’t know,’ said Byrd. ‘I doubt it. I walked through the hallway at ten to
three: it was deserted: all was well. I came down again at three o’clock to
find …’ He turned away from us, his head in his hands.

‘Well,’
said Oscar, with a shrug, ‘We came for family magic and we find macabre
melodrama instead. I think we should leave Mr Byrd to his sorrow and postpone
our business to another day.’ He looked towards Constance and Heron-Allen and
smiled at them reassuringly. ‘I’ll just check that the coast is clear,’ he
added, excusing himself from the room.

We
waited for him in silence. McMuirtree stood, his arms folded across his chest,
gazing bleakly at the mutilated bird. Heron-Allen moved closer to Constance and
touched her on the arm. Within a minute, Oscar had returned. ‘Your admirable
staff have cleared away the worst of the carnage, Byrd,’ he said, briskly. ‘I
see you have a hip flask on your desk. I trust it’s filled with something
fortifying. I suggest you take a nip. You’ve had a shock. We all have.’ He
nodded towards David McMuirtree. ‘If you’ll excuse us, we’ll take our leave.’
He offered Constance his arm and led her and Heron-Allen and me out of the
room. As he reached the door he paused and turned back and looked once more at
the dead parrot spread out on the desk. ‘Poor Captain Flint,’ he said.

As he
turned again to depart, David McMuirtree called out, ‘Mr Wilde, what would you
advise— should this incident be reported to the police?’

Byrd
looked up and said at once, ‘No! No—it will be bad for business.’

‘I
agree,’ said Oscar. ‘There’s no need to trouble the police. What can they do?’

When we
had regained the street, and moved some yards away from the hotel, walking
south along Sloane Street towards Sloane Square, Oscar put his arm around
Constance’s shoulder and said, ‘You have had a most unpleasant experience, my
dear. I am sorry.’

‘It was
horrible, was it not?’ said Constance. ‘Who would do such a thing? And why?’

‘To
comprehend cruelty is almost as difficult as to understand love,’ he said,
stopping in the street and leaning towards her and kissing her tenderly on the
forehead. ‘What time is it, Robert?’ he asked me.

I
looked at my watch. ‘Half past three,’ I said.

Oscar
turned to Heron-Allen. ‘Edward, would you do me a favour? Would you escort my
wife back to Tite Street and sit with her while Mrs Ryan provides you both with
a pot of tea and the consoling comfort of crumpets?’

‘It’s
far too warm for crumpets, Oscar,’ Constance protested.

‘Alliteration
is no respecter of seasons, my dear,’ he said.

Constance
laughed, while Heron-Allen pulled himself up in the manly manner of a well-bred
young gentleman, clicked his heels together, and said, ‘I should be happy to
escort Mrs Wilde home and honoured to take tea with her. We shall not talk of
the unpleasantness of the past hour, I promise.’

‘Good,’
said Oscar. ‘Thank you.’ He looked at his wife and kissed her on the forehead
once more. ‘Take care, Constance. You are in safe hands. I’ll try not to be too
late tonight.’

We
watched as Constance and Heron-Allen made their way away from us. We stood in
silence looking after them. I thought that they might turn and wave to us, but
they did not. I saw Heron-Allen give his arm to Constance and, as she took it,
I felt an absurd pang of jealousy. When I was confident they were out of
earshot, I said to Oscar, ‘Should you not be with your wife this afternoon?’

‘Do you
think that Heron-Allen is untrustworthy?’ asked Oscar, looking puzzled. ‘He is
a solicitor. I agree, that’s worrisome. He’s handsome, too.’

‘That’s
not what I mean at all, Oscar,’ I said, now flustered and knowing that I had
taken on an unattractive, hectoring manner.

‘What
do you mean then?’ he enquired.

‘I mean
that you have not told Constance of the game that we played on Sunday night.’

‘Indeed
not.’

‘She
does not know that she was named as a potential murder victim.’

‘Of
course not.’

‘She
may be in danger, Oscar. Your wife is on the list of those chosen as potential
victims of murder— and you are going to the theatre yet again with Lord Alfred
Douglas!’

‘You
don’t need to remind me of the list, Robert. I have the list,’ he said,
suddenly producing a sheet of notepaper from his coat pocket and waving it
before me. ‘I am familiar with the list and I see from the list that
Constance’s name is the last on it—just after my name !—and those of Eros and
Old Father Time! Do not get over-exercised about the list, Robert. Sunday’s
game was just a game.’

‘Was
it?’ I asked sharply. ‘On each of the three days since we played this so-called
game each of the first three names on the list of “victims” has died. Is it
“just a game”?’

‘Who is
next on the list?’ Oscar asked, unfolding the sheet of notepaper.

‘Sherlock
Holmes, I believe.’

‘Sherlock
Holmes it is,’ he said, scanning the paper, and, as he said it, the page-boy
from the Cadogan Hotel came running along the pavement towards us. Oscar
smiled. ‘Well, Nat?’ he asked. ‘What’s the answer?’

‘It’s
“Yes”, Mr Wilde—in every particular.’

‘Excellent,’
said Oscar. ‘Thank you.’ He handed the boy sixpence. ‘Spend it all at once,
Nat,’ he added. ‘It’s the only way.’ The lad laughed and, pocketing the
sixpence, ran back to the hotel.

Oscar
turned to me with a look of quiet satisfaction. ‘Very good,’ he said. ‘Conan
Doyle will meet us in the morning, Robert. He has accepted my invitation to
breakfast at the Langham Hotel at nine o’clock. We’ll see him then—assuming he
survives the night.’

‘Oscar’s
Game’

The
‘murder victims’ —in the order in which the names were drawn from the bag at
the Socrates Club dinner, Sunday 1 May 1892

1.
Miss Elizabeth Scott-Rivers

2.
Lord Abergordon

3.
Captain Flint, the Cadogan Hotel parrot

4.
Mr Sherlock Holmes

5.
Mr Bradford Pearse

6.
David McMuirtree

7.
David McMuirtree

8.
David McMuirtree

9.
David McMuirtree

10.
Old Father Time

11.
Eros

12.
A
blank slip was drawn

13.
Mr Oscar Wilde

14.
Mrs Oscar Wilde

CHAPTER EIGHT