Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death (24 page)

‘But
he’s not a policeman now?’ persisted Oscar, still standing by the detective
inspector’s desk.

‘No. He
served ten years and then, rashly in my view, he decided to take his chance as
a professional boxer. Joined the circuit—threw his hat into the ring, as it
were. He’s done well enough, I think. He’s survived. But I don’t believe he has
enjoyed the success he had hoped for. Professional boxing’s a dirty game,
though it’s getting cleaner, slowly, thanks to the likes of Lord Lonsdale and
Lord Queensberry.’

‘McMuirtree
left the Metropolitan Police,’ said Oscar reflectively, ‘but I take it he did
not lose touch?’

‘Correct.’

‘McMuirtree
is a police informant.’

‘He
moves among all kinds and conditions of men,’ replied Gilmour. ‘He is
intelligent. He is observant. We find him invaluable.’

‘And
you reward him for his efforts?’

‘The
labourer is worthy of his hire.’

Oscar
retrieved his hat and gloves and turned to Inspector Gilmour and looked him
directly in the eye. ‘Tell me,’ he asked, ‘did McMuirtree come to the Cadogan
club dinner as a spy?’

‘Not at
all. He went simply as the guest of your club secretary—Mr Byrd, is it not? I
understand McMuirtree and Byrd have been friends for some years. “Fairground
friends”, you might say. McMuirtree was not at the Cadogan Hotel last Sunday on
any business of ours. So far as I know, the Metropolitan Police has no special
interest in any members of your club or in their guests.’ Gilmour folded over
Oscar’s list of ‘victims‘ and handed the paper back to him. ‘Our man McMuirtree
is not permanently on duty, though I like to think he is always on the
qui
vive.
He has nothing to fear from your circle, Mr Wilde, but among the
criminal community, certainly, he has enemies — enemies he has made on our
behalf. We recognise our responsibility towards him. We keep a watchful eye on
David McMuirtree. You can rest easy on that score, Mr Wilde.’

We bade
the red-headed detective farewell and took our leave. As we passed through the
entrance hallway of Great Scotland Yard we paused to inspect the several honour
boards hanging on the side wall adjacent to the stairs. Among the Met’s
sporting heroes we found McMuirtree’s name without difficulty. As we regained
the street, Oscar paused and adjusted his boater at a jaunty angle. He
chuckled. ‘We can rest easy, Robert. Gilmour of the Yard tells us so.’ He
tucked his arm into mine and glanced up towards the sunshine. ‘A celebratory
glass of Perrier Jouët is called for, I think, don’t you? As we both know, a
passion for pleasure is the secret of remaining young.’

Together
we stepped across the pavement and into Oscar’s carriage. If he liked the look
of a cabby—or his horse—my profligate friend thought nothing of keeping a
particular brougham waiting on him all day—and all night, too. ‘Albemarle
Street, driver,’ he commanded.

‘What
now?’ I asked, as we settled back into the cab.

‘Cheese
straws, I think, with the champagne,’ he replied, grinning at me wickedly.
‘There’s a new pastry chef at Brown’s Hotel. His savoury sweetmeats are proving
controversial among the older
clientèle.
The boy needs our support.’

‘What
about the case?’

‘You
heard the inspector, Robert. Rest easy.’

I was surprised to find us
going to Brown’s. The hotel—founded by James Brown, Lord Byron’s former
valet—was not one of Oscar’s regular haunts. He said he found the oak-panelling
gloomy. On our arrival, therefore, I was doubly surprised to hear the
hall-porter’s effusive greeting of my friend: ‘Back again, Mr Wilde? We can’t
keep you away.’

As he
handed the man a shilling, I looked at Oscar enquiringly. ‘I was here for
breakfast, Robert—and to use the telephone. I have to say it is the most
exciting device. It is going to change all our lives-especially if we are
playwrights. Think if there’d been a telephone in Shakespeare’s day—there’d
have been no need for those long-winded and intrusive messengers.’

He led
me through the hotel’s entrance hall towards a large glass-fronted cabinet the
size of a guardsman’s sentry box. ‘Look inside,’ he said. ‘There it is—the very
apparatus from which Mr Graham Bell made the very first telephonic
communication within the United Kingdom. When I’m in the West End, naturally, I
come to Brown’s to make all my calls. It is like going to the source of the
Nile. I have an account.’

‘And
who were you calling this morning?’ I asked, as we moved from the entrance hall
into a somewhat dark and humid drawing room. An elderly waiter escorted us to a
pair of leather armchairs, half hidden within a forest of potted palms. It was
difficult to tell, but we appeared to be alone.

‘A
bottle of Perrier Jouët,’ Oscar said to the waiter, ‘preferably the 1880. And a
dish, please, of Massimo’s cheese straws.’ He waited for the servant to leave
before answering my question. ‘I made two telephone calls this morning, Robert,
both long-distance—which may explain why my voice is a little hoarse. The
telephone is not yet suited to the whispering of sweet nothings. First, I
called the police station at Eastbourne. They were not overly helpful, but they
had at least made contact with the coastguard. There is no news of Bradford
Pearse, alas—alive or dead. Next, I called South Norwood— the residence of Dr
Arthur Conan Doyle.’

‘And
how was Arthur?’

‘I
cannot tell you. He would not come to the telephone. According to Mrs Doyle, he
was in his shed, working on his sculpture and not to be disturbed. However, she
assured me that he is expecting to join us at the theatre tomorrow night
and
he promises to be at the Tite Street fund-raiser on Sunday afternoon.’

‘Are
you still going ahead with it,’ I asked, ‘under the circumstances?’

‘Of
course!’ he declared breezily. ‘Why not?’

The
elderly waiter arrived with our chilled champagne and Cheshire cheese straws. Happily,
both fully lived up to their promise and Oscar’s high expectation. As he sipped
and nibbled, Oscar closed his eyes to savour the moment. When he opened them,
he said: ‘No civilised man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilised man ever
knows what a pleasure is.’ He replenished my glass. ‘How was George Daubeney?’
he asked.

‘Last
night? I didn’t stay long with him,’ I said. ‘He was drunk, as you saw. I left
him at Gatti’s, in the hands of a chorus girl.’

‘Yes,’
said Oscar, slowly draining his glass and smiling. ‘The Anglican clergy do have
a weakness in that direction.’

I
laughed. Oscar broke the last cheese straw in two and offered me the plate.

‘Can we
really “rest easy”?’ I asked.

‘McMuirtree,
we are assured, is in safe hands.’

‘And
Constance?’ I said. ‘Is she in safe hands?’

‘At
present, I believe so.

‘Is
Edward Heron-Allen with her again today?’ I enquired. I tried to ask the
question coolly.

‘He
is,’ said Oscar, brushing crumbs of pastry from his waistcoat onto the floor.

‘Good
God,’ I exploded. ‘Doesn’t the man have a home of his own to go to?’

‘He
does,’ said Oscar, ‘and that is where his wife lives. He prefers to be at my
house because that is where my wife lives. The peach-out-of-reach in the
adjacent orchard is always more alluring than the apple on the ground in one’s
own.’

‘Do you
trust him, Oscar?’

‘I
trust Constance, Robert. Completely. But I also heard what McMuirtree said
about her and Heron-Allen and as I listened I read between the lines. Others do
not know my wife as well as we do, Robert. I appreciate that I must have a care
for her reputation as well as for her safety. You will be pleased to hear that,
in consequence, tonight I have cancelled both my dinner with Bram Stoker and my
supper with Bosie Douglas. I am going home this evening, to read a bedtime fairy
story to my children and then to dine à
deux
with Mrs Wilde. And after
dinner, to please her, we shall play a game of
piquet.
There is one
thing infinitely more pathetic than to have lost the woman one is in love with,
and that is to have won her and found out that her favourite recreation is a
game
of piquet.’

‘But
you love Constance,’ I protested. ‘I know you do.’

‘I love
her, Robert, but I no longer find her quite so
interesting
as once I
did.’ He looked at me with wide and mournful eyes. ‘It happens,’ he said. He
emptied the remainder of the Perrier Jouët into our glasses. ‘And what are your
plans for this evening, Mr Sherard?’

‘I’m
seeing Sickert,’ I said. ‘We’re going to a music hall.’

‘Gatti’s?’
he asked, smiling.

‘I
don’t know. Wherever Wat fancies.’

‘Don’t
let him lead you astray, Robert. Don’t stay out too late. I shall be requiring
your services tomorrow. As ever, I need you as my witness.’

‘We are
not abandoning the case then?’

‘Far
from it. Today we may rest easy. Tomorrow we quiz a would-be murderer—in Baker
Street.’

‘In
Baker Street?’ I laughed. ‘At 221b?’

‘No,’
he said. ‘At the other end of the thoroughfare, at Number 20. You can’t miss
it. Our appointment’s for twelve noon.’

‘I
won’t be late,’ I said.

But I was. Wat Sickert and
I had what’s known as ‘a night on the town’. From dusk to dawn we ricocheted
across London with gay abandon. Wat hired a two-wheeler for us for the
purpose—and equipped it with crystal glasses and a bucket of champagne. Wat was
as wanton with his money as Oscar, although his means were far fewer. We took
in the early show at Gatti’s in the Arches-where I failed to spot George
Daubeney’s friend in the chorus and the late show at Collins’s Music Hall on
Islington Green—where Wat claimed to be ‘hopelessly in love with the girl who
plays Godiva’. (Her horse was real, but her hair was not.) We had lamb chops
and boiled potatoes in Sydney’s Supper House on the Strand and beer and wine
and spirits (in which order I cannot remember) in a variety of restaurants and
bars and public houses, from the Café Royal in Piccadilly Circus to the Olde
Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street. And everywhere we went, Wat found a friend—a
bar-maid or a flower-girl, an actress or an artist’s model. He was easy with
women in a way that I have never been. He was easy with life in a way that I
have never dared to be. I noticed that night how he smoked his cigars the wrong
way round—lighting that end which most people put in their mouths. He said
that, with a Manila cigar, the smaller and more flavoursome leaves were always
used at the narrow end. ‘It’s a shame not to enjoy them.’ He claimed, too, that
the cigar ‘drew better’ when puffed from the wider end.

‘It’s
as they smoke them in the Philippines.’

At the
end of the evening-when he had run out of cigars and the Cheshire Cheese was
closing—Wat took me to a brothel in Maiden Lane.

‘Why
are we going here?’ I asked.

‘The
address amuses me,’ he said.

‘But
you’re a married man, Wat. Is this right?’

‘Oh,
Robert,’ he cried, ‘this horrid Christian habit of inventing sins for everyone!
I tell you, I don’t understand it! I don’t know what is meant by it! Let us all
be happy. Let us allow a little elasticity in our domestic lives.’

Laughing
suddenly, his arm around my shoulder, he marched me across the pavement and
into the bordello. ‘Robert, I’m bringing you here as much for your sake as for
mine. This will do you good. There’s no use you pining after Constance, Robert.
Mrs Wilde is not to be had—for love nor money. You know it and that makes you
sad. But when there’s frustration in Tite Street there’s consolation to be
found in Maiden Lane. Solace and sweetness guaranteed—and five shillings top
whack. You’ll find no five-pound virgins here. These girls know their business.
They won’t disappoint. You’ll like it, I promise.’

And, of
course, at the time, I liked it—after a fashion. I was mad with desire. Wat was
right about that. But on the morning after, while he awoke carefree, no doubt,
I awoke with a headache and a familiar sense of
ennui.

That Saturday—7 May 1892,
another ‘bright day’ according to my journal—I reached 20 Baker Street at one
o’clock. I had no difficulty locating the address, but I was startled to find
when I got there that it was a Turkish bath house. Its exterior appearance was
deceptive. From the outside, the building looked like a Non-Conformist chapel
in need of minor repairs; from within, it had the look of a caliph’s palace in
a Drury Lane pantomime. In the receiving room—a gold-and-green vestibule shaped
like the inside of a giant beehive—I was greeted (if that’s the word) by a pair
of dwarfish attendants, ugly little men with yellow faces. Their heads appeared
identical—they might have been twins-but their costumes could not have been
more contrasting. One, the slightly taller of the two, wore a rough, brown
serge suit and a grubby shirt, collarless and unbuttoned. The other was kitted
out in full theatrical fig, dressed not so much as Ali Baba as one of his forty
thieves. As I entered, the man in the brown suit glanced at me and then disappeared
behind a saffron-coloured curtain at the back of the room. His companion looked
at me without apparent interest and said curtly: ‘First class or second?
Three-and-six or half a crown?’