Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death (41 page)

‘You
will, Stoker, you will,’ chipped in Charles Brookfield from the sidelines.

‘I’d
better go and show my face to Oscar,’ I murmured to Wat Sickert.

‘No
need,’ said Wat, draining his glass. ‘He’ll have seen you. He doesn’t miss a
thing.’

Oscar
was standing with Lord Alfred Douglas and Francis, Lord Drumlanrig, at the far
end of the room, by the head of the dining-room table. Sickert was right. Oscar
had already noticed me. As I pushed my way towards him through the throng, he
struck the side of his champagne glass with a fish knife and called for
silence.

‘Mr
Sherard has arrived. Dinner can be served.
A table,
gentlemen, à
table.’

The
company gathered and shifted around the dining table, peering at the name cards
to check their places.

‘The
menu and the wines are as they were when last we met,’ Oscar called out, ‘but
the
placement
has been altered in certain instances.’ With his
forefinger he beckoned George Daubeney and Willie Hornung towards him. ‘I’m
having the padre and the
Gentlewoman’s
friend on either side of me.’

‘I see
that I’m below the salt as usual,’ remarked Charles Brookfield, ‘between the
police and the club secretary.’ He called down the table: ‘Am I your chief
suspect, Oscar?’

‘You’re
seated with men of rank, Charles,’ Oscar answered genially. ‘I thought that you
would appreciate that.’

When
everyone had found his place, Oscar tapped his champagne glass once more.
‘Silence, gentlemen, please.’ We took up our positions behind our chairs and
looked towards our host. He lowered his glass and returned the fish knife to
the table. As the room fell quiet, he held the moment. Lit from below as he was
by the table’s flickering candlelight he looked like a figure in one of Wat
Sickert’s theatrical paintings: the leading actor standing before the footlights
about to deliver the prologue to the play. In truth, of course, that’s what he
was.

Slowly
his eyes scanned ours. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, eventually, ‘thank you for your
kind attendance tonight. I am grateful to you all for making yourselves
available at such short notice. When we have eaten, I shall explain exactly why
I have brought you here— and why I have asked Inspector Gilmour and Inspector
Ferris of Scotland Yard to be of the party. We welcome them wholeheartedly to
this unusual gathering of the Socrates Club.’ He nodded in the direction of the
police officers as a low murmur of approval rumbled around the dining table.
‘They’ve not come unaccompanied,’ he added, casting his eyes towards the
dining-room door. ‘I understand there are eight policeman in and around the
hotel tonight—one of whom you’ll recognise, Robert.’ He lowered his voice and
leant across the table towards me. ‘The ugly little man from the Turkish bath
turns out not to be an assassin, but a police spy. And it’s not us he’s been
watching~ Robert. It’s Lord Rosebery. Apparently, the former Foreign Secretary
and his associates are kept under permanent police surveillance …

Lord
Alfred Douglas clicked his tongue impatiently. ‘I thought you said dinner was
about to be served, Oscar.’

‘Quite
right, Bosie.’ Oscar beamed at his young friend and nodded apologetically to
the table. ‘Let us say Grace and, as we do so, let us pause for a moment and
remember those we have lost since we last met in this room a dozen nights ago.’

Oscar
lowered his head and closed his eyes and with his long, elegant fingers gripped
the back of his chair. We stood in silence for at least a minute—it may have
been longer—and then, without prompting, George Daubeney spoke the Grace.

‘In
nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Benedic, Domine, nos et haec tua
dona, quae de tua largitate sumus sumpturi, per Christum Dominum nostrum.’

In
unison, briskly and quite loudly, we chorused:

‘Amen.’

As we
sat down to eat, the heightened festive spirit that I had sensed as I arrived
in the room returned immediately. As the hotel waiter—our only server—laid the
hors
d’oeuvres
before us, Alphonse Byrd, the only one of us in evening dress,
moved about the table serving the first of several fine wines. It was an
extraordinary
crémant d’Alsace
that bubbled and sparkled and
complemented the caviar, lobster and pickled tunny quite perfectly. I was
seated opposite Wat Sickert. He raised his glass towards me and whispered: ‘The
condemned men enjoyed a hearty meal.’

As I
sipped my wine, I looked about the table. I looked at each of the faces in
turn. I could not see a murderer in our midst. Not one of my fellow diners
appeared to me to have the mark of Cain upon him.

Even
Edward Heron-Allen—talking loudly across the table to Lord Alfred Douglas of
fornication among male monkeys in the rain-forests of Peru— gave the impression
of a man with a wholly easy conscience. At every corner of the table, I saw
guilt-free fellows engaged in comfortable conversation. At the foot of the
table, Charles Brookfield was chatting amiably with the two police inspectors. At
the head of it, Oscar, smiling, was holding both George Daubeney and Willie
Hornung by the sleeve. He leant across them and called to Conan Doyle:

‘How
goes the sculpture, Arthur? It’s nearly finished, I imagine.’

‘It is,
as it happens. Did Touie tell you?’

‘No—but
you have been so deeply engaged upon it I assumed that you were working to a
deadline. It is a gift I take it—for a birthday?’

‘Right
again, Oscar. But whose birthday? Are your powers of deduction up to that?’

‘It’s
bound to be a lady,’ said Oscar. ‘No man cares about giving a birthday present
to another man.’

‘Except
when you give me cigarette cases for mine!’ cried Bosie. ‘Beautiful cigarette
cases, charmingly inscribed.’ He produced one from his pocket and waved it in
the air.

Oscar
ignored his young friend. He continued to look beadily at Conan Doyle: ‘It
won’t be for your wife, Arthur her birthday is in August, I remember. It won’t
be for your mistress—I know you, my friend: you’re a gentleman: you’ll never
have one. So, it must be for some female relation … your mother, your aunt—or
your sister?’ He let go of Daubeney’s sleeve and with his right hand banged the
table triumphantly. ‘Do you have a sister, Arthur? I think you do!’

‘He
does,’ cried Willie Hornung, ‘and she is very beautiful. Very,
very
beautiful.’

Oscar
swivelled round in his chair and looked upon Conan Doyle’s young friend. I saw
tears glistening in both their eyes. ‘You are in earnest, Willie, I can tell. You
are in love with Arthur’s sister. I’m certain of it. Propose to her, my boy—on
her birthday!’

Willie
Hornung turned crimson and Arthur Conan Doyle laughed and beat his fingers on
the table by way of applause. Oscar called down the table to Alphonse Byrd who
had just taken his seat between Charles Brookfield and Inspector Gilmour. ‘Byrd!‘
he cried. ‘Byrd! What does Socrates say about matrimony? You’re a classicist,
you’re a New College man, you must know …’

Suddenly
the table fell silent and all eyes turned on Alphonse Byrd. The club secretary
hesitated for a moment, then rose slowly to his feet and looked towards Willie
Hornung.

‘“My
advice to you is to get married. If you find a good wife, you will be happy. If
not, you will become a philosopher.”‘

‘Yes!’
cried Oscar rapturously, leading the table in a chorus of laughter and
applause.

As we
ate our meal the mood in the room remained mellow, but as one course followed
another—and Byrd and the waiter filled and refilled our glasses with fine
wine—the banter subsided. The conversation around the table continued easily,
but the edge of hysteria began to dissipate. At ten o’clock—I was seated next
to Conan Doyle and he checked his Hunter regularly—when the roast meats had
been cleared away, but before the desserts or savouries had been served, I
watched as Oscar summoned the waiter and, shaking his head, whispered some
instructions in his ear. He then said out loud, to no one in particular, ‘We
are all much calmer now. I think we can begin.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

ANSWERS

Oscar pushed back his
chair and laid his napkin carefully on the table. Alphonse Byrd was at his side
with a fresh glass and a small decanter of yellow wine. ‘Just half a glass,
thank you, Byrd. I’ve work to do.’

He
tapped the tips of his fingers lightly on the table’s edge and rose to his
feet. The room fell silent. The candles flickered obligingly.

Walter
Sickert leant towards me and whispered:

‘The
show begins …

From
his place between the policemen, Charles Brookfield, cupping his hands around his
mouth, called down the table: ‘Who killed the parrot, Oscar? That’s what we
want to know!’

Oscar
smiled as he lowered his head towards a candle to light his cigarette. ‘All in
good time, Charles,’ he said. He said it gently, almost playfully. ‘One has to
learn to pace these things,’ he added, still smiling. ‘We’ll get to the parrot
in due course, but with your permission, Charles, we’ll begin at the
beginning.’ He stood back and, for a moment, placed his hands lightly on the
shoulders of George Daubeney and Willie Hornung who were seated either side of
him. He looked around the table and drew slowly on his cigarette. When he was
certain that all eyes were upon him, he began.

‘Thank
you, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Thank you again for your kind attendance tonight.’
His voice was mellow, easy on the ear. Sickert likened it once to the sound of
‘a ‘cello playing in a nearby room’. ‘I’m obliged to each of you. As you’ll
recall, when last we gathered here, at my instigation we played a game—a game
called “Murder”—a game of unintended and quite dreadful consequences … How
much I regret that game I cannot tell you. My poor excuse is that by it I meant
no harm.’

Inspector
Gilmour stirred uncomfortably.

‘True
enough,’ said Oscar, looking at the police inspector. ‘All but one of those who
have lost their lives during these past thirteen days might have been murdered
come what may. But that my foolish game acted as the trigger for a deadly chain
of events, as it did, when it did, cannot be denied—and because the game was my
idea, and mine alone, I believe that it is my responsibility to unravel the
mystery of its aftermath. I have asked you here tonight, gentlemen, to do my
duty by you: to tell you which of you murdered whom—and why.’

‘Are
you saying there’s a murderer in our midst, Oscar?’ asked Willie Hornung, his
face aglow with excitement.

‘I am.’

Inspector
Ferris half raised his hand, like a tentative schoolboy at the back of the
class. ‘If he‘s about to be exposed, Mr Wilde, why has this murderer of yours
turned up?’

‘Good
question,’ muttered Inspector Gilmour.

‘Out of
curiosity,’ murmured Charles Brookfield. ‘Oscar’s irresistible. We all want to
see Oscar Wilde on song.

‘And
Byrd does lay on a frightfully good spread,’ purred Lord Alfred Douglas,
leaning back in his chair and winking at our host.

‘To
have declined my invitation for this evening—to have stayed hidden—to have run
away—would have been tantamount to an admission of guilt,’ said Oscar looking
directly at Inspector Ferris. ‘Our murderer is here tonight by way of asserting
his innocence. That’s his style. It has been from the outset.’

The
room settled once more. Oscar turned towards his right and looked down on the
Hon. the Reverend George Daubeney who smiled up at him with watery eyes. ‘Your
wine glass is empty, George,’ he said. ‘Have mine.’ Oscar handed the clergyman
his glass of yellow wine. ‘Let us begin at the beginning,’ he went on, ‘here,
with the Reverend George …’ George Daubeney raised the glass to Oscar and
smiled. Oscar turned back to address the table as a whole. ‘You will recall,
gentlemen, that when we played our game of “Murder” a week ago last Sunday, the
first slip of paper to be drawn from Mr Byrd’s velvet bag was that of Mr
Daubeney … Mr Daubeney named his sometime fiancée, Miss Elizabeth
Scott-Rivers, as his intended “victim”. We know it because he told us so.
Indeed, as you’ll recollect, he made quite a palaver of telling us …
Methought at the time that he did protest too much—as he did again later that
same evening when he kept repeating that he had drunk too much when, with my
own eyes, I had seen him drink two glasses of wine at most.’

Daubeney
looked steadily at Oscar. He wiped the moisture from his lips. ‘Do not forget
that we are friends, Oscar. We know each other quite well, don’t we?’

Oscar
looked at him. ‘I believe I know you better, George, than you know me.’

Daubeney
laughed and glanced about the table. ‘Elizabeth’s death was an accident,’ he
said emphatically. ‘Ask the coroner. Ask the police.’

‘It was
no accident,’ said Oscar, putting out his cigarette. ‘It was murder, George—murder
most ingenious—murder inspired by a conversation you had on the afternoon of
Sunday 1 May at 16 Tite Street—with my wife.’