Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders (27 page)

‘Of
course you are,’ cried Oscar, dipping his lobster claw into the bowl of
mayonnaise, ‘you were denied your cucumber sandwiches.’

‘No
cucumbers in the market,’ chuckled Munthe, leaning forward from his armchair
and, with his fingers, scooping out a morsel of lobster flesh from its shell.

‘Not
even for ready money!’ hooted Oscar, happily.

‘You
are both in remarkably good humour,’ I said a touch sourly, ‘given the lateness
of the hour.’

‘Are
you surprised? Munthe has tucked up two of his patients and left them sleeping
like babies, and you and I, Arthur, have at last made real progress in
unravelling the mystery of the beautiful child Agnes.’

‘Have
we?’ I enquired, incredulous. I sat back in the armchair facing Munthe’s and
folded my arms.

‘You
believe the girl was murdered?’ asked Munthe.

‘Well,
I don’t believe she was assumed into heaven on the wings of angels,’ answered
Oscar. ‘Nor do I believe that she took her own life.’

My
friend stood posing by the fireplace. I watched him turn to the mantelpiece and
notice the mummified hand of the unfortunate workman who had fallen to his
death from the rafters of All Saints church.

He
dropped the remains of his lobster claw into the open paw and continued: ‘Agnes
was a waif and stray, an abandoned child taken in by the reverend sisters of
the Holy See when she was just an infant. She was a happy little girl.
Beautiful, wholesome, healthy. I know. I stood at her side at that audience
with Pio Nono just ten months before his death, remember. She was loved — and
then she was lost. One day she was there, the next she was not. How come? What
happened? Did she disappear down a rabbit-hole? No. Did she vanish into thin
air? No. She was either kidnapped or murdered or both.’

‘Couldn’t
she have run away?’ suggested Munthe.

‘She
was thirteen or fourteen. It’s possible, I suppose, but unlikely. Why run away?
The Vatican laundry was her home and had been since she was a little girl. The
nuns who worked there were her family. And the death of Pio Nono, though
distressing, was not unexpected. He was an old man, and sick. The news of his
demise will have upset the child, no doubt — it might even have “broken her
heart”, as Breakspear put it— but why should it have prompted her to run away?
“Running away” makes no sense.’

‘But
does “murder” make any more sense?’ I asked, dryly. ‘Couldn’t Breakspear be
right? Couldn’t the girl have taken her own life?’

‘From
everything we know of her, it is clear that Agnes was a devout child. She was
devoted to the Holy Father. I saw them together: I can vouch for that. The
girl’s faith was evident — simple, perhaps, but sincere. She will have known
the Ten Commandments. “Thou shalt not commit murder.” Self-murder is a mortal
sin. Faithful Agnes would not have taken her own life.’

Sitting
back, blinking at us through his thick gig-lamps while carefully licking clean
the tips of his fingers, Munthe summarised what we had reported to him of
Breakspear’s testimony.

‘The
Grand Penitentiary claims that he found the girl lying dead on the chaise in
the sacristy. This was at ten o’clock. He observed her for a few minutes and
then departed, leaving her body where it lay. He went directly from the
sacristy to attend compline and, as soon as the service was over, about half an
hour later, he returned to the sacristy. On his return, he found the girl was
gone.’

‘Exactly
so.’

‘Nobody
else saw her?’

‘Apparently
not. She was last seen by one of the nuns in the laundry at around five
o’clock, when Pio Nono was still alive. At the time the sister said that Agnes
had seemed in every respect “her usual self”. None of the nuns could understand
her disappearance.’

‘And
Monsignor Breakspear saw no one coming or going from the sacristy before or
after he made his terrible discovery?’

‘No one
at all. The other chaplains-in-residence were either at compline or in
attendance at the deathbed of the Holy Father.’

‘And at
the time Breakspear told no one about what he claims to have seen?’

‘Only
the sacristan, whom he encountered by chance returning from compline. And he
swore Verdi to secrecy on the night. And, according to both of them, neither
has spoken a word of any of this to anyone since it occurred.’

‘Why
not? Why the secrecy?’

‘Because
Verdi, of course, saw nothing — and Breakspear can’t substantiate what he says
he saw. He admits that he cannot even be certain that the girl was dead. He
believes
she took her own life, but he acknowledges that he has no proof. He
maintains that the reason he has said nothing to anyone throughout the intervening
years is because he cannot conceive what useful purpose it would serve.’

Oscar
paused and bent over the table to inspect the dish of lobsters. Carefully, he
selected a second claw, fatter and pinker than the first. Then, from the inside
breast pocket of his jacket, he produced a small silver hammer and with it
proceeded to beat the shell of the claw until he had cracked it open.

‘Do we
believe him?’

‘What do
you mean?’ I asked, leaning forward to look more closely at the silver hammer.
I was sure it was the one we had seen on the sideboard in the sacristy. ‘What
do you mean, “Do we believe him?”‘

‘Do we
accept Breakspear’s testimony?’ murmured Oscar, wiping the hammer with his
handkerchief before slipping it back into his jacket pocket. ‘Did Breakspear
really
see Agnes lying dead upon the papal seat of tears?’ He half closed his eyes
and leant against the mantelpiece once more. ‘It’s a poetic picture, to be sure,
but is it too poetic to be true?’

‘Are
you suggesting it’s all an elaborate lie, Oscar?’ I asked, still sitting
forward but now gazing down at the dish of lobsters, thinking I might have a
bite to eat after all.

‘Why
should he lie about such a thing?’ asked Munthe, with a puzzled frown.

‘For
some men, lying is a way of life,’ answered Oscar. ‘Lying is what they do. It’s
how they are.’ My friend opened his eyes wide and looked down at me. ‘Arthur,
do you think that Monsignor Breakspear is telling us the truth?’

I
pulled a piece of lobster from its shell. ‘Yes,’ I said firmly. ‘I do.’

‘But I
thought that you didn’t like the man.’

‘I
don’t,’ I said and dipped my lobster into the mayonnaise.

‘I
thought you did not trust him.’

‘I
didn’t, but I was moved by his account of the death of the pope.’

‘Ah!’
Oscar smiled. ‘The best confidence men are always the most convincing.’ He
stood looking down at me, amused at the relish with which I was already dipping
a second piece of lobster into the lemon mayonnaise. ‘Breakspear says that he
was at school with you.’

‘I
don’t remember him,’ I answered, with my mouth now half full. ‘But why should
I? When we were at school, he would have been several years my senior.’

‘Do you
think that he
was
at school with you, Arthur?’

‘Why on
earth should he lie about such a thing?’

‘Why
indeed? But he hadn’t heard of Alexander Pope — and Pope was on the syllabus at
Stonyhurst, you say …’ Oscar took a deep breath while his fingers hovered
above the bowl of strawberries. ‘There is something about Monsignor Breakspear,
gentlemen, that doesn’t add up.’ He picked out a piece of fruit and held it up
to the gasolier for closer inspection. ‘Take this business of eating his way
through the animal kingdom — dining on weasels and stoats and porcupine. It’s
preposterous.’

‘Your
friend Dr Buckland did it.’

‘He
did. And Breakspear has copied him. Breakspear lacks originality.’

‘Does
that make him a murderer?’ asked Munthe.

‘Not
necessarily, but it does make him
suspect
so far as I am concerned.’
Oscar bit into his strawberry and dropped the hull into the dead workman’s
upturned hand, mopping his mouth with his handkerchief. ‘And then there’s his
name — it’s preposterous, too.’

‘Is it?
Breakspear’s an old name.’

‘Historic.’
Oscar felt in his pockets for his cigarette case. ‘Monsignor Nicholas
Breakspear, who aspires to be the next English pope, has exactly the same name
as the last English pope. It’s absurd.’

‘It’s a
coincidence, certainly.’

‘Tomorrow,
Arthur, when you send a telegram of reassurance to your wife — as I know you
will — I would be obliged if you would also send a telegram to your old school.
Make some enquiries about “Nicholas Breakspear”, would you? Was he indeed your
school-fellow or is he an impostor?’

‘And if
he
is
an impostor,’ asked Munthe, ‘does that also make him a murderer?
Why should Monsignor Breakspear of all people kill an innocent child?’

‘Because
he could.’

‘Because
he could?’
Axel Munthe shook his head in disbelief.

‘An
assertion of “self” is frequently the cause of murder,’ said Oscar, lighting
his cigarette from the flame of one the candles on the mantelpiece.

Munthe
muttered, ‘I’d be more convinced by a less abstract motive.’

Oscar
inspected the burning tip of his cigarette. ‘How does this suit you, then? In
his quest for self-realisation, in his desire to taste every experience open to
man, Monsignor Breakspear is not only eating his way through the entire animal
kingdom, but, one by one, he is breaking each of the Ten Commandments’

‘Now
that
is
preposterous,’ cried Munthe.

Oscar
laughed. ‘Implausible, I agree.’

I
looked up at my friend and smiled. ‘I think we should stick to the known facts,
Oscar, if we can.’

‘Agreed,
Arthur. On 7 February 1878, as Pio Nono lay dead, mourned by the whole Catholic
world, according to Monsignor Breakspear, someone stole the life of an innocent
child. Someone is responsible for a young girl’s disappearance. We shall garner
all the facts and find out who it was.’ He drew slowly on his-cigarette and
blew a thin plume of pale-purple smoke into the air. ‘We must, for Agnes’s
sake.’

I was
contemplating the strawberries and thinking I might soak a couple in my glass
of champagne. I looked up at my friend again. ‘I meant to ask you, Oscar: how
the deuce did you discover the girl’s name?’

‘As I
am sure you learnt at Stonyhurst, Arthur,
agnes
is Greek for “pure” or
“holy”, and
agnus
is Latin for “lamb”. Could there be a more fitting
name for Pio’s Nono’s little lamb of God? When I saw Father Bechetti’s painting
of the girl, I guessed that her name would be Agnes. It was a guess, a leap of
faith, albeit an educated one.’

Munthe
looked sharply up at Oscar. ‘You said Bechetti told you her name.

‘He did
— after a fashion.’

‘He can
barely speak,’ said Munthe.

‘He did
not speak her name. He threw his glass to the ground and fell to the floor when
I mentioned it. You were both there,’ said Oscar, sucking on his cigarette. ‘At
the church of All Saints, at the fund-raiser, earlier in the week, when I
climbed the steps of the pulpit and announced the poem that I was going to
recite: “The Eve of St Agnes”. I think the title caught Father Bechetti’s
attention. He understands English. I think it was the reference to “the sweet
Virgin’s picture” that tipped him over the edge.’

‘Is
this possible?’ murmured Munthe.

‘Good Lord,’
I breathed, swallowing a crushed strawberry.

‘Good
God,’ cried Munthe, suddenly getting to his feet. ‘Who’s that?’

From
below us we heard the sound of heavy battering on the front door. When the
hammering stopped, there were distant cries of
‘Dottore! Dottore! Medico!’

‘You’re
wanted, Doctor,’ said Oscar, putting out his cigarette among the lobster claws
in the dead workman’s mummified hand. ‘While we’re for our beds,
dottore,
for
you duty calls.’

The
battering resumed below. I drank up my champagne and got to my feet. ‘I hope
the noise doesn’t wake your companion,’ I said, looking towards the curtained
doorway in the corner of the room.

‘It
won’t,’ said Munthe, moving into the hall and picking up his medical bag from
his desk as he went. ‘Blow out the candles, would you? I’ll clear up the rest
when I return.’

‘Is she
away? Your companion?’

‘No,’
said Munthe. ‘She’s sound asleep. I made sure of that.’

‘Did
you drug her?’ enquired Oscar lightly, blowing out the candles on the
mantelpiece as he spoke.

Munthe
stood by the door to the apartment, holding it open for us. ‘As it happens, I
did.’

‘Strychnine?’

‘A
touch of strychnine stimulates, Mr Wilde. More than a touch can be fatal.’ The
hammering on the door was growing louder. ‘I gave her phenacetin. She won’t
wake tonight.’