Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders (41 page)

W
e
never saw Cesare Verdi again, though sometimes, in later years, in London,
dining with Oscar at Willis’s restaurant in King Street, St James’s, I would
look across the crowded room and catch sight of the
maître d’hôtel
standing
at his desk and ask myself: is that Gus Green or is it Verdi?

Oscar
said: ‘I wondered briefly whether they were the one and the same person, but I
know that they were not because, back in the ‘eighties, I saw them in the
restaurant once, standing side by side. Together they appeared quite different
and one was taller than the other, though I can’t remember which. They were not
close, except to their mother. I imagine on that fateful Sunday in July 1892,
when Verdi saw us hugger-mugger with Tuminello on our way to the tombs of the
popes, he realised that the game was up. He decided to silence Tuminello and
then disappear, taking with him from the sacristy enough papal treasure to live
in comfort for the rest of his days, but not so much that the Vatican would
feel the need to send the Swiss Guard in hot pursuit of him. I suppose he sent
that telegram from me to his brother announcing his “death” for sentimental
reasons. He wanted his brother to come to Rome to fetch home his personal
belongings, as a souvenir for Mama. You know how Italians are about their
mothers …’

We left
Rome within twenty-four hours of concluding the case. The portmanteau of
correspondence that I had taken with me to Bad Homburg ten days earlier
returned with me to South Norwood, still requiring my attention! Though pressed
to do so by Felici and Breakspear, we did not stay for Monsignor Tuminello’s
funeral. Dr Axel Munthe kindly agreed to represent us.

‘I’m
not a great one for obsequies,’ said Oscar. ‘Death is more in Munthe’s line
than mine.’

Over
the next few years, the Swedish doctor and I corresponded occasionally — on
literary matters mainly: we shared the same publisher — but we never met again.
Oscar, I believe, last saw Munthe at his house on the island of Capri in the
late summer of 1897, not long after Oscar’s release from Reading Gaol. They
talked, so Oscar told me, about death and Keats and monkeys —and the price of
love.

On the
day of our departure, Munthe had said he would see us off from Rome railway
station, but in the event he was instead called away to meet a new patient. She
was Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden and I understand that she became his
mistress and remained his mistress for many years. Axel Munthe was not regular
in his habits but he was a good man. On the morning of our return to London, as
we were saying goodbye, I mentioned to him that I had noticed the gum around
the eyes of the two boys who lived in the woods up on the hill. He told me that
he had noticed it also; that the boys were both suffering from trachoma; and
that they would soon be having treatment — paid for by James Rennell Rodd.

Rodd, I
learnt, also paid for the funeral of the boys ‘father and arranged, with Martin
English, for the poor man’s ashes to be dispersed in the Protestant Cemetery
adjacent to the pyramid, as his sons had wanted.

‘Rodd’s
a bit stiff,’ I said to Oscar.
‘Nomen est omen
and all that, but I like
him. And you like him, too, really, don’t you? It’s a pity he doesn’t like you.’

‘He
doesn’t like me because he is frightened of what he sees of me in himself.
Nothing must be allowed to get in the way of James’s career.’

Nothing
did. James Rennell Rodd’s rise through the diplomatic service was meteoric. He
served in Rome, Berlin, Athens, Cairo, Paris, and did the Swedes such service
that King Oscar II — the son of Oscar Wilde’s godfather, the father-in-law of
Axel Munthe’s mistress — awarded him the Grand Cross of the Order of the Polar
Star. He returned to Rome as British ambassador in 1908. As I write this (in
the winter of 1928) he has just become the Member of Parliament for St
Marylebone. I have no doubt that Oscar was right and that it is only a matter
of time before he receives a baron’s coronet.

Nicholas
Breakspear did not secure a cardinal’s hat. Shortly after our visit to Rome, he
wrote to me, telling me of his intention to apply for the post of head of languages
at our old school, Stonyhurst College. He asked me whether I would be one of
his referees. I said I should be honoured. As you may know, under the name
Nicholas Breakspear-Owen he went on to write what many regard as the definitive
biography of Cardinal Newman. He died at Stonyhurst, aged seventy-five, in the
spring of this year.

Monsignor
Felici lived into his mid-seventies as well, despite his girth, his
concupiscence and his appetite for ice cream. He had a good physician in Axel
Munthe who, no doubt, eased him towards a good end. When and how Brother Matteo
died I do not know, but I imagine it was many years ago. The last I heard of
him was from Breakspear-Owen who travelled to Rome for the funeral of Pope Leo
XIII in July 1903 and, for old times’ sake, visited the Capuchin church of the
Immaculate Conception. There he found the aged friar, less upright but still
barefoot and sweet-natured, tending the bones of little Agnes in the crypt of
the three skeletons.

And
what of Catherine and the Reverend Martin English? He served as Anglican
chaplain in Rome for thirty-three years. According to a journalist of my
acquaintance — the Rome correspondent of the London
Times
— English,
‘though you could never fault him, never entirely settled in’. The last time
that I saw Catherine English was on the platform at Rome station on the day of
our departure. She came to see us off, looking very lovely in her pink summer
frock and her wide-brimmed straw hat. We stood together, she on the platform
looking up, me at the window of my compartment looking down, as we waited for
the train to depart. As the guard’s whistle blew, she pushed her face up
towards mine and I caught the scent of lily of the valley in her hair. She
whispered some words to me and kissed me farewell.

When I
settled back into my seat and the train had begun to gather speed, Oscar said
to me: ‘Arthur, are you quite well? You look as white as a sheet.’

‘I am
puzzled by something that Miss English has just said,’ I replied.

‘And
what was that?’ he enquired.

‘She
said that I must go back to my wife and love her truly, just as she must go
back to her husband and love him. She is
married,
Oscar.’

‘Ah,’
he said gently, studying the burning tip of his cigarette. ‘She admitted it,
did she? The Reverend English is her husband, not her brother, but as the post
of Anglican chaplain in Rome is open only to unmarried clergy, they have opted
for a life of deception. He called it “a life of discretion” when he told me.
He said he knew that he could rely on mine.’

‘A life
of deception.’ I repeated the phrase.

‘Yes.
And it might work for them. Who knows? They are in a foreign country, far away
from home, after all. Don’t forget, when I first saw them I assumed they were
brother and sister. This whole case has been riddled with false assumptions.’
He flicked some ash from his cigarette into his cupped hand. ‘I observed
“Miss” English, as I thought her, making overtures towards you — coming on that
balloon trip, inviting herself on our expedition to Capri — and I encouraged
the friendship, thinking a little holiday romance would put some colour in your
cheeks, but I did wrong. Martin English is a weak man married to a strong and
wicked woman, who appears to be neither because she is beautiful.’

‘She
lied to me?’ I said, shaking my head in disbelief.

‘I fear
she did, from start to finish. It’s not impossible to live a lie and it does
have its advantages. How much money did you give her?’

‘I gave
her one hundred pounds in all.’

Oscar
smiled. ‘I think you got off quite lightly. And it’s a lesson learnt. One
should always be suspicious of a woman who tells you that her past was burnt in
the flames of a schoolhouse in Peshawar.’ He drew contentedly on his cigarette
and observed me with kindly eyes. ‘You sent another telegram to Touie, I trust?
Will your darling wife be waiting for you at the station in London?’

‘I hope
so,’ I said. ‘I don’t deserve her, Oscar. I really don’t.’

Oscar
laughed. ‘If we men married the women we deserved, we should have a very bad
time of it.’ He leant across the railway carriage and tapped me on the knee.
‘In this world, Arthur, there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what
one wants and the other is getting it.’

‘Who
said that?’ I asked.

He
smiled. ‘It wasn’t Keats.’

Chronology

1823:
Death of John Keats in Rome, Italy, at the age of twenty-five

1846:
Accession of Pope Pius IX, aged fifty-four

1854:
Birth of Oscar Wilde in Dublin, Ireland

1857:
Birth of Axel Munthe in Oskarshamn, Sweden

1859:
Birth of Arthur Conan Doyle in Edinburgh, Scotland

1875:
Axel Munthe’s first visit to Rome and the island of Capri

1877:
Oscar Wilde’s audience with Pope Pius IX in Rome

1878:
Death of Pope Pius IX, aged eighty-five, and accession of Pope Leo XIII, aged
sixty-seven

1879:
John Henry Newman becomes Cardinal deacon of San Giorgio in Velabro, Rome

1882:
Publication of
Rose Leaf and Apple Leaf,
verses by James Rennell Rodd,
aged twenty-four, with an introduction by Oscar Wilde

1884:
Oscar Wilde marries Constance Lloyd

1885:
Arthur Conan Doyle marries Louisa ‘Touie’ Hawkins

1887:
Publication of
A Study in Scarlet,
the first appearance of Sherlock
Holmes

1889:
The first meeting of Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle

1889:
Stories by Axel Munthe and Arthur Conan Doyle appear in
Blackwood’s Magazine

1890:
Publication of
The Sign of Four,
the second appearance of Sherlock
Holmes

1890:
Publication of
The Picture of Dorian Gray

1890:
Axel Munthe opens his medical practice in Rome

1892:
The first performance of
Lady Windermere’s Fan
in
London

1892:
Publication of
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

1893:
Publication of ‘The Greek Interpreter’, featuring the first appearance of
Mycroft Holmes

1893:
The ‘death’ of Sherlock Holmes in ‘The Final Problem’

1895:
The first performance of
The Importance of Being Earnest
and the arrest and imprisonment of Oscar Wilde

1897:
Oscar Wilde, released from prison, visits Axel Munthe in Capri

1897:
Arthur Conan Doyle meets Jean Leckie, who becomes his
second wife following the death of ‘Touie’ ‘from tuberculosis in 1906

1900:
Death of Oscar Wilde, aged forty-six

1901:
The return of Sherlock Holmes in
The Hound of the
Baskervilles

1903:
Death of Pope Leo XIII, aged ninety-three

1908:
James Rennell Rodd appointed British ambassador to
Rome

1924:
Publication of
Memories and Adventures
by Arthur
Conan Doyle, featuring the first account of his friendship with Oscar Wilde

1929:
Publication of
The Story of San Michele
by Axel Munthe

1930:
Death of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, aged seventy-one

1933:
Sir James Rennell Rodd GCB, GCMG, GCVO, PC, elevated to the House of Lords as
1st Baron Rennell

1938:
Publication of
Two Englishwomen in Rome 1871-1900
by Matilda Lucas,
featuring incidents touched on in
Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders

1941:
Death of Baron Rennell, aged eighty-two

1949:
Death of Axel Munthe, aged ninety-one

2000:
The beatification of Pope Pius IX