2007 - Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders (28 page)

“Robert, as the poet says in ‘The Sphinx Without a Secret’, ‘Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood’.”

“Which poet is that?”

“Oscar Wilde,” he replied, “one of our favourites. I think we should let him have the last word, don’t you? Goodnight, Robert.”

“Goodnight.”

Oscar slept soundly. I did not. Within minutes of our having exchanged our goodnights, the macabre sound of my friend’s snoring—like a never-ending death rattle—filled the night air. I buried my head beneath the pillow and, to distract myself, tried to fill my mind with sensual fantasy. I failed. Where I hoped to see Veronica bringing her soft lips, to mine, huge faces—hard and cruel—loomed, unbidden, out of the darkness towards me, like headlamps on an oncoming train. I wanted Veronica’s smiling features upon my pillow; instead, I was confronted by Bellotti’s blind eyes, O’Donnell’s malevolent leer, Fraser’s mouth of small white teeth. Eventually, as the hours passed, I fell into a fitful sleep. I can recollect only one dream of that night. It was not of Veronica, nor of Kaitlyn nor of Marthe—nor even of Constance, who, curiously, often featured in my dreams. It was of Conan Doyle examining the severed head of Billy Wood beneath the gasolier in Tite Street.

In the morning, Oscar was up betimes; he had bathed, shaved and dressed even as I slumbered. I awoke to a waft of his favourite scent (Canterbury Wood Violet) and the sight of his large, long face peering down into mine. “Up, up, my friend,” he cried. “You’ve missed the dawn. Soon you’ll be missing breakfast too.”

“You’re very bright this morning,” I mumbled, pulling the bedclothes over my nose and eyes.

Oscar had drawn the curtains and pushed back the shutters. A sharp white light was filling the room. “It is St Bathild’s Eve,” he declared. “We must do her due honour.”

“Who on earth is St Bathild?”

“In heaven she ranks among the Almighty’s favourites. She was an English girl who became a French queen, a thousand years ago. As a child, she was stolen by pirates and sold into slavery. As a young woman, she caught the eye of King Clovis II.”

“Who was he?”

“The Robert Sherard of the Western Franks,” he cried, pulling back my bedclothes with a mighty sweep. “King Clovis could not resist a pretty ankle. St Bathild is the patron saint of pretty ankles. You must get up and light a candle at her shrine. She died in Paris—as all the best people do.”

I rolled over and lowered my feet to the ice-cold floor. “It’s too early for this banter, Oscar,” I muttered. “Where are my slippers?”

“Have you asked St Anthony and St Anne?”

I groaned. “You and your blessed saints…”

He was standing near the window now, adjusting his tie in the looking-glass that was affixed to one of the doors of a large walnut wardrobe. He looked down at my reflection in the glass. “It’s all about saints’ days, Robert,” he said, with a smile.

“What is?” I asked, confused. (The wine list of Le Grand Cafe was beginning to exact its toll.)

“This case of ours,” he replied, turning towards me. “It’s all about saints’ days…and temptation.” He opened the wardrobe and selected a shirt, coat and trousers for me, casting them on the foot of my bed. “This has been a profitable night in the matter of the murder of Billy Wood,” he reflected. “Things I had dimly dreamt of were suddenly made real to me. Things of which I had never dreamt were gradually revealed. Dress,
mon ami. Le tout Paris nous attend
.”

It was not much after nine when we found Aidan Fraser in the multi-mirrored breakfast room of the Hotel Charing Cross. He was seated alone, at a table set for four. “Veronica has breakfasted,” he said. “She is taking a walk. She will be back shortly.”

“You look perturbed, my friend,” said Oscar, as we took our seats.

“I am,” said Fraser. “I have received a wire from London.”

“From Scotland Yard?”

“Yes,” he said, holding up the envelope for us to see, “from Gilmour.”

“Bad news?”

“The worst,” said Fraser. “We have lost our key witness.”

“Bellotti?”asked Oscar.

“Yes,” said the inspector, “Bellotti. Bellotti is dead.”

“Dead!” exclaimed Oscar. “Did you say dead?”

“Yes,” said Fraser.

“I don’t believe it,” said Oscar. He put his hand to his mouth and closed his eyes. “How is this possible?” he murmured, speaking as if in a daze. He opened his eyes. “Dead?” he said once more. “Do you mean murdered?”

“No, not murdered,” replied the inspector, opening out the telegram. “An accident, it seems—or suicide. He fell under a train.”

“Does Gilmour mention the dwarf?”

“The dwarf?” repeated Fraser, uncomprehending. He stared down at the telegram. “There’s no mention of any dwarf.”

“Well,” said Oscar, with a bitter laugh, recovering his composure and pouring himself a cup of hot chocolate, “so much for Paris in the spring. We must return to London at once.”

29 January 1890

“M
ust we return to London, Aidan?
Must
we?”

Veronica Sutherland had come back from her early morning walk with colour in her cheek and fire in her eye—and the prettiest feather cap upon her head. She had found us in the hotel dining room and joined us at our breakfast table but declined to take a seat. In consequence, Aidan Fraser, Oscar and I were standing in our places, clutching our napkins, as if we were errant schoolboys, with slates in hand, being admonished by their governess. “This is so annoying,” she continued, “so unfair. We have only just arrived and Monday is my birthday—my birthday! When did we last have any time together, Aidan? You are always working.”

“The world, not the family, gets the fruits of genius,” said Oscar.

Veronica turned on him. “Oh, do hush, Oscar,
please
. Your never-ending witticisms can be quite wearisome at times.”

“The line was not mine,” said Oscar meekly, “but Conan Doyle’s.”

“The source is immaterial! The point is: we are supposed to be on holiday—this is my birthday weekend—and Aidan is neither a genius nor indispensable. Cannot the case be handled by Inspector Gilmour or some other plodder at the Yard?”

“The case is important,” said Oscar.

“Is it?” she asked, looking him directly in the eye. “A slut of a boy has been murdered, his pimp has taken his own life, his drunken stepfather is to be hanged. Is the case
really
so important, Mr Wilde?”

I was shocked by the violence of her language. Oscar seemed unperturbed. “Yes,” he answered, calmly, returning her gaze.

“Oh,” she said, sharply, “and to whom?”

“It is important to your fiancé, Miss Sutherland, and to his future. He has charged a man with murder—and his principal witness is now dead. How did Bellotti die? Was it suicide? Was it an accident? Or was it, in fact, also murder? The matter cannot be left unresolved, nor can it be handled by Inspector Gilmour. It is Fraser’s responsibility, alas! Duty calls.”

Veronica sighed impatiently and looked about her. The dining room was not crowded, but at assorted other tables around the room there were fellow guests affecting to ignore us. I thought to speak—to say that perhaps Oscar and Fraser might return to London while I kept Miss Sutherland company in Paris—but I lacked the courage and I let the moment pass.

“Very well,” she said (her cheeks were paler now, her eyes no longer burnt so brightly), “I will go to my room to pack. Kindly call me when you are ready to depart.”

“Thank you,” said Fraser. “We will celebrate your birthday properly at Lower Sloane Street.”

“Indeed,” she said.

“And we can return to Paris,” said Oscar, smiling, “in the spring!”

She laughed, turned away and swept out of the room.

Within three hours, we were at the Gare du Nord, boarding the Club train for Calais. Fraser and Oscar had no difficulty in exchanging our tickets; the train on each side of the Channel was next to deserted and on board our steamship (the SS
Dover Castle
, “pride of the line”) we were the only passengers to be found in the first-class saloon. The day was a long one, and tedious. Our return to London was not the feast of good humour and fine sentiment that our outward trip had been. If Oscar had shafts of wit in mind (whether his own or those of others), he kept them to himself. For most of the journey home, his nose was buried in a book. We all read, or pretended to. I leafed slowly through my
vade mecum
, my annotated edition of the maxims of La Rochefoucauld. Veronica pored over a scientific journal devoted to Louis Pasteur’s work on immunisation against anthrax. Aidan Fraser read Jerome K. Jerome’s
Three Men in a Boat
, but not, I think, with close attention. He did not laugh once.

When we were back on English soil, when our train was travelling past the hop fields of north Kent and darkness was falling, Oscar and Fraser, as if by unspoken mutual consent, laid aside their books and, leaning toward one another, in subdued tones, conspiratorially, began to converse about the case.

“When exactly was Bellotti’s body found?” Oscar asked. “Did Gilmour say?”

“Yesterday morning, it would seem.”

“While we were travelling to Paris…”

“Yes.”

“And he fell beneath a train?”

“Apparently.”

“At which station?”

“The wire did not specify—but it was not a railway station. The accident occurred on the underground.”

“The accident?” Oscar raised an eyebrow.

“It could have been an accident, Oscar,” Fraser said, with deliberation. “The man was virtually blind, was he not?”

“That would have made him more careful, I think, not less so. You cannot rule out murder. You must not.”

“But why should anyone wish to murder Bellotti?”

“Because he was your witness, Aidan. You said he told you that Edward O’Donnell and Drayton St Leonard were one and the same man—”

“He did.”

“You are sure of that?”

“Quite sure of it.”

“And he told you, too, that Billy Wood left the lunch party that day to meet up with him?”

“That’s what he said. He was ready to testify to that.”

“Very well,” said Oscar. “If Bellotti was prepared to testify to that, what else might he not have been prepared to say in court? If he was prepared to implicate O’Donnell, what other reputation might he not have been ready to ruin? The moment Gerard Bellotti turned police informer, his days were numbered.”

Fraser laughed and pointed to the slim volume lying on the seat next to Oscar. “I think you have been reading too much Conan Doyle, Oscar.”

My friend picked up his copy of
The Sign of Four
and turned it over carefully in his hands. “I am absorbing what lessons I can from Mr Sherlock Holmes,” he said, “that ‘perfect reasoning and observing machine’.”

Fraser smiled and, settling back in his seat, ran his long thin fingers through his hair. “It was an accident, Oscar—or suicide. Bellotti realised the game was up and he couldn’t face the consequences.” He turned to look out of the carriage window, but night had fallen and he could have seen only his own reflection in the glass. “You mentioned a dwarf this morning,” he said. “What dwarf was that?”

“Bellotti kept a dwarf, as a kind of companion, errand-boy, bodyguard…I rarely saw Bellotti without the dwarf. He was an ugly creature.”

“If Bellotti was murdered,” suggested Fraser, turning back to Oscar, “perhaps this dwarf was the murderer.”

“I doubt it,” said Oscar. “The dwarf was Bellotti’s son.”

Fraser turned towards the carriage window once again. “I did not know about the dwarf,” he said.

“You’ll have to find him,” said Oscar.

“Yes,” said Fraser, somewhat distractedly, “yes, I suppose so. There’s much to be done…”

“What will you do first?” Oscar asked. “Interview the members of Bellotti’s little luncheon club? They should be able to identify Drayton St Leonard for you, should they not? Of course, unlike Bellotti, they may be reluctant to do so…”

“I think I’ll begin with Mrs Wood,” said Fraser. Oscar shook his head dismissively. Fraser continued: “Mrs Wood—or Mrs O’Donnell—or whatever she calls herself: she was your ‘housekeeper’, Oscar, I’m sure of that.”

“She’ll deny it.”

“No doubt. Those with blood on their hands are disinclined to tell the truth.”

“Will you charge her?”

“Not without a confession, no. Juries don’t like to convict mothers of murdering their own. But they’ll convict O’Donnell. O’Donnell will hang— and that will be her punishment.”

Our train was now travelling through the outskirts of south-east London. By day, the dreary streets and rundown dwellings that we were passing represented some of the meanest slums of the capital. By night, flickering candles on window ledges and gas lamps on alley walls turned poverty into fairy tale, transforming lines of tawdry tenement buildings into rows of Hansel and Gretel cottages. Oscar followed my eyes and read my mind. “Illusion can be a comfort,” he said.

Veronica was waking from a sleep. Her eyes were tired; her skin was pale (the powder had fallen from her cheeks); her hair had become unpinned and was tumbling about her neck. I had not known her look more natural, or more vulnerable. She smiled at me with gently parted lips and held my look in hers. I was overwhelmed by her loveliness.

The train was moving slowly now, as we approached the terminus. Veronica, sitting forward, adjusting her hair and stretching at the same time, turned towards Oscar and said, “I owe you an apology, Mr Wilde.”

Oscar stood up and bowed to her before reaching up to lift down one of the bags from the rack above our heads. “You owe me nothing, dear lady.”

“I owe you an apology,” she repeated. “I was intemperate earlier—and ill mannered. I don’t know what got into me. I trust you will forgive me and show that you do so by coming for a birthday drink tomorrow evening.”

“I shall be honoured,” said Oscar. “Is Robert invited also?”

“He knows he is!” She leant towards me, lifted my hand and kissed it.

“Good,” said Fraser, slapping his knees and getting briskly to his feet. The train had lurched to a stop. “That’s settled then. Six o’clock tomorrow evening at Lower Sloane Street. And now?”