Oscar Wilde and the Nest of Vipers (35 page)

Prince Albert Victor took the bamboo pipe from the page’s hands and put it to his own lips. He sucked on it slowly, smiling at Oscar as he did so and closing his eyes as he breathed the poison into his lungs. Opening his eyes again, he offered the pipe to Oscar, who accepted it.

‘They say that my father prefers men to books and women to either – but, above all, he wants to be king. He will let nothing stand in the way of that. He cannot afford another scandal. He will not allow it.’

‘Would the Prince of Wales kill to be king?’ asked Oscar.

‘He has shot pheasant and partridge and grouse by the thousand, Mr Wilde. The deer at Abergeldie Castle quake at his approach. He has felled tiger and elephant. He slaughters animals with reckless
abandon. But could he kill a man? I wonder. And could he kill a woman? I doubt it. And last Thursday night, he could not have killed the Duchess of Albemarle. He was on public view all evening.’

‘His equerry was not,’ said Oscar.

‘His page was not,’ said Frank Watkins, grinning.

‘Why would the Prince of Wales want to murder his own mistress?’ asked Bram Stoker.

‘Because he could no longer trust her,’ suggested Oscar. ‘Because she was an hysteric, and he could no longer rely on her discretion. He could neither protect her from her husband nor protect her from herself. She was mad, poor woman – a danger to herself and to the throne. He could not help her, but he could put her out of her misery. And if he could not do the deed himself, others would do it for him. “Who will rid me of this turbulent duchess?”’

I looked at Oscar as he sucked on the opium pipe. ‘This is somewhat far-fetched, my friend,’ I said.

Oscar looked back at me and smiled. ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains,
however improbable
, must be the truth, Arthur. Remember that.’

‘It’s a lovely line, Oscar – one of your best – but we have not eliminated the impossible. Far from it.’

Prince Albert Victor raised his hand to silence us. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘if anyone is responsible for
the death of the Duchess of Albemarle, it is her husband. His cruelty provoked her madness and her heart attack. He mutilated her – that we know. She told us so. But he did not kill her. Lord Yarborough says her heart gave way – that was the cause of death – and there is no reason to doubt him.’

‘And even if the duke had killed his wife,’ I said, ‘what could be done about it? If you threaten to bring His Grace to justice, His Grace will threaten to destroy the reputation of the future king of England. It cannot be done.’

‘Case closed,’ said Oscar, handing the opium pipe to Prince Albert Victor.

He put the palms of his hands on the bench on either side of him and attempted to stand. He could not do so. Sherard and I each took him by the elbow and, with an effort (Oscar is a large man), lifted him to his feet, standing closely at his side while he steadied himself.

Oscar looked down at the young prince and smiled. ‘Thank you, Your Royal Highness,’ he said.

‘Thank you, Mr Wilde,’ said the prince. ‘I did not murder the Duchess of Albemarle.’

‘I know,’ said Oscar. ‘I never thought you did.’

‘And yet you came to see me here tonight to confront me with the possibility.’

The prince laughed. In the faint glow of the brazier, with his thin, waxed moustache and the sweat glistening on his saturnine features, he looked like a stage blackguard crouching by the footlights.

‘I know why you came,’ he said.

‘Do you?’ asked Oscar.

‘You came because my father listened to a fortune-teller years ago and believed the gibberish he was told. My father believes me capable of murder.’

‘And are you?’

Prince Albert Victor cast the opium pipe aside and sat upright. Looking up at Oscar and gazing steadily into his eyes, he spoke calmly.

‘Yes. Yes, I am, Mr Wilde. I believe in capital punishment. I believe in taking a life – in war and at the gallows. I would fight a duel. And I would murder a man in cold blood – if it was just and right and necessary to do so. I did not murder the Duchess of Albemarle – why should I? I did not kill that little dancer that we met at the Empire last night – why would I? But, yes, Mr Wilde, I am capable of murder. And if, as my father believes, it is to be my destiny, I am ready for it.’

‘You will be king one day, sir,’ said Bram Stoker kindly. ‘In the fullness of time, that is to be your destiny.’

‘Oh no,’ said the prince, shaking his head and putting his arm around the page-boy at his side. ‘I’ll not be king. I’ll go mad before then. The porphyria will claim me. I shall never be king – and my father knows it. That’s another thing the fortune-teller told him.’

65
From the
Evening News
, late edition, Wednesday, 19 March 1890

M
URDERED
M
ERMAID
N
OT
R
IPPER
V
ICTIM

Louisa Lavallois, the French dancer who has been appearing as Miranda the Mermaid at the Empire Theatre of Varieties in Leicester Square, and whose mutilated body was discovered in an alley adjacent to the theatre late last night, was not the latest victim of ‘Jack the Ripper’, according to the police.

The semi-clad body of Miss Lavallois, twenty-six, principal dancer with the dance troupe Les Ballets Fantastiques, was found shortly before midnight hidden behind dustbins in Derby Alley, fifty yards from the Empire Theatre stage door. The victim’s throat had been cut savagely and her body mutilated, leading to speculation that the pretty young dancer was yet another victim of the notorious ‘Jack the Ripper’ who has so far claimed the lives of at least eleven unfortunate females, mostly in the Whitechapel district of East London.

However, we understand that the West End location of the present murder and the particular nature of the victim’s wounds have led police to eliminate Jack the Ripper from the list of possible suspects. We can disclose that police now believe that Miss Lavallois
may have been the victim of a revenge killing undertaken by or on behalf of the leader of a French criminal gang based in the Montmartre district of Paris.

Well-informed and usually reliable sources close to the Metropolitan Police have revealed to the
Evening News
that, in Paris, Miss Lavallois had a reputation as a professional courtesan equal to her fame as a dancer and may have fallen foul of her paymaster.

According to the source, ‘It seems that the young lady left Paris without the permission of her employer and had hopes of setting up in business independently in London. Her Paris paymaster, a man at the centre of an extensive web of corruption in France, and the owner of several houses of ill-repute in Paris, Lyons and Marseilles, was not ready to be crossed in this way and, as a warning to others, decided to make an example of Miss Lavallois. Either he murdered her himself or, much more likely, sent one of his henchmen to London to do the deed.’

We understand that Inspector Walter Andrews of Scotland Yard, who is leading the investigation into the murder, has been given the name of Miss Lavallois’s former employer in Paris and will be contacting the French police as a matter of urgency.

However, according to our source, ‘It is very unlikely that anyone will be brought to justice. The man in question is far too powerful to touch and what can be proved? He will have sent an anonymous miscreant to London to commit the crime, and that man will have slipped into the country yesterday afternoon unnoticed and then slipped out again as soon as the job was done.
There are a dozen trains a day to and from Paris and no passports required. Miss Lavallois’s killer could be any one of a thousand French criminals ready to commit murder for money. Finding him will be no easier than finding a needle in a haystack.’

66
From the notebooks of Robert Sherard

As soon as the night train pulled out of Victoria station, I fell asleep. Our compartment was warm and dark, and the steady jolt and jar of the train’s engine were curiously soothing. I let the locomotive’s steam filtering through the carriage windows overwhelm me, like wafts of gas administered in the dentist’s chair.

I must have slept for almost two hours for, when I awoke, I found we were approaching the docks at Dover. What roused me, I think, was not so much the clatter of the quayside as the sound of Oscar’s lilting voice reading out loud paragraphs from the newspaper – and then laughing contemptuously. At first I was too befuddled to fully comprehend what I was hearing.

‘“A professional courtesan”, Arthur. What do you make of that? I’m surprised they didn’t call her “a scarlet woman” or “a lady of the night”.’

‘So Miss Lavallois was a prostitute?’

‘That’s the implication – a jade, a hussy, a drab, a harlot, a wanton fornicatress, a common whore.’

‘Steady on, old chap.’

‘Unlike the
Evening News
, Arthur, I don’t mince my words. When I see a spade, I call it a spade.’

‘Have you ever seen a spade, Oscar?’

‘Very droll, Arthur.’

Oscar sat with his coat collar turned up and a cigarette dangling from his lips.

‘Well,
was
she a prostitute?’

‘She was an actress, Arthur. What do you think?’

‘I thought she was a dancer.’

‘Yes,’ said Oscar. ‘You’re right. She was a dancer.
Much
worse.’

Conan Doyle took the newspaper from Oscar and studied it reflectively. ‘So Miss Lavallois was “a professional courtesan” in Paris who came to London to escape her “employer” …’

‘Her pander, her pimp, Arthur. Read what it says. According to the paper, the blackguard has a string of houses of ill-repute.’

‘And this “employer”, outraged by the young lady’s bid for freedom, sent a man to London to slit her throat.’

‘
Pour encourager les autres
. And by way of revenge. That’s the gist of it. What do you think?’

Arthur Conan Doyle sniffed. ‘It seems plausible enough. Do you think the source is reliable?’

‘What do you reckon to his way with words?’ asked Oscar.