Oscar Wilde and the Nest of Vipers (45 page)

‘Does it?’ I asked. ‘The man is a music-hall turn, Arthur.’

Conan Doyle pulled the letter from my grasp.

‘Whatever he is, what he says here rings true.’

He sat forward on his seat and addressed us with a passion that defied mockery.

‘We know that a strong will can, simply by virtue of its strength, take possession of a weaker one, even at a distance, and can regulate the impulses and actions of its owner. Napoleon proved that across Europe. Henry Irving proves it night after night from the stage of the Lyceum. A powerful personality – by force of personality – can move men to action and to tears. Combine such a force of personality with the art of the hypnotist and what villainy cannot be achieved?’

‘Lord Yarborough is neither Napoleon nor Irving,’ said Oscar, holding out his cigarette and tipping the ash into his cupped hand.

‘No, but he is nonetheless a man of achievement and ambition – a small man with a considerable personality, a strong will, iron determination and high intelligence. And he is a hypnotist. What he wants, he gets – by fair means or foul. To make progress with his research into
the nature of hysteria he must explore both the behaviour and the anatomy of his patients. He needs them alive and he needs them dead. By the very nature of their illness, his patients are vulnerable – prone to hysteria and to melancholy, to wild heights of excitement and terrible sloughs of despond. Yarborough does not need to murder them with his own hands. He has only to hypnotise them at their most vulnerable and induce them to terrible acts of self-immolation. The Duchess of Albemarle was Yarborough’s patient. Under hypnosis, he could do with her as he pleased.’

‘Could he persuade her to take her own life and
subsequently
dispose of the instrument with which she committed the fateful act?’ asked Oscar, smiling. ‘And could he persuade Lulu Lavallois, first, to kill herself and, then, post-mortem, to hide the instrument of death on the supper table in the adjoining room?’

‘Besides,’ I added, ‘Mademoiselle Lavallois was not Lord Yarborough’s patient.’

‘So he tells us,’ snapped Conan Doyle, ‘but she
was
Charcot’s. That we know.’

Our four-wheeler was now drawing up outside 40 Grosvenor Square. Conan Doyle looked out of the carriage window.

‘There he is,’ he cried.

Lord Yarborough was standing on the top step, awaiting admittance to the house. He looked down at our carriage and, recognising us, waved.

‘And look over here, gentlemen,’ said Oscar, directing our attention to the other side of the street.

A lone figure in a dishevelled raincoat stood lurking by the gates to the garden square.

‘It’s your old acquaintance from the Dover train, Arthur – the fellow whose sinister appearance so caught your fancy: the man with the twisted lip. All our chickens are coming home to roost.’

‘This is Where it Ends’

80
From the journal of Arthur Conan Doyle

Following the hideous business of drowning the
viperadae
in the kitchens at Marlborough House, we took Oscar’s four-wheeler across Trafalgar Square and down the Strand to the Lyceum Theatre.

‘In the aftermath of those vile snakes, we need the security of known relationships,’ said Oscar. ‘We need the comfort of friends. And we need food and drink. And I need a change of clothing. Bram Stoker can supply all these.’

Bram did. He is the best of men. His easy companionability repaired our tattered nerves. He sent out for beer and sandwiches – and two bottles of hock, at Oscar’s insistence. And, from the Lyceum wardrobe, he supplied Oscar with a sober set of clothes suitable for the Albemarle wake. (It was a costume for an eighteenth-century clergyman, but the cut and style fitted Oscar uncannily.)

We spent almost two hours with Bram – telling him our news and hearing his, talking of this and
that and nothing in particular – and felt much the better for it.

From the Lyceum we drove back up the Strand, across Trafalgar Square once more, up the Haymarket and along Regent Street to the Langham Hotel. There, in my bathroom (two shillings extra, but worth every penny), Sherard shaved and I changed my tie, while Oscar looked through his post – there were letters and telegrams awaiting him, sent care of me – and admired himself (inordinately!) in the looking-glass.

At six o’clock we set off for our final destination of the day: 40 Grosvenor Square.

‘We are going back to where it all began,’ I said, as we climbed aboard the four-wheeler, ‘only eight days ago.’

‘It began a day or two before that, I think,’ said Oscar.

‘The Albemarle reception was on Thursday the thirteenth of March – a week ago last night,’ I said.

‘But the wedding anniversary of the Prince and Princess of Wales was three days before – on Monday the tenth of March.’

‘Is that significant?’

‘Possibly – if I am correct and it is love and loss that lie at the heart of our murder mystery.’

Oscar sat back in the carriage, clutching his correspondence to his chest and smiling enigmatically.

‘You have received fresh intelligence, Oscar?’ asked Sherard.

‘I have – and it includes an interesting letter from the great Professor Onofroff. I wrote to him on Wednesday with a couple of queries. He has been good enough to reply by return of post.’

Oscar read out Onofroff’s letter – and I pounced upon it. Onofroff confirmed what I had already considered possible: that a subject
prone
to suicide could be
induced
to suicide under hypnosis.

When we reached 40 Grosvenor Square, we found Lord Yarborough standing on the doorstep. As we alighted from our carriage, Oscar hissed to me: ‘Be civil to him – for the moment.’

Oscar paused to give instructions (and further emolument) to the coachman – the long-suffering fellow had been held at Oscar’s disposal since the crack of dawn – while Robert Sherard and I climbed the steps together.

Yarborough boomed effusively: ‘Good afternoon, gentlemen. How was the Prince of Wales? Did you get to him on time? Did you get your cheese straws? I rode to town in the pony and trap just now – not a good idea.’

I said nothing, leaving Sherard to mumble inoffensive replies on our behalf. I nodded briefly to Yarborough and then stood on the doorstep, looking back over my shoulder, beyond the four-wheeler, to the half-familiar figure that stood watching us from across the street. I saw that Yarborough had noticed him, too.

‘Have you rung the bell?’ called Oscar, as he climbed the steps to join us.

‘I have,’ answered Yarborough cheerfully, ‘twice.’

As he spoke, the front door was opened. The scene that greeted us was not what we had expected.

The Prince of Wales was standing in the centre of the hallway, at the foot of the main staircase. He was dressed in full mourning and his face was as grey as his beard. In his left hand he held a folded handkerchief. With his right he clasped the hand of the Duke of Albemarle.

‘She was a remarkable young woman,’ we heard him say. ‘So full of life. I offer you my heartfelt condolences, Duke. She was my special friend.’

‘Are we late?’ murmured Oscar.

‘No,’ whispered the butler. ‘His Royal Highness was early. He was anxious about the possibility of photographers.’

Also standing in the hallway, next to his father, equally ashen-faced and in full mourning, was Prince Albert Victor and, beside him, ranged to the right of the staircase in a solemn row, were General Sir Dighton Probyn, Harry Tyrwhitt Wilson and Frank Watkins, the Prince of Wales’s page.

Just beyond the page, standing alone, with his head bowed and his hands held behind his back, was Oscar’s young friend, Rex LaSalle.

To the left of the staircase, ranged behind the duke and providing a counterbalance to the royal party, stood the indoor staff of Albemarle household. As personal maid to the late duchess,
little Nellie Atkins, weeping silently, had pride of place at the front of the line.

‘Shall we view the body?’

‘Thank you, Duke,’ said the Prince of Wales. ‘I should like to pay Helen my last respects.’

‘Very good, sir,’ said the duke quietly. ‘Parker will lead the way.’

The butler moved from his station by the front door to the centre of the hallway. He bowed low to both the duke and the Prince of Wales and then, sharply, turned his back on them and, in the manner of a mace-bearer marching before a lord mayor, led the procession out of the hallway, along the corridor to the left of the main staircase into the ground-floor morning room where lay the coffin of the late Duchess of Albemarle.

Lord Yarborough turned to me and murmured silkily: ‘Will you come to view the body, Dr Doyle? It seems I did not steal it away to chop it up for science, after all.’

‘We saw you collect the body on the day of the duchess’s death,’ I whispered.

‘I made the arrangements with the undertakers – on behalf of my friend, the duke. Nothing more.’

He smiled at me coldly and narrowed his eyes.

‘If you will excuse me,’ he said.

Moving swiftly across the hall, he joined the royal party, taking his place alongside General Sir Dighton Probyn, one step behind Prince Albert Victor.

‘We’re latecomers,’ muttered Oscar. ‘And interlopers. We should go last, after the servants.’

It was a curious procession, with at its head, side by side, the late duchess’s husband and her royal lover, and, at its tail, her deaf and dumb maidservant and a young man who claimed to be a vampire and had met the deceased only the once and that just a week ago.

Sherard, Oscar and I followed the procession, but kept our distance. As we entered the darkened morning room, about ten paces behind the line of mourners, the duke and the princes, Yarborough, Probyn, Wilson and the prince’s page had moved past the coffin and through the double doors beyond into the adjoining drawing room. There we could see Parker already serving wine.

We waited in the doorway and watched as the household staff filed past the coffin and proceeded to join their lord and master in the drawing room beyond. There, they, too, were offered wine. Grief engineered an interesting scene: the Prince of Wales in earnest conversation with a butler; the Duke of Albemarle with a consoling arm wrapped around the shoulders of a weeping lady’s maid.

‘Let us view the body now,’ whispered Oscar. ‘We are alone.’

Though the doors to the room beyond were open, we were alone. The drawing room was brightly lit, but the morning room where the coffin lay was in semi-darkness. The gas lamps were turned low and at the four corners of the open oak coffin stood four tall brass candlesticks, each with a single candle lit.

Oscar led the way into the room and stood at the head of the silk-lined casket with his hand resting on it, gazing down at the face of the late duchess.

‘She is as beautiful as I remember,’ he said. ‘Helen, late of Troy, now of Grosvenor Square.’

The lady was indeed beautiful. The embalmers had not robbed her of her loveliness. Her eyes were closed, her lips were sealed, her brow was clear. She looked to be at peace.

‘Her nose is more pointed than I recall,’ said Oscar.

‘Death does that,’ I said, ‘even in the young.’

His eyes scanned the length of the coffin. ‘She is as lovely as I remember, but not so tall.’

‘Did you know her well?’ whispered Sherard.

‘Well enough to be invited to her parties, that’s all. We were never alone together. I saw her only among crowds. We never spoke for more than a few minutes at a time. But I liked her. And I admired her fire, her fierce energy. It was wonderfully at odds with her pallor – with her lily-like beauty – and the frailty of her heart.’

Sherard peered closely at the corpse within the coffin. ‘Do you think that she was truly “mad” in the way that they say she was?’

Oscar laughed quietly. ‘It’s possible. From the very first, whenever we met, she kissed me full on the lips. Remember, Robert, when a married woman kisses you on the mouth, it tells you more about her character than it does about your charms.’

He looked down into the coffin, smiled, and with his right hand gently caressed the lady’s hair.