Oscar Wilde and the Nest of Vipers (31 page)

Do I burn these notes or keep them?

59
From
The Times
, Wednesday, 19 March 1890

The funeral of the late Duchess of Albemarle will not now take place on Thursday, 20 March, as previously announced. The funeral service for Her Grace will now be held on Saturday, 22 March, at twelve noon at St George’s, Hanover Square, London, W., and will be followed by private cremation. Further particulars are available from Messrs J. H. Kenyon, funeral directors of Rochester Row, Westminster, London, SW.

60
From the notebooks of Robert Sherard

We set off from Marlborough House in the four-wheeler that Oscar kept at his disposal all day. He is absurdly extravagant.

‘Why don’t we walk?’ suggested Conan Doyle. ‘Look at the sky. It’s a fine afternoon.’

‘Walk?’ expostulated Oscar, as though his friend had quite taken leave of his senses. ‘Look at the streets, Arthur – awash with horse manure.’

‘We can walk on the pavements.’

‘Awash with people! We’d need a street-sweeper to forge a path for us and he’d probably cost more than the brougham.’

Brooking no further argument, Oscar instructed the coachman to take us up St James’s and along Piccadilly to the Café Royal.

‘We are meeting Rex LaSalle for lunch.’

‘Lunch?’

‘A magnum of Perrier-Jouët ’82. It’s what we need to wash away the taste of His Royal Highness’s amontillado.’

‘I’m not drinking at lunchtime, Oscar.’

‘And why not?’

‘I’m resolved – absolutely. No alcohol during working
hours. It’s one of my Lenten resolutions and I am sticking to it.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Arthur. Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws – as well you know. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak. That is all that can be said for them. They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account. You will have a glass or three of the Perrier-Jouët at the Café Royal,
mon ami
.
J’insiste.
’

At the Café Royal, Conan Doyle did indeed do as Oscar insisted – and did so without apparent regret. There is something compelling about Oscar. His charm is overwhelming. One does his bidding, whatever one’s resolve.

We sat, conspicuously, at a round table in the middle of a crowded dining room on the ground floor. Oscar is always happy to be seen as well as heard. He placed his ‘little vampire’, Rex LaSalle, on his right hand and treated the young man as he might have done a favourite spaniel – petting and teasing him alternately.

As the wine flowed, so did Oscar’s aphorisms. I noted the new ones – and the variations on the familiar ones. This one I had not heard before: ‘If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn’t. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.’

As we were finishing the magnum of champagne and Oscar was wondering out loud if he should choose a different vintage for the second, LaSalle asked casually,
‘Have you seen
The Times
this morning? It seems the Duchess of Albemarle’s funeral has been postponed until Saturday.’

This news galvanised Oscar. He drained his glass, extinguished his cigarette and pushed back his chair.

‘Gentlemen,’ he announced, ‘we must proceed to Grosvenor Square. We must beard the Duke of Albemarle in his lair. We must discover the meaning of this.’

‘Hold on, old boy,’ said Conan Doyle, who was now enjoying his wine. ‘I thought we were off the case. I distinctly heard a certain person say “case closed” – not an hour ago.’

‘Has the Prince of Wales lost interest in the matter?’ asked LaSalle, leaning forward.

‘Hush!’ hissed Conan Doyle, looking anxiously about him. ‘No names. We are sworn to secrecy.’

‘The Truth is our only mistress now,’ said Oscar, getting to his feet. ‘We are beholden to none but her.’

He took a five-pound note from his pocket and threw it on to the table.

‘Come, gentlemen. To Grosvenor Square. The game’s afoot.’

Our brougham made slow progress. The West End traffic was heavy and another carriage had turned over at Hyde Park Corner.

‘We should have walked,’ said Conan Doyle, adding, with his eyes half closed: ‘I don’t know why we are going to Grosvenor Square in any event. The duke won’t see us.’

‘He will,’ said Oscar. ‘He will feel an obligation. He knows that you know that he moved the body of Louisa Lavallois.’

‘I know no such thing,’ replied Conan Doyle, sitting upright. ‘I have said not a word on the matter.’

Smiling, Oscar waved Conan Doyle’s protestation aside. ‘The duke will see us. A man always makes time for those who know his secrets.’

And so it proved. Within moments of our arrival at 40 Grosvenor Square, Parker, the butler, admitted us to the duke’s presence. It was not quite three o’clock in the afternoon, but the duke was in the morning room, enjoying a post-prandial coffee, smoking a cigar and reading
Pride and Prejudice
.

‘Ah, the comfort of Miss Austen,’ murmured Oscar, as he bowed to His Grace. ‘If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.’

The duke disregarded Oscar’s pleasantry, got to his feet and stood facing us, his back to the fireplace. Evidently unamused by our intrusion, he invited us neither to sit nor take our ease. From inside his jacket, he produced a small ivory-handled pocket knife, which he used to cut off the lighted tip of his cigar. The unsmoked portion of cigar he laid carefully on the mantelpiece, then wiped the blade of the knife with his handkerchief and returned the knife to his pocket.

‘I am surprised to see you, gentlemen,’ he said bluntly. His eye rested stonily on Arthur Conan Doyle.

‘We were surprised to read of the postponement of the duchess’s funeral, Your Grace. We were concerned.’

The duke turned his gaze on Oscar. ‘Is that why you are here?’

‘It is,’ said Oscar. ‘It is the only reason.’

The duke’s frown began to soften.

‘So far as last night is concerned,’ Oscar continued smoothly, ‘I believe we are all of one mind. The theatre manager was wise to dispose of the poor girl’s body in that alley by Leicester Square. Why entangle the heir apparent in a sordid murder inquiry when it is quite unnecessary to do so? The police can now be left to pursue the matter in the normal way of things.’

‘Indeed,’ said the duke lightly and smiled. ‘Gentlemen, be seated, please.’

‘No, thank you, sir,’ said Oscar. ‘We’ll not linger.’

‘A cigarette, then?’ said the duke, taking the silver cigarette case from the mantelpiece and offering it to each of us in turn. ‘It was an unfortunate ending to an otherwise enjoyable evening. Dan Leno was at his best, I thought.’

‘And the Great McGonagall at his worst,’ said Oscar. ‘He is magnificent in his awfulness, is he not? He is an extraordinary national monument – like Monsieur Eiffel’s new tower in Paris, splendid and pointless at the same time.’

The duke laughed, his demeanour now quite changed. Taking up the cigar he had just extinguished, he relit it.

‘I am pleased to see you, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Thank you for your concern about the funeral. There’s nothing untoward in the postponement. The opposite, in fact. The Bishop of London wished to be one of those conducting the obsequies. He is an old friend. He was not free tomorrow. He can be with us on Saturday.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Oscar, drawing on his cigarette with satisfaction. ‘And I imagine the extra two days will be helpful to members of the late duchess’s family who have farther to travel.’

‘Helen had many friends, but no family to speak of. Her parents are both dead. She had no brothers, no cousins.’

‘She was not an only child?’

‘No, Mr Wilde. I think you know that. She had – has – a sister – a younger sister, Louise Lascelles. I believe Dr Doyle met her at Lord Yarborough’s clinic at Muswell Hill.’

Conan Doyle grunted awkwardly. ‘Yes, I saw her briefly. She is not well.’

‘She is quite mad, Doctor. It is heartbreaking.’

‘Indeed,’ muttered Conan Doyle.

‘I am grateful to Yarborough for all that he is doing for her. He is attempting to cure her through hypnosis. He wanted to admit Helen to the clinic also, but she’d have none of it. She was wilful, even when she was calm. And she was not often that.’

‘Both sisters suffered from the same condition?’ asked Conan Doyle. ‘Both exhibited the same symptoms?’

‘Yes,’ said the duke, sighing heavily. ‘I married Helen for her gaiety and discovered that I had married an hysteric.’

‘I am sorry,’ said Conan Doyle.

‘Hysteria is a sickness – a disease – that’s not yet understood. Charcot and Yarborough are exploring its pathology and I am helping them as best I can, funding their researches. But money alone cannot provide the answers. The human body must be ready to reveal its secrets. Progress is slow.’

He extinguished his cigarette in a small silver ashtray that bore the Prince of Wales’s feathers and laughed bitterly.

‘What am I saying? There is no progress.’

‘None at all?’

‘None at all – if Yarborough’s to be believed. And he is. He’s a good man. A great man.’ The Duke of Albemarle looked directly at me. ‘I believe he is a kinsman of yours, Mr Sherard. You are cousins, I think?’

‘Bastard cousins,’ I said, embarrassed.

‘Cousins nonetheless,’ said Rex LaSalle.

‘Exactly, sir,’ said the duke, smiling. ‘Blood’s thicker than water and all that.’

‘Will the duchess’s sister be able to attend the funeral?’ enquired Oscar, putting out his cigarette alongside the duke’s in the ashtray with the Prince of Wales’s feathers.

‘Oh no. She is far too unstable. Her lunacy is profound, her fits unpredictable. I fear she will live out her days in an asylum, as thousands do, as tens of thousands have before her. It is pitiable – horrible – and, as yet, there is no cure. My poor Helen may be the more blessed to be dead.’

‘May she rest in peace,’ said Oscar.