Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death (26 page)

The
empty box was the box Oscar had reserved for David McMuirtree.

As the house
lights dimmed and the orchestra struck up the overture (it was the overture to
Mozart’s
Il Seraglio),
Sickert murmured to me: ‘No news today of
Bradford Pearse?’

‘None
that I’ve heard.’

‘Is it
true then?’ whispered Stoker from the back of the box. ‘The word on the street
is that he’s topped himself-jumped off Beachy Head. Driven to it by his
creditors. When you saw him in Eastbourne, how was he?’

‘We saw
the play. We didn’t see Pearse. He disappeared before we got to him.’

‘I
can’t believe he’d kill himself,’ whispered Stoker. ‘Not Pearse. Do you think
he could have been murdered, poor devil?’

The
curtain of the St James’s Theatre rose on the sunlit morning room of Lord
Windermere’s establishment in Carlton House Terrace. The setting was an elegant
one (Mr H. P. Hall at his most deft) and provoked a nice round of appreciative
applause.

During the interval,
Oscar’s guests were bidden to join him for refreshments at one end of the crush
room at the rear of the circle. The crowd was considerable. I pushed and shoved
my way through it to reach my friend. I wanted to alert him to the fact of
McMuirtree’s absence, but when I reached him, before I could speak, he silenced
me.

‘I am
aware of the situation,’ he said, handing me a saucer of champagne. ‘Rest easy,
Robert. May I present the Earl of Rosebery? It’s his lordship’s birthday, you
know.’

I bowed
to the great man who smiled at me with deeply hooded eyes. He was a practised
politician: at once he made me feel that we were intimates. ‘Isn’t the play a
joy?’ he said. ‘Everyone is loving it. And yet young Drumlanrig tells me the
critics were divided.’

‘Yes,’
said Oscar, complacently. ‘When the critics divide, the public unites.’

‘Indeed,
Mr Wilde,’ Lord Rosebery continued, chuckling and looking at the multitude
around him. ‘It’s a wonderful turn-out. That’s what amazes me. The pit and the
galleries are as full as the stalls and the boxes. Who
are
all these
people?’

‘That’s
easy,’ said Oscar. ‘They’re servants.’

‘What
do you mean?’ asked Rosebery.

‘What I
say. Servants listen to conversations in drawing rooms and dining rooms. They
hear people discussing my play; their curiosity is aroused; and so they fill
the theatre. You can see they are servants by their perfect manners.’

‘You
are a very funny man, Mr Wilde,’ said Lord Rosebery. ‘The play is to be
published, I hope?’

‘In due
course. My ideal edition is five hundred copies as birthday presents for
particular friends, six for the general public and one for the American market.’

The
bell rang to signal the commencement of the second act. I bowed once more to
his lordship; he gave me once more his politician’s smile. As I took my leave,
I whispered to Oscar as discreetly as I could: ‘You know that McMuirtree’s not
here?’

Oscar
answered, smiling, not lowering his voice at all: ‘I have my eye on him
nonetheless. Enjoy the play, Robert. Let us meet after the performance at the
stage door.’

When I
got back to my box I found Sickert and Stoker still shaking their heads over
the fate of poor Bradford Pearse, repeating—yet again!—that, of all men, Pearse
was the one man without an enemy in the world.

‘Where
have you been?’ asked Sickert. ‘Not chasing Mrs Wilde, I hope.’ He handed me
his opera glasses. ‘Take a look in the gallery—at the far end on the left—the
young mulatto with the sequins in her hair. Isn’t she just your type?’

To
indulge him, I took Sickert’s glasses and inspected the girl. She was indeed
most appealing:

Sickert
had a practised eye.

‘And,
see,’ added Sickert, ‘the Tyrolean goatherds are no longer alone. The
neighbouring box has been filled.’

I
turned the glasses in the direction of what had been the empty box and saw a
tall man in evening dress standing to one side of it looking down into the
auditorium. It was not McMuirtree. ‘I know him,’ I said.

Sickert
and Stoker squinted up towards the gods. ‘We all know him,’ said Bram Stoker,
waving towards the distant figure. ‘It’s Charles Brookfield.’

‘He’s
not here as Oscar’s guest.’

‘Possibly
not,’ said Stoker, ‘but he’s here all the same. He’s obsessed with Oscar. He’s
obsessed with this play. He’s putting on his own parody of it, you know. It
opens in a fortnight and I imagine we’re all invited.’

‘Now if
someone had murdered Charles Brookfield,’ said Wat Sickert, as the house lights
faded, ‘I shouldn’t have been at all surprised.’

When the performance was
over, the ovation was extraordinary. Oscar had written a crowd-pleaser, no
doubt about it. On this occasion, the author resisted the temptation to take a
call from the stage, but, as the audience cheered on, he stood at the front of
the royal box and, with a regal wave and head thrown back, silently
acknowledged their approbation. And as the audience departed, he stood at the
top of the theatre’s main staircase, leaning against the brass banister,
receiving-as no more than his due—the plaudits of strangers and the thanks of
friends.

‘Thank
you! Thank you, Mr Wilde! I must have a birthday more often,’ called Lord
Rosebery as he and the Douglas boys slipped past. ‘Bravo, Oscar! I’m running
for my train,’ cried Conan Doyle, speeding on his way. ‘I’m sorry Touie missed it.
More tomorrow, old man.’

Few
lingered, because it was late and, in any event, most of Oscar’s friends who
were guests that evening were also invited to the following afternoon’s
fund-raiser.

‘There’s
no such thing as a free four-acter, ‘chortled Charles Brooke, squeezing Oscar’s
shoulder as he passed.

‘This
is our Wilde weekend!’ chorused Miss Bradley and Miss Cooper blowing kisses
towards their host across the crowd.

‘They
really have come as Tyrolean goatherds,’ I whispered to Sickert.

‘At
least they spared us the
Lederhosen,’
he whispered back.

When
the crush had evaporated and I had bidden Sickert and Stoker goodnight, I went
to join Oscar on the stairs. As I approached, I noticed Charles Brookfield, on
the far side of the stairway. He was standing talking to a diminutive man who
was dressed not in evening clothes but in a brown serge suit. Oscar noticed him
too.

‘Charles!
Charles!’ he called. Brookfield began to slip quietly down the marble steps,
eyes forward. ‘Charles!’ cried Oscar. ‘Don’t run away.’

The
actor stopped and looked about him, affecting not to know the direction from
which he was being summoned.

‘Charles!’
Oscar called out again. ‘Good evening!’

‘Ah!
Oscar!’ Brookfield made his way over to where Oscar and I were now standing. ‘I
didn’t see you there. I was on my way to the cloakroom.’

‘I
don’t think so,’ said Oscar. ‘It’s too warm a night for a coat.’

‘Always
playing the detective, eh, Oscar?’ said Brookfield, cocking an eyebrow. ‘Who
killed the parrot at the Cadogan Hotel last Tuesday morning? That’s what I want
to know.’

‘How
did you enjoy the play at the St James’s Theatre this Saturday night?’ answered
Oscar. ‘That’s what I want to know.’

‘Come
to
The Poet and the Puppets,
Oscar, and you’ll find out. Come to the
opening—on the nineteenth. I’m sending you tickets. You’ll have an amusing
evening, I think. And no speech from the author at the end of it—that I
guarantee.’

‘You
did not approve of my speech on the opening night of
Lady Windermere?’

‘I was
not alone,’ said Brookfield, drily.

‘Was it
the tone or the content that met with your displeasure?’ asked Oscar. ‘Or my
lighted cigarette?’

‘All
three.’

‘You’re
an old-fashioned thing, Brookfield. You think you’re as modern as tomorrow, but
in fact you’re mired in everything that’s yesterday. Yes, the old-fashioned
idea was indeed that the dramatist should appear at the end of the play and
merely thank his kind friends for their patronage and presence. I’m glad to say
that I have altered all that. The artist cannot be degraded into the servant of
the public. While I have always recognised the cultural appreciation that
actors and audiences have shown for my work, I have equally recognised that
humility is for the hypocrite, modesty for the incompetent. Assertion is at
once the duty and the privilege of the artist.’

‘Thank
you for that, Oscar,’ said Brookfield, nodding his head. ‘Most enlightening.’

‘Not at
all, Charles.’

‘Goodnight,
Oscar.’ Brookfield turned and descended the now empty staircase, waving a hand
in the air as he went. ‘But don’t forget our challenge … Who killed the
parrot? That’s the question. There’s thirteen guineas riding on it, as I
recall.’

‘Goodnight
Charles,’ called Oscar. ‘I trust you’ll find the cloakroom hasn’t closed.’

Without
looking back, Brookfield marched through the theatre’s swing doors and out into
St James’s. We watched him go.

‘Why
make an enemy of him, Oscar?’ I asked.

‘Because
I cannot make him my friend, Robert.’

The
theatre foyer was now deserted. A pale young man in evening dress—the theatre’s
assistant manager—was working his way up the staircase, turning down the gas
lamps one by one. Suddenly, from behind us, two silent women in shabby coats
appeared. For an instant, I took them for Miss Bradley and Miss Cooper
unexpectedly returned in a new disguise. In fact, they were cleaning women.
One, equipped with a mop and bucket, set to work at once on the Sienna marble
floor. The other, with a heavy broom, began briskly to brush each tread of the
Indian carpet on the stairs.

‘Look
at them,’ whispered Oscar. ‘How plain they are! How ugly! And yet quite young. Industry
is the root of all ugliness.

‘Come,
Oscar,’ I said, taking my friend by the arm. ‘We must go.’

‘What
for?’ he cried. ‘To drink champagne while they toil and labour here?’ He felt
inside his trouser pocket and, from it, produced two brand-new five-pound
notes. He unfolded them.

‘Don’t
be absurd, Oscar,’ I hissed. ‘That’s three months’ wages.’

‘What’s
absurd is that we can afford everything, Robert, and all they can afford is
self-denial.’ He went over to each of the women and presented her with a
five-pound note. Both looked at him, in silence, utterly bemused. ‘With the
compliments of Lady Windermere,’ he said. ‘Goodnight, ladies. Thank you.’

The
pavement outside the St James’s Theatre was clear. Across the street, Charles
Brookfield was standing alone, with his back to us, looking into the window of
the wine merchant, Demery & Holland.

‘Did
you happen to catch sight of his “friend”?’ Oscar asked.

‘On the
stairs just now? The man in the brown suit?’

‘Yes—an
ugly little man with a sallow complexion and ferret’s eyes.’

‘I
think he’s employed at that Turkish bath in Baker Street,’ I said.

‘Really?’
said Oscar. ‘You surprise me.’ We watched Brookfield walk on alone up St
James’s towards Piccadilly. ‘Whoever he is, he seems a curious companion for a
man of Brookfield’s refinement.’

A pair
of two-wheelers trundled past.

‘Has
Constance gone home?’ I asked.

‘She
has—with the Brookes and Heron-Allen.’ Oscar glanced at me and smiled. ‘I shall
be going home myself tonight,’ he said.

I
smiled too. ‘I’m glad to hear it, Oscar.’

‘It is
necessary, I think.’

‘Are
you very anxious for her safety?’

‘No, not
yet—at least, not while McMuirtree’s living. No, Robert, you’ll be amused by
this … I’m going home tonight because of something one of my boys said.’

I found
a match to light his cigarette. ‘Out of the mouths of babes …’

‘Indeed.
I was telling them stories last night of little boys who were naughty and made
their mother cry, and what dreadful things would happen to them unless they
became better—and what do you think one of them answered? Cyril asked me what
punishment should be reserved for naughty papas who did not come home till the
early morning, and made their mothers cry far more!’

I
laughed. ‘Wise child. Shall I hail you a cab, Oscar?’

‘Not
quite yet,’ he said, taking my arm and steering me away from St James’s into
King Street. ‘We have an appointment at the stage door.’

‘Now?’
I asked. ‘Won’t the actors have gone home?’

‘They
will. It’s not them we’ve come to see.’

‘It’s
me!’ hissed a voice in the darkness.

There
was a street lamp nearby and a lighted gas lamp on the wall by the stage door,
but I could see no one. ‘It’s me!’ hissed the voice once more. ‘Down here.’