Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death (43 page)

Charles
Brookfield leant across to me and murmured, ‘Am I right—Oscar’s always had a
liking for the lackey class?’

‘It’s
not a matter of democracy,’ said Oscar benignly, resuming his seat and holding
his glass of wine up to the candlelight. ‘It’s a question of superstition.’ He
looked at George Daubeney’s empty chair. ‘Dinner’s not over and we can’t
possibly be thirteen at table.’

‘It’s
getting late, Oscar,’ said Conan Doyle. ‘Are we not done yet?’

Oscar
put down his glass and offered the doctor his ungainly, boyish grin. ‘You’ll be
on your way to South Norwood soon enough, Arthur—I promise. We’ve just a few
loose ends to tidy up.’

Conan
Doyle put away his timepiece. ‘I take my hat off to you, old friend. You‘ve nailed
your man most effectively.’

Oscar
inclined his head towards the doctor. ‘However, I might have got there sooner
had I listened to you in the first place, Arthur. The moment you clapped eyes
on Daubeney you mistrusted him. You told me that he had a weak mouth.’

‘Did I
say that?’

‘You
did—but, romantic that I am, I was distracted by knowing of his association
with the circus! I saw clowns when I should have smelt corruption. He was a
chaplain at the House of Commons and a circus padre. The sheer improbability of
it so delighted me I was disarmed.’

At the
far end of the table, Archy Gilmour was taking notes. ‘When did you begin to
suspect him, Mr Wilde?’

‘At
dinner, I was puzzled by his show of drunkenness—when I knew him to be sober. I
was puzzled, too, by the cuff-links. I guessed that they might be a sort of
sign, a symbol, like a club tie but I presumed that his interest was in women
not in children. My suspicions were not properly aroused until I saw him with a
child a little girl, the sister of a boy who works at the circus. I was
perturbed by the way that he touched her. I was concerned when I saw how he
cherished a photograph that he had of her— dressed as Cinderella, apparently
shedding tears.’

Inspector
Ferris, crackling with energy, returned to the dining room. His face was
flushed and shiny, though he brought with him a gust of cold night air. The
candles on the table dipped and flickered. As the young inspector resumed his
seat, between me and Charles Brookfield, Oscar waved to the waiter who was
standing in the shadows to join us. The waiter— a large man, clean-shaven and
unassuming—slipped quietly into Daubeney’s old seat at Oscar’s right hand.
Inspector Ferris, when, noisily, he had pulled in his chair, rubbed his hands
together and nodded towards Archy Gilmour with a show of satisfaction. ‘He’s in
the growler now—handcuffed. I’ve put three men with him. He’s quite secure—and
totally docile. He’s complaining that he’s sick.’

‘He’s sick
all right,’ said Charles Brookfield.

‘Desire
at the end is a malady, or a madness, or both,’ said Oscar.

‘They
whip child molesters, don’t they?’ asked Brookfield.

‘What
constitutes a “child” nowadays?’ enquired Bram Stoker.

‘Fifteen
and under,’ said Lord Drumlanrig. ‘The age of consent was raised from thirteen
as part of the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act.’

‘You’re
very well informed, my lord,’ said Brookfield, raising an eyebrow. ‘The 1885
Act? That’s the one that puts the buggers to hard labour, isn’t it?’

‘The
Act was designed to protect the young and vulnerable,’ said Drumlanrig
seriously. ‘Lord Rosebery can claim some of the credit.’

‘Well
done, Primrose!’ said Brookfield, raising his glass towards Drumlanrig.

‘I
think you’ll find George Daubeney is hanged before he’s whipped, Mr
Brookfield—if he’s found guilty of murder, as I suspect he will be. Mr Wilde
has made a convincing case.’ Gilmour looked down the table towards Oscar.
‘We’ll need a full statement from you in the morning, Mr Wilde.’

Oscar
nodded. ‘Of course, Inspector. Mr Sherard has kept notes. I trust you’ll find
them helpful.’

‘The
question is,’ said Willie Hornung eagerly, leaning forward and lighting his
cigarette from Oscar’s, ‘Did George Daubeney commit the second murder on the
list? Did Daubeney murder Lord Abergordon? If Daubeney was a chaplain at the
House of Commons he must have had access to the House of Lords.’

Oscar
chuckled and rested his hand on Hornung’s. ‘No, Willie. For once, I believe the
medical men may have got it right. Lord Abergordon was an elderly gentleman who
died in his sleep—of natural causes. He was not murdered.’

‘But
McMuirtree was murdered,’ said Heron-Allen emphatically, tapping the table with
a clenched fist. ‘There’s no doubt of that. We were there. Daubeney was there.
Did George Daubeney murder David McMuirtree?’

‘No!‘
cried Inspector Gilmour. He snapped his pencil as he spoke. ‘No,’ he repeated,
more calmly, ‘I don’t believe there’s any question of that.’

‘The
inspector is right,’ said Oscar, soothingly. ‘Daubeney did not murder
McMuirtree. He had reason to, perhaps. McMuirtree may have known something of
Daubeney’s secret life. McMuirtree made it his business to know all about the
secret lives of others. And Daubeney was certainly with McMuirtree at the last.
As Edward says, we saw him there, in the dressing room, with McMuirtree’s blood
on his hands. Daubeney may have pressed the blades deeper into the dying man’s
wrists, but he did not place them there. Daubeney was not McMuirtree’s murderer.’

Willie
Hornung puffed at his cigarette. ‘Did he at least murder Bradford Pearse?’ he
asked.

‘No,’
said the waiter seated on Oscar’s right. ‘No, George Daubeney did not murder
Bradford Pearse. ‘The man’s voice was deep and low; mellow, friendly, and oddly
familiar. ‘Nobody murdered me, I’m happy to say.’

‘Good
God!’ cried Bram Stoker.

‘By all
that’s wonderful,’ called out Wat Sickert, throwing down his cigar and getting
to his feet. He moved around the table with his arms outstretched. ‘My friend!‘
he cried. ‘My Lazarus!’

Bradford
Pearse got to his feet and acknowledged the applause that swept around the
table. He embraced Wat Sickert like a long-lost brother.

‘And
you’ve been here all evening,’ roared Bram Stoker, ‘you’ve ladled out our soup,
you’ve carved our roast, you’ve poured our wine …

Bradford
Pearse broke from Sickert’s embrace and looked down the table. ‘It’s true what
they say, Bram nobody notices the bloody waiter!’

‘Well,
well,’ muttered Conan Doyle, pocketing his watch once more. ‘South Norwood will
have to wait. Tell us your story, Brad. What happened? Unfold your tale.’

‘It’s a
tale told by an idiot,’ said Pearse, his arm still around Wat Sickert’s
shoulder. ‘I’ve been a fool, Arthur—a bloody fool.’ He broke from the artist
and looked around the table and bowed apologetically towards us all. ‘I own it,
gentlemen. I’ve been a fool to myself—and to my friends.’

Wat
Sickert drew a chair from the side of the room and perched himself on it,
between Oscar and Bradford Pearse. ‘Don’t apologise, Brad,’ said Sickert
warmly. ‘We’re glad to see you—even without your beard.’

‘I do
apologise,’ said Pearse, seating himself once more. ‘I have caused my friends
unnecessary anxiety.’

‘What
happened, man?’ repeated Conan Doyle, leaning forward and looking the actor
directly in the eye.

‘My
story’s easily told,’ answered Pearse. He sat upright in his chair, his broad
shoulders held well back. ‘That night, when we played Oscar’s game, I chose
myself as my own victim. I did it partly for amusement’s sake—and partly
because, that night, at least, I did indeed want to be shot of Bradford Pearse.
I was engulfed by money worries, gentlemen—engulfed. Indebtedness is the actor’s
lot, I know. I’m accustomed to it and, as a rule, I take it in my stride—I have
good friends; and Mr Ashman is a most sympathetic pawnbroker but that night I
felt quite overwhelmed.’ He looked in turn towards Oscar and Wat Sickert and
clutched each of them by the hand. ‘Those who’ve had money worries will
understand
completely.’
He looked, not unkindly, towards the Douglas
brothers and smiled. ‘Those who have not, will not understand
at all.’
He
took a deep breath and rubbed his face with his thick-fingered hands. Without
his beard he seemed much younger than he had done before.

‘The
morning after our dinner here I travelled to Eastbourne to appear in a
play—Murder
Most Foul,
an absurd farrago known in the business as
Play Most
Atrocious.
We opened in Eastbourne on Monday night to a limited and
profoundly ungrateful audience. On Tuesday afternoon, I sat in my dressing room
at the Devonshire Park Theatre, despairing of my desultory and debt-ridden life
while reading a borrowed copy of the evening newspaper. In that newspaper, the
Eastbourne
Gazette,
I read, on successive pages, of the deaths of the
heiress, Miss Elizabeth Scott-Rivers, and of the government minister, Lord Abergordon.
Suddenly my plan was hatched! I would follow them to the grave. I, too, could
be one of the Socrates Club “victims”. If Bradford Pearse died, would not his
debts die with him? It all seemed so obvious. It all seemed so easy. I would
disappear overnight—over Beachy Head!’ He pointed dramatically to Conan Doyle.
‘Beachy Head was your idea, Arthur—I owe Beachy Head to you!’

Conan
Doyle laughed and stroked his moustache. ‘So, it’s all my fault, is it?’

‘No,’
rumbled Bradford Pearse, pressing his palms against the table. ‘The folly was
all mine. I thought with one bound I could be free. I thought I could do away
with Bradford Pearse—and start again, in America! My plan was to begin a new
life—with a new name—in a New World.’ He looked around the table once again.
His eyes were shining. ‘It’s something we’ve all dreamt of, haven’t we?’

Oscar
was gently tapping a Player’s Navy Cut against the lid of his cigarette case. ‘Only
the truly desperate cross the Atlantic Ocean,’ he sniffed. ‘If one had enough
money to go to America, of course, one would not go.’

Bradford
Pearse looked at Oscar and burst out laughing. ‘Inevitably, my plan failed. I
was foiled— as I might have guessed I would be—-by the gentleman on my left
here.’

Oscar
smiled and lit his cigarette. ‘Perhaps, Brad, you had forgotten that I’m a man
of the theatre myself. I write plays. I’m at home with melodrama. I’m familiar
with farce. Your scheme had elements of both. It was, I fear, too wildly
theatrical to be in the least bit convincing. Because you’re an actor you
require an audience. You wanted to be seen to disappear so you lured Sickert
and me to Eastbourne by means of a deliberately ambiguous letter. Then, on
stage, during the curtain-call, you contrived to vanish before our very eyes.
You left a message for us in your dressing room—the single word “Farewel”
scrawled in make-up on a looking glass! To heighten the drama, to suggest you
fled in haste, you left the word uncompleted … But clearly you had not left
in haste. You had packed your bags and taken all your most prized possessions
with you.’

‘I left
my Gladstone bag at the cliff’s edge,’ protested Pearse.

‘Yes,’
said Oscar, shaking his finger at Pearse by way of mock reproof. ‘You left your
bag for us to find and in it you left sufficient material for us to know that
it was indeed your bag. There was your script, a host of unwanted bills, some
inconsequential correspondence, but as I examined the bag I sensed at once that
it was nothing more than a stage effect, a mere theatrical “property”. The bag
contained nothing that you truly valued—no personal correspondence, no diary,
no precious pawnbrokers’ receipts, no make-up tin. To a travelling actor, his
make-up tin is his most cherished possession. You’d not abandoned yours. I knew
you were not dead, Brad. I knew you’d simply gone to ground.’

‘You’re
brilliant, Oscar! Fabulous!’ cried Bradford Pearse, his eyes ablaze.

‘Brilliant,’
said Oscar, ‘but not brave. Fabulous? Perhaps—but also flawed. I have a
weakness for beauty, as you know—and a dread of ugliness that’s beyond
irrational. And because of them, Brad, I did not discover you in your hiding
place when first I should have done.’

‘You’re
losing them, Oscar!’ called Lord Alfred Douglas, leaning back in his chair and
moving his cigarette from one side of his mouth to the other with his tongue.

‘We’re
not all of us familiar with the peculiarities of the Wilde aesthetic code,’
added Charles Brookfield tartly.

Oscar
sat forward, extinguishing his cigarette. ‘Bradford took refuge in the Belle
Tout Lighthouse at Seven Sisters point, a mile or so from Beachy Head. It’s an
ugly edifice and its guardian—a man of good heart, I’m sure—is a lighthouse
keeper of peculiarly disgusting aspect. On the day of Bradford’s disappearance,
I visited the lighthouse—with Wat Sickert and Robert Sherard here. I realise
now that the figure that we glimpsed in an upstairs window was Bradford
Pearse—newly shaved. At the time, I chose not to linger at the lighthouse. The
keeper was so ugly he was a grotesque: diminutive, monocular, misshapen—that I
turned away from him as quickly as I could. I was wrong to do so. On that
occasion, I was the fool. Today, I returned to the Belle Tout Lighthouse. As I
expected, I found Brad there and I brought him back here with me.’