Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death (8 page)

‘Our
cab is here,’ said Oscar, looking out of the window. ‘Let us go to Scotland
Yard by way of Cheyne Walk.’

Conan
Doyle looked at Oscar with a puzzled expression. ‘A cab is here already?’ he
asked.

‘Yes,’
said Oscar. ‘A four-wheeler—as I ordered.’ He smiled and ushered us towards the
door. ‘As your man Holmes would say, Arthur: “I have my methods”.’

Though the traffic was
heavy, the journey from Tite Street to the Embankment took no more than a
quarter of an hour. We travelled in silence. George Daubeney and I sat facing
Oscar and Conan Doyle, our knees almost touching, but each of us apparently
wrapped in his own thoughts. Arthur gazed intently out of the cab window, like
a tourist visiting a fascinating foreign city for the first time. I sensed that
the good doctor wanted to distance himself from the business in hand. Oscar, by
contrast, seemed wholly absorbed by George Daubeney. He looked at him fixedly, studying
first his face, then his hands, then his shoes and clothing, then his face once
more. Daubeney had his eyes closed and his head bowed. His skin was pale and
rough, like gravel. He had no beard to speak of. His nose was thin and pointed.
His lips were virtually invisible, but his mouth was noticeable because of the
beads of saliva visible at either edge. He was not a pretty sight.

When we
reached our destination, our four-wheeler drew up alongside a small hose-cart.
Two young firemen, with dirty faces, were leaning against it, smoking
cigarettes and drinking tea from tin mugs. ‘These are good lads,’ said Oscar as
we alighted.

We
stood by our cab for a moment and surveyed the scene. The house itself, a tall,
handsome, redbrick building, built in the first year of Queen Victoria’s reign,
had evidently survived the fire. The damage done was all concentrated in the
ground-floor drawing room, to the right of the front door. The window-panes
were shattered: the window frames were burnt away. Even standing in the street,
we could see that the walls of the room were blackened from floor to ceiling
and the furnishings quite destroyed.

‘I have
been here before,’ said Oscar, looking up at the house. ‘Bram Stoker lived here
once upon a time.’

‘When
was this?’ asked Conan Doyle.

‘Ten
years ago, at least,’ said Oscar. ‘This house is no stranger to unexpected
death. Bram told me how he rescued a drowning man from the river and carried
him into the house and laid him on the dining-room table. The poor man failed
to recover and Bram went in search of the police. He left the house and,
moments later, Mrs Stoker, unaware of the drama, entered the dining room
carrying a vase of freshly cut flowers destined for the sideboard. You may
imagine her dismay at finding the body of a dead stranger lying on her
dining-room table.’

Conan
Doyle looked at George Daubeney. ‘How long had Miss Scott-Rivers been living
here?’ he asked.

‘She
bought the house two years ago,’ said Daubeney, ‘when her parents died.’

‘And
who stands to inherit?’ enquired Oscar, leading our party towards the house.

‘During
our engagement,’ said Daubeney, ‘she made a will in my favour, but I imagine,
under the circumstances, she will have changed it.’

As we
climbed the front steps, there were shards of glass beneath our feet.
‘Careful,’ said Conan Doyle.

Oscar
peered over the iron railings into the area below. ‘There is glass everywhere,’
he said.

‘Aye,’
said a booming voice at the window, ‘but not for long. We’ll have this cleared
up in a jiffy. We’re almost through.’ The voice belonged to a large,
red-headed, red-faced Scotsman. He wore a tweed overcoat with the collar turned
up. He must have been in his mid-forties, but he looked much younger. Life had
not yet got the better of him. He had merry brown eyes, a broad smile on his
lips and a pencil behind his right ear. ‘What brings you here, Mr Wilde?’ he
enquired, raising an eyebrow and tilting his head to one side.

‘By all
that’s wonderful,’ cried Oscar, ‘Inspector Archy Gilmour!’ The police inspector
and Oscar were old acquaintances. Gilmour was now the senior detective at the
Criminal Investigations Department of the Metropolitan Police. His path and
Oscar’s had crossed on several previous occasions. Gilmour had met me, too,
though he did not appear to remember it. Inevitably, he recognised Conan Doyle
and, when he opened the front door of 27 Cheyne Walk to us, it was Doyle whose
hand he shook first. ‘I’ve just read “The Red-Headed League”, Dr Doyle. It’s
your masterpiece. Where you get your ideas from—it’s beyond me.’ He looked up
at the clear blue sky, narrowed his eyes and sniffed the air. ‘It’s a bright,
crisp morning, ideal for a walk by the river, gentlemen, I agree, but what
brings you to this particular doorstep, I wonder? Was it your notion, by any
chance, Mr Wilde?’

Oscar
smiled. He claimed it as axiomatic that redheaded men over forty were not to
be trusted, but he allowed Archy Gilmour as the lone exception to his rule.
‘We’re here,’ said Oscar, ‘with this gentleman— the Hon. the Reverend George
Daubeney.’

‘Ah,’
said Gilmour, shaking Daubeney’s hand, ‘the sometime fiancé of Miss Elizabeth
Scott-Rivers. I read about the case.’ His manner changed. He paused and took a
deep breath. ‘I’m afraid that I have bad news—’ he began.

‘We
know,’ Oscar interrupted. ‘Miss Scott-Rivers is dead. That is why we are here.
Mr Daubeney was outside the house when the fire broke out.’

‘Ah!’
exclaimed Gilmour, ‘So this is our runaway witness! The firemen spotted him
climbing down from the window ledge as they came ashore.’ Gilmour looked at
Daubeney. ‘I’m glad you’ve returned, sir. We’ll need to take a statement from
you.’

‘I
understand,’ said Daubeney, lowering his eyes.

‘He’s
fearful,’ said Oscar. ‘The circumstances are somewhat delicate.’

‘Aye,’
said Gilmour, still looking towards Daubeney. ‘As I recall, Miss Scott-Rivers
successfully sued you for breach of promise and secured substantial damages.’

‘Everything
I possess,’ said Daubeney quietly. ‘I had loved her once, so much. I came to
hate her. But I would not for the world have wished her life to end like this.’
He raised his head and looked towards the burnt-out windows and shuddered.

‘Indeed
not,’ said Gilmour. ‘It was a horrible death. A terrible accident.’

‘An
accident, you think?’ enquired Oscar, gently.

‘There’s
little doubt of that, Mr Wilde,’ Gilmour answered. ‘She was alone in the house.
It was a Sunday night and both the servants were away. The front door was
locked and securely bolted from the inside. So was the garden door at the rear
of the house. So was the basement door at the foot of the area steps. She had
locked herself in for the night. And then, tragically, before retiring to bed,
in her drawing room, she stood too near the fire … her dress caught light and
the flames engulfed her. It happens all too often. In London, last year, a
dozen women died just like this.’

‘I can
believe it,’ said Oscar. ‘May we visit the scene of devastation?’ he asked.

‘There’s
nothing to see,’ said Gilmour. ‘The room’s burnt out. Look.’ He directed our
gaze through the front window to the interior of the room. The walls were
blackened with smoke. What once had been furniture was reduced to assorted
piles of smouldering black ash. ‘It was a miracle the fire brigade arrived when
they did or the conflagration might have spread to the rest of the house.’

‘Do we
know who raised the alarm?’ asked Conan Doyle.

‘No one,’
said Gilmour. ‘By blessed chance one of the Met’s floating fire-engines was
steaming back to Southwark Bridge after a night’s patrol and the captain
spotted the flames in the window and put ashore.’

‘Where
was the body found?’ asked Oscar, holding on to the railings and standing on
his toes in an attempt to get a better view inside the room.

‘Immediately
in front of the fireplace,’ said Gilmour, ‘on the hearth.’

‘Where
is it now?’ asked Conan Doyle.

‘On its
way to the morgue at Millbank.’

‘Was
the poor woman lying on her front or back?’ asked Oscar, still straining to get
a fuller view of the room.

‘On her
back,’ said Gilmour. ‘Her head and neck were lying across the fender.’

‘Were
her eyes open or closed?’ asked Oscar.

‘Closed,’
said Gilmour.

Oscar
stepped back and released his hold on the railings. He turned to George
Daubeney. ‘Does this accord with your recollection, George?’

‘It
does,’ said Daubeney slowly, ‘in every particular. Hell is a place of fire. It
was a hell-hole. That is why I ran away.’ He lowered his eyes once more. ‘I am
ashamed of my conduct. I did not behave as a gentleman should.’

‘Well,’
said Gilmour genially, ‘so long as you are ready to make a statement now,
that’s what matters. We’ll do it at Scotland Yard, if you don’t mind. Sergeant
Rossiter will escort you.’ He indicated the uniformed police officer who was
just emerging from a police growler drawn up alongside Oscar’s cab. ‘We won’t
detain you long.’

‘And we
won’t detain you further, Inspector,’ said Oscar, shaking Gilmour by the hand.
‘It has been good to see you once again, even under such unhappy
circumstances.’

We all
shook hands and made our ways down the steps to the waiting carriages. As he
broke from our group to join the sergeant by the growler, Daubeney looked at us
beseechingly and, with his thumb and forefinger wiping the moisture away from
his lips, murmured, ‘I apologise, gentlemen, for involving you in this matter
in any way. I am so sorry.’

I said,
‘We’ll see you soon, George. Have a care now.’

Conan
Doyle nodded towards him and muttered a brief ‘Good day, sir’. Oscar simply
raised a hand and waved the unfortunate clergyman farewell.

Daubeney
climbed into the police growler with Sergeant Rossiter. Inspector Gilmour
crossed the pavement towards our four-wheeler and watched us clamber aboard. As
he was stepping into the cab, Oscar paused and turned back towards Gilmour and
called out to him. ‘Inspector, her eyes were closed, you say … Are you
certain of that?’

‘Without
a doubt, Mr Wilde,’ the inspector called back. ‘We have a photograph.’

CHAPTER SIX

‘PLAYING WITH FIRE’

As we settled back into
our cab and began the return journey to Oscar’s house in Tite Street, Conan
Doyle tugged at his thick walrus moustache and said, reflectively, ‘I don’t
know what to make of Daubeney, do you?’

‘Where
did you meet him, Robert?’ Oscar asked.

‘At the
French bookshop,’ I replied, ‘in Beak Street.’

‘Oh?’
remarked Conan Doyle abruptly.

Oscar
laughed. ‘Arthur, you are a Scot with the soul of an Englishman. Anything
remotely Frenchified and you’re suspicious.

Conan
Doyle smiled. ‘
Touché!’
he said.

‘What
was he buying?’ Oscar enquired.

‘He was
browsing,’ I said. ‘We fell into conversation. I don’t why it should have been
so, but I was somewhat taken aback to see a man of the cloth in a French
bookshop.’

‘Did he
initiate the conversation?’ Oscar asked.

I
thought for a moment. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I think he did. He struck me as likeable,
but lonely.’

‘Indeed,’
said Oscar. ‘He is sad and of a nervous disposition. And, apparently, easily
distracted. I noticed last night that his cuff-links did not match.’

‘Really?’
exclaimed Conan Doyle. ‘I’m surprised I didn’t notice that when I was tending
to his hands this morning.’

‘He was
not wearing the cuff-links this morning,’ said Oscar.

Our cab
turned from Cheyne Walk into Royal Hospital Road. As we passed the ancient
Apothecaries’ Garden on our right, Oscar looked out of the window and remarked:
‘Do either of you know this remarkable garden? It contains plants and herbs
that can cure every ailment known to man.’

It was
Dr Doyle’s turn to laugh. ‘Every one, Oscar?’

‘So an
apothecary told me. Or, rather, so an apothecary told Edward Heron-Allen, who
told Constance, who told me. Heron-Allen and Constance occasionally take a walk
together though the garden in winter.’

‘Is
that wise?’ asked Conan Doyle. ‘Is that safe?’

‘They
wear galoshes,’ said Oscar, with a grin.

‘You
know perfectly well what I mean,’ protested Doyle, flushing a little, and
moving uncomfortably from one buttock to the other. ‘You told me yourself the
man is infatuated with your wife and—as he admitted to me over dinner on Sunday
night—he has some quite peculiar interests …

‘He is
a world authority on asparagus,’ said Oscar, happily. ‘As far as Edward
Heron-Allen and I are concerned, it is our mutual admiration for my wife that
unites us. As far as Edward and Constance are concerned, it is their shared
love of botany that binds them.’

I
intervened to change the subject. When Oscar spoke teasingly of Constance, I
felt uncomfortable. ‘Oscar,’ I asked leaning forward and tapping him on the
knee, ‘Tell me why, just now, you were so interested in the dead woman’s eyes?’