The Dead Assassin: The Paranormal Casebooks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (28 page)

“Surely this is all a tasteless joke!”

DeVayne misread the look of horror on Wilde’s face. “Do you doubt me? Do you doubt my abilities?” He reached in the pocket of his robe and drew out a small pistol: a two-shot derringer with an up-and-over barrel. He pointed the gun at the Irishman’s chest and for a terrible moment Wilde thought he was about to die. But then the marquess flipped the gun in his hand and extended it, grip-first to Wilde, who accepted it numbly. The marquess seized the barrel and drew the muzzle to his own chest.

“Put a bullet through my heart and I shall resurrect myself before your very eyes. Do it, Oscar. Shoot.”

Wilde’s finger trembled on the trigger. For a giddying moment he knew that, in that instant, he was entirely capable of murder. That nothing would give him greater pleasure than to end the life of Rufus DeVayne.

“Go on.” A mad smile quivered upon the marquess’s lips. “I can see from your eyes that you lust to kill me. Do it! I have heard you say that you can resist everything except temptation. Why begin an unpleasant habit now, when you stand upon the threshold of immortality?”

Wilde dithered. “I imagine the pistol is a stage prop. Or loaded with blanks.”

DeVayne shook his head. “Oh no. It is as real as I.”

The Irishman was seized by a sudden resolve. “Then we will see if your imagined immortality can withstand a real bullet.” DeVayne’s smile buckled as Wilde’s finger tensed on the trigger. But at the last second, he whipped the pistol aside and pointed the muzzle at one of the plump bed pillows. The gun fired with an ear-ringing BANG and the pillow exploded. Feathers and white down floated down from the ceiling, settling on DeVayne’s fiery hair and shoulders.

“Never doubt me, Oscar. Never doubt—”

Gripped by a mad impulse, Wilde lunged forward and gave the slighter man a vicious shove. The marquess reeled backward several staggering steps and sat down hard upon the floor. Seizing the moment, Wilde grabbed the boy by the arm and tugged him off the bed. DeVayne stumbled to his feet and stood wavering, held at bay by the derringer leveled at his chest. He watched, powerless, as the Irish wit scooped the little girl from the bed and tossed her upon his shoulder.

“I am leaving now. And taking the children with me.”

“You’re being very rude, Oscar. Are you trying to make me cross?”

“You must excuse me, Marquess, but I find that this room reeks of excrement, and I do not think it is from something I’ve trodden in.”

“Mister Wilde, you have spoiled my evening. However shall I redress this insult?”

“I suggest a strongly worded letter to
The Times
. I find them most efficacious.”

And with that final riposte, Wilde turned and fled the room, dragging the boy behind. The rush of adrenaline had momentarily burned off the fog swirling in his mind, but his bloodstream was still awash with narcotics and he struggled to navigate the labyrinthine hallways. Finally reaching the grand staircase, he stumbled down it several times only to find himself back at the top of the landing. On the third attempt, as he rested on the middle landing, he accosted someone coming up the stairs. The man wore a pair of fine boots and a shirt, but had carelessly misplaced his trousers somewhere. A Venetian mask concealed his features but could not hide a fine head of blond hair, tightly curled. Although he seemed familiar, the man was bleeding light trails and strangely colored sounds, which made further identification impossible.

“Excuse me,” Wilde said, addressing the stranger. “I am attempting to descend this staircase, but it appears to go up in either direction. Would you be so kind as to point the way down?”

The man gestured and stepped aside and Wilde followed his point and finally tripped off the stairs onto the ground floor. He noticed that he still held the derringer in one hand and, anxious to be rid of it, deposited it upon the silver tray of a passing servant. As he dragged the children past the open door to the great hall, he could not help but glance inside. The bacchants still writhed in the pit, and their sweating bodies, in the gleam of firelight, resembled a scene from
The Inferno
.

At last he reached the entrance hall, where the living golden statues had abandoned their posts and were trying to shoo the panicking herd of sheep out of doors. He pressed through their
baa
ing mass, and was relieved to finally stumble down the marble steps into the night. The shock of cold November air scourging his lungs revived him somewhat, although as he hurried to his carriage, a pair of long-necked giraffes lollopped across the circular drive. Wilde could not be sure if they were real or a vestige of the volatile chemicals roiling in his brain. When he reached his four-wheeler, Gibson stirred inside the carriage, tossing aside the heavy blanket he had wrapped himself in. “Mister Wilde? What? Why do you have those children?”

“The evening began as an indulgence and quickly devolved into a rescue,” Wilde explained as he flung open the carriage door and loaded the children inside. “Quickly, Gibson, fetch a blanket to wrap these babes before they catch their death.”

“Are we going back to your club, sir?”

“No,” the Irishman said, hauling himself inside the carriage and collapsing onto the seat cushion. “We must find an orphanage to provide a safe haven for these waifs, and then I want to go home. To Tite Street. I have been a neglectful father of late and wish only to reside in the bosom of my family. After this evening I am done forever with drinking and carousing.”

The children were bundled under a pile of blankets and promptly fell asleep. Soon the carriage was rattling back up the drive, away from the house. As the Irishman looked out the window, a pack of something with sharp claws and razor teeth gazed back from the darkness with luminous eyes. He suppressed a shudder and slipped a hip flask from his pocket.

Well, perhaps just the carousing for now,
Wilde thought to himself as he quaffed a mouthful of brandy.

CHAPTER   24

USELESS FRIENDS AND DANGEROUS DRUGS

As the maid conducted him into the parlor of number 16 Tite Street, Conan Doyle caught Constance Wilde standing compromisingly close to Robert Sheridan—much closer than two casual friends should stand, and one a married lady at that. They sprang apart upon hearing him clear his throat. Sheridan moved to the window and stood gazing out, clearly embarrassed. Constance, in full blush, rushed over to greet the author.

“My dear, Arthur. It is so good to see you,” she said, gripping his hand solicitously. “With Oscar forever at his club, we have become strangers of late.”

Conan Doyle was still recovering from the shock of catching her in a moment of indiscretion and had not yet composed his face.

“How is Louise?” she asked. “Her struggle for health continues?”

He nodded gravely. “She abides.”

“You must be so very lonely. Still, I understand you have a new friend? Several of my acquaintances have seen you dining with a most attractive young lady.”

The thinly veiled threat was not lost upon Conan Doyle. Apparently all of them, Arthur, Oscar, and Constance were engaged in some degree of infidelity. Still, Conan Doyle was distressed to hear that he was already the subject of gossip.

“I have many friends amongst
the Society
. Miss Leckie has been assisting me with my research on the occult … for a book I am writing.”

Constance Wilde was a striking woman with an intellect to match. “Research? Is that what it is called now?” She smiled. “I wish you both much success with your … research.”

Conan Doyle brushed his walrus moustache with agitation. “Is Oscar at home? I stopped in at his club, but he did not spend the night.”

“Yes, my husband did grace us with his presence last night. He arrived home in the early hours, rather the worse for wear. I cannot imagine what he’d been up to, but he was in quite a mania. He insisted upon waking the children and lavishing them with hugs and kisses. He promised that he would never stray and that his children were the dearest thing in the world to him.” Constance smiled ironically. “Of course, Oscar promises many things when he is feeling … poetic … as you no doubt know.”

Conan Doyle felt himself being drawn into a confidence about the Wildes’ marriage he did not wish to share. His own personal life was tangled enough.

“Is Oscar awake?”

Something in Constance’s eyes drew back, realizing she had crossed a line. “He is in his study with the boys. I’m afraid he is still somewhat discomposed.”

*   *   *

When Conan Doyle entered the study, his Irish friend was slumped in a chair, an ice bag balanced on his head, a lavender mask blindfolding his eyes. The boys, Vyvyan and Cyril, were marching about the room like soldiers, Vyvyan blasting on a tin trumpet while Cyril banged a toy drum with the kind of hateable fervor only a child can manifest.

Wilde moaned beneath the lavender mask and called out, “Is that you, Arthur?”

“Yes!” Conan Doyle shouted to be heard above the racket. He dropped into the armchair opposite Wilde’s.

The Irish wit paused to remove the eyeshade and display eyes that resembled bloody marbles. “As you can see, I had quite the evening.” He turned to the end table and sifted a spoonful of white powder from a paper packet into a glass of water and agitated it with a spoon. He glugged down the glassful and shivered with disgust.

“Is that a nerve tonic?”

“So the chemist claimed, although I am certain the man is an amateur poisoner in his free time. I confess it is doing precious little to soothe my nerves, which are frazzled beyond repair. Ugh, my head is bursting. Do you have any laudanum?”

“Certainly not!”

“Are you sure? You are, after all, a doctor.”

“I’m quite sure, Oscar. I do not have my medical bag with me.”

“And you don’t carry any on your person? For emergency purposes? Because, I assure you, my headache constitutes an emergency.”

“I am not in the habit of carrying laudanum about on my person. It is a dangerous drug.”

Wilde released an exasperated sigh. “What is the point of being a doctor if you cannot dispense dangerous drugs to your friends? Always remember, Arthur, the synonym for friend is
useful
. One has no useless friends. Uselessness is a trait reserved for one’s relatives.”

Vyvyan thrust the bell of his trumpet within an inch of Wilde’s ear and sounded a window-rattling BLAAAAAAATTT!

“Ohhhhhh … Vyvyan!!” Wilde moaned. “Do not sound that horn in Papa’s ear, lest it prove the trump that announces his departure from this mortal coil.”

“Did you not purchase these instruments for the boys?” Conan Doyle asked with barely suppressed glee. “You specifically asked for the noisiest toys in the shop.”

“Hoist by my own petard. Gloat if you must.”

Conan Doyle reached into his pocket, drew out DeVayne’s slim tome on necromancy, and pushed it into Wilde’s large hands.

“I have startling news to share about this book.”

Wilde glanced blearily at the slim volume. He casually leaned forward and tossed it onto the coal fire. The leather cover puckered and shriveled, and then the book crackled into flames and was utterly consumed.

“I have news to share about its author, and your news cannot possibly be as startling as mine. But let us not discuss these matters within hearing of the
grande dame
.” Wilde tottered up from the chair, wincing, both hands clamped to his head as if holding together the cracked halves of a broken china bowl. “Come children. Cease your musical torture. Let us go into the garden and play cricket, before Papa suffers a paroxysm.”

After the children had been suitably muffled up for the chill day, the two writers stood in the garden, sharing confidences as they supervised the boy’s cricket game. Vyvyan defended a miniature set of stumps with a child’s cricket bat while Conan Doyle bowled to him with a soft rubber ball. Cyril fielded the balls that rolled into the far corners of the yard. Wilde smoked a cigarette, pretending to play wicket keeper, but whinged every time he had to stoop to pick up the ball.

As the boys ran about, Conan Doyle shared his story of Miss Leckie’s revelations about the book. Then Wilde launched into a heavily censored version of his encounter with the marquess. Conan Doyle was scandalized by the description of the orgy, but when Wilde described what happened in the marquess’s bedchamber, the Scotsman dropped the ball he was preparing to bowl and stood in openmouthed horror. “A sacrifice, you say? Two children? You cannot be serious, Oscar. Please assure me you are making all of this up!”

Wilde wearily dragged upon his cigarette and released a pluming breath into the November air. “I am happy to confess that even I lack sufficient imagination to invent such depravity. I once told you that Rufus DeVayne was Dorian Gray.” He shook his head ruefully, his gaze fixed upon something a thousand miles away. “I was mistaken. He is Caligula.”

Conan Doyle was about to question Wilde further when Constance stepped from the house. “Oscar I think it is time the children came inside, before they catch their deaths.”

Wilde placidly assented, watching as his wife scooted the boys back into the house.

When the two friends were at last alone in the garden, they exchanged a grim look.

“Terrible things are happening in this country, Arthur. I have witnessed a level of decadence, wickedness, and depravity—practiced by some of the highest in the land—which I could not even guess at. Perhaps we do need a revolution. Perhaps it is time to sweep away an old order grown corrupt.”

Conan Doyle shook his head. “I for one do not intend to choose sides. I intend to choose my own values. But I believe that we cannot afford to remain ignorant, nor to ignore a palpable evil and hope it will not reach out and touch our own families.” He reached into a pocket and drew out a sheet of tightly wadded paper, unfolded it with care and handed it to Wilde.

13/13

The Revolution is Upon Us.

Join the struggle for workers’ rights

Meeting: St. Winifred’s