[Oscar Wilde 07] - Jack the Ripper: Case Closed

by Gyles Brandreth

  I was not overly shocked by the notion (I am a man of the world and a doctor), but I was surprised. When I first saw Oscar and Constance together, five years before, they seemed to me to be so ideally matched and their affection – their love – for one another was palpable. But beyond surprise, as I stood outside the gentleman’s outfitters on that gusty January afternoon, I felt a twinge of anger. My friend had said that he was planning to take a rest, when in fact he was planning to take to the streets with this young man . . . He had told me one thing and done another.

  I felt deceived – and aggrieved as a consequence. I decided that I must question my friend on the matter – and as soon as possible. We could not continue this investigation together if there was not to be openness and honesty between us. A friendship without frankness is not worthy of the name.

  I proceeded into the store and bought two shirts. I chose neither wisely nor well. (I am old-fashioned: I believe a gentleman’s shirts are best chosen by his wife.) When I got back to the hotel, Oscar was not there, of course. An hour later, still he had not returned. I decided to make my way to Tite Street earlier than I had planned, with a view to arriving a little before the agreed hour and securing a private word with my friend.

  My stratagem failed. Even as I stood on the doorstep at 16 Tite Street I could hear raised voices within. An altercation of some kind was taking place in the hallway. The moment that I rang the bell, the front door swung open. Oscar stood there, his face flushed, irritation in his eyes.

  ‘Oh, it’s you. I was showing my brother out. You are earlier than I expected.’

  ‘I apologise.’

  He leaned towards me urgently. ‘Did you remember the apron?’

  I indicated the brown parcel tucked underneath my arm.

  ‘Very good,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t mention it until I ask you for it and on no account say what it is or where it comes from.’

  ‘What’s all this about, Oscar?’ I said quietly.

  ‘I’m laying a trap.’

  ‘Who for?’

  ‘Walter Wellbeloved.’ Stepping back from the doorway, my friend suddenly raised his voice and called over his shoulder, ‘My brother is just leaving.’

  ‘No, he isn’t,’ said Willie Wilde, emerging from beneath the kitchen stairway arch at the far end of the hall. He was smoking a cigar and holding what looked like a tumbler of whisky. ‘He’s only just arrived and he’s looking forward to a jolly evening. Mrs Wilde has promised a few oysters and some Chablis and a game or two of cards.’ He walked towards me, brushing past Oscar. ‘If you won’t play with us, brother, perhaps your friend will.’ He put his cigar in his mouth and put out his hand to shake mine. ‘We’ve not been introduced. My brother doesn’t know the meaning of manners. But I know exactly who you are. You are the celebrated Dr Arthur Conan Doyle. I envy you. You have created the great Sherlock Holmes.’

  ‘You envy everybody, Willie,’ murmured Oscar. ‘Come in, Arthur,’ he said to me. ‘Let me take your coat.’

  ‘I used to envy you your lovely little wife, Oscar,’ boomed Willie, ‘but I don’t any more because now I have my own.’ He turned to me to explain. His manner was disconcertingly like Oscar’s, but his beard and waxed moustache gave him the appearance of a Spanish grandee. ‘I am marrying this month, Dr Doyle. I only proposed at Christmas. I don’t believe in long engagements.’

  ‘Or long marriages,’ said Oscar tartly.

  ‘That is not friendly, brother.’

  ‘You are a journalist, Willie. I am not on friendly terms with journalists. I don’t trust them.’

  ‘I’m a leader writer,’ Willie explained to me. ‘And I sell the occasional freelance paragraph when I can.’

  ‘This is my house,’ said Oscar. ‘I will choose who I invite here. I choose not to entertain journalists.’

  Willie raised his glass defiantly towards his brother. ‘It’s your wife’s house also. I am here as her guest at her invitation. We are here to play cards. I am not leaving until and unless Constance instructs me to do so.’

  Oscar looked at his timepiece. ‘Stay if you must,’ he said wearily, ‘but we are not playing cards. I have other plans for this evening.’

  ‘Oh, God, you’re not going to read us one of your plays, are you? Constance tells me that now Bosie’s away, you’re getting back to work.’

  Oscar gazed at his brother with cold eyes. ‘We are conducting a séance here this evening – a psychical experiment. Perhaps you and your fiancée, Willie, would care to take part. I understand from Mrs Mathers that seven is the ideal number of participants. I thought we would be five. Since you are here, you can at least serve some useful purpose.’

  ‘A séance?’ Willie began to rumble with delight. He polished off his whisky. ‘A séance!’ he repeated. ‘That’s much more fun than cards. Did you know that was the plan, Dr Doyle?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I had no idea.’ I looked towards Oscar, somewhat perplexed.

  ‘Have you ever taken part in a séance before?’ asked Willie.

  I hesitated. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘yes, I have. In Southsea. It was a somewhat laborious process, as I recall. Sitting in the dark, spelling out words, letter by letter.’

  ‘This will be different,’ said Oscar. ‘Mrs Mathers is able to speak directly to the other side and whoever may be there in the spirit world can speak directly through her to us – or so I understand.’

  ‘Mrs Mathers? Mina Mathers? Mina Bergson as was? This is wonderful,’ cried Willie. ‘This calls for a drink. Lily! Constance! Come down, ladies.’ He turned towards the staircase. ‘The present Mrs Wilde and the future Mrs Wilde are upstairs in the nursery.’ There was a flurry of skirts on the landing. ‘No they’re not. They’re on their way to join us – and don’t they look charming?’

  Constance was dressed in her favourite primrose yellow, her hair tied up with yellow ribbons. The future Mrs William Wilde was all in green velvet. A tall, willowy lady, with a long, thin birdlike face, she had large dark eyes, thick black hair and her height, already considerable, was accentuated by a green feather tucked inside a velvet band that ran around her dark brown brow. She gave the immediate impression of intelligence and nerviness, of being a curious cross between a Red Indian squaw and the type of young lady we would soon be calling a ‘New Woman’.

  ‘It’s to be a séance,’ Willie continued enthusiastically, ‘with Mrs Mathers putting through the calls. Forget bezique, ladies. We are going to be communicating with “the other side”. Perhaps Joan of Arc will be in touch.’ He turned to me, beaming. ‘It’s usually Joan of Arc, isn’t it, Dr Doyle? We all speak French, don’t we?’

  ‘You didn’t tell me about this, Oscar,’ said Constance, not unkindly, coming down the stairs and welcoming me with a squeeze of the hand.

  ‘The opportunity suddenly came up,’ said Oscar.

  ‘I’d have prepared sandwiches had I known. Are oysters appropriate for a séance?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ gurgled Willie, now leading the way out of the hall and into the dining room. ‘Oysters are notorious as aphrodisiacs. Bringing the dead to life is their speciality.’

  Oscar barked a hollow laugh.

  ‘Oscar, Arthur,’ said Constance, ‘may I present Miss Lily Lees, Willie’s fiancée? She comes from Dublin.’

  ‘I know,’ said Oscar, taking the lady’s hand and bowing his head. ‘I’m sure we’ve met before. I know we will have friends in common. I’m only sorry they don’t include my older brother.’

  ‘Oscar!’ Constance scolded. ‘Pay no attention to him, Lily. Willie gave my husband’s last play a disobliging review and I’m afraid Oscar cannot bring himself to forgive and forget – quite yet.’

  Oscar said nothing. I said, ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Miss Lees.’

  ‘Who is Mrs Mathers?’ she asked. Her voice was unexpectedly resonant and her accent suggested New England rather than Dublin.

  ‘Mina’s lovely,’ said Constance. ‘We know her through the Order of the Golden Dawn. She is
an artist and a seeress and a prophetess – and altogether wonderful. I love her.’

  ‘She’s a character,’ said Oscar. ‘Indeed, I thought she might be a character in a play I am planning to write.’

  Willie called from the dining room: ‘Oh no, not another one.’

  Constance put her forefinger to Oscar’s lips. ‘Don’t say a word, Oscar. Don’t rise to it.’ She turned to me and to Miss Lees. ‘We are in for a treat, I know. Mina has a very special gift. Let us help Willie prepare the room.’

  Setting the scene did not take long. In a matter of moments, with the curtains drawn and the candles lit, with its pure white walls, white carpet and white chairs, and with a fresh white damask cloth spread out over the table, the Wildes’ dining room was suddenly transformed into the council chamber of an ice palace in a Nordic fairy tale.

  ‘This is magical,’ said Lily Lees.

  ‘I will look after the drinks, if I may, Constance?’ said Willie. ‘Champagne?’

  ‘We can’t have champagne for a séance,’ said Oscar. ‘Unless you’ve brought some with you, Willie?’

  ‘Don’t start bickering, you two,’ said Constance. ‘We need a calm atmosphere. We need serenity.’

  ‘Something German, then?’ suggested Willie.

  ‘We don’t want Schiller coming through, do we?’ said Oscar.

  Willie chuckled. ‘That’s quite funny, Oscar. You can put that in your play. And you’re right. It’s got to be French.’

  ‘Alsatian,’ said Oscar softly, ‘if you’re expecting Joan of Arc.’

  ‘What time is Mina coming?’ asked Constance, tidying her hair. I was watching her in the mirror above the fireplace. Her face looked so lovely in the flickering yellow candlelight.

  Oscar consulted his timepiece as the doorbell rang. ‘Half past seven. This will be her.’

  ‘Is she bringing Bergson?’

  ‘No,’ said Oscar. ‘She is bringing Walter Wellbeloved.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ cried Willie, ‘the Jack the Ripper suspect?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Oscar, ‘but we won’t dwell on that, if you don’t mind, Willie. There are some things a gentleman does not talk about before dinner.’

  13

  The Séance

  In recent years I have become increasingly fascinated by psychic phenomena. I have taken part in psychic experiments across the globe, from America to Australia. I have communed with spirits from the world beyond and done so frequently and through the good offices of mediums young and old, male and female. Here and there, I have encountered false mediums, of course. I have been the occasional victim of trickery. There are charlatans in every walk of life. But over time I have come to accept that what Hamlet told Horatio is true and there are indeed more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.

  In 1894 I was younger, less experienced and more sceptical. I was no doubt prejudiced, too. The Wildes were Irish and everyone knows that the Irish believe in fairies. Oscar and Constance were poets also, and a poet’s view of life tends to the romantic and the fanciful. I am a Scotsman and a scientist. I deal in facts. I write in prose.

  You, my reader, must make what you will of what occurred in the Wildes’ dining room on the night of Wednesday 3 January 1894. Here are the sceptic’s notes I wrote up later that same evening, presented as I penned them in my room at the Langham Hotel, without alteration or benefit of hindsight.

  Séance held at Tite Street, Chelsea, 3.i.94

  Present

  Mina Mathers (née Mina Bergson), our medium. A young woman, not yet thirty, full of vitality and intelligence. No great beauty: a pointed nose and narrow chin. Dressed like a Romanian gypsy, she moved with a dancer’s grace and, as she spoke (quite softly), she painted pictures with ever-flowing hands and arms. When we were introduced, she said: ‘We have met before, in another time. I was once the goddess Isis. I believe you may have known my brother, Osiris – before I married him, before we had our child, Horus. Am I right?’ I was lost for words, but (I confess it) oddly charmed.

  Walter Wellbeloved. 50, medium height but thin, almost cadaverous. Receding hair, small moustache, piercing eyes, considerable ‘presence’ and (to my surprise) a most musical voice. Apparently a medium himself (‘more an evoker of spirits’ than a seer, he explained), he had come as Mrs Mathers’ chaperone. ‘I am also her lover,’ he announced, without embarrassment. ‘When we have enjoyed congress, we find that the spirits are much more forthcoming.’ I was lost for words once more – but less charmed. In a whispered aside, Oscar instructed me to keep ‘the closest eye’ on Wellbeloved in case, during the séance, he should ‘give himself away’.

  William Wilde. 40s, appears older. Oscar’s brother and very like him – but, I fear, a slave to the demon drink.

  Lily Lees, 30s, William Wilde’s fiancée. She said little. I could not fathom her. She watched her future husband become increasingly intemperate and smiled at him, offering no reproof. Throughout the evening, her features told no tales. Had she taken a powder to steady her nerves?

  Oscar. Constance. Self.

  There were no servants present. Before the séance, Constance fetched a large dish of oysters and bread and butter from the kitchen and Oscar allowed his brother to bring up copious quantities of white wine from the cold room, but Mrs Mathers and Mr Wellbeloved took nothing but water for refreshment. We stood for a while in the candlelit dining room, picking at the food and exchanging pleasantries in a low murmur until a little before eight o’clock when Mrs Mathers lifted her arms slowly above her head and cooed, ‘I feel the spirits calling. Let us be seated.’

  Mrs Mathers placed herself at the head of the table and, arranged by Oscar, we sat thus:

  The ritual

  Mrs Mathers held her arms aloft and invited us to join her in ‘the sacred circle’. She chanted ‘a prayer of peace’ and, from the far end of the table, every word she spoke was underscored by a melodious humming supplied by Mr Wellbeloved. She invited us to close our eyes and hold hands. Constance’s hand was warm to the touch; that of Mr Wellbeloved ice cold.

  After several long minutes of chanted conjurations, invoking ‘ancient gods and spirits manifold’, Mrs Mathers told us we could let go of one another’s hands and open our eyes. During the chanting, someone – Mr Wellbeloved, I assume – had blown out all the candles in the room, bar the one that stood on the table immediately in front of Mrs Mathers. In the gloom, her face shone, radiant yet pale and ghostlike.

  ‘The spirits are here,’ she said softly. ‘They are waiting for us at the gates.’

  ‘Who is there?’ Walter Wellbeloved asked the question.

  ‘So many,’ said Mrs Mathers.

  ‘Who are they? What are they?’

  ‘They are women. They are sad. They are weeping.’

  ‘Who are they seeking?’ asked Wellbeloved. ‘To whom do they wish to speak?’

  ‘I will ask them,’ said Mrs Mathers. She straightened her back and lifted her head so that her sharp nose pointed almost to the ceiling. She closed her eyes. ‘Spirits at the gate, why do you weep? Whom do you seek? Is there someone here for whom you have a message?’ She paused. I noticed Willie Wilde stir impatiently. Mrs Mathers, though her eyes were shut, sensed his movement and stilled him by gently laying her hand on his. ‘Hush,’ she said, ‘hush.’ And then, slowly, lightly, she began to toss her head from side to side. ‘They are speaking,’ she murmured. She raised her voice: ‘They are speaking all at once.’ She held up her hands as if to calm the multitude. ‘One at a time, please, ladies!’ She smiled. ‘That’s better. Thank you, my child.’ She laughed. ‘Who is it you seek? What? Your brother? My brother? Os . . . Osiris? Not my brother, Osiris? Not Osiris. No . . . Oscar! It is Oscar to whom you wish to speak?’

  ‘I am here,’ said Oscar.

  Mrs Mathers opened her eyes and looked directly at Oscar. ‘Who are you seeking, Mr Wilde?’

  Oscar turned to me. ‘Arthur, would you fetch Mrs Mathers the apron?’

 
Quickly I left the table and brought in my parcel from the cloak stand in the hallway. I gave it to Oscar who unwrapped it and handed Mrs Mathers the folded piece of cloth.

  ‘What is this?’ she asked.

  ‘It belonged to the young woman I am seeking,’ said Oscar, passing the material to Mrs Mathers.

  ‘Good,’ said the medium eagerly. ‘Very good.’ She did not unfurl it. She did not examine it. First she placed it beneath her nostrils and breathed in deeply and then, with both hands, she pressed the folded material to her forehead – hard – and, as she did so, began to rock to and fro. ‘Yes, yes,’ she cried, with ever-deepening intakes of breath, as if reaching a kind of ecstasy. ‘Yes, this is yours, my dear, is it not? It is yours. It is yours! I knew it. Your shawl is returned to you now. Oscar has brought it for you. He is here.’

  ‘I am here,’ said Oscar.

  ‘Can you hear him, my child?’

  Mrs Mathers was now rocking forward and back, the folded apron still held to her head. ‘She hears you, Mr Wilde. Her sisters hear you. They are holding out their arms towards you in greeting. It is beautiful to behold.’

  ‘How many are there there?’ asked Oscar. ‘How many wish to speak to us?’

  Mrs Mathers leaned forward and, eyes tight shut, looked about her. ‘I can see just three of them now. The others have stepped away from the gate. These are the three you have summoned.’

  ‘Are there not five of them?’

  ‘No, just the three that I can see. There are others, but they are standing behind. Speak to these three, Mr Wilde. What do you wish to ask of them?’

  ‘How did they die?’

  Mrs Mathers lowered the apron from her forehead and, opening her eyes, looked directly at Oscar. ‘They are not “dead”, Mr Wilde. They are living in a world beyond ours, that is all.’

  William Wilde shifted in his seat. Constance said gently, ‘Oscar understands. We all understand.’