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

by Gyles Brandreth

  ‘Good morning, Martin,’ said Oscar cheerily.

  ‘’Morning, sir,’ answered the boy.

  ‘Have you seen him today?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He’s out there as usual.’

  ‘And is this a present from him?’ asked Oscar, indicating the container the boy was holding out before him.

  ‘No, sir, this is from Mrs Wilde. She’s just had it sent over by cab from Tite Street. It’s addressed to you. It’s heavy.’

  ‘Put it down, boy,’ said Oscar, clearing space on the table.

  ‘Take care,’ I said, suddenly alarmed. ‘It might be a bomb.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd,’ said Oscar. ‘This isn’t Paris. This isn’t St Petersburg. And I’m Irish and known for my Republican sympathies.’

  ‘Nevertheless, extinguish your cigarette, Oscar,’ I said. ‘I insist.’

  My friend looked at me with a raised eyebrow, but did as I instructed. He took a knife from the table and used it to saw at the string wrapped around the box. ‘It’s an educated hand,’ he said, peering at the address label. ‘It’s marked: “Oscar Wilde – for his eyes only”.’

  ‘Do you think it is a bomb?’ asked the boy excitedly.

  ‘I doubt it very much,’ said Oscar.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked impatiently.

  Oscar had cut through the string and lifted the lid from the box. ‘Christ almighty,’ he cried, blanching. ‘It must be from Tom Norman.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I whimpered.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Oscar. ‘It is the head of John the Baptist.’

  29

  The Man in the Street

  Within the hour we were seated once more at number 9 Tite Street, in the brown, book-lined study of Melville Macnaghten, chief constable of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Metropolitan Police. Precariously, the policeman held the box containing the severed head on his lap and peered into it, poking at the contents with a pencil.

  ‘Is it wearing a wig?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘And a false beard.’

  ‘And the hideous eyes?’

  ‘They’re made of glass.’

  ‘But the head is human? You’ve examined it? It’s not a waxwork?’

  ‘It’s human, without question. The waxy look is due to the embalming process. The head has been preserved in formaldehyde.’

  Macnaghten lowered his face further towards the box. ‘I can’t smell anything,’ he said. ‘He looks grotesque – like a doll, quite unreal.’

  ‘For a reason,’ I said.

  Macnaghten looked up. ‘A reason?’

  ‘Yes. He isn’t a “he”. That’s not a man’s head. It’s the head of a young woman.’

  ‘Good God.’ Macnaghten sat back abruptly; the cardboard box shifted on his lap; he used both hands to steady it. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, quite sure.’

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘The size of the head, it’s quite small. The proportions of the features. Principally, the texture of the skin and the angle and size of the Adam’s apple. There is no doubt about it. That is the head of a young woman, aged around twenty, I’d say, at the time of her death.’

  ‘But why is she disguised as a man, for heaven’s sake? It’s too bizarre.’

  Oscar now spoke – for the first time since we had arrived so unexpectedly at the chief constable’s front door ten minutes before. ‘She is disguised as John the Baptist,’ he said quietly. He moved uneasily in his seat, extinguishing his cigarette. ‘I’m afraid it is my fault. I am responsible.’

  ‘Not for her death?’

  ‘No. That would be too terrible.’ He shuddered visibly. ‘But I am responsible for her appearance here, like this – as you see her now. It is my doing.’

  ‘Explain yourself, man,’ said Macnaghten. He lowered the box onto the floor and placed it by his feet. He looked at Oscar and widened his eyes. ‘What is all this about, Mr Wilde?’

  ‘It’s a tale simply told,’ said Oscar.

  ‘Then tell it simply, if you please,’ snapped Macnaghten.

  ‘We went to visit Tom Norman’s emporium in the Whitechapel Road.’ Oscar paused. I was unaccustomed to seeing him so hesitant. ‘You know the place?’

  Macnaghten nodded.

  ‘It was part of our inquiries,’ continued Oscar, now waving his hands about distractedly. ‘Part of our investigation . . . ’

  ‘You were wasting your time,’ said Macnaghten crisply. ‘Norman’s a shady character, no doubt, what the Americans call “a huckster” – but he’s not Jack the Ripper.’

  ‘Nevertheless, we went to see him and while we were there I asked him – foolishly, I see now – whether he might be able to procure for me the head of Iokannan the prophet, the head of John the Baptist.’

  ‘I am lost, Mr Wilde. And not much amused. Would you explain yourself as simply and succinctly as you can?’

  I intervened. ‘Oscar has written a play,’ I said, ‘based on the bible story of Salome.’

  ‘The story features in both the gospels of Saint Matthew and Saint Mark,’ added Oscar eagerly. ‘Salome is the daughter of Herod and Herodias.’

  ‘I don’t need to know about Salome’s antecedents, Mr Wilde. I need to know why this young woman’s head has been sent to you.’

  ‘Because I asked Tom Norman to supply me with such a head – as a theatrical property. And he has done so.’

  ‘You commissioned this head?’

  ‘After a fashion, yes. But I meant it as a tease, as a challenge . . . I did not want the head of a young woman. I wanted the head of John the Baptist.’

  ‘And did you pay for it? Did the package contain Norman’s bill?’

  ‘There was nothing in the box beyond the head,’ I said.

  ‘So we cannot be certain that the head comes from Tom Norman?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘But the postmark shows the parcel was sent from Whitechapel.’

  ‘To Mr Wilde at his Tite Street address?’

  ‘It must be from Tom Norman,’ said Oscar.

  ‘Do you recognise the handwriting in the address?’

  ‘It is written with capital letters.’ I was holding the lid to the cardboard box. I passed it to the chief constable. He smiled at me – a conspiratorial smile. His manner made it clear that he regarded me as his sort of man, but now harboured the severest doubts about Oscar.

  ‘I see it all,’ persisted Oscar. ‘Tom Norman is a collector of curiosities – many of them grotesque. I – stupidly – asked for a head. Either he had one already in his collection or he acquired one.’

  ‘Well, it’s a possibility,’ Macnaghten conceded. ‘We know that in the past he has acquired body parts from the mortuary at the Whitechapel Hospital. This may be one of them. I shall make inquiries.’

  He got to his feet. I followed suit. Oscar remained seated.

  ‘Thank you, Dr Doyle,’ said Macnaghten, shaking me by the hand. ‘You did the right thing bringing this to me right away.’

  He moved towards the door and I went with him. ‘When do you think this young woman lost her head? Not recently?’

  ‘Certainly not in recent days – or weeks. The head is well embalmed. There’s no lingering smell of formaldehyde. She might have died months ago, years even.’

  ‘Yes, I see. Thank you. And the decapitation?’

  ‘Cleanly done, professionally, post mortem.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Macnaghten opened his study door and felt in his coat pocket for his pipe.

  ‘Have you made any progress identifying the two women who were murdered this week?’ I asked.

  ‘The two women found in the alley here, off Tite Street?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘None at all,’ said Macnaghten, sucking on his empty pipe. ‘No one has come forward asking after them. No one has been reported missing.’

  ‘Is that unusual?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Macnaghten and I stood together awkwardly at the doorway of his study. I glanced b
ack at Oscar who sat immobile in the armchair by the fireplace.

  ‘Mr Wilde?’ said Macnaghten.

  Oscar turned his head in Macnaghten’s direction. ‘On Monday you asked for my assistance. Today you treat me as an idiot-child.’

  ‘Forgive me, Mr Wilde, but seeking to procure a human head as “a tease” or “a challenge”, as you put it, is not responsible behaviour. It is juvenile at best. At worst . . . ’

  ‘It is criminal, no doubt,’ said Oscar.

  ‘No doubt at all,’ said Macnaghten.

  Oscar got to his feet and turned towards the chief constable. ‘We are neighbours,’ he said, ‘and I hoped that we might be friends. But I believe that you have deceived me.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean, man?’

  ‘When I asked you if I was being followed by one of your men, you assured me that I was not.’

  ‘And you are not.’

  ‘But I am,’ said Oscar. He stepped away from the armchair and moved towards the window. ‘Please, Mr Macnaghten, look out of your window and across the street. You will see a man standing beneath a lamp-post. He is watching your house. But he is not watching you. He is watching me.’ Oscar beckoned me towards the window. ‘Look at him, Arthur. You can get a good view of him here. He looks almost respectable, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Whoever he is,’ said Macnaghten quietly, neither looking at Oscar nor out of the window but tapping the bowl of his pipe gently against the palm of his hand, ‘I am not responsible for his presence. He is not there at my behest. He does not report to me.’

  There was a moment’s pause.

  ‘But we do,’ said Oscar lightly, turning on his heel towards the policeman and smiling broadly. His mood appeared suddenly to have changed: his smile was like a burst of sunshine breaking through black clouds. ‘I apologise for my misdemeanour. Tom Norman’s a rogue and I was wrong to encourage him. Dr Doyle was right – as he always is. We have brought you this dismembered head and if it is of any use in your inquiries that will be to the good. If it is not, at least it will now get a decent burial – or as decent a burial as the resources of the Metropolitan Police will allow.’

  Macnaghten looked bewildered. Oscar’s sudden transformation of manner quite disarmed him.

  ‘This head,’ continued Oscar, pointing with a languid hand towards the cardboard box on the floor, ‘appears to have drawn us down an unpleasant cul-de-sac. We must now return to the highway. I sense we are nearing the end of the road.’

  ‘I am confused, Mr Wilde,’ said Macnaghten, shaking his head and pocketing his pipe.

  Oscar laughed. ‘I can see that, sir.’ He crossed the study to join the policeman by the door. I turned away from the window and followed. ‘Have no fear,’ my friend continued gaily, ‘Wilde and Doyle are on the case. We are doing as you asked – eliminating those prime suspects of yours and even finding a few new ones of our own.’

  ‘We did investigate Tom Norman, I assure you,’ said Macnaghten, nodding and leading us out of his study into the hallway. ‘He is a doubtful character and I know that butchery was in the family line, but he had watertight alibis – witnesses who could prove he was elsewhere at the time of the majority of the Whitechapel murders.’

  ‘And what about the Marquess of Queensberry?’ asked Oscar.

  ‘What about him?’ replied Macnaghten, looking astonished.

  Oscar glanced back towards the policeman’s study. ‘That man in the street – the one who follows me – if he is not in your pay – and I accept your word on that – perhaps he is in the pay of Lord Queensberry? I am a friend of his son, you know.’

  ‘Of Lord Alfred Douglas? Yes, I know that.’

  ‘And Lord Queensberry does not approve. He feels that I am not a proper or fit person for his son to know. That could be why the noble marquess has me trailed. He hopes to find evidence of immoral behaviour on my part.’

  Macnaghten said nothing.

  Oscar smiled. ‘Never mind that.’ He touched the policeman lightly on the arm. ‘You were right to point out that I have been acquainted with a number of the suspects in these Whitechapel murders. I am acquainted with the Marquess of Queensberry, also. You have not considered him as a possible “Jack the Ripper”?’

  ‘Not for a moment.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Oscar, picking up his gloves from the side table in the hallway and pulling them on. ‘Queensberry is a noted woman-beater, a known frequenter of Whitechapel and, without a shadow of a doubt, utterly unhinged. You should be investigating him, Mr Macnaghten. Leave no stone unturned.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say, Mr Wilde.’

  ‘You are an Englishman, Mr Macnaghten. You should say something about the weather.’

  Macnaghten opened the front door and looked up at the sky. ‘Well, yes, at least it isn’t raining.’

  As we stepped into our waiting carriage, I noticed that the man in the street had disappeared. As he sat back in his seat, Oscar laughed. ‘I think I negotiated the rapids there quite successfully, don’t you, Arthur? I need a drink. How about you?’

  30

  The Club

  ‘Idon’t need a drink, Oscar. I need an explanation.’ The carriage was turning in a circle and making its way down Tite Street towards the Thames Embankment. ‘Where are we going?’ I asked. ‘Since we’re here in Tite Street, shouldn’t we call in on Constance?’

  ‘We will be seeing Constance later,’ said Oscar, settling himself back in his seat and gazing calmly out of the window. ‘She is joining us at the theatre.’

  ‘Must we go to the theatre?’

  ‘Mansfield sent me a wire overnight saying you had expressed a desire to see his Napoleon. He’s arranged tickets for us. It’s your doing, Arthur.’

  ‘I must go home,’ I pleaded. ‘I have work to do.’

  ‘This will be work – and hard work, too, if the reviews are anything to go by. It’s a poor play, by all accounts, but given the leading man is one of Chief Constable Macnaghten’s principal suspects it is our duty to attend.’

  Our four-wheeler was now rattling along past the Chelsea Physic Garden. Oscar continued: ‘Walter Wellbeloved, evoker of spirits and mermaid-fancier of this parish, another of Macnaghten’s murderous possibilities, is joining us – along with Constance. It should be an instructive afternoon. And before it, we’re having a drink.’

  I shook my head despairingly. ‘Tomorrow, I am going home,’ I said emphatically.

  ‘After the birthday picnic – if you must,’ said Oscar. ‘That is up to you, mon ami. But our mystery is almost unravelled. It would be a pity to miss the dénouement.’

  ‘“Miss the dénouement”? You do talk a lot of tosh at times, Oscar,’ I said. I sat back and looked across at him. I was simultaneously exasperated and amused. ‘And what was all that in there about the Marquess of Queensberry? Explain yourself.’

  ‘It was a diversionary tactic,’ answered my friend smugly.

  ‘You don’t seriously think Lord Queensberry is Jack the Ripper? It’s an absurd notion.’

  ‘No more absurd than it being Lewis Carroll or the Duke of Clarence.’

  ‘You were just making mischief, Oscar.’

  ‘And if I was, it was a case of fair-dealing. The Marquess of Queensberry is not a pleasant person. He’s a brute, a blackguard and, I reckon, quite capable of murder.’

  ‘But why would he murder five women in Whitechapel?’

  ‘Why would anyone? That is the nub of the matter.’

  ‘Do you think it might be one of Queensberry’s men who is following you?’

  Oscar looked at me. ‘I accept that it is not one of Macnaghten’s men. I know that your instinct is that the chief constable is a good man, Arthur, and, given his repeated assurance, I am ready to take him at his word.’

  ‘I am glad.’

  ‘But that means that George R. Sims must have been mistaken – which is not like him.’

  ‘It’s a complex case,’ I said gravely.

  He leaned towards me. �
�But we are getting there.’

  ‘Are we?’

  ‘We are.’

  I could not share my friend’s confidence, but I sensed that he spoke from the heart. ‘At least we have eliminated Tom Norman,’ I said, in an effort to be positive.

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘Macnaghten was adamant. Norman has alibis.’

  ‘Indeed. And the very fact of sending the head suggests a clear conscience – of a sort.’

  ‘It was not a pretty sight.’

  ‘You say that,’ said Oscar, ‘and, of course, I only glanced at it briefly when you took it out of the box to examine it, but beneath the wig and whiskers I caught sight of what seemed to me to be a pretty face.’

  ‘You noticed?’

  ‘Yes. And I noticed the high cheekbones, too.’

  Charing Cross station approached and, as we reached it, the four-wheeler turned left up Craven Street towards Trafalgar Square. ‘Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead,’ murmured Oscar, peering out of the carriage window once more.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘One of Benjamin Franklin’s lines,’ said Oscar. ‘He was full of good ones. He lived here – in this street.’

  ‘Is that where we’re going?’

  ‘Oh no. I don’t think Benjamin Franklin would approve of where we’re going.’

  ‘And where are we going?’

  ‘The Anarchists’ Club in Windmill Street. We can walk to the theatre from there. It’s not your usual London club. The decor’s not up to much, but I know you’ll enjoy the company. There should be a little friend waiting for you.’

  In truth there was no decor to speak of. The club – correctly termed ‘Club Autonomie’ – consisted of a series of four or five shabby rooms on the ground floor of a narrow, nondescript house in a side street off the Tottenham Court Road. The flooring throughout was made up of bare boards, ill-fitting, unvarnished, covered with patches of oil-cloth and linoleum. The walls were peeling plaster painted a dingy green and covered with newspapers pinned up for the members to read. In the main room – Oscar called it ‘the club room’ – there was a bar at one end where an elderly Sicilian barman served wine and beer and spirits and, in the centre of the room, dominating it, a long, low refectory table. On either side of the table, crowded on wooden benches, talking, arguing, eating, drinking, reading pamphlets, writing notes, gazing into the middle distance, sleeping head in arms, was a curious assortment of people, some evidently in clusters, others in pairs, a number on their own, ranging in age from twenty to seventy. The air was thick with yellow smoke and the hubbub of conversation. The people, as I glanced at them, appeared to be in costume – as though they were supernumeraries in an Italian opera.