Oscar paused while Brigadier Malthus’s pencil scurried across his notebook’s page. Oscar smiled and contemplated the ash at the tip of his Turkish cigarette. Eventually, when Malthus’s pencil came to a stop, Oscar continued: ‘Inside the room, La Grange closed the door behind him, threw off the cloak and tossed it and the helmet to the floor, sat down at once at his dressing table, lifted the waiting gun to his own head and, without a moment’s hesitation, shot himself.’
Malthus wrote nothing. As Oscar drew slowly on the last of his cigarette, the policeman gazed at him fixedly. Oscar smiled. ‘Were there any marks on the gun to suggest that anyone other than La Grange had handled it?’ he asked the policeman.
‘None,’ answered Malthus, still looking at him steadily. ‘But the gun was not in his hand. It was lying on the dressing table.’
‘It fell from his grasp as the shot was fired,’ suggested Oscar.
Brigadier Malthus stared down at his notebook once more. ‘So it was La Grange not Branco who fired the fatal shot.’
‘Exactly,’ said Oscar, moving over to the sideboard on which stood La Grange’s little carriage clock and extinguishing his cigarette in the ashtray that he found there.
‘Carlos Branco is guilty of killing a dog perhaps; guilty of petty embezzlement, certainly. He is not guilty of murder. It would be wrong to charge him with murder. With Maman’s special pleading, the court would find against him — without doubt. And it would be wrong to execute a man for a crime he did not commit.’
Brigadier Malthus closed his notebook and returned it to his coat pocket. He crossed the dressing room to where my friend was now standing. ‘You are a remarkable young man,’ he said. As the carriage clock struck the half-hour, the policeman, smiling and looking Oscar in the eye, shook him, quite formally, by the hand. ‘I hear what you say, Mr Wilde,’ he said. ‘And I accept your argument. Indeed, I am overwhelmed by it.’
Within the hour, Carlos Branco was released. He was released without charge. By his own admission, he and Marais had defrauded the Théâtre La Grange over a period of many years, but who had they really harmed? And what evidence was there? Marais, the keeper of the La Grange company books, had destroyed them all. Besides, did anyone care?
The deaths of Edmond, Bernard and Agnès La Grange were reported in newspapers throughout France and in many countries overseas. Rumours about the mysterious nature of the deaths rumbled on in the French press for several weeks and then petered out. In due course, before the start of the autumn theatre season, Richard Marais and Carlos Branco joined forces and came to an accommodation with Liselotte La Grange. Maman had inherited all the assets of the La Grange company from her son. Marais and Branco went into partnership with her, founding the Théâtre Branco-La Grange. Marais felt ‘it must be done — the scandale macabre will be so good for business.’ Maman, who mourned for her son but grieved without tears, felt that she owed it to Edmond’s memory and to the tradition established by her late husband’s forebears. Carlos Branco, broken by his experiences, weak and humbled by tragedy, knew no other life.
The new Théâtre Branco-La Grange maintained much of the old company’s repertoire, broadened somewhat to include melodrama and farce alongside the established classics. Gabrielle de la Tourbillon (née Guillotin) became the company’s leading lady. I never shared her bed again. From time to time, by chance, we met in public places (in restaurants, in theatre foyers, at parties in other people’s houses), but when we met it was as if we were strangers, as if the intimacy we had known had never been. I imagine that if you encountered Gabrielle today and mentioned my name to her, it would mean nothing.
I will never forget Gabrielle de la Tourbillon — how could I? She was my first affaire — but I will confess that I did not pine long for her. A week to the day after the death of Edmond La Grange, at the coroner’s court, in the rue du Temple, I met a delightful young lady named Odile. She was just twenty, a petite girl with a trim figure, black glossy hair, a doll’s pink cheeks, and the sweetest smile and softest laugh you can imagine. She was a nursing sister, on duty in the court in case any of the witnesses should become ill. I told her that I was love-sick from the moment that I set eyes on her!
I attended the coroner’s court with Oscar. Brigadier Malthus, Dr Pierre Ferrand and Dr Emile Blanche were called to give evidence and the coroner’s verdict on the deaths of Agnès, Bernard and Edmond La Grange was the same in each case: death by suicide.
That evening — it was to be Oscar’s last night in Paris for a while — my friend and I went up to Montmartre and took dinner at the Le Chat Noir with Sarah Bernhardt, Maurice Rollinat and Jacques-Emile Blanche. It was a night to remember. We sat, the five of us, crowded around a small table at the back of the café, our hands touching, our heads close together, our eyes shining in the flickering candlelight. We ate moules marinières and drank champagne and, as Oscar put, ‘told sad stories of the death of kings’.
‘He was a king!’ cried Madame Bernhardt. ‘He was a sun king — the greatest actor of his generation. He was glorious.’
‘But he ruined his daughter,’ said Jacques-Emile Blanche starkly. ‘He seduced her.’
‘Did he?’ asked Sarah earnestly. ‘Did he really? Do we know that for certain? Who is the witness? Who saw them in bed together? No one!’
‘And does it matter?’ asked Maurice Rollinat, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles. ‘Why shouldn’t they be lovers?’
‘It’s not natural,’ I said.
‘Oh, but it is!’ cried Rollinat. ‘Animals do it all the time. In the farmyard and the forest incest is absolutely comme il faut.’ He laughed and reached for the champagne bottle and poured more wine into each of our glasses.
‘Keep your depravity for your poetry, Maurice,’ murmured Madame Bernhardt, gently caressing Rollinat’s cheek with the back of her hand. ‘It’s quite amusing there.’
Jacques-Emile Blanche stared at the burning candle in the middle of our table. ‘Edmond La Grange seduced his daughter and the shame of it killed her,’ he said. He spoke so softly we could barely hear him. ‘I loved her and now she is gone for ever.’
‘Not for ever,’ said Oscar kindly. ‘There is your portrait of her. That will last. In your painting she will never grow old. Thanks to you, her beauty will endure.’
Madame Bernhardt dipped a piece of bread into the marinière sauce. (For so slight and birdlike a creature, the divine Sarah had a remarkably hearty appetite.) ‘We still have no proof that father and daughter were lovers. Their suicides suggest it, I agree, but there is no evidence.’
‘And Jacques-Emile’s father is adamant that neither of them would have countenanced such a thing,’ Oscar added. ‘They were both “good Catholics”, as we say, and incest, as we know, is a mortal sin.’
‘That’s what makes it so attractive,’ chuckled Rollinat, wiping champagne bubbles from his black moustache. I had not seen the melancholy poet in such happy form before.
‘God knows the truth,’ said Oscar. ‘He alone is privy to all our secrets.’
‘And we all have secrets, do we, Oscar?’ asked Madame Bernhardt playfully.
‘We do,’ answered Oscar seriously. He sipped at his champagne and eyed the bottle on the table. It was almost empty. He held it up in the air, high above his head, until a waiter appeared. He ordered a second bottle and, pressing a silver coin into the young man’s hand, added, ‘Why not bring us the third at the same time?’ Smiling, Oscar turned back to the table. ‘Yes, young or old, beautiful or plain, rich or poor, we all have secrets. Even that waiter. Even Brigadier Malthus.’
‘Who is Brigadier Malthus?’ asked Madame Bernhardt.
‘An intellectual policeman,’ I said. ‘A most civilised man. He’s been in charge of the case.’
‘I know him,’ said Maurice Rollinat. ‘Tall, slim, handsome, sixty. Clean-shaven. Silver-haired.’
‘That’s the man,’ I said.
‘You know him?’ asked Oscar, leaning forward towards Rollinat.
‘I do,’ replied the poet, smiling broadly. ‘I know him quite well. He’s a flagellator. He whips himself — for pleasure.’
‘For pleasure?’ repeated Sarah, still wiping her dish with bread.
‘For pleasure!’ echoed Rollinat with relish, letting the word roll lubriciously around his mouth. ‘There’s a disused chapel near the Room of the Dead where he gives master-classes in the flagellator’s art. I have been once or twice. Three or four times, in fact. He is a fine teacher.’
Oscar laughed. ‘I’m pleased to hear it.’
‘Oscar!’ exclaimed La Bernhardt, looking up at our friend reprovingly. ‘Don’t encourage him.’
‘I mean, Sarah, that I’m pleased to have my suspicions confirmed,’ said Oscar, by way of explanation. He lifted Madame Bernhardt’s tiny hand and kissed her fingers lightly. ‘I had a feeling that there was a touch of the Tomas de Torquemada about Félix Malthus.’ Oscar turned to me and grinned. ‘You recall that I suggested that the Spanish Inquisition was one of his interests, Robert?’
‘He denied it,’ I said.
‘Indeed,’ replied Oscar. ‘But I saw a flail in his coatstand and I saw the weals on his back.’
‘When?’
‘When he was shaving. When, for a moment, he stood naked before us.’
‘I didn’t see his back.’
Oscar raised an eyebrow and said slyly, ‘You were studying his front, no doubt, while I was studying his back.’
‘He didn’t turn his back towards us,’ I insisted.
‘No,’ said Oscar. ‘He did not. But he stood naked by his washbasin and, behind him, hanging on the wall above the basin, was a mirror. I saw the reflection of his back in his looking-glass.’ Oscar raised his champagne to me teasingly. ‘We all have our secrets, Robert, and some of them are hidden in the looking-glass.’
‘Where are yours hidden, Oscar?’ asked Maurice Rollinat.
‘In the stars!’ replied my friend airily.
‘And next to his heart,’ I said, leaning across the table towards Oscar and putting my hand inside his blue velvet jacket.
‘Robert!’ he remonstrated, but it was too late. In my hand I held a small cream-coloured envelope. It was my turn to tease my friend.
‘May I?’ I asked, beginning to open the envelope.
‘If you must,’ he said.
I opened the envelope and took out a small, square photograph. I held the picture lightly between my thumb and forefinger and put it near the candlelight so that our companions could see it.
‘Who is she?’ asked Sarah Bernhardt.
‘She is beautiful,’ said Jacques-Emile Blanche.
‘Her name is Constance Lloyd,’ said Oscar. ‘She has violet eyes and a pure heart.’
‘And you love her?’ asked Sarah.
‘I believe that I do,’ said Oscar, smiling.
‘And might you marry her?’ asked Jacques-Emile, looking at Oscar excitedly.
Oscar laughed. ‘Dear friend, I do believe that I might.’
Maurice Rollinat, topping up our glasses once more and spilling wine over his fingers as he did so, turned sharply towards Oscar. ‘What happened to “eating of all the fruit of all the trees in the garden of the world”, my friend?’ he asked.
‘Surely “all the fruit of all the trees” must include the mulberry bush of matrimony, Maurice?’ replied Oscar smoothly. ‘Mr Henry James may consider me to be an unclean beast and a tenth-rate cad, but I see myself as a happily married family man.’
My friend took the little photograph from my hand and carefully placed it against the candlestick on the table in front of him. He looked down at the picture of Miss Constance Lloyd and I saw love, as well as tears and laughter, in his eyes.
‘Here’s to love!’ I said, raising my glass.
We all raised our glasses and brought them together across the table and clinked them. ‘Here’s to love!’
‘To love!’
‘To love!’
Gently, Oscar put his hand on Jacques-Emile Blanche’s arm. ‘Death is nothing. Love is all. You loved her. She had that.’
Epilogue
London, New Year, 1891
‘What happened to the American?’ asked Arthur Conan Doyle. ‘What happened to Eddie Garstrang, the gambler?’
On New Year’s Day 1891, as planned, we met up once more at Madame Tussaud’s Baker Street Bazaar with our friend, the physician and celebrated creator of Sherlock Holmes, Dr Arthur Conan Doyle.
He was in rumbustious form. Christmas had been a jolly affair in the Doyle household. There was much happiness — Arthur now had a plump baby daughter, Mary, to dandle on his knee — and, thanks to Sherlock Holmes, the wherewithal to do a “proper” Christmas, with all the trimmings. And though a proper, happy, family Christmas, there had still been time for quiet contemplation, for sitting by the fireside cracking nuts, for counting one’s blessings, and for reading.
Doyle had read our story, had read with care (‘with great care’, he said) my humble account of Oscar’s remarkable year, the year that took him from Leadville, Colorado, to the Théâtre La Grange, by way of Reading Gaol. Arthur had read my narrative (and ‘enjoyed it, enjoyed it hugely’), but he had questions to ask — not least about my style. ‘It’s very bold, Robert. There are intimate details I’m not sure that I’d dare share with my readers. Some of your frankness is quite shocking. I know it’s mostly set in France, but all the same … And you write about Oscar as though he were dead.’
Oscar laughed. ‘I’ll need to be before it’s published!’ he cried. Oscar leant eagerly towards the young Scottish doctor and, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, enquired: ‘But what did you make of the story, Arthur?’
‘Ah,’ breathed Arthur, patting the manuscript that lay on the table beside him. ‘The story.’ He looked between us both with stern, appraising eyes. ‘Is it all true? Is it gospel? Is there no invention here?’
‘It’s all true, Arthur,’ Oscar replied. ‘Every word.’ My friend glanced in my direction and smiled. ‘But the story’s not quite complete. A few loose ends remain to be tied. There are one or two questions we’ve left unanswered.’
‘There most certainly are,’ declared Conan Doyle emphatically. ‘For a start, what happened to the American? What happened to Eddie Garstrang?’
‘I’m glad you asked, Arthur,’ said Oscar, looking back at the bright-eyed doctor. ‘And I shall tell you.’ Oscar widened his own eyes. ‘In fact, I might even show you.
Conan Doyle tugged at his thick moustache and chuckled. ‘And while you’re about it, you can tell me who really killed the dog, the unfortunate Marie Antoinette. It wasn’t Carlos Branco, was it?’
‘No,’ said Oscar. ‘Carlos Branco is not the killing kind.’
‘And that’s why you told the police that Edmond La Grange had taken his own life. You needed to convince Brigadier Malthus that La Grange’s death was suicide, otherwise Malthus would have charged Branco; and if Branco had gone to trial he would have been found guilty, and guillotined.’
‘Exactly,’ said Oscar. ‘I have my faults, Arthur, but I don’t like to see a man condemned to death for a crime he didn’t commit.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ responded Doyle, nodding genially. ‘So who did kill Edmond La Grange?’
‘He killed himself, surely?’ I interrupted, confused. ‘Oscar established that — beyond doubt. He showed us how it happened.’
Oscar turned and gazed upon me beadily. He was now thirty-six years of age, but because of his excess weight and the wateriness of his eyes, the discolouration of his teeth, and the blotchiness of his putty-like skin, he seemed older. I was now twenty-nine, but, at times like this, I felt I was a schoolboy again, receiving an admonition from the housemaster for an offence whose nature I did not fully comprehend. ‘Edmond La Grange might have killed himself, Robert,’ said Oscar deliberately, ‘but, in fact, he did not do so. I know that now. And, I confess, I knew that then. I encouraged others — you included, Robe
rt — to think that La Grange had taken his own life because it was necessary at the time in order to save the life of Carlos Branco. La Grange’s death was not suicide. It was murder.’
‘I’m lost,’ I said bleakly.
Oscar laughed softly. ‘Whereas Arthur’s in his element!’
‘Indeed,’ responded the doctor happily, ‘the “elements” are very much a feature of the case, are they not? Earth, air, water, fire: they’re at the heart of it, aren’t they?’
‘They are. They’re the thread that drew me through the labyrinth.’
‘Take us with you, Oscar,’ cried Conan Doyle, smacking his lips and eyeing the pastries now being laid out on the table before us. ‘May we tuck in as you guide us through your maze?’
We sat at the far end of the Grand Tea-room of Madame Tussaud’s, at what was then known as the Directors’ Table, drinking afternoon tea and picking at an assortment of cakes and fancies (and Huntley & Palmer biscuits), while Oscar Wilde took us through the tangled tale of the La Grange murders.
‘Where shall I begin?’ asked Oscar, as soon as our waitress had retreated.
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