‘In the nave?’ said Oscar. ‘That’s very bold.’
‘It’s a new building,’ explained Martin English, ‘not yet consecrated.’
Catherine English looked towards us and held out her hands imploringly. ‘You will come, won’t you?’ She turned to her brother. ‘We would love them to come, wouldn’t we, Martin?’
The Reverend English half closed his eyes and tilted his head to one side. ‘Some come to church in search of spiritual sustenance; others come for sherry and Italian cheeses. By all means, join us, gentlemen. Everyone will be there, my sister tells me, so I am sure you will feel quite at home. I had wanted the event cancelled, under the circumstances, but Catherine would have none of it.’
“‘Under the circumstances”?’ repeated Oscar, enquiringly.
‘One of the carpenters lost his life, working up in the rafters, above the nave.’
‘It was an accident, Martin, and it was months ago.’
‘Yes. He was a North African. And the wretched man had been drinking, by all accounts.’
‘It was a dreadful accident.’
‘He was working alone up in the roof. He chopped off his own hand and fell from the scaffolding onto the marble floor forty feet below. Unconscious, he bled to death in the nave — on the very spot where tomorrow night we’ll be enjoying the sherry and Italian cheeses.’
‘Life goes on,’ said Catherine English, simply. ‘It must.’
‘Ah, yes,’ added the clergyman, “‘In the midst of life we are in death.” Perhaps that should be my text when I welcome everyone tomorrow night. Do you know how the line runs on?’
‘I do,’ said Oscar. ‘“Of whom may we seek for succour but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased?”‘
‘We don’t want a homily from you tomorrow night, Martin. We just need the briefest word of welcome.’
English ignored his sister and, casting his eyes upwards as if to heaven, continued sonorously, “‘O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.”‘
‘Stop it, Martin. Stop now.’ Catherine English leant towards her brother and put her hands over his as they rested on his knees. She held them there as she turned towards us and said as brightly as she could: ‘Will you both come tomorrow night and, when Martin has welcomed everybody, will you both read for us? That would be a most wonderful surprise for everybody. Will you read one of your stories for us, Dr Doyle? Will you recite one of your poems for us, Mr Wilde?’
I hesitated, but Oscar had no doubts. ‘We shall be honoured, Miss English,’ he said at once. ‘At what time will you want us on parade?’
‘Eight o’clock at All Saints on the Via del Babuino’
‘I know the street,’ said Oscar, happily. ‘Our hotel is at one end of it. This was meant to be. And have no fear, dear lady. I shall choose one of my shorter poems.’
She laughed and turned to me, apparently surprised to find that I was not laughing, also. ‘You look pale, Dr Doyle. Are you unwell?’
‘I am quite well, thank you,’ I said, somewhat unconvincingly. As I spoke, with my right hand I felt the outline of the severed hand that was wrapped in my handkerchief and hidden in my jacket pocket.
Oscar came to my rescue once more. ‘My friend has a sensitive soul, Miss English — notwithstanding his ferocious handshake and bristling moustache. I am going to hazard a guess that Dr Conan Doyle is pale because he is still contemplating the death of the unfortunate workman who fell from the scaffold, having inadvertently chopped off his own hand. Am I correct, Arthur?’
‘You are.’
‘Dr Conan Doyle trained as a surgeon, you know. And, as he likes to say, he’s a details man. I am sure he is pondering which hand it was the poor wretch cut off.’
‘I believe it was his right hand,’ said Martin English.
‘His right hand,’ repeated Oscar. ‘Are you certain of that?’
‘I think so. I can’t recall. The hand itself was never found, despite an extensive search. It’s still missing. Curious, that. Perhaps it will turn up tomorrow night, amid the sherry and Italian cheeses. If it does, it’ll put a dampener on the fund-raising, don’t you think?’
5
Via del Babuino
The train journey to Rome lasted more than seven hours. We passed the time without difficulty, talking, smoking, reading our books, dozing, or gazing out of the window at the sun-drenched Tuscan countryside.
By the time we had reached Bologna, Oscar had succeeded in establishing a rapport with the Reverend Martin English. I did not listen intently to their conversation (I gave my attention to Miss English), but I overheard, in passing, a spirited exchange on the visions of St Teresa of Avila and the names of Thomas Aquinas, Augustine of Hippo and Martin Luther, as well as those of Apollo, Aphrodite, Artemis and assorted popes from St Pius to Leo XIII.
At Florence, where the train stopped for twenty minutes, Oscar and English went together in search of bread and Parma ham, fresh and dried fruit, and bottles of wine and water. As they climbed back aboard with their supplies, the clergyman said, ‘It is the most beautiful day, don’t you agree, Mr Wilde?’ and Oscar replied, ‘Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel certain they mean something else.’ We all laughed.
The many charms of Catherine English quickly made me forget the horror of the severed hand lurking in my jacket pocket. Of course, the young lady’s simple, unaffected beauty was a delightful distraction in itself, but what really drew me to her was her warmth of spirit. She had a sunny disposition and a generous soul. She was also keenly intelligent and widely read. Could one ask for more in a travelling companion? While Oscar and Martin English talked of theology and theosophy, I told her of my adventures as a student in Edinburgh, of my explorations in West Africa and of my time whaling in the Arctic Ocean. She told me of her ‘mundane life’ as her brother’s housekeeper and of her twin passions — for painting and for poetry. She had much poetry by heart. As our train neared Rome, she recited for me three of her favourite poems by Mrs Browning. On the Milano— Roma diretto on that long, hot day in late July 1892, I sensed that I had found a friend for life.
It was early evening when finally we arrived in Rome. The city was dry and dusty, the streets crowded with carts and carriages, cattle and oxen, horses, mules and donkeys. Together with our new friends, we took a pony and trap from the railway station to the Via del Babuino. On our route we passed the ancient Colosseum where Oscar commanded our driver to halt his trap so that we might pause and wonder at the ‘vast and wondrous monument’.
‘A ruin,’ cried Oscar, ‘yet what a ruin!’
‘Gladiators fought one another to the death here,’ observed the Reverend English. ‘And those that showed insufficient courage in combat would have their hands cut off when the day was done.’
‘How horrible,’ cried his sister. ‘Can that be true?’
‘It was the price they paid for lack of valour.’
Oscar was shading his eyes and scanning the stone walls of the ancient amphitheatre. ‘This place has changed since I was last here,’ he muttered. ‘The flora has all gone. The mosses, flowers, plants, bushes that adorned the ruins — they’ve been stripped away. Nature has been usurped. The place has been “restored”. And those people over there — they are not a motley band of beggars as I supposed. They are tourists!’ He sank back in his seat and sighed despairingly. ‘It’s true what I say: in this century we know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Avanti! Forza! Drive on!’
The Via del Babuino was a long and narrow street at the heart of the Eternal City’s English and artistic quarter. It was cobbled and shaded, as well as noticeably cooler and less dusty than the streets and squares near by. It had an unexpected grandeur and boasted a fine pedigree. Rubens came here to die. Poussin painted here in his prime — in a studio that now provided a spacious apartment for the British chargé d’affaires. As well as residences for diplomats and s
tudios for more successful artists, the street also housed two grand hotels, any number of pensiones, an English tea-room, a variety of caffè and restaurants, a photographic studio, an assortment of shops selling confectionery, stationery, artists’ materials and ladies’ fashions, in addition to two churches — a late sixteenth-century Catholic church built for Rome’s Greek community and, ten doors down from it, exactly halfway along the street, the newly built Anglican church of All Saints.
‘Ah,’ cried Oscar, as our pony and trap drew up outside it, ‘a little touch of St Pancras a stone’s throw from St Peter’s. I am very fond of red brick.’
‘It’s beautiful inside,’ said Catherine English. ‘Let us show you.’
‘No, dear lady, not tonight. We’re all exhausted.’ As I helped Miss English down from the trap, her brother assisted Oscar. ‘Travel may improve the mind,’ said my friend, ‘but it does terrible things to the body. I need a brandy, a bath and bed.’
‘Your hotel is at the end of the street,’ said Martin English, extending a civil hand to each of us. ‘It’s no more than a hundred yards, if that.’
‘I know,’ answered Oscar. ‘And these lads will carry our bags for us.’ He gave a handful of small coins and some pieces of dried fruit to a pair of barefoot urchins who were hovering close by. The lads pocketed their booty and saluted him smartly. ‘Which of you is Romulus and which Remus, I wonder?’ They looked up at him with grubby faces and grinned, uncomprehending. I gave the boys our cases, while Oscar and English settled up with the driver.
I said goodbye to Catherine English and felt — or imagined I felt — a special pressure in her fingers as she took my hand.
‘Goodnight, Dr Conan Doyle,’ she said. ‘Until eight o’clock tomorrow evening then. And you must read us one of your stories, I insist.’
I bowed and clicked my heels as the Englishes stepped up to the front door of the church and took their leave of us. ‘We have a set of rooms behind the vestry,’ explained the clergyman, unlocking the door. ‘In time, we shall be given proper accommodation, I dare say. Goodnight, gentlemen.’
‘Goodnight.’
When they had gone, we turned and made our way down the street, our urchin bag-carriers at our heels. Oscar, so weary as he had clambered out of the trap a few minutes before, now seemed possessed of boundless energy.
‘What did you make of our travelling companions?’ he demanded, lighting a cigarette and looking sideways at me with mischief in his eyes.
‘Miss English is enchanting,’ I said.
‘She is an enchantress, certainly.’ He laughed. ‘She had you spellbound from the off. I thought quoting Mrs Browning at a first encounter was possibly overstepping the mark, but let that pass. She knows her business.’ I began to protest, but Oscar swept on. ‘And what about the brother, Arthur? What did you make of him?’
‘I did not care for him — to begin with. He is a puzzle.’
‘A mask tells us so much more than a face,’ said Oscar, putting a hand on my shoulder. It was one of his favourite lines. ‘This will prove a three-pipe problem, Arthur, make no mistake.’ He paused. ‘Helloa!’ His right arm was in the air and he was waving a raucous greeting across the street. ‘Helloa!’
‘Who’s that?’ I asked.
‘The fellow in the straw hat—I know him.’
As I turned to look, a horse and carriage trotted by. When it had passed, all I could see on the pavement opposite us were a pair of pale-faced priests wearing birettas and a young washerwoman carrying a basket of laundry on her head.
‘He’s gone,’ muttered Oscar, disconcerted. ‘Perhaps I was mistaken.’
‘Who was it?’
‘A friend from Oxford. I’m sure he caught my eye.
‘And now he’s gone?’
‘If he was ever there.’ He stood for a moment, gazing across the roadway and drawing on his cigarette. ‘Perhaps it was a vision.’
‘It was a man in a straw hat, you said, Oscar, not the Virgin Mary.’
‘God moves in a mysterious way, Arthur. And we are in Rome …’ He threw his cigarette into the gutter. ‘But you’re right, my friend. I’m seeing things. It’s the heat.’ He pulled a piece of dried fruit from the paper bag in his pocket, tore it in two, turned around and pushed a portion into each of the gaping mouths of our young bag-carriers. ‘And we’re all faint with hunger. We need to find somewhere to eat.’
‘We need to find our hotel,’ I said.
‘Well, we won’t find it here,’ exclaimed Oscar. ‘We’ve come the wrong way.
We had reached the end of the Via del Babuino but the wrong end. The narrow street we had come down had opened suddenly onto a wide square dominated by a curious fountain built in the form of a sinking ship.
‘This is the Piazza di Spagna,’ cried Oscar, raising his arms in the air as if in exultation. He stopped in his tracks and turned to beam at me. The two urchins, sensing his delight, set down the bags and started to applaud and cheer.
‘Shouldn’t we retrace our steps?’ I asked, bemused by this unexpected frenzy of excitement.
‘No, Arthur, never go back. Always press on. That’s the rule.’
‘But isn’t our hotel at the other end of the street?’
‘It is. It was. But we’re not staying there.’
‘Where are we staying then?’
‘Here.’ He turned and pointed dramatically across the square. ‘Look, beyond the fountain, by the steps, behind the flower stall, the pink house …’
He began striding purposefully across the piazza. The boys picked up our bags and ran alongside him. I followed, hot in my tweeds, irritable in my exhaustion. ‘But why, Oscar, when we’re booked in elsewhere?’
We had reached the pink building. I stopped and, sighing wearily, looked up at it. It was an elegant four-storeyed town house, built, I imagine, in the middle of the previous century. The stucco was peeling here and there, but the shutters appeared freshly painted and red geraniums in flowerpots were neatly arranged on all the window ledges. It looked to be a quiet and respectable establishment.
‘This,’ said Oscar, sonorously, rapping at the front door as he spoke, ‘is where John Keats spent the last three months of his short life. This is where we shall live while we are in Rome.’
‘Is it a pensione?’ I asked.
‘It was in Keats’s day. It will be still. Nothing changes here. This is the Eternal City.’ He beat on the door once more, then looked around for a bell and turned to me with a radiant smile. ‘I have long wanted to visit this house, Arthur. This was meant to be.’ He stepped back and looked up at the building. ‘Have we got a stone we can throw up at the windows?’ He cupped his hands around his mouth and hollered: ‘Helloa! Is anyone there?’
The two boys set down the luggage and began shouting, too.
‘This is madness, Oscar.’
‘And why not? There is nothing stable in the world, Arthur — uproar’s your only music.’
He stepped up to the front door again and raised his fist to beat on it once more. As he did so, we heard the faint rattle of a chain within and the sharp crack of a key turning in the lock.
The door was opened by a dark-haired, sallow-skinned man in his mid-thirties. He wore a white linen suit, a white shirt and a black tie knotted loosely at the neck. His hair was cropped, his full beard and moustache were neatly trimmed and he peered up at Oscar through a pair of round, thick, wire-framed spectacles. He looked like a professor disturbed at his studies.
‘Si?’ he said, impatiently.
‘Buonasera, signore,’ Oscar replied smoothly. He spoke good Italian. ‘My name is Oscar Wilde. I am a poor Irish poet devoted to the immortal memory of the great John Keats. My companion and I are newly arrived in Rome and need a place to stay — for a week, no more. Two rooms for preference, but one will suffice. My friend will sleep on a divan, if need be. We pay cash, of course.’
‘This is not an hotel,’ said the man at the door, blinking in the evening sunlight. ‘I am a
doctor. Are you sick?’ He spoke in perfect English, but with the trace of an accent. I took it to be German or Swiss: it turned out to be Swedish.
‘I am sick at heart,’ answered Oscar, with a theatrical flourish. ‘Aren’t we all?’ The news that the house was not a pensione after all seemed not to perturb him in the least. He turned and beckoned to me to come forward. ‘Although we may not be able to stay under this roof, might we trespass on your hospitality for a moment nonetheless? You see, this is a wonderful coincidence, for my friend is a doctor, also.’ He held his left arm out towards me and his right towards the bewildered figure standing in the doorway. ‘May I present Dr Arthur Conan Doyle? You may have heard of him.’
The bearded doctor turned his head towards me and narrowed his eyes. ‘I have,’ he said. ‘I know exactly who he is.’
6
‘Dr Death’
Dr Axel Munthe was a Swedish doctor resident in Rome. He was, we quickly discovered, Roman high society’s most sought-after personal physician. His patients included royalty and cardinals, persons of wealth and distinction, men of letters and women of leisure — and more of the latter than the former, he explained to us, because leisure is an enemy to health.
‘We need work: we need purpose. Too many of my patients are intelligent women locked in loveless marriages, leading useless lives. They lie in bed all day, eating too much or too little, feeling sick and sorry for themselves and not knowing why. I cure them by telling them to take up good works and long walks. It is not a complicated form of medicine, but I find it rewarding.’
Dr Munthe never presented a bill to anyone who consulted him. He allowed them to pay him whatever they wished and could afford. One grateful person gave him a yacht, another a sculpture by Canova. Of his poorest patients he expected nothing at all and many more of those who sought his help were poor than rich. He spent much of his time in the filthiest corners of the vilest slums of Rome.
‘I specialise in the ailments of the idle rich and the worthless poor,’ he said. His first claim to fame was his published account of his work in the streets of Naples during the deadly cholera epidemic of 1884, when, as he told us, ‘Fourteen thousand souls lost their lives and I ran frantically among them, doing what little I could.’
Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders Page 5
