Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders

by Gyles Brandreth

  ‘Nothing changes,’ said Oscar. ‘Two thousand years on and it is still the problem of slavery. We try to solve it by amusing the slaves.’

  Catherine English held the glass steadily to her eye and looked all about her. Her gaze moved from left to right, slowly, methodically. I followed her gaze, holding her elbow to keep her steady in the breeze. Oscar held on to the basket’s edge with both hands and peered below.

  ‘There it is, spread out for all to see: the glory of Rome — and the squalor.’

  She put the telescope into my hands and smiled at Oscar. ‘From here I think it all looks beautiful.’

  Oscar returned her smile. ‘They say distance lends enchantment.’

  ‘I am with Miss English,’ I declared fervently. ‘It all looks quite wonderful to me.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s heaven.’

  ‘But even in heaven the novelty wears off.’ Oscar looked up at the sky and sighed. ‘When you have seen one cloud, you really have seen most of them. Wordsworth was always overrated.’

  We laughed and, with some difficulty, I persuaded my friend not to light a cigarette.

  The balloon trip did not last long. Less than forty minutes after we had been swept in our basket up into the sky, we were back on terra firma.

  ‘You can have a cigarette now,’ I said to Oscar, as we disembarked and stood on the grass, somewhat unsteadily, adjusting once more to life on earth.

  ‘I shall,’ he answered. ‘I shall have several. And they will both soothe and exhaust me, as they always do. And then I’ll rest before we go up to St Peter’s for our English tea.’ He turned to our companion and proffered her his cigarette case. ‘Would you like a cigarette, Miss English?’

  ‘No, thank you, Mr Wilde. I’d like an ice cream. ‘‘I am relieved to hear it. Half the pretty women in London smoke cigarettes nowadays, but I very much prefer the other half.’

  ‘May I buy you an ice cream, Miss English?’ I asked. ‘I should like that very much,’ she replied. Oscar drew heavily on his cigarette and turned his head to look at us askance. ‘You two go and find your ice creams. I’ll go and find my bed. I’ll take a dog cart to the hotel.’ He pressed his hand upon my shoulder. ‘Come and find me at four, Arthur, no later. Munthe is joining us for the Vatican tea party.’ He bowed ceremoniously. ‘Miss English, thank you for allowing us to join you on your journey to the heavens. Look after Arthur now —and answer any of his questions, won’t you? I know he has a great deal he wants to ask you.’

  ‘You are impertinent, Oscar,’ I protested.

  ‘But you know you have questions for Miss English,’ he persisted. ‘Questions are never indiscreet. Answers sometimes are.

  ‘I shall be happy to tell Dr Conan Doyle anything he wishes to know,’ said Miss English lightly. ‘We are firm friends. We shall have no secrets. I shall tell him everything.’

  ‘Not quite everything, I’m sure. “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.”‘

  Oscar laughed and, gaily waving his copy of The Innocents Abroad above his head as he departed, made his way towards the line of gigs and pony-traps that stood on the gravel path at the edge of the field.

  When he had gone, and when, from a vendor by the bandstand, I had bought us each a strawberry ice (served in a biscuit cone — the latest fashion), Catherine English and I found a quiet and shady path to walk along. She told me it was not one that she had explored before.

  ‘I know the gardens here quite well,’ she said. ‘I come here often.’

  ‘With your brother?’

  ‘No, he is far too busy. And he prefers reading to walking. I come on my own.’

  ‘You don’t have friends?’ I glanced at her. ‘You don’t have a special friend?’

  ‘I am quite lonely, Dr Conan Doyle.’

  ‘Will you tell me your story?’ I asked, offering her my arm.

  ‘It is not a happy one,’ she said, pressing her hand lightly on mine, ‘but it is easily told.’

  As we walked together, beneath fine oaks and umbrella pines, she told her tale without self-pity and with touching simplicity. Oscar had been correct in his surmise. Catherine English and her brother were orphans. Their parents, both dead before Catherine was yet three, had been Anglican missionaries, servants of the Church Missionary Society stationed in Peshawar in northern India. Catherine’s father was an Anglican clergyman, passionate in his faith; her mother, the daughter of a missionary herself, had run the Peshawar mission school. It was in a fire at the schoolhouse — a bungalow built of wood — that both parents had died. Their bedroom was directly behind the schoolroom. It was a hot summer’s night and, a little before daybreak, in a matter of minutes, the whole building had burnt to the ground. No one knew what had caused the fire. Was it the deadly work of rebellious Pashtun tribesmen come down from the hills — or just an accident? Catherine and Martin, miraculously, escaped the blaze. On the hottest nights their parents would put them to sleep in a shared cot on the mission school’s back verandah, just outside their bedroom door. The children were rescued by brave natives as their parents were engulfed in flames.

  ‘What were your parents like?’ I asked. ‘Do you remember them?’

  ‘Not at all. And I have no record of them — no letters, no photographs, no mementoes of any kind. Everything was destroyed in the fire. We lost our past that night in Peshawar.’

  ‘And your future?’

  ‘It was in the hands of the elders of the Church Missionary Society. We were babies, without parents, without grandparents (they were already dead), without uncles or aunts. I think our only friends were our parents’ kitchen wallah and our ayah. They lived in a hut in the school’s backyard — it was they who saved us from the fire. We had no family, no home, nowhere to go.

  ‘But you were not brought up in India.’

  Catherine English paused in her tracks. She had finished her ice cream. We had come to a turning along the pathway and were standing close together beneath a spreading ilex tree.

  ‘Why do you say that?’ she asked. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘There is no sing-song lilt to your voice,’ I replied, smiling down at her. ‘Anyone brought up from a baby in India — however English their origin — always has that Indian lilt. You can’t escape it.’

  She returned my smile. ‘You are a detective, Dr Conan Doyle. I must remember that.’ We resumed our walk and she pressed her hand over mine once more. ‘And you are correct,’ she said. ‘There was no future for us in Peshawar. We were sent to Canada to be put up for adoption.’

  ‘Why Canada?’

  ‘Because one of the other missionaries was a Canadian and she was returning to Canada that summer in any event. Her passage was already booked. With the blessing of the British agent in Peshawar, and with a small grant from the Missionary Society, she took us with her.’

  ‘She did not adopt you herself?’

  ‘No, she was an older lady. She took us with her as her Christian duty, but that was all. In the event, no one adopted us. We were taken in by one family after another, but never for very long. We were fostered by many, but adopted by none.’ She glanced up at me. ‘I fear we were not very lovable.’

  ‘That can’t be true.’

  ‘I fear it is. And I can understand it. We were not rewarding children. We were too wrapped up in one another to give anything back to those who were caring for us. I see that now. Wherever we went, we were fed, we were clothed, we were sent to school, but we were not loved, we were not wanted. And when we were sent to live with families where there were other children — proper children, true sons and daughters of the house — we knew that, secretly, we were despised. We were the outsiders, the low-caste little Indian orphans. And when eventually, when Martin was fifteen, we ran away, we knew that, truly, we were not wanted because no one came to look for us. No one at all.’

  ‘How did you live?’

  ‘Through God’s mercy,’ she said, breaking away from me for a moment and running forwa
rd along the path to warm herself in a shaft of sunlight that had found its way through a gap in the trees. She stopped and turned her face to the sun and stretched out her arms at her side. ‘We were saved by the Lord!’

  I laughed at her sudden burst of exuberance.

  ‘I’m being serious,’ she insisted. ‘In our hour of need, the merciful Lord stretched out His hand and came to our rescue.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘We met a priest in Etobicoke — in the street, near the market. It was only a few days after we had run away. We told him we were sleeping in ditches and living off scraps stolen from the market stalls. It was the truth. He offered us a cup of tea and a room for the night at the Anglican Seminary in Toronto. We stayed there for seven years. I worked in the kitchens and the laundry, and Martin found his vocation and trained for the priesthood.’

  ‘Good God!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Precisely so,’ said Catherine English, taking my arm again and pulling me back along the pathway.

  ‘And since then you have lived happily ever after?’

  ‘God gave us shelter and purpose — but we are still outsiders wherever we go. We did not belong in India.

  We did not belong in Canada. When Martin had finished his training, we thought that we would come “home” to England, but we found that we were just as much outsiders there too — perhaps more so. In England, everyone wants to know who you are and where you come from. “Who is your family? Where do you live? What are your roots? Do tell.” Martin and I cannot even tell you on which days we were born.’

  ‘You don’t know how old you are?’ I said, amazed.

  ‘Quite useful for a female of the species, don’t you think?’ She laughed. ‘But not helpful for a man. Brilliant though my brother is, he has found it very difficult to find work as an Anglican clergyman. He is a gentleman, as you can tell, but he cannot prove it. English parishes are not comfortable having a priest without a pedigree. He was very blessed when he secured the chaplaincy here. In Rome, he is an outsider among outsiders. Everyone here has run away from home.’

  ‘It’s a good position,’ I said.

  ‘That’s why he took it. They were looking for a bachelor priest who could live on next to nothing. The chaplaincy here carries no salary. Martin’s much loved predecessor was a man of independent means.’

  ‘You have no income?’ I asked, incredulous.

  ‘What funds the church possesses are all committed. Building All Saints has proved a costly enterprise. That’s what the other evening was all about. The fund-raising never stops. But we must not complain, though Martin does. We have our board and lodging and I receive a modest wage as my brother’s housekeeper. We should be content, we should be grateful, though we are poor.’

  ‘You have no money,’ I said quietly.

  ‘None to speak of,’ she replied.

  ‘And yet …’ I hesitated before I spoke. ‘And yet, when we met you on the train, when Oscar and I first introduced ourselves, were you not returning from holiday? Were you not travelling first class?’

  Catherine English stopped in her tracks once more. ‘Oh, Dr Conan Doyle, you are a wonderful detective, that is clear, but you are no psychologist. Martin must have his holidays. Martin must have the best linen and tailor-made new suits. Martin must travel first class. My dear brother has a foolish pride — and it has cost us dear.’ She put her arms about my shoulders and held me tight, as a child might cling to her father in a storm. ‘I am so lonely and we are as poor as church mice.’

  I held her close and told her that I would give her twenty pounds. She reached up and kissed me tenderly on the cheek and, as she did so, I breathed in the scent of lily of the valley on her neck.

  13

  English tea

  We were late for our tea with the circolo inglese at the Vatican.

  I was late returning to the Hôtel de Russie from the Pincio Gardens. Oscar was late in rousing himself from his siesta. Axel Munthe was late because the patient he had been attending that afternoon had taken ‘so long to die’.

  ‘Did you despatch the poor unfortunate?’ I asked, unamused, as I sat at the doctor’s side in the pony and trap that jostled us at breakneck speed from the Piazza del Popolo to St Peter’s Square. Munthe was attempting to rearrange the contents of his medical bag as we were bumped and buffeted over the cobbles. A bottle of cocaine lotion fell from his hand onto my lap. I returned it to him. He thanked me, sniffed and held the bottle up close to his thick spectacles.

  ‘Yes,’ he muttered to himself, ‘there’s sufficient should Father Bechetti be in pain.’ He returned the bottle to his bag and snapped the fastener shut, then turned his head towards me. ‘But, no,’ he said, smiling, ‘I did not “despatch the poor unfortunate”. God did what He does so well, though He took his time about it. Had He kept my suffering patient waiting longer, I might indeed have assisted in the process — out of the kindness of my heart. Either way, the outcome was inevitable.’

  ‘I could never be a doctor,’ said Oscar, drowsily. He was seated on the banquette facing us, his eyes closed, his head resting against our driver’s back. ‘I can sympathise with everything, except physical suffering. It is too ugly, too horrible, too distressing. There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life.’

  He opened his eyes. We were passing the tiny eighth-century church of San Michele e Magno. A little girl in a white pinafore was skipping up and down the church steps. Oscar gestured towards her with a languid hand.

  ‘I rest my case,’ he murmured, looking at us reprovingly and then closing his eyes once more. ‘The less said about life’s sores, the better.’

  ‘We are not discussing medical details, Oscar,’ I said, somewhat tetchily. ‘We are discussing medical ethics. A doctor’s duty is to save life, not extinguish it — whatever the circumstances. Is what Munthe does right? Is it legal?’

  Axel Munthe chuckled. ‘Don’t leap onto your high horse, Doctor.’ He leant his shoulder towards mine and tapped his forefinger on my trouser knee. ‘Tell me something, Dr Conan Doyle. Do you still have that severed hand in your pocket? Is that sawn-off finger still hidden about your person?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, hesitating, sensing the trap.

  ‘Is that legal? No. Is that right? Who is to say?’

  I wanted to protest, but words failed me. Oscar opened his eyes and stirred himself.

  ‘Arthur’s instinct was to take the horrid evidence sent to him directly to the police. I know my friend. He is one of Queen Victoria’s most loyal and law-abiding subjects, and had all this occurred in South Norwood that is precisely what he would have done. But when in Bad Homburg it is not so simple. And when in Rome—’

  Munthe completed his sentence for him: ‘And when in Rome, take the law into your own hands. It is the only way.’

  Our carriage had turned into St Peter’s Square and was now crossing the piazza, slowing down as it approached the main gate beyond the statue of St Paul. Oscar sat forward, his strength returning, his spirits lifting.

  ‘As I understand it from my new friend, the pirate captain of the Pincio Gardens’ hot-air balloon, the police in these parts are, at best, incompetent; at worst, corrupt. Am I right, Doctor?’

  ‘You are,’ said Munthe. ‘Everyone would acknowledge that, even, I suspect, the chief of police.’

  ‘And the reason we are investigating this mystery was reinforced this morning when I was up there in that basket in the clouds. If we don’t, no one else will. The pope’s gendarmerie and the Roman carabinieri are incompetent, corrupt and at daggers drawn.’

  Our carriage had now stopped. Oscar held up his hands to prevent us from moving while he finished his rhetorical rodomontade. As he spoke, he looked about him and surveyed the scene:

  ‘This, gentlemen, is the no-man’s-land between the city of Rome and the Holy See. Here are we arriving at the Vatican — for English tea, with cucumber sandwiches, Go
d save the mark! — and there are they, rival police forces, lined up on either side of an unmarked marble moat, hostile armies, encamped, face to face, just fifty yards apart.’

  He held one arm out towards the Swiss Guard standing sentinel at the Vatican gate and the other towards the band of carabinieri grouped around a pair of sentry boxes a few feet from where our trap had stopped. In truth, these men (most of whom were slouching, chatting and smoking at their posts) did not seem like greyhounds in the slips straining upon the start, but the two forces were clearly set in opposition to one another — and neither looked as if it would inspire the least confidence in even the most naive soul seeking assistance in a case of suspected murder.

  ‘There you have them: Rome’s rival representatives of law and order. They don’t speak to one another and they cannot be trusted.’ Oscar rose to his feet and gazed down at us. ‘If one of the reverend gentlemen with whom we are taking tea this afternoon suspects foul play within the Vatican, or without, to whom is he to turn? Not to the police, either of church or state, that’s for sure …

  ‘To God then?’ laughed Munthe.

  ‘To the heavens, certainly,’ cried Oscar, handing money to the driver before clambering cumbersomely down from the trap. ‘In his hour of need our man decides his only hope is to summon a deus ex machina: a saviour who will float down from the skies to unravel the mystery and avenge the crime.’ Oscar held out a hand to assist me as I climbed from the carriage after him. ‘There is no local help to be had — our man cannot trust the police, he cannot trust his friends — so, boldly, having nothing to lose and all to gain, he makes an imaginative leap, throws caution to the wind and summons a stranger to his aid … but no ordinary stranger! He sends coded messages to the world’s “foremost consulting detective”! It is a wild gamble, improbable, absurd, and fraught with danger and uncertainty, but it pays off. The Lord be praised! Miracles do happen! For here we are, in loco Sherlock Holmes: Dr Arthur Conan Doyle and party. Avanti!’