Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders

by Gyles Brandreth

  ‘Oh for goodness’ sake, Oscar,’ I cried, ‘who is Sister Anna? If you know, tell us!’

  Oscar roared with laughter. ‘I will tell you,’ he said. ‘Sister Anna was the mistress of Father Bechetti, thirty years ago. In her mind’s eye, she was his bride. Agnes —Pio Nono’s “little lamb of God” — was the fruit of their illicit union.’

  Axel Munthe nodded and sipped at his champagne. ‘I thought that might be the case,’ he said.

  ‘Poor lady,’ murmured Catherine English.

  ‘It’s one thing thinking something,’ I expostulated. ‘It’s quite another knowing it. How do you know this, Oscar, for a fact?’

  ‘I don’t “know this”, Arthur, “for a fact” as you crudely put it. But I believe it.’

  ‘You believe it? Why do you believe it?’

  ‘Because I am writer and a writer reads. I knew the old story of St Anne and her husband — of how he was turned away from the temple because he had no child, and how Anna prayed to God and made sacrifices until an angel came to her and told her that God would grant her and her husband the baby that they longed for — and that the child would be conceived without sin. I knew all that, but until this afternoon, when I was sitting at the back of the church, leafing through my copy of Butler’s Lives of the Saints, I had forgotten that St Anne’s husband was called St Joachim.’

  ‘This is an ancient legend, Oscar,’ I protested, ‘about mythical saints.’

  ‘Yes, and Sister Anna of Capri and Father Joachim Bechetti were flesh and blood — and all too human. When they met, thirty years ago or more, and fell in love she was already a nun and he was already a priest. They could not marry, for a fact, but neither could they deny their love. They conceived a child, and in their hearts they knew — and in the eyes of God they prayed — that it was a child conceived without sin.’

  I shook my head. ‘It’s just a coincidence of names.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Oscar, ‘but nomen est omen. It gave them their excuse, their justification.’

  Catherine English, seated next to me, pressed her hand on mine. ‘Love and religious fervour will make men and women do strange things, Dr Conan Doyle,’ she said softly. ‘I know.’

  Oscar reached for his cigarettes and lit one. ‘Agnes, their little lamb of God, was their secret and their problem: a problem and a secret shared at first, I imagine, with Anna’s band of sisters in the monastery on the island — and then a problem solved when Agnes was old enough to be sent to Rome to be brought up as a waif and stray by the reverend sisters who work in the Vatican laundry. The little girl never knew who her parents were. She did not need to know: she was always surrounded by love. As a baby, she lived among the nuns on Capri, with her mother keeping a watchful eye over her. As a little girl, she lived among the nuns at the Vatican, with her father keeping a watchful eye over her and His Holiness the Pope, no less, as a kind of honorary grandfather. She was brought up as one conceived in innocence, as a little gift of God. She was brought up almost as a saint — and it seems that she behaved like one.’

  I smiled as Oscar filled the compartment with a cloud of smoke and poured me more champagne. ‘It’s a charming story, my friend,’ I said.

  ‘It hangs together,’ said Munthe.

  ‘It has the ring of truth,’ said Catherine English.

  ‘But is it true?’ I asked. ‘Do you have anything for a man of science to work with? Any evidence? Anything beyond your imaginative “leap of faith”?’

  ‘Her tears were a widow’s tears and not of my imagining. And her ring. As she prayed, you saw the ring she wore on her wedding finger.’

  ‘All nuns wear a wedding band, don’t they, to show that they are brides of Christ?’

  ‘This was no ordinary wedding band, Arthur. This was one of the rose-gold rings …

  ‘It was the missing ring?’

  ‘It was Bechetti’s ring, yes. Sister Anna wore it on her wedding finger.’

  ‘And the ring that you gave to her was Pio Nono’s ring?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Will she understand its significance?’

  ‘She will see that it matches the ring that Bechetti gave her years before. She may think that, at the end, her erstwhile lover thought of her and wished her to have the second ring — as a parting gift.’

  ‘But he didn’t, did he?’ I protested.

  ‘No, he didn’t,’ Oscar conceded, ‘but he might have done. If I’d been him, it’s what I’d have done.’

  Silence fell. The train steamed on. By now it was ten o’clock at night and our compartment was shrouded in smoke and darkness. Oscar drew on his cigarette, the tip of it glowing red and gold in the gloom.

  ‘Is there more champagne?’ asked Axel Munthe.

  ‘There is,’ said Oscar, raising the final bottle.

  ‘I have been wondering …’ mused Munthe, holding out his glass as Oscar uncorked the wine. He spoke slowly and deliberately. ‘I have been wondering … Do you think that Father Bechetti could have killed his own daughter to protect his guilty secret?’

  Oscar laughed. ‘I think it more likely that Monsignor Felici ravished the poor child and then murdered her to hide his shame.’

  I sat forward in amazement. ‘Is that possible?’

  Oscar looked at me. Through the darkness I saw that he was smiling. ‘Once you read the Lives of the Saints anything seems possible!’

  He wedged the champagne bottle next to the basket of fruit beside him and pulled the book out of his jacket pocket, holding it up towards Axel Munthe.

  ‘Did you read the story of St Agnes of Rome — the virgin-martyr, the patron saint of chastity? It’s a torrid tale.’ He flicked through the book and found the page he was looking for, squinting down at it in the dark. ‘Here it is. St Agnes died on 21 January in the year 304, during the reign of the Emperor Diocletian. She was only thirteen, poor girl, the same age as our little Agnes at the time of her death.’

  ‘What happened to St Agnes?’ asked Munthe. ‘I did not read it.’

  ‘She refused to marry the son of the Roman prefect Sempronius and was sentenced to death for her insubordination. But as Roman law did not permit the execution of virgins, to make her eligible for the scaffold she was dragged through the streets to a brothel.’

  ‘How terrible,’ murmured Catherine English.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Oscar, closing the book and resting his hand on the cover, ‘though in her hour of need it seems that Agnes turned to God, and the Almighty, in His infinite mercy, spared her the fate worse than death. While she lost her life, she kept her virtue. Before she was ravished, she was killed.’

  ‘How was she killed?’ I asked.

  Oscar returned the book to his pocket. ‘The authorities can’t agree on that. There are lots of contradictory stories. Some have her burnt at the stake; some have her beheaded; in one she tries to escape and a Roman soldier catches her by the throat and stabs her in the back of the neck.’

  ‘How horrible,’ whispered Miss English.

  ‘Murder is horrible,’ said Oscar. ‘And men are not nice.’

  ‘Some are, I’m sure, Mr Wilde,’ she said, touching my arm in the darkness.

  ‘No,’ said Oscar. ‘They are all the same, more or less. It’s a matter of degree.’ His eyes fixed mine. ‘Men become old, but they never become good.’

  ‘Have I heard that before, Oscar?’ I asked.

  ‘I hope so,’ he replied. ‘It is from my play, Lady Windermere’s Fan.’

  That day, by land and sea, we spent some sixteen hours simply travelling. Long before we reached Rome, we were all too weary for words. For the last hour of the journey, Oscar and Munthe slept while Catherine English and I told one another stories from our childhoods and then lapsed into easy silence. I was very comfortable in her company.

  I was less comfortable, to be candid, when we got off the train at Rome station to find her brother, the Reverend Martin English, awaiting us on the platform. I felt that his presence there was a kind of
reproof. He was taller than I, more saturnine, and apart from his clerical collar, he was dressed entirely in black. His appearance that night seemed to me malign as well as forbidding.

  ‘We have looked after your sister, I do assure you,’ I said stiffly, as Miss English put her cheek up to her brother to be kissed.

  He nodded towards me. ‘I am sure that you have, sir,’ he answered, quite civilly.

  ‘Dr Conan Doyle has been assiduous in his gentlemanly duties,’ added Oscar, with a sly grin.

  ‘Capri is very beautiful, Martin,’ said Miss English, taking her brother’s arm. ‘I am so glad I went. We saw ilex woods on the hillside and euphorbia all along the coast and there was a peregrine falcon flying overheard when we arrived.’

  ‘I am pleased the day went well,’ he said, smiling down at her.

  ‘Of course, it was sad, too, accompanying Father Bechetti’s coffin.’ She looked up into the clergyman’s dark eyes. ‘Thank you for coming to meet me, Martin. How did you know what train I would be on?’

  ‘This is the last train,’ he said. ‘I assumed this would be the one. But the truth is I have not come to meet you, Catherine. I have come for Dr Munthe.’

  Munthe sighed. ‘What is it? The boys up the hill?’ He shook the clergyman by the hand.

  ‘No,’ said the Reverend English.

  ‘Is it Monsignor Tuminello?’ asked Oscar.

  ‘Yes,’ said Martin English.

  ‘What has happened?’ I asked.

  ‘The papal exorcist is dead, Arthur,’ said Oscar. He, too, shook the clergyman’s hand. ‘Am I not right, Mr English?’

  ‘How did you know?’ asked English. ‘Did Felici send you a wire?’

  ‘No,’ said Oscar, shaking his head despairingly. ‘I feared this would happen.’ In anger, he stamped his foot on the cold, stone platform. ‘We are too late. Once he let it be known what he was doing, this was inevitable.’ He regarded me balefully. ‘We are to blame for this, Arthur.’

  ‘I am lost,’ I answered. ‘I don’t understand.’

  Oscar looked directly at Martin English. ‘How was Tuminello murdered? Was he struck from behind or poisoned?’

  English gave a nervous laugh. ‘Monsignor Tuminello wasn’t murdered, Mr Wilde. It was a heart attack.’

  ‘It was poison then,’ said Oscar quietly.

  ‘He collapsed during Mass. He was an old man.’

  ‘He was sixty,’ said Oscar, ‘and he was murdered. We can be sure of that.’

  The Reverend English now appeared as bewildered as the rest of us. ‘As I understand it, Monsignor Tuminello had a heart attack, Mr Wilde, this afternoon, during Mass. That’s all I know. The sacristan sent word to me asking me to fetch Dr Munthe as soon as possible. That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘Monsignor Tuminello was taking Mass?’ persisted Oscar.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘I do not know. I presume so. I was not there. It was in the Sistine Chapel. I was at All Saints.’

  ‘And Monsignor Tuminello collapsed, you say, during the service?’

  ‘Yes, according to Verdi.’

  ‘Yes, but when? Was it before he served the sacrament or after?’

  ‘I really do not know, Mr Wilde.’

  Oscar heaved a heavy sigh. ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘My apologies, Mr English. I am angry with myself because I am at fault.’

  Munthe removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. ‘I’d best go to the Vatican now,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Oscar. ‘You must. You were his doctor. You should go. We’ll share a cab as far as the Piazza del Popolo.’

  It was after midnight, but we found a solitary coach-and-two waiting on the cab rank outside the stazione termini. We clambered aboard and clattered through the empty Roman streets in silence. When we reached the Anglican church on the Via del Babuino, Catherine and Martin English bade us the briefest of goodnights. Miss English pressed her hand against my knee as she climbed out of the carriage on her brother’s arm.

  ‘Goodnight, gentlemen,’ she said, ‘and thank you for a memorable day.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  When we got to our hotel, Oscar gave the coachman money (too much, I am sure: it was his way) and told the man to take his instructions from Dr Munthe. ‘Goodnight, Doctor,’ he said. ‘It has been a long day — and for you it’s not over yet.’

  ‘Duty calls,’ said Munthe. He held Oscar by the shoulder for a moment. ‘Thank you for your company today and for the champagne.’

  ‘Shall we meet in the morning,’ asked Oscar, ‘in the piazza, whenever you wake?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Munthe. ‘I will report to you in the morning. I’d better go now.’

  ‘It will be murder,’ said Oscar, stepping out of the carriage. ‘I have no doubt of that. And a Catholic murder, too.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I asked.

  ‘That it would not have taken place in an Anglican church, that’s for sure.’

  ‘I don’t follow you, Oscar,’ I muttered, climbing out of the carriage after him.

  ‘You will, Arthur. You will.’

  ‘And if it is murder,’ asked Munthe, leaning his head out of the door, ‘should I call the police?’

  ‘Not yet, Doctor, not tonight … if you don’t mind.’

  ‘I am a physician, not a policeman, and it’s very late. I don’t mind.’

  I stood with Oscar on the pavement by the carriage door. Munthe stretched out a hand to shake mine. ‘You don’t have your medical bag with you,’ I said.

  ‘The patient’s dead,’ said Munthe. ‘I don’t need the bag tonight.’ With his right hand he patted his jacket pocket. ‘I have a death certificate with me. I always carry one, just in case.’

  ‘Of course you do.’ Oscar closed the carriage door. ‘Goodnight, Dr Death!’

  21

  Mass murderer

  I did not wake until almost noon on the following day. It was the hotel chambermaid rattling at my door that roused me from my slumbers, and from a troublesome dream, I recollect, in which Mycroft Holmes and I were engaged in a tussle to the death with a peregrine falcon from Capri and a giant rat from Sumatra! As I have said, I like regularity in my habits and when that regularity is disturbed I suffer in consequence.

  Awake, I rose at once, threw on my clothes and saw immediately that Oscar was not in his room. The hotel porter advised me that my friend had breakfasted long since, collected his post — and mine — and taken himself off to the Piazza del Popolo where I would find him at his customary watering hole.

  I did. Oscar was seated, in the far corner of the grand piazza, outside the café beneath the city gate. In the centre of the square, between the ancient obelisks, a hurdy-gurdy man was playing folk tunes while a little dog danced and the two urchin boys from up the hill stood watching. As I passed them, the boys smiled at me and waved. Uncertain what to do, I paused and walked on — then turned back again. I went up to the boys and, as I approached them, for the first time I looked fully into their young yet grimy faces. They were fifteen years of age at most. They grinned at me with brilliant smiles and dazzling white teeth, but I noticed that their shining eyes were rimmed with yellow pus, with black rings beneath and tear stains on their cheeks. I gave a coin to each of them and muttered ‘Condo glianze’ awkwardly. They shouted ‘Grazie!’ gaily, pocketed the money and immediately put out their hands to beg for more. I laughed and said ‘Basta’ and went on my way.

  Oscar did not notice my arrival until I reached his table. He was seated in the sunshine, wearing his green linen suit and my straw hat, absorbed in one of his books. He had the volume propped open in front of him, with a glass of champagne at its side, a cigarette in one hand and a sliver of peach in the other. As I cast a shadow across the table, he looked up at me and smiled.

  ‘Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know …’

  ‘A happy sentiment,’ I said. ‘
Good morning, Oscar.’

  ‘Not original, I fear.’ His face clouded over. ‘Keats. He always said it first. He always said it better.’ He put the piece of peach into his mouth and laid down his cigarette. He picked up the book and handed it to me. ‘Keats’s letters, published in the year of Pio Nono’s death, as chance would have it, 1878, the year of little Agnes’s disappearance.’

  I drew up a chair and joined my friend. I saw that he had an empty glass waiting for me. He reached beneath the table and from a shaded ice bucket produced a bottle of champagne. He filled my glass.

  ‘You recall Keats’s last words, don’t you, Arthur?’ he asked.

  ‘I never knew them, Oscar,’ I said, smiling. ‘I’m a doctor, not a poet.’

  ‘Did they teach you nothing at Stonyhurst after Alexander Pope?’ he wailed. ‘John Keats’s last words, spoken not a quarter of a mile from where we are seated at this very moment, uttered in the very room Axel Munthe now shares with a dope-fiend of a monkey … last words, Arthur, that deserve their immortality.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, raising my glass to him. ‘And what are they?’

  “‘My chest of books divide amongst my friends!”’

  ‘Another fine sentiment,’ I said, putting down the glass and examining the volume admiringly.

  ‘Books are everything, Arthur. They are our truest friends. When I die, you shall have a share of mine.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, touched by the thought.

  He picked up the other volumes from the table. ‘These two will certainly come to you.’ He brandished the books before me. ‘Butler’s Lives of the Saints and Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad: they’ve solved our case between them.’

  I looked at him and laughed. ‘You’ve lost me again, Oscar,’ I said. ‘I am still trying to unravel last night’s riddle. The unfortunate Monsignor Tuminello dies —collapses at the altar, evidently of a heart attack — and, without a moment’s pause, you cry “Murder!”’