‘We all wrestle with the sins of the flesh—’ Oscar began.
‘Speak for yourself,’ muttered Rennell Rodd, from the second row.
Oscar paused. ‘I stand corrected, James. I am sure that Brother Matteo does not. But Monsignor Felici does.’
‘Is he your murderer?’ demanded Rennell Rodd, impatiently.
‘No,’ said Oscar, ‘he is not. Agnes gave him her ice cream and he accepted it. Monsignor Felici will not become a saint on that account. Canonico del Buffalo, a missionary and a truly holy man, failed when it came to the chocolate-cream test.’
Oscar considered Felici’s ample form: self-consciously the Monsignor smoothed out the purple sash across his chest. Oscar then turned to Axel Munthe and stared fixedly at him as he spoke.
‘Francesco Felici looks like a man who struggles with the temptations of the flesh. There is no reason to assume that invariably he succumbs to them. The Monsignor was Agnes’s confessor. She was a child and she trusted him. I have no reason to doubt that he repaid her trust with his respect.’
Oscar appeared suddenly weary. He stepped back towards the altar and, with a profound exhalation of breath and rubbing his eyes with clenched fists, he said slowly: ‘There is no evidence of any kind to suggest that Monsignor Felici — or anyone else — took an unwholesome interest in Agnes. And there is no evidence of any kind to suggest that Agnes, when she died, was anything but a virgin undefiled. It was only the old exorcist’s confusion of one Agnes with another that could have led us down that blind alley.’
‘So who did kill the wretched girl?’ demanded Rennell Rodd.
‘The murderer is in this room,’ said Oscar quietly. He smiled and looked directly at Catherine English. ‘Yes, it is a man, Miss English. Most murderers are.’ He took his silver cigarette case from his jacket pocket and held it between his open palms. ‘And it is not a priest. Outside of novels, very few clergymen commit murder, it seems.’ He revolved the cigarette case between his fingers. ‘So the Reverend English is off the hook as well — at least so far as this charge is concerned.’ He opened the cigarette case and considered its contents, musing as he did so:
‘According to an article that I read in the Daily Chronicle not long ago, one in a thousand murderers is a man of the cloth, but one in ten is either a diplomat or a civil servant.’
‘Come on, Wilde,’ snorted Rennell Rodd from the second row. ‘Murder is a capital offence. If you are about to accuse a man of the crime, you can’t dress it up as a game of charades. It’s a serious business.’
‘I agree, James. Thank you. And thank you for being here. I need you for the denouement.’
‘Then get to the point, man, because I am leaving in a moment.’
Oscar snapped shut his cigarette case and slipped it into his trouser pocket, looking directly at his audience. The sparkle had returned to his eye. I sensed this was to be his final aria and he gave it to us con fuoco.
‘Where was she killed? How was she killed? Why was she killed? I will tell you. She was killed on the seat of tears in the sacristy of the Sistine Chapel, late on the afternoon of Thursday 7 February 1878, as Pope Pius IX lay dying. She had gone there to shed her own tears. She loved Pio Nono — as if he were a father and a grandfather. It was there, on the seat of tears, that Cesare Verdi, the sacristan, found her, when he came to the sacristy at around five o’clock to collect the little silver hammer that would be required within the hour to prove the death of the old pope.
‘Cesare Verdi entered the sacristy, his sacristy, and on the seat of tears, the papal seat of tears, he saw this wretched child: Pio’s Nono’s favourite, Pio Nono’s little lamb of God, crying her heart out. When Monsignor Tuminello told us that Pio Nono allowed Agnes “a freedom within the Vatican enjoyed by no one else, no one at all”, I realised how much she might be resented. To Cesare Verdi, Agnes was more than a nuisance: she was a usurper. The sacristy was his domain, his inheritance, and yet this child had the run of the place, she could go where she wanted, she could play as she pleased, she could do no wrong …
‘As little Agnes lay there, so impertinently, weeping in her sleep, Cesare Verdi decided that her reign should end with Pio Nono’s — that the new pope, whoever he might be, would not be subject to the little girl’s seductive charms. Verdi took the silver hammer and, with a single blow to the back of her head, he killed her. And to make assurance doubly sure, having struck her with the hammer, he suffocated her with a cushion. When he was certain that she was dead, he straightened her head, closed her eyes, pushed her lips up into a mocking, beatific smile and laid her feet to rest upon the cushion. Later, he discovered that blood from the wound to her head had left a mark on the velvet. It is still there. It is no larger than a thumbprint. I would not have noticed it, had he not pointed it out to me. He said it was the mark left by past popes who had shed tears of blood upon the seat of tears. He called it “a stigmata”.
‘Cesare Verdi left the dead child where he had found her and went back, with his little silver hammer wiped clean, to the bedside of the dying pope. How he would have disposed of the child’s body, I do not know, but the dilemma was solved for him, inadvertently, by the intervention of Brother Matteo. Agnes’s body — left for dead by Verdi, seen briefly by Monsignor Breakspear on his way to compline — was stolen away in the darkness, wrapped in a Capuchin’s habit, and brought here before daybreak, where it has rested, undisturbed, ever since.
‘Within the world drama of a pope’s death, the disappearance from the Vatican of a little girl, a waif and stray, did not count for very much. Searches were mounted, enquiries were made, but nothing was found. The child was not forgotten by those who had known and loved her, but the issue of her “disappearance” disappeared, for years … until Monsignor Tuminello conceived his madcap notion of making Agnes a saint!
‘On Sunday of this week, Cesare Verdi discovered that Monsignor Tuminello had set his heart upon unearthing the truth, the whole truth, about the death of little Agnes. Tuminello had to be stopped, so on Monday Verdi murdered him, using strychnine stolen from Dr Munthe’s medical bag. Dr Munthe is not careful with his bag: I saw him leave it, unlocked and unattended, by the sideboard in the sacristy dining room. Poisoning the communion wine presented no challenge to Cesare Verdi. He is sacristan. He is the guardian of the communion wine at the Sistine Chapel. With the murders of both Agnes and Monsignor Tuminello, the only man with the motive, the means and the opportunity in each case is Cesare Verdi. He is our murderer.’
Oscar ran his hands down the front of his green linen suit and adjusted the pale-yellow cottage-rose in his buttonhole. He cast his eyes down and paused, almost as if he might have been expecting a round of applause. None came. The silence in the room was broken only by Monsignor Felici’s heavy breathing. Felici, Breakspear and Matteo stared fixedly in front of them. Martin English and his sister, Munthe, Rennell Rodd and I all turned towards Verdi. He was seated alone in the corner of the chapel, quite still, erect, his unshaven face clouded and perplexed.
Oscar looked up and addressed Rennell Rodd.
‘James, I asked you here for a purpose. Cesare Verdi is half British; his mother is a cockney. He was born by London Bridge. I don’t know my way around the Italian judicial system, and I don’t want to, but I know British justice, and I respect it, and I know you. I trust that, as First Secretary at the British Embassy here, you will have the authority to arrest the man.’
Rennell Rodd got to his feet and turned towards Verdi. ‘Don’t move, sir,’ he said.
‘I’ve no intention of moving,’ replied the man, getting to his feet defiantly. He looked beyond Rennell Rodd towards Oscar and, scratching his head with one hand while holding his bowler hat to his chest with the other, enquired: ‘What’s all this about, Mr Wilde? I’m one hundred per cent British. Don’t you remember me? I’m Gus Green — from Willis’s Rooms in St James’s. I am not my brother, nor my brother’s keeper. I came only because I got your telegram, telling me Cesare was dead.
I got to the Vatican just now and they sent me down here. Where is he? What’s going on?’
Oscar blanched.
‘I sent you no telegram, Mr Green.’ He swayed and closed his eyes. ‘I have been outwitted,’ he whispered, almost to himself, ‘outfoxed.’
And then he laughed. It was a bitter, barking laugh, not like Oscar’s laugh at all. Finally, slowly, he opened his eyes and, looking down towards the little skeleton that lay at the side of the altar, said quietly: ‘I apologise to each of you but most especially to the spirit of Agnes, Pio Nono’s little lamb of God. She was all innocence. ‘He gazed around the gloomy chapel. ‘Her murderer will be halfway to Istanbul by now. We shall never see Cesare Verdi again.’
We never did.
Aftermath
We never saw Cesare Verdi again, though sometimes, in later years, in London, dining with Oscar at Willis’s restaurant in King Street, St James’s, I would look across the crowded room and catch sight of the maître d’hôtel standing at his desk and ask myself: is that Gus Green or is it Verdi?
Oscar said: ‘I wondered briefly whether they were the one and the same person, but I know that they were not because, back in the ‘eighties, I saw them in the restaurant once, standing side by side. Together they appeared quite different and one was taller than the other, though I can’t remember which. They were not close, except to their mother. I imagine on that fateful Sunday in July 1892, when Verdi saw us hugger-mugger with Tuminello on our way to the tombs of the popes, he realised that the game was up. He decided to silence Tuminello and then disappear, taking with him from the sacristy enough papal treasure to live in comfort for the rest of his days, but not so much that the Vatican would feel the need to send the Swiss Guard in hot pursuit of him. I suppose he sent that telegram from me to his brother announcing his “death” for sentimental reasons. He wanted his brother to come to Rome to fetch home his personal belongings, as a souvenir for Mama. You know how Italians are about their mothers …’
We left Rome within twenty-four hours of concluding the case. The portmanteau of correspondence that I had taken with me to Bad Homburg ten days earlier returned with me to South Norwood, still requiring my attention! Though pressed to do so by Felici and Breakspear, we did not stay for Monsignor Tuminello’s funeral. Dr Axel Munthe kindly agreed to represent us.
‘I’m not a great one for obsequies,’ said Oscar. ‘Death is more in Munthe’s line than mine.’
Over the next few years, the Swedish doctor and I corresponded occasionally — on literary matters mainly: we shared the same publisher — but we never met again. Oscar, I believe, last saw Munthe at his house on the island of Capri in the late summer of 1897, not long after Oscar’s release from Reading Gaol. They talked, so Oscar told me, about death and Keats and monkeys —and the price of love.
On the day of our departure, Munthe had said he would see us off from Rome railway station, but in the event he was instead called away to meet a new patient. She was Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden and I understand that she became his mistress and remained his mistress for many years. Axel Munthe was not regular in his habits but he was a good man. On the morning of our return to London, as we were saying goodbye, I mentioned to him that I had noticed the gum around the eyes of the two boys who lived in the woods up on the hill. He told me that he had noticed it also; that the boys were both suffering from trachoma; and that they would soon be having treatment — paid for by James Rennell Rodd.
Rodd, I learnt, also paid for the funeral of the boys ‘father and arranged, with Martin English, for the poor man’s ashes to be dispersed in the Protestant Cemetery adjacent to the pyramid, as his sons had wanted.
‘Rodd’s a bit stiff,’ I said to Oscar. ‘Nomen est omen and all that, but I like him. And you like him, too, really, don’t you? It’s a pity he doesn’t like you.’
‘He doesn’t like me because he is frightened of what he sees of me in himself. Nothing must be allowed to get in the way of James’s career.’
Nothing did. James Rennell Rodd’s rise through the diplomatic service was meteoric. He served in Rome, Berlin, Athens, Cairo, Paris, and did the Swedes such service that King Oscar II — the son of Oscar Wilde’s godfather, the father-in-law of Axel Munthe’s mistress — awarded him the Grand Cross of the Order of the Polar Star. He returned to Rome as British ambassador in 1908. As I write this (in the winter of 1928) he has just become the Member of Parliament for St Marylebone. I have no doubt that Oscar was right and that it is only a matter of time before he receives a baron’s coronet.
Nicholas Breakspear did not secure a cardinal’s hat. Shortly after our visit to Rome, he wrote to me, telling me of his intention to apply for the post of head of languages at our old school, Stonyhurst College. He asked me whether I would be one of his referees. I said I should be honoured. As you may know, under the name Nicholas Breakspear-Owen he went on to write what many regard as the definitive biography of Cardinal Newman. He died at Stonyhurst, aged seventy-five, in the spring of this year.
Monsignor Felici lived into his mid-seventies as well, despite his girth, his concupiscence and his appetite for ice cream. He had a good physician in Axel Munthe who, no doubt, eased him towards a good end. When and how Brother Matteo died I do not know, but I imagine it was many years ago. The last I heard of him was from Breakspear-Owen who travelled to Rome for the funeral of Pope Leo XIII in July 1903 and, for old times’ sake, visited the Capuchin church of the Immaculate Conception. There he found the aged friar, less upright but still barefoot and sweet-natured, tending the bones of little Agnes in the crypt of the three skeletons.
And what of Catherine and the Reverend Martin English? He served as Anglican chaplain in Rome for thirty-three years. According to a journalist of my acquaintance — the Rome correspondent of the London Times — English, ‘though you could never fault him, never entirely settled in’. The last time that I saw Catherine English was on the platform at Rome station on the day of our departure. She came to see us off, looking very lovely in her pink summer frock and her wide-brimmed straw hat. We stood together, she on the platform looking up, me at the window of my compartment looking down, as we waited for the train to depart. As the guard’s whistle blew, she pushed her face up towards mine and I caught the scent of lily of the valley in her hair. She whispered some words to me and kissed me farewell.
When I settled back into my seat and the train had begun to gather speed, Oscar said to me: ‘Arthur, are you quite well? You look as white as a sheet.’
‘I am puzzled by something that Miss English has just said,’ I replied.
‘And what was that?’ he enquired.
‘She said that I must go back to my wife and love her truly, just as she must go back to her husband and love him. She is married, Oscar.’
‘Ah,’ he said gently, studying the burning tip of his cigarette. ‘She admitted it, did she? The Reverend English is her husband, not her brother, but as the post of Anglican chaplain in Rome is open only to unmarried clergy, they have opted for a life of deception. He called it “a life of discretion” when he told me. He said he knew that he could rely on mine.’
‘A life of deception.’ I repeated the phrase.
‘Yes. And it might work for them. Who knows? They are in a foreign country, far away from home, after all. Don’t forget, when I first saw them I assumed they were brother and sister. This whole case has been riddled with false assumptions.’ He flicked some ash from his cigarette into his cupped hand. ‘I observed “Miss” English, as I thought her, making overtures towards you — coming on that balloon trip, inviting herself on our expedition to Capri — and I encouraged the friendship, thinking a little holiday romance would put some colour in your cheeks, but I did wrong. Martin English is a weak man married to a strong and wicked woman, who appears to be neither because she is beautiful.’
‘She lied to me?’ I said, shaking my head in disbelief.
‘I fear she did, from start to finish. It’s not impossible to li
ve a lie and it does have its advantages. How much money did you give her?’
‘I gave her one hundred pounds in all.’
Oscar smiled. ‘I think you got off quite lightly. And it’s a lesson learnt. One should always be suspicious of a woman who tells you that her past was burnt in the flames of a schoolhouse in Peshawar.’ He drew contentedly on his cigarette and observed me with kindly eyes. ‘You sent another telegram to Touie, I trust? Will your darling wife be waiting for you at the station in London?’
‘I hope so,’ I said. ‘I don’t deserve her, Oscar. I really don’t.’
Oscar laughed. ‘If we men married the women we deserved, we should have a very bad time of it.’ He leant across the railway carriage and tapped me on the knee. ‘In this world, Arthur, there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants and the other is getting it.’
‘Who said that?’ I asked.
He smiled. ‘It wasn’t Keats.’
Chronology
1823: Death of John Keats in Rome, Italy, at the age of twenty-five
1846: Accession of Pope Pius IX, aged fifty-four
1854: Birth of Oscar Wilde in Dublin, Ireland
1857: Birth of Axel Munthe in Oskarshamn, Sweden
1859: Birth of Arthur Conan Doyle in Edinburgh, Scotland
1875: Axel Munthe’s first visit to Rome and the island of Capri
1877: Oscar Wilde’s audience with Pope Pius IX in Rome
1878: Death of Pope Pius IX, aged eighty-five, and accession of Pope Leo XIII, aged sixty-seven
1879: John Henry Newman becomes Cardinal deacon of San Giorgio in Velabro, Rome
1882: Publication of Rose Leaf and Apple Leaf, verses by James Rennell Rodd, aged twenty-four, with an introduction by Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders Page 26
