Oscar Wilde and the Nest of Vipers

by Gyles Brandreth

  ‘Again, I apologise.’

  ‘Pray don’t. It was an instructive fluster. As you took your place at table I noticed you hurriedly placing two envelopes in your inside coat pocket. I also observed ink marks on the fingers of your right hand and a red pressure mark on the left side of your right middle finger.’

  Conan Doyle held out his right hand and examined it.

  ‘The ink is still there,’ said Oscar, ‘but the pressure mark has gone. It was the redness of it that made me think you had been writing at length and at speed. I surmised that you would have made notes following your visit to Muswell Hill. You are a man who makes notes, Arthur: yours is a tidy soul – and I could see that you had written two letters because you brought them into the dining room with you.’

  Arthur produced the envelopes from his jacket pocket. ‘How did you know to whom they were addressed?’

  ‘I guessed. You are in love with your wife – you write to her three times a day. You are a gentleman – you send your thank-you letters promptly.’

  Conan Doyle laid the two letters out on the tablecloth before us. They were indeed addressed to Lord Yarborough in Muswell Hill and Mrs Conan Doyle in Southsea.

  Oscar turned to me and said, ‘Robert, would you look at these envelopes carefully and tell me what, if anything, strikes you about them.’

  I picked up the envelopes and examined them, then looked at Oscar.

  ‘They appear to be identical – apart from the names and the addresses.’

  ‘Are they the same weight?’

  I took an envelope in each hand. ‘They are.’

  ‘And are they both stamped?’

  I laid the envelopes on the table. ‘They are.’

  ‘And what do you make of that?’ asked Oscar, with a note of triumph in his voice.

  I was bemused. ‘What do I make of it? I make nothing of it, Oscar. What should I make of it? Arthur wrote two letters, sealed them, stamped them and brought them with him into the dining room.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Oscar. ‘But why?’

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why did he bring the letters into the dining room – when each already carried a stamp, and to reach the dining room Arthur had to pass through the hotel foyer, directly past the letterbox that stands there at the foot of the main stairs? Arthur had been anxious to send his thanks to Lord Yarborough and his love to Mrs Doyle – he could have posted his letters on the way into dinner, but he did not do so. Why? I will tell you why … Because Arthur had recently made the acquaintance of Monsieur James Tissot and Monsieur Tissot had told him his story!’

  ‘I am lost,’ I said.

  ‘I am dumbfounded, Oscar,’ said Conan Doyle. ‘I salute your genius. You should have sleepless nights more often.’

  ‘You will have to explain,’ I said pitifully. ‘I have not the first idea what you are talking about.’

  ‘It’s very simple,’ said Oscar. ‘Tissot is a fine artist, but limited in his range. He has one style – and one story. The picture he paints is pleasing enough, but it is always the same picture. The story he tells is remarkable – but it is the same story. He is the French equivalent of the club bore. I have met him three times and heard the same story on each occasion.’

  ‘And what is this story?’ I asked.

  ‘It is tragic,’ said Conan Doyle.

  ‘And it concerns two letters,’ explained Oscar.

  ‘Go on,’ I said.

  ‘Shall I tell the story, Arthur? Or will you? Or shall we ask the head waiter? He is bound to have heard it if Tissot has stayed here.’

  Conan Doyle laughed. ‘Tell the story, Oscar. Our soup is about to be served.’

  ‘It’s easily told. Once upon a time, Tissot had a mistress. An Irish girl, some years his junior. Kathleen was her name, as I recall. Tissot and the girl were inseparable. She had youth and beauty, energy and high intelligence. Tissot used her as his muse – and as his favourite model. The girl worshipped the ground on which the artist walked and he loved her dearly – for a time. But nothing lasts, and men are men, and novelty, by definition, has its day. So, as the years passed, and Kathleen’s beauty faded and her health began to fade, Tissot’s love for his mistress waned. What once had charmed him began to irritate. What had once delighted began to pall. And, eventually, the day came when Tissot knew that he must rid himself of this mistress.

  ‘He wrote to a friend telling him what he planned to do – telling him how he had grown tired of Kathleen, weary of her conversation, bored by her company, depressed by her illness and her fading looks. He admitted to his friend that the woman he had once loved he now despised. On the same evening, at the same table, he wrote a second letter – a kinder, sweeter, softer letter – a letter telling Kathleen he was going to have to go away on business and might be away for some time … And yes, he put each letter into the wrong envelope. He sent the gentle letter intended for Kathleen to his friend – and he sent the letter that told the bitter truth to Kathleen. She read it and she killed herself.’

  A waiter stood hovering at Oscar’s side.

  ‘Ah,’ cried Oscar, ‘the lobster bisque!’

  As our soup was served, there was a moment’s silence at the table. To my surprise, I found myself thinking of Constance Wilde. I first met her in Paris, six years ago, on the first day of her honeymoon. She was so happy. She and Oscar were completely in love. Constance loves Oscar still, and with a passion, but his love for her is fading. I see it. She does not. I fear what the future may hold.

  Conan Doyle had his glass raised to Oscar. ‘An affecting story beautifully told.’

  ‘Well,’ said Oscar, waving his soup spoon gaily, ‘I’ve heard it often enough. Tissot is the Ancient Mariner – Kathleen is his albatross. He recounts the story to whoever will listen.’

  ‘It’s guilt, not grief that engulfs him,’ said Doyle solemnly.

  ‘And guilt does terrible things to a man. It’s turned Tissot from a painter of charming narratives into an insufferable old bore who paints nothing but scenes from the Bible. When last I saw him he told me that he was depicting the life of Christ in seven hundred canvases! You might think that Our Lord had suffered enough.’

  We all laughed and, following Oscar’s injunction, Arthur opened the envelope addressed to Mrs Conan Doyle. It contained the letter intended for her.

  ‘All’s well,’ he muttered, tugging at his moustache a touch shamefacedly.

  ‘And all will be well,’ said Oscar, looking at Conan Doyle benevolently. ‘We’ll get you back to Southsea, Arthur, and we’ll solve this case into the bargain. Now, tell us, how was Lord Yarborough?’

  As we finished our lobster bisque and embarked on our baked Dover sole, Conan Doyle gave us a full account of his day at Muswell Manor. While the fish was being served, Oscar laid his hand on Arthur’s arm reassuringly.

  ‘I am postponing our debate on heaven and hell and the significance of sin until we reach the savoury. Your tale, sir, would cure deafness. Take all the time you need.’

  It took until the arrival of the jugged hare for Dr Doyle to complete his story. When he had done so, he sat back and looked at each of us in turn, his eyebrows raised as if inviting a verdict.

  Oscar prodded his food with his fork. ‘So you now consider Lord Yarborough as suspect as this out-of-season hare, do you, Arthur?’

  Conan Doyle said nothing.

  ‘It doesn’t look good for Yarborough, does it?’ I volunteered.

  ‘Why do you say that, Robert?’ Oscar responded sharply. ‘Lord Yarborough is a peer of the realm and a Fellow of the Royal Society. He is a model of respectability, a physician of distinction who is devoting himself, and his considerable means, to the alleviation of suffering – and doing so alongside the great Professor Charcot, one of the most regarded scientific figures of our time.’

  ‘Two of Yarborough’s patients turn out to be sisters,’ I countered, ‘one of whom is found murdered in a darkened room off a hallway in Grosvenor Square, while the othe
r is discovered, naked, hypnotised and as good as imprisoned, in a darkened room in Muswell Hill.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Oscar, ‘the address of the Charcot Clinic does not inspire confidence, but beyond that I don’t quite see what Lord Yarborough has done to arouse your suspicion, Robert. He is a specialist in hysteria so one would expect his patients to include vulnerable young women of an hysterical disposition.’

  ‘They were sisters.’

  ‘What of that? These things run in families – and Lord Yarborough is a family doctor. Just as Arthur is.’

  Oscar turned to gaze on Conan Doyle.

  ‘Arthur has his practice in Southsea. Lord Yarborough has his in Harley Street. Arthur looks after families fortunate enough to live in the purlieus of Portsmouth, while Lord Yarborough’s patients are cursed with mansions in Mayfair. But both men have patients who may be sisters; both have patients who may be prone to hysteria; both have patients who will occasionally die in unfortunate circumstances. Why should one of these doctors be considered a more suspect character than the other? Aren’t they both simply honest medical men, doing their best for the frail and ailing who pass their way?’

  Conan Doyle leant forward and said quietly: ‘There is a difference between us.’

  ‘Is there?’ asked Oscar, laying down his fork and reaching into his pocket for his cigarette case.

  ‘There is,’ continued Conan Doyle earnestly. ‘Lord Yarborough is engaged in research and, by his own admission, for that research he needs access to the cadavers of former patients. This morning, when he told me that one of his patients had taken her own life, he said that he was grateful to her for her suicide.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that he helped her to it?’ asked Oscar, lighting a cigarette.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought not,’ said Oscar, gently blowing a thin plume of blue smoke across the table.

  ‘But could he have done so?’ I asked, suddenly excited. ‘Hypnotism is part of Yarborough’s stock-in trade. Could he have persuaded this young woman to take her own life – under hypnosis?’

  Conan Doyle considered his answer carefully. ‘Yes,’ he said, eventually. ‘Hypnosis is a form of unconsciousness resembling sleep and some subjects are more suggestible than others. But, yes … under hypnosis, you can persuade people to do extraordinary things.’

  Oscar contemplated his cigarette. ‘Could you persuade a sophisticated woman hosting a reception for two hundred guests to abandon it at its height and make her way to a darkened room and there disrobe, first to mutilate herself, quite brutally, and, next, to stab herself to death in the neck before cleverly concealing the weapon she had used for the purpose? Could that be achieved with hypnosis?’

  Conan Doyle frowned. ‘I am not suggesting that Lord Yarborough murdered the Duchess of Albemarle, Oscar.’

  ‘I am relieved to hear it. Are you suggesting that he might have been party to the suicide of this other patient? Or that he is lining up the duchess’s younger sister for his cold marble slab?’

  ‘No,’ protested Conan Doyle, ‘not for a moment. All I am saying is that Yarborough is obsessed with “the great Charcot” and, consequently, set upon finding physical evidence of the roots of hysteria, at whatever cost. Charcot identified multiple sclerosis in the morgue. Yarborough is determined to localise hysteria in the same way. To undertake his research he needs the bodies of former patients. How else can he put the nervous systems of known hysterics under the microscope? It is the only way. I am not suggesting he will have had any involvement in the murder of one patient or the suicide of another – but both deaths will have been useful to him.’

  ‘Useful?’ repeated Oscar.

  ‘Yes, useful. He used the body of the girl who took her own life for dissection. He told me so.’

  ‘And what did he discover?’

  ‘Nothing – but that has not lessened his determination. The research goes on.’

  ‘And you think he would have liked to use the body of the Duchess of Albemarle in the same way?’

  ‘I do.’

  Oscar studied Conan Doyle carefully, exhaled a cloud of smoke and smiled.

  ‘In fact, Arthur, you think that he may even have succeeded in doing so.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘But that’s not possible,’ I said. ‘We saw the undertakers coming to collect the duchess’s body. You remember, Oscar? We were standing in Grosvenor Square – in the gardens. We watched them arrive.’

  ‘Oh, come now, Robert,’ exclaimed Oscar reprovingly. ‘Only the most literal believe the evidence of their own eyes. Poets and detectives need to do better than that. We saw a group of plain-faced, drably dressed individuals arrive at 40 Grosvenor Square with a hearse, that’s true. I remember. I can picture them clearly. They arrived with Lord Yarborough, did they not? We took them for undertakers because we saw what we expected to see. Who is to say they were not body-snatchers?’

  I was about to remonstrate with Oscar, but my protest was stilled by a hand on my shoulder. It was a pale hand, small and delicate like a woman’s, but firm like a man’s.

  I looked up and there, behind me, stood Rex LaSalle. He was in evening dress, with a white silk scarf around his neck and a pale-pink carnation in his buttonhole. He leant on my shoulder as he bowed towards Oscar and then towards Conan Doyle.

  ‘I am too early,’ he said apologetically. ‘I will go again.’

  ‘You will stay, Rex. You are not early. We are late. But it does not signify. Punctuality is the thief of time. The waiter will bring you a chair. You will join us for our meat course – unless, of course, you’ve already feasted on some unsuspecting virgin you encountered on your way here.’

  LaSalle did not rise to Oscar’s sally. ‘I have not eaten,’ he said quietly. ‘I will be pleased to join you.’

  ‘Excellent!’ cried Oscar, waving towards a waiter and shifting his chair around the table to make room for his young friend. ‘You will sit here next to me and, over the collared beef, we’ll tell sad stories of the death of duchesses.’

  A waiter brought up an additional chair and LaSalle took his place at the table, between Oscar and Conan Doyle.

  The young man’s arrival had galvanised our host. Everything he now said appeared to be entirely for the young man’s benefit.

  ‘With the savoury, Rex, I shall be leading a colloquy on the nature of sin – you will have much of value to contribute. But first we are sharing our news.’

  Oscar looked around the table, mischief in his eye.

  ‘Dr Doyle has been to Muswell Hill today and lives to tell the tale. He tells it so well. Robert and I have been to Marlborough House this evening – on our way here – and enjoyed a brief audience with Tyrwhitt Wilson, equerry to the Prince of Wales. Tomorrow night, gentlemen, we are all invited to join HRH at the Empire Music Hall in Leicester Square. You are included in the invitation, Rex.’

  ‘I shall be in Southsea,’ muttered Conan Doyle.

  ‘You will be in Leicester Square,’ declared Oscar. ‘It is a royal summons.’

  ‘What’s this about?’ asked Conan Doyle, testily. ‘Why did you not mention this before?’

  ‘Patience, Arthur,’ said Oscar, soothingly. ‘I will explain in a moment – but, first, let us hear Rex’s news.’

  ‘I have no news,’ said the young man.

  ‘But you must have news,’ insisted Oscar.

  ‘I have none. I have been in bed all day. I have been asleep.’

  ‘But last night?’ said Oscar. ‘What happened to you last night?’

  ‘I came with you to Mortlake, to the cemetery.’

  ‘And then you disappeared,’ said Oscar. ‘When the evening ended and the party broke up, and Arthur and Bram Stoker returned to town, and Robert and I joined young Prince Eddy and his companion at the priest’s house, you were nowhere to be found.’

  ‘I was there.’

  ‘I did not see you. I looked for you.’

  ‘I know. I saw you looking.’

  �
�You saw me? Why didn’t you call out?’

  ‘I couldn’t. I had changed my shape by then.’

  ‘You are talking in riddles, Rex. Explain yourself.’

  Rex LaSalle laid his hands upon the table, one placed carefully over the other. As he spoke, he turned his head sharply so that he could look directly into Oscar’s eyes.

  ‘I have a gift, Oscar. I have spoken to you of it before. At night, after midnight, if I so choose, I can transform my shape. By effort of will, under cover of darkness, I can change from man to beast. I can transform myself from the person you see before you now into a creature of the night – a cat, a rat, a bat …’

  Oscar narrowed his eyes and let the smoke from his cigarette drift up from his nostrils across his face.

  ‘Do you turn yourself into a gnat now and again, Rex?’ he asked, playfully. ‘Is the rhyming element essential to this nocturnal transmogrification of yours?’

  ‘Mock if you must, Oscar,’ answered the young man, quite unperturbed by Oscar’s teasing. ‘I have the ability to change myself into any creature of the night – be it an owl or a wolf, a scorpion or a viper. Last night, when the charade with the naked boy on the white stallion was done, I chose to slip away. I went in the guise of a fox.’

  Conan Doyle cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. The waiter was approaching with our tray of collared beef.

  Rex LaSalle turned from Oscar and looked around the table. ‘Forgive me, gentlemen. The truth is sometimes uncomfortable, but, as I have told Oscar more than once, I am a vampire. There it is.’

  Oscar looked up at the waiter and smiled: ‘Fetch the sommelier, if you’d be so kind. I think we’ll be needing more claret.’

  Leicester Square

  47

  From the diary of Rex LaSalle

  It was a curious evening. I spoke only the truth and they believed not a word of it. Oscar offered joshing banter; Conan Doyle harrumphed and chewed on his moustache; Robert Sherard said nothing but looked on me with a mixture of disbelief and pity in his eyes.