Oscar Wilde and the Nest of Vipers

by Gyles Brandreth

  Prince Albert Victor was standing at his father’s elbow. The Prince of Wales presented the little dancer to his son as though she were the Queen of Sheba. ‘This is a very special lady, Eddy – one of my favourite friends.’

  The young prince clicked his heels. Bowing, he took Mlle Lavallois’s hand and kissed it. The little dancer giggled and bobbed a curtsy.

  ‘We met in Paris,’ continued the Prince of Wales, ‘at the Moulin Rouge. Lulu was the star attraction.’

  ‘I remember,’ said his son, appreciatively. ‘You introduced me.’

  ‘Did I? I don’t recall. Did you come with me to Paris?’

  ‘Yes, Papa. Three years ago. I met Miss Lavallois then.’

  ‘Very well. If you say so.’

  ‘I’m going back to Paris soon,’ said the girl. ‘I’m only here for the season.’

  ‘I hope to be in Paris next week,’ said the Prince of Wales. ‘I have my spring break, you know.’

  The girl threw her arms around the heir apparent and, with a little gurgle, said, ‘I know. I love your spring breaks. I love ya, Tum-Tum.’

  The prince’s page was now hovering with a glass of champagne for the royal guest. She saw it and squealed, ‘I’d love to, dearie, but I can’t. I’ve got to go. I’m back on stage in a tick.’

  ‘More ballet?’ enquired Prince Eddy.

  ‘No. I’m Miranda the Mermaid next. In a fish tank. You’ll like it. You get to see my titties.’

  The girl was completely unabashed. She roared with laughter and kissed the Prince of Wales once more.

  ‘Don’t go,’ he said. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I must,’ she said, pulling herself away. ‘I’m on in a moment.’

  ‘Come back later – when the show’s over. Come back then.’

  ‘I will,’ she said. ‘Promise.’

  She separated herself from the prince and curtsied to the ground once more, then looked around the room at the dozen faces all gazing upon on her in rapt amazement.

  ‘Goodbye, all,’ she said, ‘ta-ra for now. See you later.’

  And, waving, she skipped out of the room. As she went, we all applauded.

  ‘Isn’t she extraordinary?’ exclaimed the Prince of Wales.

  I was standing with Oscar, Rex LaSalle and Robert Sherard on the far side of the ante-room, by the double doors leading back to the auditorium.

  ‘Extraordinary,’ echoed Sherard. ‘I’ve seen her at the Moulin Rouge, with Jane Avril – dancing the cancan. She’s an enchantress.’

  ‘She’s a free spirit,’ said Oscar. ‘I envy that.’

  ‘She’s wonderfully forward,’ I said.

  ‘She’s wonderfully honest,’ said Oscar.

  ‘She and the prince don’t hide the nature of their friendship, do they?’ said Rex LaSalle.

  ‘What is the good of friendship if one cannot say exactly what one means?’ replied Oscar. ‘The girl trades in happiness, not deception.’

  ‘What about the Princess of Wales?’ asked LaSalle. ‘What about her happiness? I wonder what she makes of her husband’s intimacy with the little dancer from the Moulin Rouge?’

  ‘I trust she neither knows nor cares,’ said Oscar. ‘This is something else – somewhere else – in another world.’

  Across the room, Prince Albert Victor was attempting small-talk with Dvorak’s daughter while the Prince of Wales was still revelling in his reunion with his young dancing friend. He was talking exuberantly to the Duke of Albemarle, Lord Yarborough and Arthur Conan Doyle.

  ‘Isn’t she a delight? She gives herself some fanciful French name, but she comes from Bermondsey, of course.’ He drained his champagne glass and looked about the room. ‘I wish there was something to eat.’

  Tyrwhitt Wilson stepped forward obsequiously. ‘There will be, sir, after the performance, when Professor Onofroff is here. It’s all in hand.’

  ‘Good,’ said the prince. ‘Sandwiches, pies, cold cuts – nothing elaborate, but something.’

  The theatre manager was now hovering.

  ‘We’ve got to go back, have we?’ grumbled the prince and offered up a barking laugh. ‘They don’t harry the Queen like this. What’s next?’

  ‘Miranda the Mermaid, Your Highness.’

  ‘Oh,’ purred the prince. ‘Lulu’s titties! This we mustn’t miss.’

  With a spring in his heel, the heir apparent led us back into the royal box. In the pit, the orchestra was playing a medley of sea shanties, while on stage an old man dressed as Neptune stood alongside a huge glass-fronted water tank on wheels. The central panel of the tank was covered by a tarpaulin sheet on which were painted gaudy pictures of assorted sea creatures – an octopus, a giant seahorse, a sea serpent, starfish and the like.

  As drums began to roll beneath him, the old man waved his trident in the air and, in surprisingly stentorian tones, promised us a sight for sore eyes: the true wonder of the sub-aquatic world – fresh from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean where she had been caught by sailors fishing for shark – the only mermaid in captivity – the miraculous Miranda!

  As he spoke her name, cymbals clashed below, and, with a mighty heave, old Neptune pulled the tarpaulin from the tank. Within it, under water, seated on a three-legged stool, her fine fish’s tail laid out before her, slowly combing her thick golden tresses, was the Prince of Wales’s Bermondsey paramour. (The tresses, I should add, were quite long enough to preserve the lady’s modesty. We saw the outline of her charming figure, but nothing more.)

  ‘Is she not a thing of beauty?’ demanded Neptune. ‘Is she not a living miracle?’

  ‘She is indeed,’ murmured the Prince of Wales.

  ‘Watch!’ cried Neptune, directing our attention with his trident. ‘Watch as Miranda, breathing beneath the briny, performs her miraculous underwater feats.’

  As the old man announced each ‘feat’ in turn, the young mermaid performed it and the audience, alternately, gasped and cheered. She abandoned her stool and swam to the bottom of the tank. She swam to the top. She executed an elegant somersault and disappeared to the back of the tank, returning a moment later and dragging a barnacle-covered strong box with her.

  ‘See!’ cried old Neptune. ‘Miranda has discovered Davy Jones’s locker!’

  With much underwater pantomime, the mermaid threw open the strong box and revealed its treasures – gold doubloons, silver goblets and seaweed-strewn human skulls.

  As she pressed her face against the front glass of the water tank and held up her trophies, a sudden cry of horror swept across the auditorium. A huge sea serpent, six feet in length, emerged from the darkness at the back of the tank and slithered slowly towards the girl. She was oblivious, facing the auditorium, playing to the crowd, until the hideous red-eyed creature reached her and swiftly entwined its long, black, scaly body about hers. She fell back, thrashing her tail wildly, clutching desperately at the serpent as it tightened its grip around her neck and torso. Locked together, intertwined, mermaid and serpent twisted, turned and struggled. As the pair revolved, waves of water splashed from the top of the tank on to the stage.

  Old Neptune called out, ‘Help! Calamity!’

  The audience rose to its feet in alarm.

  ‘In God’s name, what’s happening?’ cried the Prince of Wales.

  ‘It’s part of the act, sir,’ I hissed. ‘All will be well.’

  And, in a moment, it was. Beneath the turbulent waves, the mermaid and the serpent fought on. They fought to the death – and the mermaid won. Frantically tearing the sea creature from her neck, pulling it away from her body and throttling it with her bare hands, the mermaid swam up to the surface of the water and flung the dead serpent from the tank on to the stage. It lay motionless by the footlights, like a length of Mr Goodyear’s vulcanised rubber tubing.

  The audience roared its approval and the mermaid, bobbing about on the surface of the water, took her applause. Pulling herself to the edge of the tank by her arms, she lifted her torso out of the water to make a bow. As s
he leant forward, for a brief moment, from the royal box we caught a glimpse of her titties.

  ‘All’s well,’ sighed the Prince of Wales. ‘I knew it would be. Isn’t she extraordinary?’

  ‘I did not like the music,’ said Dvorak.

  Dan Leno was top of the bill – and rightly so. The little fellow is simply the funniest man on earth. As the curtains fell around the water tank, Dan hopped and skipped his way on to the front of the stage, dressed as a washerwoman! He apologised for being late, saying, ‘I came by bus. It was so crowded, even the men were standing.’

  What he offers is neither boisterous nor crude, yet he holds the entire house in the palm of his hand. I have met him. In the wings he is terrified. On stage he is fearless. And every audience loves him.

  The show done, the national anthem played and the Prince of Wales gave a farewell wave to the Tuesday-night Empire crowd.

  ‘Food!’ he cried, leading us back to the ante-room. ‘And Onofroff!’

  Both awaited us. In the ante-room, on the sideboard, were trays of ham and egg sandwiches and assorted cold cuts: chicken legs, lamb cutlets, smoked oysters and lobster claws.

  By the sideboard stood Professor Onofroff. He is a tall man, in his seventies now, with thick, snow-white hair and a full Russian beard. He has the Roman nose of the Duke of Wellington and the penetrating eye of the Emperor Napoleon.

  As the Prince of Wales approached him, he bowed his head from the neck and whispered, ‘Majesty, I am as ever humbled.’

  He spoke at all times in a whisper, with a thick Germanic accent in almost perfect English.

  The prince greeted him as an old friend. ‘Thank you for joining us, Professor. Mr Wilde has explained everything to you?’

  ‘He has.’

  ‘Excellent,’ rumbled the prince, with satisfaction. ‘Most excellent.’

  He helped himself to a sandwich from the sideboard, then turned to address the room.

  ‘Gentlemen, before we tuck in, with your permission, we are going to undertake a small experiment in mind-reading. It’s a particular interest of mine, as you know – and of Mr Wilde’s and of Dr Conan Doyle’s too, I believe – and I am grateful to you for indulging me in it.’

  There was a murmur in the room (mostly of assent), broken by the theatre manager who was standing in the tiny vestibule that connected the ante-room with the entrance to the auditorium.

  ‘Your Highness, please excuse me, but Mr McGonagall craves admittance.’

  ‘Let him crave away,’ declared the prince dismissively. ‘We’ll see little Leno if he wants to come up.’

  ‘Mr Leno’s on his way to Hoxton already. He has two more halls to play tonight. But Mr McGonagall is most anxious for an audience.’

  ‘He’s had one.’ The prince laughed. ‘We all heard his bleatings on behalf of Robert the Bruce. I can’t see him. Is Lulu on her way?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Miss Lavallois is coming. She’s just changing. She’ll be here presently.’

  ‘Good. Thank you. Kindly leave us in peace now.’

  ‘But Mr McGonagall—’

  ‘Enough! There’s only so much Scottish blathering a Prince of Wales can take. My compliments to Mr McGonagall, but I have the toothache. Tell him to go pen a verse about that.’

  I believe Oscar was the only one of us who did not laugh. He murmured to me, ‘That was poorly done. I feel a fellow poet’s pain.’

  As the theatre manager retreated to break the news to poor McGonagall, the prince, helping himself to a second sandwich, sought to set the scene for the seance.

  ‘Gentlemen, if you would kindly form a circle please – a circle around the professor. To see into your souls Professor Onofroff will need to look into your eyes. Isn’t that correct, Professor?’

  Onofroff smiled and, as his thick lips parted, his mouth revealed an array of gold and silver teeth. ‘Yes, Majesty,’ he whispered.

  ‘Oscar,’ called out the prince. ‘You’re in charge. Get the troops into a circle. Eddy, you come stand by me.’

  ‘Who is to be included, sir?’ asked Oscar.

  ‘Everyone.’

  ‘Including staff, sir?’

  ‘Everyone – except Mademoiselle Dvorak. I think we can excuse the lady. She is too young for secrets.’

  ‘What is this with secrets?’ enquired Dvorak anxiously.

  ‘Patience, Maestro,’ said the prince cheerily. ‘Let Mr Wilde put you in your place – all will be revealed. You have nothing to fear.’

  Once each man was in his place, the prince called for hush. ‘We are in the professor’s hands now. Gentlemen, please do as he asks you.’

  ‘What’s all this in aid of, sir?’ enquired Prince Albert Victor.

  ‘Clearing the air,’ said his father. ‘Now concentrate on the professor.’

  ‘Gentlemen,’ whispered the professor, ‘thank you for your kind attention.’

  As he spoke, he stood in the centre of the circle, revolving very slowly, looking into each face in turn.

  ‘His Majesty is correct. I am here to help clear the air – and perhaps help clear the conscience, too. Look into my eyes, gentlemen, as I look into yours. Look directly into my eyes – look into my soul as I look into yours. Speak to me as I look at you – speak to me, not with words, but with thoughts. Share your thoughts with me. Let me read your minds.’

  ‘If you can read my mind, Professor,’ said Prince Eddy, ‘you’ll know I’m deuced hungry. Let’s get on with this.’

  ‘I can read minds, Your Majesty. I can read yours.’

  ‘You’re a professor, Professor,’ said Lord Yarborough pleasantly. ‘Are you offering us any scientific proof?’

  ‘Who has a pen or pencil?’ asked the professor.

  ‘I do,’ said Oscar, producing a small silver pencil and a visiting card from his waistcoat pocket.

  ‘Kindly write down a word for me, Mr Wilde – whatever word is in your mind.’

  Oscar scribbled briefly on his card.

  The professor said at once, ‘The word is “love”, is it not, Mr Wilde?’

  ‘It is,’ said Oscar.

  I looked over his shoulder. It was.

  ‘I want to play this game,’ said the Prince of Wales, breaking from the circle and coming over to claim Oscar’s pencil and card. ‘What’s the word I am writing, Professor? What’s in my mind? This’ll test you.’

  Onofroff hesitated. ‘It does, Majesty,’ he said, closing his eyes to concentrate. ‘It is not a word I know. Or if it is, I think it is a card game. You are thinking of “Loo”, of “Loo-loo”. Is that possible? Does that make sense?’

  The prince held out his card for general inspection. On it HRH had written the name ‘LULU’ in capital letters.

  He laughed. ‘That’s proof enough for me, Professor – and I’m patron of the Royal Society. On with the experiment.’

  ‘Thank you, Majesty. Let us all concentrate once more, gentlemen. In complete silence. And as I look into your eyes, let me read your mind, let me learn your secret.’

  Dvorak was on the far side of the room to me, but I could hear the composer’s teeth grinding.

  ‘We all have secrets,’ continued the professor. ‘And I sense dark secrets in this room. Everywhere I turn, I see a secret. Look into my eyes, gentlemen, and release your secrets. I will share your burden and your secrets will be safe with me.’

  As the professor turned carefully from one pair of eyes to the next, speaking of sensing dark secrets in the room, it seemed to me that the room itself begin to darken: the gas lamps flickered and burned lower than before. Beyond the faint grinding of Dvorak’s teeth and the slow, heavy breathing of the Prince of Wales, there was nothing to be heard but the steady hiss of the lamps.

  At least two minutes of this profound stillness must have passed before the professor spoke again. When he did so, for the first time within my hearing his voice was raised above a whisper. He spoke, in fact, with a sudden, chilling authority.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘enough. I kn
ow the truth.’

  And as he said it, from within the vestibule, a terrifying scream was heard – long, piercing, pitiable.

  ‘My daughter!’ cried Dvorak, breaking from the circle and running across the ante-room to the vestibule.

  Every one of us turned to follow him. Oscar and I pushed past the prince’s page and reached the scene at once.

  Dvorak’s daughter was standing, unharmed. She flung her arms around her father and buried her face in his chest.

  ‘My God,’ cried Dvorak, his face contorted, ‘look at that.’

  The composer stood by the door that opened on to the tiny square room built into the corner of the vestibule, containing the water closet. There, thrown back against the wall, was the bloodied body of Mademoiselle Louisa Lavallois – the Prince of Wales’s Lulu. Her bodice had been ripped open, her perfect titties scratched, torn and cut across. Her neck was twisted grotesquely to one side and punctured with two gaping, bloody holes. Her eyes were wide open, but she was undoubtedly dead.

  A Duty to the Truth

  51

  From the Daily Chronicle, final edition, Wednesday, 19 March 1890

  HORROR IN LEICESTER SQUARE

  The mutilated body of a young female dancer was discovered in a dark alley off Leicester Square in London’s West End late last night. The body is believed to be that of Miss Louisa Lavallois, twenty-six, première danseuse with Les Ballets Fantastiques, a French troupe currently appearing at the Empire Theatre of Varieties in Leicester Square.

  The body was discovered shortly before midnight by the Leicester Square lamplighter, William Higgins, as he went about his business. According to Mr Higgins, the body had been secreted behind dustbins beneath an unlit lamp in Derby Alley, immediately adjacent to one of the side entrances to the Empire Theatre on the north side of Leicester Square. On discovering the partly clothed cadaver, Mr Higgins immediately alerted the police. Senior officers from Bow Street police station and the Central Office at Scotland Yard were on the scene soon afterwards.

  The horrific nature of the attack upon the young dancer is reminiscent of the notorious ‘Jack the Ripper’ murders that have caused so much alarm in London in recent years. Since the assault on Emma Elizabeth Smith in Whitechapel in April 1888, eleven young women have been mutilated and murdered in London in similar circumstances. Most recently, on 10 September last, the torso of an unknown female was found under a railway arch in Pinchin Street, Whitechapel.