I was impressed, but I was envious, too. (I was then working on my study of Emile Zola and was expecting a total fee for my labours in the region of ten to fifteen pounds.)
“I shall start on Stoddart’s story tomorrow. I am going to visit my Aunt Jane. I shall take my notebook and sit at the bottom of her garden, beneath the ilex tree.”
“Oscar,” I said, smiling, “you do not have an Aunt Jane.”
“She is very old,” said Oscar, peering into his glass. “Come to think of it, she is dead. She died of neglect. People like you never believed in her. The young are so heartless. As I cannot go to stay with Aunt Jane, I shall go to Oxford instead.”
As I came to know, Oxford was a special place to Oscar. In times of travail, when he sought refuge, or comfort, or consolation, and when he felt the need for distraction, or wanted inspiration, he turned to Oxford. It was where, in the 1870s, as a dazzling undergraduate, he had first heard the tunes of glory and tasted the bittersweet fruit of national notoriety. Oxford was the well-spring of the myth of Oscar Wilde. Oscar knew it and never forgot it.
What I never forget is that Oscar, while a gentleman, was not an Englishman. He was Irish. He understood English ways (none better!) and spoke the English language as only an Irishman can, but he was not educated at an English public school; he did not have the English feeling for Dickens; he did not play rugby (imagine if he had!) or care for cricket; he neither rode to hounds nor shot nor fished. He did not wear an old-school tie. In England, overall, Oscar was an outsider. In Oxford, uniquely, he felt at ease; he was at home. He liked to say: “Oxford is the capital of Romance, in its own way as memorable as Athens.” I teased him and told him that he was sentimental about Oxford only because it was where—aged twenty—he had sowed his wild oats. With playful indignation, he reproved me: “Robert, I have never sowed wild oats. I have planted a few orchids, that is all.”
Oscar claimed to reverence Oxford for its architecture and its intellectual life, but, in truth, what drew him back there, time and again, was the promise and the prospect of youth. He went to Oxford to spend time with the undergraduates and the younger university dons, to be amused by their conversation, to be charmed by their good looks, to be warmed by their admiration. He admitted as much to me that night at the Albemarle Club. “I see what I want to see of myself reflected in them,” he said. “I look into their faces as into a looking-glass and, for a moment, I feel young again. Youth! Youth, Robert! There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth!”
I laughed. “Forty-eight hours ago, Oscar, there was nothing in the world but justice! As I recall, the day before yesterday, fuelled by Mr Simpson’s fine wines, you were committed to befriending the friendless. You vowed not to rest until you had achieved justice for Billy Wood. Now, it seems youth is everything and justice is to take a sabbatical while you go floating down to Oxford.”
My friend narrowed his eyes and looked at me sternly. “I shall not be floating down to Oxford, Robert. I shall be going by train. And when I get there, justice will not be forgotten. Our investigation will go forward, Robert—even without us. I have my methods, Robert.” He tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially. “I have my spies. Shh.”
Hubbard was hovering. We had finished our champagne. We got to our feet. A touch unsteadily, we left Keppel Corner and made our way across the hallway and out into the street. We stood together in silence on the club’s front steps, absorbing the night, listening as the porter, with a heavy hand, laboriously turned the keys in the locks and bolted the door behind us.
The street before us was dark and unwelcoming. There were precious few street lamps in the byways of Mayfair in those days. There was a chill in the night air; the moon was hidden and the sky was overcast.
Oscar put his arm in mine and said, “Walk me to the cab rank, there’s a good fellow.”
“By all means,” I said.
We came down the steps and turned left into Albemarle Street. Slowly, arm in arm, we made our way towards Piccadilly. It was approaching two o’clock in the morning and such was the all-enveloping darkness that it was difficult to see more than a few steps ahead. The deserted street was as silent as a morgue. We heard our own boots clacking on the pavement, but nothing else. Then, quite suddenly, as we passed the Albemarle Hotel, six doors down from the club, I sensed, without seeing it, the presence of a figure standing in the shadows. Oscar breathed, “Come, Robert, let us walk a little faster.”
We quickened our pace and, as we did so, I heard root-steps behind us. I stopped abruptly; the footsteps stopped also. Immediately, Oscar pulled me forward. “Come!” he hissed. My heart beat faster; my mouth was dry. As we moved on, now half walking, half running, the figure kept pace behind us. I made to turn my head to look over my shoulder, but Oscar muttered “Don’t!” and pulled me on.
Out of the corner of my eye, I had glimpsed a cloaked figure. It was a man of medium height and heavy build. I could swear to no more than that. I wanted to look again, but Oscar stopped me. “Is it O’Donnell?” I whispered.
“No,” said Oscar. “It is no one.”
We had nearly reached Piccadilly. There were lights ahead of us. Oscar’s pace was slackening. “I believe it is O’Donnell,”I persisted.
Oscar stopped in his tracks. “It is no one, Robert,” he said, “no one at all. Look.”
We turned back and stared down the darkened street behind us. There was no one to be seen. The man had disappeared. The street seemed utterly empty and then, suddenly, we heard scampering feet. “What’s that?” I cried.
“Nothing,”said Oscar, “just a boy.”
Running down the road away from us, vanishing into the darkness, was a small figure with a large head. “It’s Bellotti’s dwarf,” I said.
“I think not,” said Oscar, chuckling. “Come, let’s find a cab.”
A young policeman was standing at the corner of Piccadilly and Albemarle Street. He touched his helmet as we approached. Oscar nodded to him: “Goodnight, officer.”
“Goodnight, gentlemen,” said the young constable. “It’s a cold one, for the time of year.”
We crossed Piccadilly to the all-night cab rank that once stood on what is now the site of the Ritz Hotel. As we waited for a cab to appear, Oscar took the sheaf of telegrams from his coat pocket and began to place them neatly inside his wallet. “Tomorrow I shall send a note to Fraser from Oxford,” he said. “I will tell him what we have learnt today from Mrs Wood. I will tell him, too, what we know of Edward O’Donnell. I will omit no detail.”
“I’m glad of that,” I said.
“And the moment I get further word from Fraser, have no fear, Robert, I shall let you know.”
I observed that Oscar had left the last of the telegrams unopened. “You have not read the final telegram, Oscar,” I said. “Perhaps it is yet another message from Fraser?”
“No,” he answered, holding up the unopened envelope. “This comes from Yorkshire. It is from Constance.”
“You have not opened it.”
“There is no need. I can read her thoughts.”
Playfully, I took the envelope from him. “What does it say then?” I asked.
“If you must know, Robert, it says, “I love you, always.””
“May I?” I enquired. He smiled and nodded. I tore open the telegram. It read precisely as Oscar had predicted:
I LOVE YOU. ALWAYS.
“‘Always’!” he cried. “That is a dreadful word, Robert, is it not? It makes me shudder when I hear it. Women are so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by trying to make it last for ever.”
A two-wheeler appeared. Oscar pocketed his wallet and clambered in. “Goodnight, Robert,” he said. “It has been an eventful day—even to the last. Note it all in your journal. Remember, you are my Dr Watson now.”
“Goodnight, Oscar,” I said. “Take care!”
As I watched him go, a second cab arrived at the rank and, on the spur of the moment, suddenly fearful for my friend,
I decided to follow him, to see him safely home. As I climbed aboard, I said to the driver, “Follow that cab, if you please—but at a distance.”
“Right you are, guv,” said the cabman, without expression, as if trailing other cabs through the West End of London in the early hours of the morning was a routine occurrence. Perhaps it was. He did it expertly. At a discreet distance of around a hundred yards, our hansom followed Oscar’s as it made its way, not, as I had expected, south towards Chelsea, but north, towards Soho. We travelled along Piccadilly, across the circus and into what was then London’s newest thoroughfare: Shaftesbury Avenue. There was little traffic on the road and, on the pavements, not much by way of humanity: a few luckless women of the night, mostly in pairs, still plying their trade; small clusters of what we used to call the ‘Won’t go home till morning boys’ in search of one more drink; the odd, solitary Pall Mall clubman, pondering the possibilities ahead. The gap between our carriages closed a little as we passed the new Lyric Theatre—where the young Marie Tempest was then appearing—and turned sharply left into Frith Street. I began to realise whither we were bound and, as Oscar’s hansom trundled into Soho Square, I called to my cabman, “Whoa! Stop!”
Oscar’s cab halted in the square itself. I watched my friend as he clambered out and stood on the pavement gazing up at a tall, narrow building on the east side of the square. The building was cloaked in darkness, but for one small circle of light that stood out against the black, like a pale carnation in a buttonhole. Up on the third floor there was a window and, standing at it, holding a candle in her hand, was the girl with the disfigured face. In the street below, Oscar stood staring straight towards her. The moment she saw him, she started and then raised her hand in what seemed a kind of greeting. Oscar raised his hand towards her by way of answer, and as he did so, she leant towards the candle and blew it out. The window was in darkness. Immediately, Oscar climbed back into his two-wheeler and set off once more.
“Drive on,” I said to my cabman. “Follow him.” We did—north out of Soho Square, west along Oxford Street, south down Bond Street and into Albemarle Street, to the front door of the Albemarle Hotel, six doors along from the Albemarle Club, which Oscar and I had left together but forty minutes before. Oscar sometimes stayed at the Albemarle Hotel. I knew that, but because I had not anticipated that his cab would come to a halt there, when his hansom stopped, mine, unfortunately, was immediately behind.
Oscar stepped up to the hotel door and rang the bell. A moment later, the door swung open and the night porter admitted him. As he crossed the threshold, Oscar paused, half turned towards the street and called out, “Goodnight, Robert. I am quite safe, as you see.”
The following morning, Oscar went to Oxford and began to write the story that would become The Picture of Dorian Gray. I heard nothing from him for six weeks.
10
16 October 1889
I next saw my friend, Oscar Wilde, on 16 October 1889, the day of his thirty-fifth birthday. We met, at his suggestion, by the flower-stall that stands at the entrance to Sloane Square underground station. He had proposed 4.30 a.m. for our rendezvous and had urged me to be on time—and, for once, I was. I was eager to see him. I had missed him greatly.
I was somewhat startled by his appearance, however, for though he looked well—his head was held high and his customarily pallid cheeks were a healthy pink—he was dressed, from top to toe, in deepest mourning. His coat was black, his tie was black, and in his black-gloved hand he held a black top hat complete with silk mourning bands. More curiously still, though dressed in mourning, he was wreathed in smiles.
“Youth smiles without any reason,” he said as we shook hands. “It is one of its chiefest charms. I smile because I am happy to see you again, Robert, very happy.”
“And I am happy to see you, Oscar,” I replied, “though alarmed to find you dressed like this.”
He looked down at his funereal garb and explained: “This happens to be my birthday, Robert, and on each of my anniversaries I mourn the flight of one year of my youth into nothingness, the growing blight upon my summer…Tempus fugit inreparabile!” He put his hand on my shoulder. “But I have not wasted time these past six weeks, though time has wasted me. I have made positive progress with my story for Stoddart.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” I said.
“And negative progress with our investigation into the murder of poor Billy Wood.”
“‘Negative progress’?” I repeated. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” he said, turning his attention from me to the flower-stall, “that I have eliminated all sorts of distracting possibilities—spared us the time and effort of exploring profitless cul-de-sacs ourselves by sending others in our stead.” He stood contemplating a bucket filled with scarlet-coloured roses. “For example, over the past six weeks my spies have called upon every one of the housekeepers lately on the books of Messrs O’Donovan & Brown of Ludgate Circus—and none of them appears to have been in the vicinity of 23 Cowley Street on the day of poor Billy’s murder.”
I laughed. “Who are these ‘spies’ of yours, Oscar?”
He looked at me. “They are secret agents, Robert. If I told you who they were, that would rather ruin the point of them, would it not? But, believe me, they are good fellows and to be relied upon. While I have been scribbling away in Oxford, they have been roaming the streets of London and Broadstairs—keeping an eye on your prime suspects. You will be disappointed to learn, Robert, that, in our absence, neither Edward O’Donnell nor Gerard Bellotti has behaved in the least bit suspiciously. Were they guilty of murder, you might think that they would have left the country or attempted to do so…In fact, according to the reports I have received, each has gone about his seedy business in his customary fashion.”
“And Mrs Wood?”
“I have corresponded with Mrs Wood,” he said, contemplating the bucket of roses once again and carefully selecting a single stem. “Her sorrow is profound and unfeigned. I do not believe she is our murderer, but neither do I believe that she is yet telling us all that she might.”
I frowned at my friend. “So, six weeks on and we are no farther forward?” I said.
“We are much farther forward, Robert,” said Oscar, threading the rose stem into my buttonhole. “This autumn bloom is named in honour of the Black Prince. Well worth the sixpence, don’t you think? We are much farther on, mon ami. We have eliminated all sorts of possibilities—and we have secured an audience with Inspector Fraser of the Yard!”
“Goodness,” I exclaimed, “we are going to Scotland Yard?” I was suddenly alarmed at the thought of how Oscar’s funereal appearance might be received by the less imaginative members of the Metropolitan Police.
“No,” said Oscar, moving away from the flower-stall and leading us into the square, “we are going to number 75 Lower Sloane Street—just here on the left. Fraser has summoned us to his home. He said that to meet him there ‘might be wiser’. He even advised me to come incognito—and unaccompanied.”
“Hence,” I said, chuckling, “your sombre apparel…”
“…And your invaluable presence, Robert! We are in this together. I have no secrets from you, my friend.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” I said with feeling, adding at once, “indeed proud to hear it,” for I was proud of our friendship, proud to be the acknowledged true friend of the most brilliant man of his day. I was proud, too, of the unacknowledged trust that I sensed there was between us, though puzzled—I admit—both by the way in which Oscar had offered me no explanation of his nocturnal assignations with the strange girl with the disfigured face and by my own reluctance to cross-question him on the matter. I pondered this as we crossed into Lower Sloane Street—slipping between a dog cart and a chimney sweep on a bicycle—but I said nothing. Oscar—delighted to be crossing the path of a chimney sweep; he was superstitious to a degree—squeezed my shoulder in comradely affection and said, “I think generosity is the essence of friendship
, don’t you?”
Number 75 Lower Sloane Street was a handsome house, built of red brick and Portland stone, with a pillared portico and marble steps, not the natural habitat of a detective inspector of police. The house, we later learnt, was part of Fraser’s Fettes inheritance. We climbed the steps and Oscar rang the bell. We waited. We listened. We could hear nothing from within. Oscar rang the bell again and, as he did so, Fraser himself—not a servant—opened the door. He was as I remembered him—tall, slim, angular, clean-shaven, well-favoured, with a haunting face as white as frost—but his manner had changed. At our first encounter, he had been effortlessly engaging. Now he appeared fretful, anxious and preoccupied. He was thrown by Oscar’s appearance and my presence.
Oscar, removing his black top hat, said at once, “Do not be alarmed, Inspector. Mr Sherard’s discretion can be assured—and I am only in mourning for my lost youth.”
Fraser seemed further confused.
“I do not mean poor Billy Wood,” said Oscar, realising the misunderstanding that his turn of phrase might have caused, “though, indeed, I mourn for him—I mean the days before my present decrepitude.”
Fraser said nothing, but hesitantly stepped back, allowing us to enter the hallway.
“To win back my youth,” Oscar continued, unabashed, “there is nothing I would not do—except, of course, take exercise, rise early or give up alcohol.”
Fraser said, starkly, “I think we should talk before we take any refreshment.”
“Indeed,” replied Oscar, hanging his hat on the hallway hatstand and carefully aligning the silk mourning bands. “I am sure you have found, Inspector, that while alcohol, taken in sufficient quantities, produces all the effect of intoxication, the only proper intoxication is conversation. I am looking forward to ours.”
“I hope you will not be disappointed,” said Fraser. “Come into the drawing room, if you will.”
He led us across the hallway and into a large and graciously appointed reception room. There, at the far end of the room, standing in front of an ornate white marble fireplace, dressed in pepper-and-salt country tweeds, with an unlit pipe in his hand, was the reassuring figure of Arthur Conan Doyle.
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