2007 - Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders

by Gyles Brandreth

  “Her name was Marie Aguetant,” he said, tucking his napkin into the top of his waistcoat. “Robert knew her too—though not, perhaps, so well as I.” He smiled at me knowingly. I answered his smile, but with some awkwardness. Beneath the tablecloth, Veronica, who was seated on my right, had taken hold of my hand and she held it tight. “Is the soup not to your liking, Robert?” Oscar enquired.

  “I am letting it cool a little,” I said, pressing my fingers into Veronica’s palm.

  “Very wise,” he replied, his smile transmogrifying into a smirk.

  Fraser—Veronica’s fiancé, God save the mark!—appeared oblivious to what was going on beneath the tablecloth, beneath his very nose. That evening his focus remained, as it had done throughout the day, entirely upon Oscar. “Marie Aguetant,” he said. “I know the name.”

  “It is notorious,” said Oscar.

  “Was she not murdered by her pimp? He was a Spaniard, I seem to recall. Polo? Pablo? Something like that.”

  “Yes,” said Oscar, mopping his lips. “The police did indeed arrest the Spaniard. He was tried. He was found guilty. He was sent to the guillotine. He was quite innocent, of course.”

  “Oh, come now, Oscar!” Fraser protested. “I remember the case. I read all about it. Whatever his name, he was a bad man.”

  “Undoubtedly, a very bad man. I knew him. He was evil. But he was innocent of the murder of Marie Aguetant.”

  Fraser had turned directly towards Oscar now. He also had abandoned his soup, but for different reasons. “How do you know he was innocent, Oscar? How can you be so certain?”

  “Because I have met the murderer of Marie Aguetant, just as I have met the murderer of Billy Wood.”

  Beneath the table, Veronica released my hand. “Oh, Oscar,” she cried, leaning imploringly towards him, “don’t let us speak any more of that tonight. We are in Paris, and this is my birthday treat…”

  “Quite right, dear lady,” said Oscar, and as he spoke—I may have imagined this, but I do not think so; I noted it in my journal at the time—he glanced towards the chef d’orchestre and, the moment his eye and Rigo’s met, the orchestra broke into its first mazurka of the night. Oscar reached across the table, took Veronica’s hand in his and kissed it. “Your hand is very warm, my dear,” he murmured.

  “But Oscar,” Fraser continued, now using his soup spoon to add emphasis to his argument, “if you believe that you know the true identity of Marie Aguetant’s murderer, you should take the information to the police.”

  “No,” said Oscar, shaking his head, “Marie would not have wanted that.”

  “But she is dead,” said Fraser. “How can you know what she would have wanted?”

  “Because she told me before she died,” said Oscar, simply. “I knew her well. I loved her. We understood one another. She was one of the few human beings who have understood me. I am grateful for that.”

  “And yet,” said Veronica, quietly, her hands now held together under her chin, “she was what Robert coyly calls ‘a daughter of joy’…She was a lady of the night, was she not?”

  “A prostitute,” said Fraser.

  “A courtesan,” I corrected him.

  Oscar appeared quite unperturbed. “She was indeed—all that and more. But I loved her, not on account of her calling, or of the company she kept, but because of her personality, which was unique. Personality is a very mysterious thing. A man cannot always be estimated by what he does. He may keep the law and yet be worthless. He may break the law and yet be fine. He may be bad, without ever doing anything bad. He may commit a sin against society, and yet realise through that sin his own perfection…”

  The soup had been cleared away. The truffles were being served.

  “And speaking of perfection…” Oscar surveyed his plate complacently. The music had stopped; the orchestra had paused between numbers. Oscar looked at each member of our little party. Every one of us was smiling. “I hope Le Grand Cafe is to your liking,” he said. “In some Parisian restaurants, there’s a certain surliness about the service. Here, they put themselves out to please.” As he spoke, giving the sommelier a smile and the Burgundy his blessing, across the crowded room, by the doors leading to the kitchen, two waiters collided and there was a mighty crash—like the clashing of cymbals—as a pair of trays piled high with crockery and silver cascaded to the floor. There was a beat of silence in the room, followed by laughter from half a dozen tables and then a general smattering of applause. “Do you see what I mean? They do that entirely to please their British clientele. They know that an Englishman’s idea of a joke is a jug of water balanced on top of a half-opened door.”

  We laughed; we tucked into our truffles; we quaffed the Burgundy, Beneath the table, Veronica laid a hand upon my thigh. “This is wonderful, Oscar,” she said, smiling at our host. “Thank you.”

  “Do not thank me,” he said, “thank your fiancé. Paris in the spring was his idea. Thank Fraser. And thank France. The English have a remarkable capacity for turning wine into water. Here it is different.”

  “It certainly is,” said Fraser, revealing his line of fine white teeth and raising his glass to the room. “This is a far cry from the officers’ mess at Scotland Yard, no doubt about it.”

  Oscar smiled and followed Aidan Fraser’s eyes as they ranged around the room and came to rest on Rigo. The maestro was playing his violin con brio, bobbing up and down in time to the music, looking directly at us as he played. We were being treated now to a selection of lively polkas, interspersed with lyrical gypsy love songs. “Listen to the music,” said Oscar, “by turns plangent and rhapsodic Rigo sees into our souls, does he not?”

  Later that night, when Oscar and I were lying side by side in our separate beds (“You may take the bed nearer the bathroom, Robert; that would have been Mrs Doyle’s privilege”) and, in the heavy darkness relieved only by the burning glow of my friend’s last post-prandial cigarette, in hushed tones, like schoolboys telling tales in the dormitory after ‘lights out’, we were reviewing the pleasures of the evening, I asked Oscar whether I might tell him a secret.

  “By all means,” he whispered, comfortingly. “We are in Paris. In London one hides everything. In Paris one reveals everything. That is the rule.”

  “I am in love with Miss Sutherland.”

  “And…?” he asked, softly, turning his head towards me.

  “And?” I repeated. “And nothing,” I said. “That is my secret.”

  Softly, Oscar began to chuckle. Gradually, his chuckle turned into a rumble and then into a roar. “Robert, Robert, Robert!” he cried, now coughing and wheezing through his laughter and struggling to sit up in bed to catch his breath. “That cannot be your secret! All the world knows you love Miss Sutherland! Tonight you missed much of the finest food in Paris because your hands were locked in hers beneath the tablecloth when they should have been above board and about their proper business with your eating irons! That you love Miss Sutherland is no secret!”

  I felt very foolish. My face burnt with embarrassment. “Is it that apparent?”

  “If you had hired a balloon from Monsieur Montgolfier and dropped leaflets all over Paris announcing your betrothal, it could not have been more apparent.”

  “Do you think she will marry me, then?”

  “Robert, you are absurd! You are not yet divorced—and she is engaged to Fraser. Let us face it: your banns are not about to be called.”

  “But would she marry me, were I free? Were she free?”

  “Ah,” he said, subsiding onto the pillows once more, “that is a different question, Robert. Now we are delving into Miss Sutherland’s secret, not yours.”

  “What are her true feelings towards Fraser?”

  “A good question.”

  “And what are his feelings towards her? Why does he allow her so much freedom—so much licence?”

  “Indeed.”

  Silence fell between us. His raillery ceased. He dropped his glowing cigarette end into the glass o
f water on the bedside table. There was a tiny hiss and the darkness in the room was complete.

  “Do you think she does not love me?” I whispered.

  “She is fond of you, I am sure,” he answered, kindly.

  “But does she love me? She allows me to make love to her. And tonight it was she who first placed her hand in mine.”

  “Yes,” said Oscar, gently, “she succumbed to that temptation.”

  “But why—if she does not love me?”

  “Robert, as the poet says in ‘The Sphinx Without a Secret’, ‘Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood’.”

  “Which poet is that?”

  “Oscar Wilde,” he replied, “one of our favourites. I think we should let him have the last word, don’t you? Goodnight, Robert.”

  “Goodnight.”

  Oscar slept soundly. I did not. Within minutes of our having exchanged our goodnights, the macabre sound of my friend’s snoring—like a never-ending death rattle—filled the night air. I buried my head beneath the pillow and, to distract myself, tried to fill my mind with sensual fantasy. I failed. Where I hoped to see Veronica bringing her soft lips, to mine, huge faces—hard and cruel—loomed, unbidden, out of the darkness towards me, like headlamps on an oncoming train. I wanted Veronica’s smiling features upon my pillow; instead, I was confronted by Bellotti’s blind eyes, O’Donnell’s malevolent leer, Fraser’s mouth of small white teeth. Eventually, as the hours passed, I fell into a fitful sleep. I can recollect only one dream of that night. It was not of Veronica, nor of Kaitlyn nor of Marthe—nor even of Constance, who, curiously, often featured in my dreams. It was of Conan Doyle examining the severed head of Billy Wood beneath the gasolier in Tite Street.

  In the morning, Oscar was up betimes; he had bathed, shaved and dressed even as I slumbered. I awoke to a waft of his favourite scent (Canterbury Wood Violet) and the sight of his large, long face peering down into mine. “Up, up, my friend,” he cried. “You’ve missed the dawn. Soon you’ll be missing breakfast too.”

  “You’re very bright this morning,” I mumbled, pulling the bedclothes over my nose and eyes.

  Oscar had drawn the curtains and pushed back the shutters. A sharp white light was filling the room. “It is St Bathild’s Eve,” he declared. “We must do her due honour.”

  “Who on earth is St Bathild?”

  “In heaven she ranks among the Almighty’s favourites. She was an English girl who became a French queen, a thousand years ago. As a child, she was stolen by pirates and sold into slavery. As a young woman, she caught the eye of King Clovis II.”

  “Who was he?”

  “The Robert Sherard of the Western Franks,” he cried, pulling back my bedclothes with a mighty sweep. “King Clovis could not resist a pretty ankle. St Bathild is the patron saint of pretty ankles. You must get up and light a candle at her shrine. She died in Paris—as all the best people do.”

  I rolled over and lowered my feet to the ice-cold floor. “It’s too early for this banter, Oscar,” I muttered. “Where are my slippers?”

  “Have you asked St Anthony and St Anne?”

  I groaned. “You and your blessed saints…”

  He was standing near the window now, adjusting his tie in the looking-glass that was affixed to one of the doors of a large walnut wardrobe. He looked down at my reflection in the glass. “It’s all about saints’ days, Robert,” he said, with a smile.

  “What is?” I asked, confused. (The wine list of Le Grand Cafe was beginning to exact its toll.)

  “This case of ours,” he replied, turning towards me. “It’s all about saints’ days…and temptation.” He opened the wardrobe and selected a shirt, coat and trousers for me, casting them on the foot of my bed. “This has been a profitable night in the matter of the murder of Billy Wood,” he reflected. “Things I had dimly dreamt of were suddenly made real to me. Things of which I had never dreamt were gradually revealed. Dress, mon ami. Le tout Paris nous attend.”

  It was not much after nine when we found Aidan Fraser in the multi-mirrored breakfast room of the Hotel Charing Cross. He was seated alone, at a table set for four. “Veronica has breakfasted,” he said. “She is taking a walk. She will be back shortly.”

  “You look perturbed, my friend,” said Oscar, as we took our seats.

  “I am,” said Fraser. “I have received a wire from London.”

  “From Scotland Yard?”

  “Yes,” he said, holding up the envelope for us to see, “from Gilmour.”

  “Bad news?”

  “The worst,” said Fraser. “We have lost our key witness.”

  “Bellotti?”asked Oscar.

  “Yes,” said the inspector, “Bellotti. Bellotti is dead.”

  “Dead!” exclaimed Oscar. “Did you say dead?”

  “Yes,” said Fraser.

  “I don’t believe it,” said Oscar. He put his hand to his mouth and closed his eyes. “How is this possible?” he murmured, speaking as if in a daze. He opened his eyes. “Dead?” he said once more. “Do you mean murdered?”

  “No, not murdered,” replied the inspector, opening out the telegram. “An accident, it seems—or suicide. He fell under a train.”

  “Does Gilmour mention the dwarf?”

  “The dwarf?” repeated Fraser, uncomprehending. He stared down at the telegram. “There’s no mention of any dwarf.”

  “Well,” said Oscar, with a bitter laugh, recovering his composure and pouring himself a cup of hot chocolate, “so much for Paris in the spring. We must return to London at once.”

  23

  29 January 1890

  “Must we return to London, Aidan? Must we?”

  Veronica Sutherland had come back from her early morning walk with colour in her cheek and fire in her eye—and the prettiest feather cap upon her head. She had found us in the hotel dining room and joined us at our breakfast table but declined to take a seat. In consequence, Aidan Fraser, Oscar and I were standing in our places, clutching our napkins, as if we were errant schoolboys, with slates in hand, being admonished by their governess. “This is so annoying,” she continued, “so unfair. We have only just arrived and Monday is my birthday—my birthday! When did we last have any time together, Aidan? You are always working.”

  “The world, not the family, gets the fruits of genius,” said Oscar.

  Veronica turned on him. “Oh, do hush, Oscar, please. Your never-ending witticisms can be quite wearisome at times.”

  “The line was not mine,” said Oscar meekly, “but Conan Doyle’s.”

  “The source is immaterial! The point is: we are supposed to be on holiday—this is my birthday weekend—and Aidan is neither a genius nor indispensable. Cannot the case be handled by Inspector Gilmour or some other plodder at the Yard?”

  “The case is important,” said Oscar.

  “Is it?” she asked, looking him directly in the eye. “A slut of a boy has been murdered, his pimp has taken his own life, his drunken stepfather is to be hanged. Is the case really so important, Mr Wilde?”

  I was shocked by the violence of her language. Oscar seemed unperturbed. “Yes,” he answered, calmly, returning her gaze.

  “Oh,” she said, sharply, “and to whom?”

  “It is important to your fiancé, Miss Sutherland, and to his future. He has charged a man with murder—and his principal witness is now dead. How did Bellotti die? Was it suicide? Was it an accident? Or was it, in fact, also murder? The matter cannot be left unresolved, nor can it be handled by Inspector Gilmour. It is Fraser’s responsibility, alas! Duty calls.”

  Veronica sighed impatiently and looked about her. The dining room was not crowded, but at assorted other tables around the room there were fellow guests affecting to ignore us. I thought to speak—to say that perhaps Oscar and Fraser might return to London while I kept Miss Sutherland company in Paris—but I lacked the courage and I let the moment pass.

  “Very well,” she said (her cheeks were paler now, her eyes no longer burnt so
brightly), “I will go to my room to pack. Kindly call me when you are ready to depart.”

  “Thank you,” said Fraser. “We will celebrate your birthday properly at Lower Sloane Street.”

  “Indeed,” she said.

  “And we can return to Paris,” said Oscar, smiling, “in the spring!”

  She laughed, turned away and swept out of the room.

  Within three hours, we were at the Gare du Nord, boarding the Club train for Calais. Fraser and Oscar had no difficulty in exchanging our tickets; the train on each side of the Channel was next to deserted and on board our steamship (the SS Dover Castle, “pride of the line”) we were the only passengers to be found in the first-class saloon. The day was a long one, and tedious. Our return to London was not the feast of good humour and fine sentiment that our outward trip had been. If Oscar had shafts of wit in mind (whether his own or those of others), he kept them to himself. For most of the journey home, his nose was buried in a book. We all read, or pretended to. I leafed slowly through my vade mecum, my annotated edition of the maxims of La Rochefoucauld. Veronica pored over a scientific journal devoted to Louis Pasteur’s work on immunisation against anthrax. Aidan Fraser read Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat, but not, I think, with close attention. He did not laugh once.

  When we were back on English soil, when our train was travelling past the hop fields of north Kent and darkness was falling, Oscar and Fraser, as if by unspoken mutual consent, laid aside their books and, leaning toward one another, in subdued tones, conspiratorially, began to converse about the case.

  “When exactly was Bellotti’s body found?” Oscar asked. “Did Gilmour say?”

  “Yesterday morning, it would seem.”

  “While we were travelling to Paris…”

  “Yes.”

  “And he fell beneath a train?”

  “Apparently.”

  “At which station?”

  “The wire did not specify—but it was not a railway station. The accident occurred on the underground.”

  “The accident?” Oscar raised an eyebrow.