Oscar Wilde And The Ring Of Death Part 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

'WHAT'S IN A NAME?'

As our train gathered steam, Oscar stood at the carriage window gazing out over the red and grey rooftops of Eastbourne scudding by. 'Drumlanrig turning up like that ...' he mused. 'It's a curious coincidence, don't you think?'

'Yes,' retorted Sickert, sitting back in the corner seat, contemplating our remarkable friend. 'Not unlike the "curious coincidence" of you chancing to have on hand a silver cigarette case charmingly inscribed to "Sebastian" just when you needed one! How did you pull off that trick, Oscar? Was it a coincidence? Or do you have half a dozen cigarette cases secreted about your person-each inscribed to a different Shakespearean hero?'

Oscar turned back from the window, unhooked his crimson cape, furled it into a bundle and placed it with his white fedora hat on the luggage rack above our seats. He smiled at Sickert and shook his head.

'What would you have done if the boy had been cast to play the part of Fabian, Oscar?' I asked.

'The boy would not have been cast to play the part of Fabian, Robert. The boy is beautiful. He had to have played Sebastian. What else could he have played?' He sat himself in the window seat opposite mine. 'Curio, I suppose,' he added, 'or Valentine. But they're not leading roles, and I sense young Sebastian Fletcher is destined for leading roles.' He leant across to Sickert. 'May I cadge one of your cigarettes, Wat, my friend? The boy now has all of mine.'

Wat obliged and Oscar lit up. As a smoker, Oscar was a sensualist. With deep satisfaction he filled our compartment with a haze of blue-grey smoke. Through it, waving Wat's cigarette in the air, he announced: 'No one in all literature is a richer source of perfect names than Shakespeare. He is the master of nomenclature. Names, as you know, are everything.

'Are they?' I asked. 'Are they really?'

'Oh, yes, Robert,' he said earnestly, 'indeed they are. I am as I am because I'm called as I'm called. And so are you. You began with five names, did you not, Robert? So did I. How many names do you have Wat?'

'Just three: Walter Richard Sickert.'

Oscar reflected on them. 'They'll serve,' he said, 'but you should perhaps have started out with one or two more. I began life as Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde-a name with two Os, two Fs and two Ws ... It has a fine ring to it, does it not? But a name which is destined to be in everybody's mouth must not be too long. It comes so expensive in the advertis.e.m.e.nts! When one is unknown, a number of Christian names are useful, of course, perhaps needful-but as one becomes famous one sheds some of them, just as a balloonist, when riding higher, sheds unnecessary ballast ... All but two of my five names have already been thrown overboard. In time, I shall discard another. The day will come when I'm known by five letters of the alphabet, no more: two vowels and three consonants-like Jesus or Judas, or Pliny or Plato. A century from now, my friends will call me Oscar; my enemies will call me Wilde.'

Wat Sickert smiled and proffered Oscar a second cigarette. 'You still haven't explained the cigarette case inscribed to "Sebastian from Oscar with love" ...'

'It was a present to myself. Oscar is neither a saint's name nor Shakespearean; Sebastian is both. Sebastian is my alter ego. I am Oscar in town and Sebastian in other times and other places.... I gave the boy my own cigarette case-on impulse. It was the moment for it, was it not? One should always seize the moment.'

The train jolted to a halt. 'Where are we?' asked Wat, straining forward.

Oscar peered out of the murky window. 'Leap Cross,' he said. 'Names are everything. Shall we seize the moment to examine Pea.r.s.e's Gladstone bag?'

'Perhaps you should do so,' I said to Sickert, pa.s.sing the case across to him. 'He was your friend.'

'He is my friend,' said Sickert, opening the bag with a heavy sigh and carefully emptying the contents onto the seat beside him. 'I can't believe he's dead. I don't want to. Why should he take his own life? Who would want to kill him?' Oscar said nothing.

The bag disgorged no secrets. 'It's as you said, Oscar-just papers .' Sickert sorted the material into separate piles. 'There's correspondence here with a.s.sorted theatre managers ... postcards from landladies confirming digs ... bills and statements, plenty of those ...'

'Is there a bank book?' asked Oscar.' Or any receipts from p.a.w.nbrokers-from the likes of Ashman in the Strand?'

'No, none that I can see. There's the script of Murder Most Foul, Tuesday's Times, a copy of the Eastbourne Gazette, a copy of Bradshaw's railway timetable, more bills, but no bank book and no receipts from p.a.w.nbrokers ...' Wat returned the material to the Gladstone bag. He snapped it shut. 'What do we do with this now?' he asked.

'Keep it safely and, in due course, if need be, pa.s.s it on to his next of kin.'

'He had no family, Oscar. His friends were his family.'

'He must have had parents ...'

'Dead long ago.'

'Brothers? Sisters?'

'None that I know of.' Wat stood up and hoisted the bag onto the luggage rack. The train was moving once more. He steadied himself, holding on to one of the leather straps attached to the frame of the compartment door. When he turned around I saw that his eyes were filled with tears. 'd.a.m.n you, Oscar,' he hissed. 'd.a.m.n you and your confounded game.'

'He may not be dead,' said Oscar quietly.

'But what if he is!' wailed Sickert, sinking down into his seat and covering his face with his hands. From his coat pocket he pulled his crumpled paint-stained handkerchief and wiped his eyes. 'Forgive me, Oscar,' he mumbled. 'I should blame myself, not you. It was I who brought him to the Cadogan Hotel on Sunday night. He was my guest, not yours.

'But it was my game,' said Oscar slowly, 'and on the four consecutive days since we played it, in the exact order in which their names were drawn from the bag, the first four of the game's so-called "victims" have each met their fate.' He had produced the list of 'victims' from his pocket and unfolded it and laid it open on his lap. With his fingertips lightly touching the side of his temples he stared down at the list as if his concentrated gaze might somehow enable him to penetrate its secrets. 'Elizabeth Scott-Rivers died first, burnt to death, but the conflagration could have been caused by accident ... Lord Abergordon was next to go, but he was sixty and appears to have died in his sleep ... The wretched hotel parrot was murdered for sure, butchered to death-that much is certain.... And now Bradford Pea.r.s.e has gone ...

'Who's next?' asked Wat, blowing his nose.

'Next on the list,' said Oscar, 'is David McMuirtree-the boxer, Byrd's a.s.sociate, bald yet oddly handsome'

'I recall,' said Sickert. '"Half-a-gentleman".'

'Who chose McMuirtree as his victim, I wonder?' Oscar pondered.

There was a pause. Oscar and Wat each lit up another cigarette.

'I did,' I said, somewhat awkwardly. 'As Oscar knows.'

Wat Sickert sat back and drew slowly on his cigarette. 'I did, too,' he said quietly.

'What?' cried Oscar. 'Why? Do you know the man?'

'No.' Sickert laughed. 'Not at all. I saw him box once. He's an artist in the ring.'

'But you'd not met him before?'

'No. Never.'

'Then why in all creation?'

, 'Because of his name, of course.'

'"Because of his name"?' Oscar expostulated. 'What do you mean, man?'

'It was a game, Oscar-you said so yourself. I chose David McMuirtree because of his name.'

'I don't follow you, Wat,' said Oscar, furrowing his brow.

'I was seated on his right, you'll recall, and through dinner, as we talked, as the conversation ebbed and flowed, I idled away the time with my pen-sketching McMuirtree's profile on the back of the menu and playing with the letters in his name ...'

'Playing with the letters?'

'Rearranging them-making an anagram out of them. I discovered to my amus.e.m.e.nt that "David McMuirtree", rearranged, makes "A murdered victim" ... That's why I chose him, Oscar. No other reason.'

Oscar sat back and burst out laughing. It was not his low chuckle: it was his raucous, barking laugh. 'Good G.o.d!' he exclaimed, 'Is't possible? Have we condemned a man to death because of his name?'

'It was just a game, Oscar,' said Sickert.

'But a deadly game, my friends, do you not see?' He calmed himself and leant forward once more and put out a supplicating hand to claim the last of Wat's tin of cigarettes. 'I have being trying to work out in my mind what it is-what it could be-that links Elizabeth Scott-Rivers, Lord Abergordon, that wretched parrot and Bradford Pea.r.s.e. I now realise it may be nothing-nothing at all, bar the fact that they were randomly chosen as "victims" when on Sunday I forced us to play that ludicrous game. These four unfortunate creatures-a lady, a lord, a parrot and an actor-not slain for a reason, but murdered without motive ...'

'You mean-' Sickert began.

'Yes, Wat, I mean that just as it amused you to name McMuirtree as your "victim" because you like to play with words, so it may be that, in our midst, there is a cold and calculating killer who finds it "amusing" to take a list of names such as this-' he lifted the list from his lap and brandished it before us 'and eliminate them one by one, simply for pleasure playing the game for the game's sake.'

I leant across and took the list from Oscar and studied it. I glanced up and saw that my friend had closed his eyes, as if in prayer. 'I know what you are thinking, Robert,' he said, almost in a whisper. 'I am thinking it, too. The last name on that list belongs to Constance-constant Constance, innocent Constance, the truest and best wife and mother in the world. You love her as I do, Robert. All who know her love her. None who knows her could wish her harm. And yet our murderer does not need to know those whom he seeks to kill. He is playing a game ticking off mere names on a list.'

He shuddered and opened his eyes. 'Are we approaching London yet?' he asked, getting to his feet. He reached for his cape. 'I'm cold and hungry,' he said. 'It's a while since Mrs Fletcher's breakfast. 'Wat Sickert looked up at Oscar, ashen-faced. 'I fear you may be right, my friend. Bradford Pea.r.s.e has not taken his own life. He has been murdered- not because of who he was, or what he was, or aught he'd done. He was murdered because his name chanced to be upon that list.'

'But who put his name upon that list,' asked Oscar slowly, 'if, as we all keep saying, he hadn't an enemy in the world?'

The train was slowing down, pa.s.sing through Croydon. 'What do we do now?' I enquired. 'Go to the police?'

'Yes,' said Oscar, decisively. 'We must do as Conan Doyle advised. We must go to Inspector Gilmour at Scotland Yard. We must show him Bradford's letter and tell him the whole sorry story. There were fourteen of us around the dinner table on Sunday night and at least one of us, I fear, is a murderer.'

'Or an instigator of murder,' suggested Sickert. 'One of our number could have taken the list and hired a killer to do his bidding. Indeed, isn't that more probable?'

'Does the murderer need to have been at the dinner at all?' I asked. 'If it's a random killer, as you suggest, Oscar, couldn't one of our number have simply recounted the events of the night in a bar or a pub-or at his club or somewhere-and been overheard by a stranger?'

Oscar burst out laughing again. 'A stranger bent on murder? A stranger with excellent hearing who happened to be in search of a tidy shopping list of would-be murder victims? Anything is possible, I suppose.

The train had reached Victoria. 'What time is it?' Oscar asked, while sorting through his small change in antic.i.p.ation of the coming encounters with station porters and hansom cab drivers.

Sickert put his head out of the carriage window and looked up at the station clock. 'Gone five,' he said.

'I'll take Pea.r.s.e's bag, if you don't mind,' said Oscar. 'Those bills of his might reveal something- you never know.'

We clambered out of the carriage onto the noisy station platform. 'I'm going home,' said Wat. 'I hope to sell a picture tonight. You'll keep me posted, won't you?'

'Of course,' said Oscar. 'I'll send you a wire when we've seen the police.' He handed me Bradford Pea.r.s.e's Gladstone bag to carry.

'Are we going to Scotland Yard at once?' I asked. 'It's quite late. Should you not go home, too?'

'If our murderer is following the chronology of the list, Robert, until David McMuirtree is dead Constance should be safe.' He led us across the station towards the cab rank on Victoria Street. 'Scotland Yard can wait until tomorrow. I think first we should find McMuirtree and alert him to the danger he is in.'

'And you must safeguard yourself also, Oscar,' said Wat. 'Your name, too, is on the list.'

Oscar glanced towards Sickert. 'I know.'

Wat suddenly stopped in his tracks. 'Your young friend Bosie keeps a gun, does he not? A pistol of some sort? He boasts about it.'

Oscar laughed. 'Indeed. He tells me he plans to use it to shoot his father!' Oscar stood still and looked about the station concourse and spread his arms wide and laughed again. 'I am surrounded by murderers and madmen ...'

Wat Sickert smiled and took both of Oscar's hands in his. 'I'm serious, my friend. Perhaps you should borrow the gun from Bosie and keep it at t.i.te Street until the danger's past.'

'I don't fear for myself, Wat. Death may indeed be the greatest of all human blessings. But I fear for my children-they need their mother and Constance is too young to die.' The poet and the artist embraced one another. They were a curious sight: Oscar, all of six-foot-three, in his crimson cape and white fedora, and Wat Sickert, so much slighter, in his theatrical frock coat with his absurd moustaches.

'You go and sell your picture, Wat,' said Oscar. 'Robert and I are going to the circus.'

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

THE RING OF DEATH.

'Why on earth are we going to the circus, Oscar?' I asked as we stood in line in the station forecourt waiting for a hansom cab.

'Because Mr David McMuirtree is a fairground fighter and has a summer engagement at Astley's Circus. I know because he has kindly sent me two tickets for his next appearance promisingly described as "an historic gala bout". It's scheduled for Monday night. Bosie won't come. He has a horror of boxing. Are you free?'

'Thank you,' I said. I had become accustomed to being Oscar's companion on nights when Bosie was unavailable. 'I love Astley's. When I was a boy, my birthday treat was always an outing to "Lord" George Sanger's circus at Astley's.'

'Yes,' Oscar murmured as we moved up to the head of the queue. 'I recall that you had a troubled childhood.'

I smiled. I sensed that the people behind us were listening in to our conversation. Oscar was not averse to the public's attention. 'What was your birthday treat then, Oscar?' I asked.

'An afternoon in the bluebell wood of Phoenix Park reading Euripides and Theocritus, followed by an evening in the cloisters at Drumcondra with Plato and John Ruskin. I was an uncomplicated child.'

I laughed and we climbed aboard our hansom.

By cab, it took no more than twenty minutes to travel from Victoria Station to Astley's Circus amphitheatre on the south side of Westminster Bridge. This was 1892, the year before the amphitheatre-one of the great glories of Victorian London-was razed to the ground.

Until I was eighteen-until I began to travel and discovered the Paris Opera House, the Fenice in Venice, the Ronda bullring in Andalusia-Astley's was my pleasure-dome. I had never been inside a building so wondrous, so vast, so ornate, so exotic. It was illuminated by a chandelier that burnt five thousand candles. The audience was seated in four steep and curving tiers that rose up to fifty feet above the ground. There was a conventional stage for the musicians, clowns and tumblers to perform on, and, in front of it, in place of the traditional orchestra stalls, a huge circular arena-forty-two feet in diameter-for the performing horses and the dancing dogs.

Philip Astley (whom my grandfather knew) used no wild animals in his shows. He was a horseman- and an acrobat. He invented the circus ring to display his riding skills to best advantage. He realised that by galloping in a tight circle he and his fellow-riders could generate a centrifugal force that would help them maintain their balance while standing on the bare backs of their steeds.

As our hansom trundled slowly down Victoria Street in the Thursday evening rush-hour traffic, I tried to share my enthusiasm with Oscar. He was not interested.

'I seem to recall Sickert telling me that Monsieur Degas also adores the circus,' he said wearily.

'Oh yes,' I replied warmly, ignoring his wan smile and gently raised eyebrow. 'The French all adore the circus. In France they regard Astley as a hero. They call him "Le roi des cirques". He died in Paris, you know.'

'Astley's dead?' said Oscar, feigning surprise. 'Long dead. He is buried at Pere Lachaise.'

'That tells us nothing,' Oscar replied dismissively.

'They'll take anybody there.'

When we reached Astley's amphitheatre, Oscar instructed our driver to set us down at the stage door. 'No wonder Conan Doyle wants to kill off Holmes,' he grumbled as he clambered down from the cab.

'The lot of the private detective is not an easy one. He sighed. 'We're now going to have to run the gauntlet of another surly stage doorkeeper. Will it be a bearded lady? Or a two-headed dwarf? More probably a hapless acrobat who has succ.u.mbed to arthritis.' He handed our driver two s.h.i.+llings. 'I really cannot bear the ugliness of the world,' he said. The cabman touched his cap and nodded in agreement.