THE OSCHOLARS LIBRARY

March 2008. With the kind permission of the author, THE OSCHOLARS is delighted to present a substantial foretaste of the second in Gyles Brandreth’s series of Oscar Wilde Murder Mysteries:

To be published by John Murray in the UK in May 2008 as:

Oscar Wilde

and

The Ring of Death

To be published by Simon & Schuster in the US in September 2008 as:

Oscar Wilde

and

A Game Called Murder

GYLES BRANDRETH

AUTHOR’S NOTE

My name is Robert Sherard and I was a friend of Oscar Wilde. We met first in Paris in 1883. He was then twenty-eight and already famous – as a writer, wit and raconteur, as the pre-eminent ‘personality’ of his day. I was twenty-two, a would-be journalist, an aspiring poet, and quite unknown. We met for the last time in 1900, again in Paris, not long before his untimely death. During the seventeen years of our friendship I kept a journal of our times together. We were not lovers, but I knew Oscar well. Few, I believe, knew him better. In 1884, I was the first whom Oscar entertained after his marriage to Constance Lloyd. In 1895, I was the first to visit him in Wandsworth Gaol following his imprisonment. In 1902, I became his first biographer.

When I wrote that first account of Oscar’s life I told his story as best I could. I told the truth and nothing but the truth – but the whole truth I did not tell. Not long before his death, I had confessed to Oscar that I planned to write of him after he was gone. He said: ‘Don’t tell them everything – not yet! When you write of me, don’t speak of murder. Leave that a while.’ I have left it – until now. I am writing this in September 1939. I am old and the world is on the brink of war once more. My time will soon be up, but before before I go I have one last task remaining – to tell everything I know of Oscar Wilde, poet, playwright, friend, detective . . .

In De Profundis, my friend did me great honour. He described me as ‘the bravest and most chivalrous of all brilliant beings’. Oscar Wilde was always good to me and I ask you to believe me when I tell you that in the pages that follow I have tried my utmost to be true to him.

RHS

Dieppe, France

September, 1939

Regard your good name as the richest jewel that you can possibly be possessed of – for credit is like fire: when once you have kindled it you may easily preserve it, but if you once extinguish it, you will find it an arduous task to rekindle it again. The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavour to be what you desire to appear.

Socrates (c 470 – 399 BC)

CHAPTER ONE

The Fortune Teller

It was Sunday 1 May, 1892, a cold day, though the sun was bright. I recall in particular the way in which a brilliant shaft of afternoon sunlight filtered through the first-floor front window of Number 16 Tite Street, Chelsea – the London home of Oscar and Constance Wilde – and perfectly illuminated two figures sitting close together at a small table, apparently holding hands.

I stood alone, by the window, watching them. One was a woman, a widow, in her early forties, with a pleasing figure, well-held, and a narrow, kindly face – a little lined, but not care-worn – and large, knowing eyes. She was dressed all in black silk and on her head, which she held high, she wore a turban of black velvet featuring a single, startling, silver and turquoise peacock’s feather. The colour of the feather matched the colour of her hair.

The other figure seated at the table was quite as striking. He was a large man, aged thirty-seven, tall, over-fleshed, with a fine head of thick deep-chestnut hair, large, slightly drooping eyes, and full lips that opened to reveal a wide mouth crowded with ungainly teeth. His skin was pale and pasty, blotched with freckles. He was dressed in a sand-coloured linen suit of his own design. At his neck, he sported a loose-fitting linen tie of Lincoln green and, in his buttonhole, a fresh amaryllis, the colour of coral.

The woman was Mrs Robinson, clairvoyant to the Prince of Wales among others. The man was Oscar Wilde, poet and playwright, and literary sensation of the age.

Slowly, with gloved fingers, Mrs Robinson caressed Oscar Wilde’s right hand. Repeatedly, she brushed the side of her little finger across his palm. With her right thumb and forefinger she took each of his fingers in turn and, gently, pulled it straight. For a long while, she gazed intently at his open hand, saying nothing. Eventually, she lifted his palm to her cheek and held it there. She sighed and closed her eyes and murmured, ‘I see a sudden death in this unhappy hand. A cruel death, unexpected and unnatural. Is it murder? Is it suicide?’

‘Or is it the palmist trying to earn her guinea by adding a touch of melodrama to her reading?’ Oscar withdrew his hand from Mrs Robinson’s tender grasp and slapped it on the table, with a barking laugh.

‘You go too far, dear lady,’ he exclaimed. ‘This is a tea party and the Thane of Cawdor is not expected. There are children present. You are here to entertain the guests, Mrs Robinson, not terrify them.’

Mrs Robinson tilted her bird-like head to one side and smiled. ‘I see what I see,’ she said, without rancour.

Oscar was smiling also. He turned from the table and looked beyond the pool of sunlight to a young man of military bearing who was standing alone, like me, a yard away, observing the scene. ‘Come to my rescue, Arthur,’ he called. ‘Mrs Robinson has seen “a sudden death” in my “unhappy hand”. You’re a medical man. I need a second opinion.’

Arthur Conan Doyle was then three weeks away from his thirty-third birthday and already something of a national hero. His ‘Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ in the Strand magazine were a sensation throughout the land. Doyle himself, in appearance, was more Watson than Holmes. He was a handsome fellow, sturdy and broad-shouldered, with a hearty handshake, beady eyes and a genial smile that he kept hidden beneath a formidable walrus moustache. He was the best of men, and a true friend to Oscar, in good times and bad.

‘I’m no longer practising medicine, Oscar, as you know,’ he said, moving towards the window table, ‘but if you want my honest opinion, you should steer well clear of this kind of tomfoolery. It can be dangerous. It leads you know not where.’ He bowed a little stiffly towards Mrs Robinson. ‘No offence intended, Madam,’ he said.

‘None taken,’ she replied, graciously. ‘The creator of Sherlock Holmes can do no wrong in my eyes.’

Doyle’s cheeks turned scarlet. He blushed readily. ‘You are too kind,’ he mumbled awkwardly.

‘You are too ridiculous, Arthur. Pay no attention to him, Mrs R. He’s all over the place. I’m not surprised. He’s moved to South Norwood – wherever that may be.’

‘It’s not far,’ Doyle protested.

‘It’s a world away, Arthur, and you know it. That’s why you were late.’

‘I was late because I was completing something.’

‘Your sculpture. Yes, I know. Sculpture is your new enthusiasm.’

Conan Doyle stood back from the table. ‘How do you know that?’ he exclaimed. ‘I have mentioned it to no one – to no one at all.’

‘Oh, come now, Arthur,’ said Oscar, getting to his feet, smiling and inclining his head to Mrs Robinson as he left the table. ‘I heard you telling my wife about the spacious hut at the end of your new garden and the happy hours you are intending to spend there, “in the cold and the damp”. Only a sculptor loves a cold, damp room: it’s ideal for keeping his clay moist.’

‘You amaze me, Oscar.’

‘Mrs Robinson would have uncovered your secret too – by the simple expedient of examining your fingernails. Look at them, Arthur. They give the whole game away!’

‘You are extraordinary, Oscar. I marvel at you. You know that I plan to include you in one of my stories – as Sherlock Holmes’s older brother?’

‘Yes, you have told me – he is to be obese and indolent, as I recall. I’m flattered.’

Conan Doyle laughed and slapped Oscar on the shoulder with disconcerting force. ‘I’m glad I came to your party, my friend,’ he said, ‘despite the company you keep.’

‘It is not my party, Arthur. It is Constance’s party. The guests are all alarmingly respectable and the cause is undeniably just.’

The party – for about forty guests, men, women and children – was a fund-raiser in aid of one of Constance Wilde’s favourite charities, the Rational Dress Society. The organization, inspired by the example of Amelia Bloomer in the United States, was dedicated to promoting fashions for women that did not ‘deform the body or endanger it’. The Society believed that no woman should be forced to endure the discomfort and risk to health of overly tight-laced and restrictive corsetry nor be obliged to wear, in total, more than seven pounds of undergarments. Constance spoke poignantly of the plight of so many women – scores of them each year: young and old, serving girls and ladies of rank – who were either maimed or burned to death when their voluminous skirts, petticoats and underpinnings accidentally caught on a candle or brushed by a hearth and were set alight.

Oscar and Arthur stood together looking about the room. Conan Doyle leant forward, resting his hands on the back of one of the Wildes’ black-and-white bamboo chairs. ‘The cause is indeed a good one,’ he said. ‘Rest assured: I have subscribed.’ He smiled at Oscar, adding, ‘I remain to be convinced, however, about the complete respectability of the guests. For example, who are those two?’ He nodded towards the piano.

‘Ah,’ said Oscar, ‘Miss Bradley and Miss Cooper.’

‘They look like chimney-sweeps.’

‘Yes,’ said Oscar, squinting at the ladies. ‘They do appear to have come en travestie. I think the costumes are deliberate. They probably wanted to bring us luck. They are not chimney-sweeps by trade. They are poetesses. Or, rather, I should say, “they are a poet”. They write together, under a single name. They call themselves “Michael Field”.’

‘I observed them in the hallway, smoking cigarettes, and kissing one another, upon the lips.’

‘Extraordinary,’ said Oscar, shaking his head wanly, ‘especially when you consider the amount of influenza sweeping through Chelsea this spring.’

‘And what about the unhealthy-looking gentleman over there? He has the appearance of a dope-fiend, Oscar.’

‘George Daubeney?’ exclaimed Oscar. ‘The Hon the Reverend George Daubeney? He’s a clergyman, Arthur, and the son of an earl.’

‘Is he now?’ replied Doyle, chuckling. ‘Why do I recognize the name?’

‘It has been in all the papers, alas. The Reverend George was sued for breach of promise. It was a messy business. He lost the case and his entire fortune with it.’

‘He has a weak mouth,’ said Conan Doyle.

‘And a stern father who declines to bail him out, I’m afraid. I like him, however. He is assistant chaplain at the House of Commons and part-time padre to Astley’s Circus on the south side of Westminster Bridge.’

‘No wonder you like him, Oscar! You cannot resist the improbable.’

Now it was Oscar’s turn to chuckle. He touched Conan Doyle on the elbow and invited his friend to scan the room. ‘Look about you, Arthur. You are a man who has seen the world, the best and worst of it. You have journeyed to the Arctic in a whaler. You have lived in Southsea out of season. You are familiar with all types and conditions of men. Consider the assorted individuals gathered in this drawing-room this afternoon and tell me which one of them, to you, looks to be the most incontrovertibly “respectable”.’

Doyle was entertained by the challenge. He stepped back and stood, arms akimbo, fists on hips. He pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes and, slowly, carefully, surveyed the scene before him. Constance had gathered a motley crowd to her charitable tea party. ‘What precisely am I looking for, Oscar?’

‘The acme of respectability,’ said Oscar. ‘The face, the figure, the demeanour, the look that says to you: “This chap is sound, no doubt about it.”’

‘Mm,’ growled Doyle, taking in the faces around him, turn by turn. ‘They all look a bit doubtful, don’t they?’ He looked beyond where George Daubeney was standing, to the doorway, where Charles Brooke, the English Rajah of Sarawak and a particular friend of Constance, was holding court. ‘Brooke has the look of a leader about him, doesn’t he? I know him slightly. He’s sound. He’s a gentleman.’

Oscar raised his forefinger and waved it admonishingly. ‘No, no, Arthur. Don’t tell me about people you already know. I want you to make a judgement entirely on appearance. Look about this room and pick out the one person who strikes you as having about him an air of absolute respectability.’

‘I have him!’ cried Doyle triumphantly. ‘There!’ He indicated a sandy-haired young man of medium build and medium height who was standing with Constance Wilde at the far end of the room. Constance’s older boy Cyril, nearly seven years old, was at her side with his arms clasped around her skirt. Her younger son, Vyvyan, then five-and-a-half, was seated happily on the young man’s shoulders tugging at his hair.

‘He’s your man, Oscar,’ said Conan Doyle. ‘He’s easy with children – and children are easy with him. That’s a good sign.’

‘He is Vyvyan’s godfather,’ said Oscar.

‘I’m not surprised. You chose well. He has the air of a thoroughly dependable fellow. What’s his name?’

‘Edward Heron-Allen,’ said Oscar.

‘A sound name,’ said Conan Doyle, with satisfaction.

‘Indeed,’ said Oscar, smiling.

‘A respectable name.’

‘Certainly.’

‘And his profession, Oscar? He’s a professional man - you can tell at a glance.’

‘He is a solicitor. And the son of a solicitor.’

‘Of course he is. I might have guessed. Look at his open face – it’s a face you can trust. It’s the face of a good-hearted, clean-living, respectable young man. How old is he? Do you know?’

‘About thirty, I imagine.’

‘And how old is the Hon the Reverend George Daubeney, may I ask?’

‘About the same, I suppose.’

‘But Daubeney,’ said Doyle, his eyes darting from Oscar to Constance, ‘looks ten years the older of the two, does he not? Daubeney’s face, I fear, speaks of a life of dissipation. My man’s face speaks of The Great Outdoors. He has colour in his cheeks. His jaw is clean-cut, his eyes sparkle, his conscience is clear.’

‘My, my, Arthur, you are taken with him.’

Conan Doyle laughed. ‘I’m only doing as you asked, Oscar – judging by appearance. Edward Heron-Allen’s appearance is wholly reassuring. You cannot deny it. Look at his suit.’

‘The tailoring is unexceptional.’

‘Precisely. The man is not a dandy. He is a gentleman. His suit is sober: it’s exactly the sort of suit you’d expect a solicitor to wear on a Sunday. And his tie, I think, tells us he went to Harrow.’

‘He did indeed,’ said Oscar, grinning broadly, ‘and played cricket for the First XI.’

Conan Doyle caught sight of Oscar’s wide and wicked smile and, suddenly, began to beat his own forehead with a clenched fist. ‘Oh, Oscar, Oscar,’ he growled ruefully, ‘have I taken your bait? Have I fallen headlong into an elephant trap? Are you about to reveal to me that my supposed model of respectability is in fact the greatest bounder in the room?’

‘No,’ said Oscar, lightly. ‘Not at all. But we all have our secrets, Arthur, do we not?’

‘What’s his? Has he embezzled all his clients’ money?’

‘He is in love with Constance.’

‘Your wife?’

‘My wife.’

Conan Doyle looked concerned. He was a loyal and conscientious husband. His own young wife, Louisa, known as ‘Touie’, was a victim of tuberculosis. Doyle went out and about without her, but she was never far from his thoughts. He tugged at his moustache. ‘This fellow, Heron-Allen, being in love with your wife, Oscar - does it trouble you?’

‘No,’ said Oscar, ‘not at all.’

‘And Mrs Wilde?’ asked Doyle. ‘How does she feel?’

‘It does not trouble Mrs Wilde.’ Oscar smiled. ‘Mrs Heron-Allen, however, may find it a touch perturbing.’

‘Ah,’ said Arthur frowning, ‘the fellow’s married, is he? He doesn’t look like a married man.’

‘I agree with you there, Arthur. He looks totally care-free, does he not?’

‘He looks quite ordinary to me,’ said Conan Doyle. ‘That’s why I picked him when you started me off on this absurd game. I shouldn’t have indulged you, Oscar.’

‘Edward Heron-Allen is anything but ordinary, Arthur. He cultivates asparagus. He makes violins. He speaks fluent Persian. And he is a world authority on necrophilia, bestiality, pederasty, and the trafficking of child prostitutes.’

‘Good grief.’ Arthur Conan Doyle blanched and gazed towards Edward Heron-Allen in horror. The young solicitor was lifting Vyvyan Wilde from his shoulders. He kissed the top of the boy’s head as he lowered him safely to the ground. ‘Good grief,’ repeated Conan Doyle.

‘I’ve seated you next to him at dinner, Arthur. You’ll find him fascinating. He’s another chiromancer – like Mrs Robinson. Let him read your palm between courses and he’ll advise you whether to plump for the lamb or the beef.’

‘I’m speechless, Oscar,’ said Conan Doyle, still staring fixedly in the direction of Edward Heron-Allen and Constance Wilde. ‘I’m quite lost for words.’

‘No matter,’ said Oscar blithely. ‘Heron-Allen can do the talking. He has a great deal to say and you’ll find all of it’s worth hearing.’

‘Are you serious, Oscar?’ Doyle protested. ‘Is that man really joining us for dinner?’

Oscar chuckled. ‘Why not? He looks respectable enough to me. In fact, he’s my particular guest tonight. Sherard here is bringing the Hon the Reverend George Daubeney. Who is your guest to be?’

Conan Doyle was now blowing his nose noisily on a large, red handkerchief. ‘Willie . . . Willie Hornung,’ he said, hesitating to name the name. ‘You don’t know him. He’s a young journalist, an excellent fellow, one of the sweetest-natured and most delicate-minded men I ever knew.’

‘Hornung . . . Willie Hornung.’ Oscar rolled the name around his mouth, as though it was an unfamiliar wine.

Doyle returned his handkerchief to his pocket and looked Oscar in the eye. ‘Perhaps I should advise Hornung to stay away. Willie’s not what you’d call a man of the world.’

‘Don’t be absurd, Arthur. How old is he?’

‘I don’t know. Twenty-six? Twenty-seven?’

‘Keats was dead at twenty-six, Arthur. It’ll do Mr Hornung good to live a little dangerously, take life as he finds it. It’s the possibility of the pearl or the poison in the oyster that make the prospect of opening it so enticing. Besides, we have to have him or we’ll be thirteen at table.’

‘Is Lord Alfred Douglas coming?’

‘Bosie? Of course.’ Oscar threw his head back and brushed his hands through his hair. ‘Bosie is coming, very much so. And he’s bringing his older brother, Francis, with him. You’ll like Lord Drumlanrig, Arthur. He’s about the same age as your young friend, Hornung, and sweet-natured, too. I’m all for feasting with panthers, but it’s good to have a few delicate-minded lambs at the trough as well. One can have too much of a bad thing.’ He looked around the room. ‘Where is Bosie? He should be here by now.’

The Wildes’ drawing room was beginning to empty. Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper, the poetesses dressed as chimney-sweeps, were standing by the doorway blowing kisses towards Oscar. Miss Bradley, the taller of the two, had taken a huge bulrush out of a vase by the fireplace. She called to Oscar: ‘I’m stealing this, dearest one. I hope you don’t mind. Moses and Rebecca Salaman are coming to supper. This will make them feel so at home.’ Oscar nodded obligingly. Charles Brooke, the Rajah of Sarawak, was handing Constance a cheque and grandiloquently saluting her for her charitable endeavours on behalf of humankind in general and the Rational Dress Society in particular. His wife, Margaret, a plain and patient woman, was pulling at his arm. ‘Will he ever stop talking?’ she asked.

‘Only if we start listening,’ answered Constance, with a kindly laugh, kissing her friend on the cheek. ‘Thank you both for coming. And thank you, Charles, for your generosity. Every one has been so kind, so good.’

‘It’s you, Mrs Wilde,’ said Edward Heron-Allen, stepping toward his hostess and lifting her hand to his lips. ‘You inspire us.’

Conan Doyle spluttered into his red handkerchief and whispered to Oscar, ‘The man’s intolerable.’

‘You inspire our devotion,’ Heron-Allen continued, still holding Constance’s hand and looking into her eyes. ‘We love you. It’s as simple as that.’

‘We love Oscar, too,’ said a voice from the landing, ‘But that’s more complicated, of course.’

‘Ah,’ said Oscar, clapping his hands, ‘Bosie is upon us.’

Lord Alfred Douglas appeared in the doorway of the Wildes’ drawing-room and held his pose. Bosie was an arrestingly good-looking boy. I use the word ‘boy’ advisedly. He was twenty-one at the time, but he looked no more than a child. Indeed, he told me that, later that same summer, a society matron was quite put out when she invited him to her children’s tea party and discovered her mistake. Even at thirty-one, people would enquire whether he was still at school. Oscar used to say, ‘Bosie contained the very essence of youth. He never lost it. That is why I loved him.’

Oscar did indeed love Lord Alfred Douglas and made no bones about it. Slender as a reed, with a well-proportioned face, gently curling hair the colour of ripe corn and the complexion of a white peach, Bosie was an Adonis – even Conan Doyle and I could not deny that. Oscar loved him for his looks. He loved him for his intellect, also. Bosie had a good mind, a ready wit – he liked to claim credit for originating some of Oscar’s choicest quips – and a way with words and language that I envied. He was intelligent, but indolent. When he left Oxford the following year, he left without a degree. (As I had done. As Shelley and Swinburne did, too. Bosie’s poetry may not rank alongside theirs, but, nonetheless, the best of it has stood the test of time.)

Oscar Wilde also loved Lord Alfred Douglas because of who he was. Though he made wry remarks to suggest otherwise, Oscar was a snob. He liked a title. He was pleased to be on ‘chatting terms’ with the Prince of Wales. He was happy that his acquaintance encompassed at least a dozen dukes. And he was charmed to find that Bosie Douglas (with his perfect profile and manners to match) was the third son of an eighth marquess – albeit a marquess with a reputation.

Even in 1892, Bosie’s father, John Sholto Douglas, 8^th Marquess of Queensberry, was notorious. Ill-favoured, squat, hot-tempered, aggressive, Lord Queensberry was a brute, a bully, a spendthrift and a womanizer. His one strength was that he was fearless. His one unsullied claim to fame was that, with a university friend, John Graham Chambers, he had codified the rules of conduct for the sport of boxing. He was himself a lightweight boxer of tenacity and skill. He was also a daring and determined jockey (he rode his own horses in the Grand National) and a huntsman noted for ruthlessness in the field. He carried his riding whip with him at all times. He was said to use it with equal ease on his horses, his dogs and his women. In 1887, Lady Queensberry, the mother of his five children, divorced him on the grounds of his adultery.

Bosie despised his father and adored his mother. In Bosie’s eyes, Sybil Queensberry could do no wrong. ‘My father has given me nothing,’ he said. ‘My mother has given me everything, including my name.’ Lady Queensberry had called him ‘Boysie’ when he was a baby. Oscar called him ‘my own dear boy’ from the moment they met, early in the summer of 1891. They became firm friends almost at once. By the summer of 1892, they were near inseparable. Where Oscar went, Bosie came too. I liked him. Constance liked him, also. Conan Doyle had his reservations.

As he stood, posed, in the drawing-room doorway, with his head thrown to one side, like a martyred saint upon a cross, Bosie looked straight towards Constance. ‘Mrs Wilde,’ he cried, ‘peccavi. I have missed your party and I didn’t want to miss it for the world. Will you forgive me?’ From behind his back he produced a small bunch of primroses tied together with blue ribbon. He stepped forward and presented them to her.

She kissed him, as she might have done a child, and said, ‘What a sweet thought, Bosie. Thank you. I’m glad you’re here. I’m sure Oscar was getting anxious.’

Bosie, nodding to Edward Heron-Allen, went over to Oscar and Conan Doyle. I moved from my station by the window to join them. ‘I apologise, Oscar,’ said the young Adonis, furrowing his brow. ‘I’ve had a damnable afternoon. Arguing about money with my father. He’s been through £400,000 you know and won’t advance me fifty. The man’s a monster. I’d like to murder him.’

Arthur Conan Doyle raised an eyebrow and sucked on his moustache.

‘I mean it,’ said Bosie seriously. ‘I’d like to murder him, in cold blood.’

‘Well, you can’t, Bosie,’ said Oscar, ‘leastways, not tonight.’

‘Why not?’ demanded Bosie petulantly.

‘It’s Sunday, Bosie,’ said Oscar, ‘and a gentleman never murders his father on a Sunday. You should know that. Did they teach you nothing at Winchester? Besides, it’s the first Sunday in the month and we are going to dinner at the Cadogan. You can’t have forgotten, surely?’

CHAPTER TWO

The Socrates Club

In the summer of 1892 Oscar was at the height of his fame and fortune. Lady Windermere’s Fan, his first theatrical triumph, had opened at the St James’s Theatre in February. He was the toast of the town and collecting royalties at the rate of £300 a week. And yet I sensed he was not content.

We had been friends for ten years. For a brief while, before his marriage and mine, we had shared lodgings in Mayfair. We found each other’s society easy: we were good companions. He was seven years my senior and indulged me as he might have done a younger brother. He did not sit in judgement: he accepted me as I was. When my first marriage began to unravel – I had not been faithful to Marthe as I should have been – Oscar did not reproach me, as my parents did. (As the world at large did, too. Make no mistake, in those far-off days, if your marriage failed, you were reckoned to have failed also.) Oscar simply said ‘Poor Robert!’ adding, ‘I’m not sure that any marriage should be expected to last more than seven years.’ This was that same summer of 1892, when he and Constance had been married for almost eight years.

‘But you love Constance still, do you not?’ I asked, somewhat shocked. I was the younger brother: the Wildes were lode-stars in my firmament. ‘That has not changed?’

‘No, that has not changed,’ he said – but he said it with a melancholy diffidence. ‘She has changed, however. When I married her, Robert, my wife was a beautiful girl, white and slim as a lily, with dancing eyes and gay, rippling laughter like music. In a year or so, after our boys were born, the flowerlike grace had vanished. She became heavy, shapeless, deformed.’

‘You do not mean it, Oscar,’ I protested. Constance, in truth, was none of those of things. Constance was always lovely. But, inevitably, she was older than she had been – she was now thirty-four – and Oscar equated age with decay. And, to her husband at least, she was not as amusing as she once had seemed. ‘She never speaks and I am always wondering what her thoughts are like,’ he said.

Oscar sought to distract himself from this ‘domestic ennui’ (as he termed it) by filling every waking hour with a relentless round of work and play. He posed as an idler, but he was never idle. By day, behind closed doors, seated at his favourite desk (once the property of the great Thomas Carlyle), in a haze of cigarette smoke, he read and wrote, hour upon hour. He had the gift Napoleon most admired: de fixer les objets longtemps sans être fatigué*. He was one of the most hard-working men I ever knew. He laboured industriously and he played extravagantly. By night, he wined and dined and, then, he drank and ate some more. And between dinner and supper, he took in plays, operas, ballets, concerts and exhibitions. ‘What is it to be tonight, Robert? Henry Irving’s Wolsey at the Lyceum or Marie Lloyd’s flannelette at the Bedford Music Hall?’ He saw everything; he knew everybody. And, of course, everybody wanted to know him. Nobody, I believe, in late-Victorian society, had a wider circle of acquaintance than Oscar Wilde. From Monday to Saturday his engagement diary was full to overflowing. The one day in the week he found testing was Sunday. ‘Nothing happens on a Sunday,’ he complained. ‘Everything is closed. No one goes out. Nobody entertains. Even God has to go to church. There’s nothing else to do.’ That was why, early in 1892, he formed the Socrates Club.

The club was named in honour of the great Greek philosopher. Conan Doyle had suggested Diogenes, but Oscar said Diogenes was ‘a dull dog, a provincial, without an epigram to his name’, whereas Socrates was ‘a citizen of the world’ with whom Oscar had a fellow-feeling. ‘Socrates was one of the wisest men who ever lived,’ said Oscar, ‘but he claimed to know nothing except the fact of his own ignorance. He’s a man to drink to on a Sunday evening, is he not?’

The club was simply a supper club. It had no premises and only one purpose: to divert its founder on the first Sunday of every month. There were just six members: Oscar, Conan Doyle, Lord Alfred Douglas, myself, Bram Stoker and Walter Sickert.

Bram Stoker was Conan Doyle’s suggestion and Oscar welcomed it at once. Conan Doyle was not at ease with all of Oscar’s associates, but he felt comfortable with Abraham Stoker because, as he put it, Stoker was ‘sensible’ (Stoker was an older man, in his mid-forties), Stoker was ‘sound’ (at university, Stoker had been an athlete and, better still, a scientist.) Stoker was also business manager, secretary and friend to Henry Irving, the greatest, most celebrated, actor of the age, and, as a young writer, it was Arthur Conan Doyle’s abiding ambition to create a role for Henry Irving. Oscar was pleased to assist in throwing Conan Doyle and Bram Stoker together. Oscar and Bram were fellow Dubliners. ‘We go back a long way,’ said Oscar. ‘We know one another’s secrets.’ In 1878, Bram had married Oscar’s first sweetheart, almond-eyed Florence Balcombe.

Walter Sickert, the artist, was another long-established friend. He was my age (thirty-one), but Oscar had known him since he was a boy. As a young man Oscar had holidayed with the Sickerts in Dieppe and though Wat, as a lad, had been suspicious of Oscar, as the years passed and their intimacy grew, the artist and the writer found that they had much in common. ‘We both hunger for laughter, outrage and applause,’ said Sickert. He agreed to join the Socrates Club on condition that he was not obliged to change for dinner and that smoking would be permitted even before the Loyal Toast. When Conan Doyle tut-tutted at this, Sickert pointed out that ‘Socrates’ was an anagram of ‘coarsest’ and won the point. Conan Doyle and Sickert found they shared a passion for word-play and Henry Irving. Before he became a full-time artist, Sickert had been a part-time actor. Aged eighteen, he had joined Irving’s company as a utility player, one of ‘the Lyceum young men’ as they were known. As well as carrying a spear and swelling the crowd, he was given the occasional line to declaim. ‘Irving seemed to like me because I was young and fair-haired,’ he told Conan Doyle. ‘I worshipped Irving because he was Irving and he noticed me.’

The Socrates Club met in the private dining-room on the ground-floor of the recently-opened Cadogan Hotel, on the corner of Sloane Street and Pont Street, a few minutes’ walk from Oscar’s house in Tite Street. The hotel had once been the home of Oscar’s particular friend (and the Prince of Wales’s sometime mistress), Lillie Langtry, and Mrs Langtry (who retained a suite at the hotel) was occasionally to be seen in the hotel foyer, by the porter’s desk, wearing one of her famous hats and engaging the notorious hotel parrot, the predictably-named Captain Flint, in brittle conversation. The parrot was a vile creature, noisy and noisome. Why Mrs Langry found him so fascinating none of us could fathom. Why every man who ever met her was taken with ‘the Jersey Lillie’ was not so difficult to comprehend. She was bewitching, and a survivor. Conan Doyle, who was especially smitten, said she had ‘the face of the most beautiful of women, and the mind of the most resolute of men.’

The club ‘secretary’ was Alphonse Byrd, the resident night-manager at the Cadogan, a man in his mid-fifties, who was so thin and pale and bald that he looked like a walking skeleton. His appearance was memorable, but, so far as I could tell, he had no personality to speak of. He rarely uttered a word or looked one in the eye, but Oscar liked him and found his faded appearance strangely comforting. As a young man, Byrd had worked the halls as a conjuror and illusionist, and failed. ‘There’s mildew is his soul,’ said Oscar. ‘Failure is so much more interesting than success. I’d much rather read Napoleon’s biography than Wellington’s, wouldn’t you?’

In fairness to Byrd, as club secretary he did a first-class job. He was responsible for the menus, the wines and the table setting and given the relatively modest cost of the meal – half-a-crown per diner, all-in – he did us proud. Oscar insisted on six courses. As well as the customary soup, fish, roast meats and desserts, Byrd laid on a selection of hors-d’oeuvres – invariably including Russian caviar, Dutch herrings, prawns, lobster, pickled tunny, smoked salmon and smoked ham – and both savoury and sweet, vegetable and fruit entremets. Each member of the Club was allowed to invite one guest to each dinner – gentlemen only, or, by permission of the founder, certain actresses. Mrs Langtry came twice, and Wat Sickert sometimes arrived late, bringing one of his theatrical lady friends in tow.

On the evening of 1 May, 1892, Oscar’s dinner guest was Constance’s married admirer, the young solicitor Edward Heron-Allen. Bosie’s guest was his eldest brother, Lord Drumlanrig, then very much the ‘coming’ young man at Westminster, protégé of Lord Rosebery, sometime Foreign Secretary and soon to be Foreign Secretary again.

My guest was also a scion of the aristocracy, though not one with either the promise or the connections of Francis Drumlanrig. The Hon the Reverend George Daubeney, youngest son of the Earl of Bridgwater, was known, if at all, merely as the man who abandoned his bride-to-be a week before the wedding day and paid the price. I did not know Daubeney intimately, but I felt for him. I married Marthe in haste when we were both too young. Had I left her in the lurch at the altar, it would have saved us both much anguish in the years that followed.

Arthur Conan Doyle’s guest that evening was his ‘delicate-minded’ friend, Willie Hornung. According to Arthur, the young man was a journalist newly returned from Australia, but Hornung’s slight frame, wan look, lank hair and pince-nez, suggested a nervous country curate rather than a newshound fresh from the Antipodes. ‘He’s a little shy,’ said Arthur. ‘I shall speak to him in a little voice,’ replied Oscar, in a whisper.

Walter Sickert and Bram Stoker each brought an actor as his guest. Sickert came with Bradford Pearse, a barrel-chested boomer of the old school, a big man with a naval beard and a ruddy face, who seemed much older than his years (he was not yet forty). Sickert and Pearse had first met as juniors in Irving’s company and Pearse’s claim to fame was that he had understudied Irving in the Scottish play and had even ‘gone on’ for the great man once at the Lyceum . . . the Lyceum, Sunderland.

Charles Brookfield, Bram Stoker’s invitee that evening, had never understudied anyone in his life. He was, I imagine, a leading man from the cradle, enviably blessed with doting parents, admiring older sisters and not a nuance of self-doubt. He was gifted – at Cambridge he was awarded the Winchester Reading Prize – and he was versatile. He played in pantomime and Shakespeare: Ellen Terry rated him, so did Herbert Beerbohm-Tree. He was blessed with energy, ambition, an undeniable presence and what we now call matinée idol looks. Humour and humility, however, were not his long suits. I did not warm to him. I don’t believe Oscar much liked him either. I think, bizarrely, Brookfield considered himself, in some way, as Oscar’s rival. He was a writer as well as an actor. He arrived at the Cadogan Hotel that evening full of news of his latest enterprise: a play he had written called The Poet and the Puppets.

‘It opens on May 19,’ he announced, ‘my thirty-fifth birthday – it’s a present to myself. And it’s all about you, Oscar!’

Oscar inclined his head in acknowledgement. ‘How clever of you, Charles, to give the public what they want.’

‘It’s a burlesque, Oscar – a satire on Lady Windermere’s Fan. It’s a little sharp at times, but Bram assures me you won’t mind.’

‘Praise makes me humble,’ answered Oscar, ‘but when I am abused I know that I have touched the stars.’

At 7.30 pm, the hour at which the Socrates Club dinner was customarily served, Oscar enquired of Byrd, ‘Are we all gathered? There only seem to be thirteen in the room.’

‘My guest is late, Mr Wilde,’ answered Byrd, wincing as he spoke. ‘It’s not like him to be late. My profound apologies. He will be here in the instant.’

Oscar glanced down at the piece of paper on which he had drawn up the seating plan for the dinner. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said, ‘“David McMuirtree” . . . I’ve not met him before, have I?’

‘I don’t believe so, Mr Wilde,’ said Byrd, looking anxiously towards the door.

‘He appears to know you, Oscar,’ I said.

‘You’ve met him, Robert?’

‘Briefly,’ I replied ‘just the once.’

‘McMuirtree?’ said Charles Brookfield, raising an eyebrow. ‘I recognise the name. Is he a gentleman?’

‘He’s what you’d call “half-a-gentleman”, sir,’ said Byrd, apologetically. ‘His mother was a lady, but his father was a footman.’

‘A footman!’ exclaimed Oscar. ‘How delightful. How tall?’

Byrd looked confused. ‘I don’t follow you, Mr Wilde?’

‘How tall was McMuirtree’s father? Do you know? The taller the footman, the greater his remuneration.’

‘I don’t know about the father, Mr Wilde, but McMuirtree must be over six foot.’

‘I’m delighted to hear it,’ said Oscar, who was more than six foot himself. ‘Is your friend a footman like his father? I’ve no objection to dining with a footman, needless to say, but I’m not sure Mr Brookfield could cope.’

Byrd gave a nervous laugh. ‘Oh, no, sir. David McMuirtree’s a boxer. He works the fairgrounds. I know him from my time on the halls. He was a champion in his day. I believe he once had the honour of going a round or two with Lord Queensberry. He’s never been in service, I assure you. He’s a fine figure of a man. You’ll like him, Mr Wilde.’

At this point, a tall, broad, handsome man of about forty appeared in the dining-room doorway. His head and face were totally clean-shaven and his dark brown skin had a sheen to it like polished chestnut. His nose was prominent, but unbroken; his eyes were blue-black, but warm. His evening dress was immaculate. He wore a green carnation in his button-hole.

‘I like him very much,’ said Oscar.

‘I thought you would,’ muttered Byrd, evidently relieved. ‘Shall I have dinner served, Mr Wilde?’

‘If you would, Byrd. Thank you.’ Oscar stepped across the dining-room and shook McMuirtree cordially by the hand. ‘Welcome to our little club, Mr McMuirtree. Socrates taught us that there is only one good and that is knowledge; and only one evil, ignorance. Already, I feel better for knowing you.’

‘Thank you, Mr Wilde,’ said McMuirtree, bowing his head and speaking in a tone so hushed that he was barely audible.

‘There’s no need to whisper here,’ said Oscar, genially. ‘You are among friends.’

‘I fear I have no choice but to speak like this,’ answered the boxer in the softest of whispers. ‘My vocal chords were destroyed some years ago in a bout in Birmingham. I was hammered in the neck by a lunatic.’

‘I am sorry to hear it,’ said Oscar, lowering his voice to match McMuirtree’s.

‘Not everyone plays by the Queensberry Rules,’ said the boxer with a smile.

‘Indeed,’ said Oscar. He turned to the room and clapped his hands together loudly.

‘Hush!’ cried Bosie. ‘The chairman speaks!’

‘Gentlemen,’ said Oscar, ‘kindly take your seats. Dinner is about to be served. You will find name cards at your places. The seating plan is my responsibility, but the menu and choice of wines, as ever, have been left to Byrd. He rarely lets us down.

When we had all found our places, Oscar took up his position at the head of the table and clapped his hands once more. ‘Welcome, gentlemen, welcome. I should explain to newcomers, this is a club virtually without rules. To keep Wat happy, you are even allowed to come dressed as you please. We shall say Grace tonight because we are honoured to have a man of the cloth among us,’ – he nodded towards George Daubeney – ‘and, as ever, we shall have a loyal toast because Her Majesty is always present in our hearts. Other than that, we have no formalities – no speeches – and you may say whatever you please . . .’ – Oscar looked directly at David McMuirtree – ‘ . . . you may whisper whatever you please, knowing that whatever is uttered or undertaken in this room tonight remains between us.’

A rumble of ‘Hear! Hear!’ran around the table, interrupted by Bosie who called out, ‘We have no rules, Oscar, but we do have one tradition.’

‘Do we?’ asked Sickert.

‘Of course, we do,’ said Bosie. ‘Oscar’s game.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Oscar. ‘After dinner, we play a game.’

‘What’s it to be tonight, Oscar?’ asked Bosie. ‘Have you decided?’

‘Indeed,’ said Oscar, ‘I have it in hand . . . or as Mrs Robinson might say, I have it in my “unhappy hand”. . . “Murder” is the game we shall be playing tonight. Mr Daubeney – George – will you be so kind as to give us Grace?’

The seating plan

for the Socrates Club Dinner at the Cadogan Hotel

on Sunday 1 May, 1892

Oscar Wilde

Edward Heron-Allen Lord Alfred Douglas

Arthur Conan Doyle Lord Drumlanrig

Willie Hornung Bram Stoker

Robert Sherard Bradford Pearse

The Hon the Rev George Daubeney Walter Sickert

Charles Brookfield David McMuirtree

Alphonse Byrd

CHAPTER THREE

The Game

Byrd’s dinner was exemplary. I noted down the wines in my journal especially: with the fish, an extraordinarily silky white Burgundy; with the beef, an 1888 Margaux so mellow that even Charles Brookfield conceded it had ‘merit’. Absurdly, with the brandy, port and liqueurs, Oscar insisted that Byrd also serve a carafe of ‘Vin Mariani’, a curious concoction, the colour of dung, made from cheap Bordeaux wine treated with coca leaves.

‘What’s this?’ Brookfield asked as Byrd offered him a glass.

‘It’s not compulsory,’ said Oscar from his end of the table. He had the gift of being able to listen to several conversations simultaneously.

‘But what is it?’ insisted Brookfield. ‘It looks disgusting.’

‘It’s a cordial favoured by His Holiness the Pope,’ Oscar explained.

‘Well, we’re not in Rome now,’ said Brookfield, waving Byrd away and reaching for the port decanter.

‘Nor in Oporto,’ murmured Oscar. ‘I asked Byrd to serve the Mariani in honour of Dr Doyle. I believe the beverage contains cocaine. I thought Arthur might care to introduce it to his friend, Sherlock Holmes.’

Conan Doyle laughed obligingly. ‘I’d better try a glass then.’

‘Her Majesty the Queen is apparently partial to it, also,’ said Oscar.

‘Never mind the wine, Wilde,’ said Brookfield, turning his port glass slowly in his hand, ‘What about this game of yours?’

‘Oh yes, Oscar,’ cried Bosie, ‘Let’s play the game!’

‘Are you sure it’s a good idea, Oscar?’ asked Conan Doyle, leaning towards Oscar while casting his eyes in the direction of the ‘delicate-minded’ Willie Hornung.

Oscar addressed the table. ‘Arthur has reservations about our game, gentlemen. Last month we played “Mistresses” – and the good doctor felt unable to participate.’

‘I did not feel it was seemly,’ said Conan Doyle quietly.

‘It was most unseemly, as I recall,’ said Sickert. ‘I think that was the idea.’ He turned to his neighbour, McMuirtree, the boxer, to explain. ‘Oscar invited us all to select the mistress of our choice. As I recall, he picked Joan of Arc.’

‘What has this to do with Socrates?’ enquired Brookfield, helping himself to a further libation of port.

‘Socrates taught us that the greatest way to live with honour in this world is to be what we pretend to be.’

‘I don’t follow you,’ said Brookfield.

‘Oh, but you do, Charles,’ said Oscar, ‘in everything.’

‘Come on,’ cried Bosie. ‘Let’s play the game!’

‘Very well,’ said Oscar. He looked towards Conan Doyle and whispered, with a kindly smile: ‘It’s only a game, Arthur.’

‘Very well,’ said Conan Doyle, nodding to Oscar and patting the back of Willie Hornung’s hand by way of offering his young friend reassurance. ‘Half a glass of this Mariani wine of yours, Oscar, and I seem to be up for anything.’

‘Good man,’ said Oscar, getting to his feet. He stood quite steadily at the head of the table and, with an amused eye, surveyed the thirteen of us seated before him. ‘“Murder” is the name of our game this evening. It was Socrates who first suggested that death may be the greatest of all human blessings, and tonight, gentlemen, we are to visit that blessing upon the victims of our choice. Do I make myself clear?’

There was a general murmur of assent.

‘Does everyone here have a pen or pencil about his person?’ Oscar asked.

Brookfield muttered to his neighbour, ‘We’re in the schoolroom now, are we?’

Oscar went on: ‘Mr Byrd will pass around the table presently and give each of you a slip of paper and, should you require it, a writing implement. Onto your blank slip of paper – unseen by your neighbours – you are invited to write down the name of the person or persons you would most like to murder.’

‘I like this game,’ boomed Bradford Pearse. ‘What’s the name of the theatre critic on the Era?’

‘When you have written down your victim’s name,’ Oscar continued, ‘Byrd will pass around the table once more, collecting your slips of paper and placing them safely in this collection bag.’ He held up a small plum-coloured velvet bag, the size of a hand. ‘He will then, on my instruction, draw out the slips of paper, at random, one by one, and read out each name in turn. Our task then, gentlemen, will be to work out who wishes to murder whom.’

‘And why,’ suggested Charles Brookfield, licking the tip of his pencil.

‘Indeed,’ said Oscar. ‘And why.’

‘Will you be playing, too, Mr Chairman?’ enquired Lord Drumlanrig. ‘Are you allowed to choose a victim, also?’

‘Naturally,’ said Oscar, sitting down, taking his fountain pen out of his coat pocket and subscribing his victim’s name to his slip of paper with the deliberation of a statesman signing an international treaty. ‘There is nothing quite like an unexpected death for lifting the spirits.’

While we wrote the names of our proposed victims on the small slips of paper provided to us by Alphonse Byrd, a curious hush fell upon the room. I wrote down the name of my victim-of-choice instantly, without giving the matter much consideration. I then looked about the table and watched the others. Most appeared rapt in concentration, like students taking an exam by candlelight. Bosie was sucking on his pencil, apparently much amused by the thought of who was to be his victim. Bradford Pearse, the actor, was contemplating whatever he had written with what seemed like wary satisfaction. Wat Sickert looked to me to be drawing a sketch of his victim. Like Bosie, Sickert was evidently amused by his choice of prey. Everyone – even the cynical and supercilious Brookfield and mild-mannered Willie Hornung – gave the impression of total absorption in the task in hand. Only Arthur Conan Doyle looked disengaged. He held his pen, unopened, in his left hand and stared vacantly ahead of him, fixing his empty gaze between Lord Drumlanrig and Bram Stoker on the blank wall beyond.

‘Suddenly it’s quiet as a graveyard in here,’ whispered McMuirtree.

‘Oh,’ said Sickert, smiling slyly, ‘I can hear the Angel of Death flapping her wings.’

Oscar looked up. ‘Nowhere is there more true feeling, and nowhere worse taste, than in a graveyard,’ he said.

Bosie suppressed a giggle. ‘That’s very good, Oscar. Is it one of yours?’

Oscar was folding his slip of paper in two and placing it in the collection bag. ‘It deserves to be,’ he said, ‘but it isn’t, I’m afraid. I first heard it in Oxford years ago. At Balliol, more’s the pity.’ He held up the velvet bag for Byrd to take it from him. ‘Are we all done?’ he asked.

‘We are,’ boomed Bradford Pearse.

‘This is rather fun,’ said Willie Hornung, polishing his pince-nez with a corner of his napkin.

‘I’m glad you are having a happy evening, Willie,’ said Oscar. ‘Help yourself to another glass of Mariani wine.’

When Byrd had been around the table and each of us had placed his folded slip of paper into the collection bag, Oscar took a teaspoon and clinked it against the side of his brandy glass. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘the moment is upon us. If your glasses are all charged and your cigars are lit, we shall proceed with the game.’ He turned to Byrd who was standing at his right shoulder. ‘Mr Byrd, if you would be so kind, please draw the first slip from the bag and read out the name thereon inscribed.’

Byrd pulled back his cuff – as a magician might to show his audience nothing was concealed up his sleeve – and plunged his hand into the bag. He let us see his fingers rummaging about inside the bag and then, with a self-conscious flourish, pulled out a slip of paper and held it close to his eyes.

‘This is fun,’ repeated Willie Hornung, sitting forward in his place.

Oscar smiled at the young man and then looked up at Alphonse Byrd. ‘Mr Byrd,’ he said, ‘be so kind, would you, as to read out the name of our first murder victim?’

Byrd scrutinised the paper in his hand and looked out across the room. The night-manager of the Cadogan Hotel was not an impressive figure – he had the stooped shoulders and watery eyes of a man defeated by life – but he had once been a professional performer and in that brief moment, holding the slip of paper in one hand and his magician’s bag in the other, he commanded our attention with an authority that even the great Robert-Houdin might have envied.

Oscar killed the moment. ‘Byrd,’ he snapped, ‘we’ve heard the pin drop. Read out the name.’

Flinching momentarily, as though Oscar had suddenly struck him across the ear, Byrd did as he was bidden. ‘The first victim is to be “Miss Elizabeth Scott-Rivers”,’ he announced.

The silence in the room that, a moment before, had been so expectant - exhilarating, almost - now became uncomfortable. Every one of us present was familiar with the name of Elizabeth Scott-Rivers. Miss Scott-Rivers was the unhappy bride-to-be abandoned a week before her wedding day by the Hon the Reverend George Daubeney, my particular guest at the Socrates Club dinner that night. She was the jilted maiden – an heiress and the only child of elderly parents who had predeceased her – who had gained the sympathy of the public, and the braying approbation of the press, when, in the High Court of Chancery, she had sued her former fiancé for breach of promise, won her case and brought the wretched man to his knees and the brink of financial ruin.

‘Well, well . . .’ said Oscar with a sigh. Conan Doyle put his fingers to his eyes and shook his head. George Daubeney was seated on my right. I rested my hand on his arm. ‘Next!’ commanded Oscar.

Suddenly, violently, Daubeney pulled his arm away from me and got to his feet, knocking over a glass of the absurd Mariani cordial in the process. ‘I’m so sorry, gentlemen,’ he blurted out. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking of. I despise the woman. I hate her. But I wish her no harm. I should not have introduced her name to this game like this. It was inexcusable. May God forgive me. May you forgive me. I have drunk too much.’

Oscar raised his right hand and held it aloft, like a bishop pronouncing the blessing. ‘Be seated, George. Calm yourself. You can’t have had more than a glass.’

I put out my hand and took Daubeney’s arm once more. I pulled him back into his chair. ‘I’m a fool,’ he muttered. ‘A bloody idiot.’

‘Come,’ said Oscar briskly, ‘let us go on. And please remember, gentlemen, that the aim of the game is for the rest of us to guess who has chosen whom as a victim, not for the putative perpetrator of the crime to offer an immediate confession.’ Daubeney sat, in heavy silence, gazing disconsolately at his empty glass. ‘Byrd,’ said Oscar, ‘draw out the next victim’s name if you please.’

Byrd produced a second slip of paper from his bag and read out the name, this time with rather less ceremony. ‘“Lord Abergordon”,’ he said.

‘Who?’ asked Heron-Allen.

Byrd repeated the name: ‘Lord Abergordon.’

‘A curious choice,’ said Oscar, taking a sip of brandy.

‘Who is he?’ asked Sickert.

‘We neither know nor care,’ boomed Bradford Pearse.

‘He’s an elderly and obscure member of the government, I believe,’ said Bram Stoker.

‘He won’t be much of a loss then,’ said Heron-Allen, with a wry smile.

‘Very droll, Edward,’ murmured Oscar. ‘You’re getting the idea. Next, if you will, Mr Byrd – kindly maintain the momentum.’

Byrd produced the third slip of paper, and smiled, and read out the name: ‘“Captain Flint”.’

‘That’s more like it,’ said Oscar.

‘Who’s Captain Flint?’ asked Willie Hornung.

‘The hotel parrot,’ said Bosie. ‘He’s the moth-eaten creature who sits in that cage by the porter’s desk. He’s impertinent and garrulous and deserves everything that’s coming to him. I wanted to murder my father, of course, but Oscar said I couldn’t, at least not on a Sunday, so I chose the parrot instead.’

Oscar turned to his handsome young friend and reprimanded him. ‘Bosie, you have now spoilt what was a most excellent choice. The object of the game is not for you to reveal who is your intended victim. It is for the rest of us to guess.’ He turned back to Byrd. ‘On, man, on!’

Byrd produced a fourth slip of paper from the velvet bag and read out the name with a flourish. ‘“Mr Sherlock Holmes”,’ he said.

‘That’s much more like it!’ cried Oscar.

‘I agree,’ said Conan Doyle.

‘On, on, Byrd! Don’t dawdle, man. Give us the next name.’

The night-manager had the fifth slip ready. He looked at it and hesitated.

‘Well?’ said Oscar.

‘“Mr Bradford Pearse”,’ said Byrd.

‘Oh?’ said Bradford Pearse, with a shallow laugh, ‘Someone here wants me out of the way . . .’

A courteous rumble of dissent went round the table. Conan Doyle spoke up. ‘This game is not amusing, Oscar,’ he said.

‘It’s not the game that isn’t amusing,’ said Oscar smoothly. ‘It was Pearse’s Fabian that failed to entertain – alas! It’s a devil of a part. Several of the critics said poor Pearse deserved to be shot . . .’ Oscar smiled benignly at the unfortunate actor. ‘It’s only a game, Bradford,’ he said gently. Pearse nodded and shrugged his shoulders and reached for the decanter of brandy. Oscar turned back to the hotel night-manager. ‘Onward, Mr Byrd. We’re almost half-way. Who is our next victim to be?’

Byrd had the next slip of paper already in his hand. ‘“Mr David McMuirtree”,’ he announced.

‘Goodness me,’ said Willie Hornung.

‘This must stop, Oscar,’ said Conan Doyle, sharply. ‘Enough’s enough. Mr Pearse and Mr McMuirtree are our guests. They have come here to be entertained – not threatened with murder, even in jest.’

‘I don’t take it personally,’ whispered McMuirtree from the far end of the table.

‘Really?’ murmured Charles Brookfield. He was seated directly facing McMuirtree. He looked him in the eye. ‘What other way is there to take it?’ he asked.

‘As our chairman says,’ answered McMuirtree, turning away from Brookfield and looking towards Oscar, ‘it’s only a game.’

‘Thank you, Mr McMuirtree,’ said Oscar, raising his brandy glass in the boxer’s direction. ‘We green-carnation men understand one another.’

Conan Doyle growled unhappily and shook his head. Oscar leant towards the good doctor.

‘Don’t look so serious, Arthur. Humanity takes itself far too seriously as it is. Seriousness is the world’s original sin. If the cavemen had known how to laugh, history would have been very different - and so much jollier. Come, Byrd, who’s next?’

The night-manager stood before us and plunged his hand into the bag once more. He produced another slip of paper.

‘Read it out,’ said Oscar.

‘“Mr David McMuirtree”,’ said Byrd.

‘Again?’ asked Heron-Allen, seeming suddenly to wake from a reverie.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Byrd. ‘Again.’

‘Pull out another one,’ commanded Oscar. ‘Let’s get on with it.’

‘What number is this?’ asked Bosie.

‘This is the eighth, Lord Alfred,’ said Byrd, holding the next piece of paper in front of him.

‘Whose name is it this time?’ asked Oscar.

‘It is the same name, I am afraid,’ said Byrd. ‘“Mr David McMuirtree”.’

‘Stop this, Oscar,’ protested Conan Doyle. ‘Stop this now!’

‘No,’ rasped McMuirtree. ‘I’m not put out, I assure you. It really does not matter.’

‘Quite right, Mr McMuirtree,’ said Oscar, ‘Nothing that actually occurs is of the smallest importance.’ He delivered the aphorism lightly (it was one of his favourites), but I was watching him as he spoke and I saw the anxiety in his eyes. ‘Come, Byrd, continue,’ he said crisply. ‘We are nearly there. Three of us seem inclined to murder Mr McMuirtree. Let’s see if there is to be a fourth. Draw out the next name, if you will.’

Byrd did as he was asked. He held the slip closer to his eyes and paused.

‘Well?’ asked Bosie.

‘“Mr David McMuirtree”,’ said Byrd once again.

‘“Ask not for whom the bell tolls . . .”’ murmured Oscar, furrowing his brow and raising his glass once more in the direction of McMuirtree. ‘Let’s have the next one, Byrd,’ he added. ‘We’re too steeped in blood to turn back now. I’m sure McMuirtree agrees.’

McMuirtree inclined his head towards Oscar and smiled.

‘It’s decent of you to be so obliging,’ said Conan Doyle.

‘Who’s next?’ said Oscar.

Byrd drew another slip of paper from his bag.

McMuirtree, from the far end of the table, looked towards him and enquired quietly, ‘Well?’

‘The next victim is “Old Father Time”,’ announced Mr Byrd.

‘That’s more like it,’ said Bram Stoker, gently banging the table with the flat of his hand to indicate his approval.

‘Not so exciting though,’ said Bosie. ‘Perhaps I should have named my father, after all.’ He turned to his brother, seated on his left. Lord Drumlanrig was lighting a cigar. ‘Why didn’t you choose our father as your victim, Francis? You loathe him as much as I do and you stand to gain more from the inheritance.’

‘Lord Drumlanrig may well have selected the Marquess of Queensberry as his victim, Bosie,’ said Oscar, placing his fingers lightly on the back of his young friend’s right hand. ‘Byrd still has three names to reveal.’ He turned back to the club secretary. ‘Who’s next?’

Byrd was ready, slip of paper in hand. ‘The next victim is “Eros”,’ he announced.

‘Eros?’ asked Willie Hornung, putting down his glass of Vin Mariani and looking about the table with a bright-eyed innocence that was endearing. ‘Does Eros count? He is a mythical Greek god, isn’t he?’

‘If you can murder Time,’ said Oscar, ‘I imagine you can destroy a myth. In fact, I know men who have done both. I think Eros is a permissible victim within the rules of the game, Willie. Continue, Byrd.’

‘Yes,’ said Brookfield, who now appeared quite bloated with drink. ‘Let’s have done with it. Who’s next for the chop?’

Alphonse Byrd felt inside the bag and pulled out a slip of paper. He held it to his eyes and looked puzzled. He turned it over and examined it more closely. ‘It’s blank, Mr Wilde,’ he said, passing the paper to Oscar.

Oscar held it lightly between his thumb and forefinger. ‘So it is, Byrd. Nothing will come of nothing. Next, please!’

‘This is the penultimate slip of paper, I believe,’ said Byrd.

‘Get on with it!’ jeered Brookfield.

The club secretary cleared his throat before reading out the name: ‘“Mr Oscar Wilde”.’

There was laughter around the table. Stoker banged his right hand repeatedly on the cigar-box to show his approval. Even Conan Doyle smiled. Oscar acknowledged the mocking ovation with a seated bow. ‘I suppose it was inevitable,’ he muttered, ‘though I’m sorry that my name should have been the thirteenth to be drawn. Come, Mr Byrd, let’s name the final victim and be done.’

Byrd, who was now standing at the side of the table, behind Willie Hornung and Conan Doyle, put his hand into his small velvet bag for the final time. He drew out the paper and looked at it. He sniffed and brushed the back of his knuckles against his mouth.

‘Come on, man,’ cried Brookfield from his corner, ‘What does it say?’

‘It says, “Mr Oscar Wilde”,’ said Byrd. He spoke quietly and then shook his head and placed the paper and the bag on the table and looked towards Oscar. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Wilde.’

‘Goodness,’ cried Oscar, grinning. ‘I’m almost as unpopular as McMuirtree. I’m not sure whether to be gratified or appalled.’

‘Welcome to the club, Mr Wilde,’ said McMuirtree, with a husky laugh.

‘It’s only a game,’ grunted Bradford Pearse.

‘Indeed,’ said Oscar, amiably.

Arthur Conan Doyle was leaning across Edward Heron-Allen, holding the last of the slips of paper Byrd had drawn from the bag. He peered at it intently. ‘It’s not a game any more,’ he said.

‘It’s only a joke, Arthur,’ said Bosie through a cloud of cigar smoke. ‘Oscar can take a joke.’

‘I think the joke is over,’ said Conan Doyle, getting to his feet. He moved to the head of the table and, putting his arm over Oscar’s shoulder, held the slip of paper out before him. ‘The name of this last “victim” . . . the name that’s written here . . . Look at it carefully, Oscar. What does it say?’

Oscar studied the piece of paper that Conan Doyle held before him and read the words: ‘“Mrs Oscar Wilde”.’

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* ‘to concentrate on objectives at length, without wearying’.