3 JANUARY 1890
“It is a humiliating confession,” said Oscar, extinguishing one cigarette beneath his right foot while simultaneously lighting another, “but we are all of us made out of the same stuff.” We were standing at the north end of Baker Street, outside the railway station, about to cross the road. My friend drew on his fresh cigarette with deep satisfaction. “The more one analyses people,” he continued, “the more all reasons for analysis disappear. Sooner or later, one comes to that dreadful universal thing called human nature.”
“What is your point, Oscar?” I asked. It was eleven o’clock on the morning after the night of Constance’s birthday dinner and my mind was not in a fit state to absorb fundamental truths about the universality of human nature.
“Because I know who murdered Billy Wood,” he said, blowing a small cloud of grey-white cigarette smoke into the cold January air. “Or, at least, I think I do.”
I gazed at him, amazed. “What are you telling me, Oscar?”
“It’s all down to human nature. We’re all made of the same stuff. We’re all motivated by the same impulses—you, me, the murderer…”
“And you know who it is? You know who murdered Billy Wood?”
“I believe I do,” he said, smiling slyly, “thanks in large part to something you said last night, Robert…”
“Something I said?”
“But, as yet, I have no proof—and it’s proof we’re after now.”
“Come, man,” I expostulated, “spill the beans—spit it out. Whom do you believe the murderer to be?”
“Not yet, Robert—”
“What do you mean, ‘Not yet, Robert’? You can’t leave me in suspense like this!”
“Oh, but I can, Robert, and I must.” We stepped into the busy roadway, Oscar forging a path between a milk-float and an omnibus. “Suspense is everything!” he cried. “Only the banal—only the bearded and the bald—live for the here-and-now. You and I, Robert, we live for the future, do we not? We live in anticipation.” We weaved our way through the traffic, Oscar raising his voice in competition with the rumble of wheels and the clatter of hooves. “We live for the promise of delights only dreamt of, of sweets not yet savoured, of books as yet unwritten and unread.” At last, we reached the safety of the pavement on the other side. At the kerb’s edge, leaning against a lamp-post, was a street urchin—a friendly-faced lad of twelve or thirteen—who raised his cap to us. Oscar nodded to the boy and handed him sixpence. “We are grateful for our memories, of course. What’s past sustains us. But it’s what’s to come that drives us on.”
“Is it?” I asked, unnerved by our crossing and bewildered by his flow of words.
“It is. It is the pursuit of Miss Sutherland that excites you, Robert. The chase is everything. Once you have achieved her, what then?”
I said nothing. Oscar put his arm through mine and turned us northwards, in the direction of Regent’s Park. “Mon ami,” he said, “when I am certain who is the murderer—certain beyond doubt—I shall tell you. I shall tell no-one before I tell you, I promise. At present, all I am truly certain of is that I shall unravel this mystery before our friend Fraser does.”
“I thought you said last night that from now on you were going to leave the detective work to him.”
“Did I say that? I don’t think I did. But if I did, that was then and this is now, and now I’m saying something different. Who wants to be consistent? Only the dull and the doctrinaire—the tedious people who carry through their principles to the bitter end of action, to the reductio ad absurdum of practice. Not I!”
“You are on song this morning,” I remarked, marvelling at my friend’s energy and resilience. He could have had no more than five hours’ sleep.
“Am I?” he said cheerfully. “If I am, I have you and Conan Doyle to thank for that. Last night was not easy for any of us, but you came up trumps—”
“I did nothing.”
“You did more than you realise. As I said to John Gray at breakfast, ‘Sherard is a true friend’—and there’s something about Conan Doyle, despite his hideous handshake, that lifts the spirit.”
“He is a decent man,” I said.
“He is a genius,” said Oscar. “He left me a copy of the story he has just completed—The Sign of Four. It is a little masterpiece. Sherlock Holmes is my inspiration!”
I laughed. “Is that why we have come to Baker Street?”
“No, Robert, we are going to the zoo. We are on our way to interview Gerard Bellotti.”
“At the zoo?”
“It is Monday, is it not? Bellotti is always at the zoological garden in Regent’s Park on a Monday morning. He is a creature of habits—few of them good ones.”
“What does he do at the zoo on Mondays?”
“What he does at the skating-rink on Thursdays and the Alhambra or the Empire on Saturdays—he scouts for boys.”
As all the world knows, on 25 May 1895, at the Central Criminal Court at London’s Old Bailey, Oscar Wilde was found guilty of committing acts of gross indecency with other men and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with hard labour. The trial judge, Mr. Justice Wills, described the case as the worst he had ever heard, accusing Oscar of being “dead to all sense of shame” and “the centre of a circle of extensive corruption of the most hideous kind among young men.”
Bellotti’s “boys” were the type of young men of whom Mr. Justice Wills was speaking—that I must accept. What I do not accept, however, is that Oscar was ever the centre of any circle of corruption. He cultivated the company of young men—he revelled in their youth—but he did not corrupt them. He reverenced them. Whether they were always worthy of his adoration is another matter. Several of those who gave evidence against him at his trial were young men whom he had treated as friends—and who repaid that friendship with false testimony bought at a price. (From the spring to the summer of 1895, every one of the prosecution witnesses in the case of Regina v. Wilde was paid a retainer of £5 a week.)
In a conversation with me some time after Oscar’s death, Arthur Conan Doyle likened what he called “our friend’s pathological obsession with masculine youth and beauty” to his creation Sherlock Holmes’s addiction to morphine and cocaine. “In my experience,” said Conan Doyle, “great men are frequently shot through with an obsessive or addictive strain that may seem aberrant—even abhorrent—to the rest of us. It does not diminish their greatness. It may make us more aware of their humanity.” If, on occasion, in moments of weakness, in the privacy of a darkened room, Oscar succumbed to the sins of the flesh, so be it. It happened. It was his way. It does not make him a corrupter of youth. I knew Oscar from the time he was twenty-eight until the time of his death: you must believe me when I tell you he was a gentleman in the fullest, best, and truest sense of the word. As Conan Doyle has written in his own memoir,* “Never in Wilde’s conversation did I observe one trace of coarseness of thought.” Nor did I.
The same could not be said of Gerard Bellotti.
We found Bellotti in the monkey house, eating peanuts. He was cracking open the shells between his teeth and spitting the nuts through the bars into the monkeys’ enclosure.
“Bread and bread, these two,” he said as we approached. He did not turn to greet us. “I thought they might take a fancy to one another, but they haven’t. Fighting like cats. That’s monkeys for you.” He gave a small high-pitched laugh and held out his paper bag of peanuts in our direction. “Care for one?”
“No, thank you,” I said. “I’ve breakfasted.”
“Oh ho, Mr. Wilde, your friend has a lively sense of humour. We like that in a man, don’t we?” Oscar said nothing. “Mr. Wilde has a lovely sense of humour,” Bellotti added, shifting his huge bulk slightly but still keeping his gaze fixed firmly ahead of him. The monkeys—long, lanky, ugly creatures, with low-slung pot-bellies and shaggy coats, grey-haired and moth-eaten—swung wildly around their cage, squealing and screeching as they went. Bellotti’s head did not follow their movements, but he seemed to know what they were doing nonetheless. One of the animals came to rest immediately in front of him, lying on its back, scratching itself against the ground. “Nice pencils they have,” murmured Bellotti. “I like a well-endowed monkey, don’t you?”
“These are spider monkeys,” said Oscar, “and these are females of the species.”
“Surely not?” said Bellotti, turning in our direction for the first time. There was a milky-white translucent film across his eyes and his blackened teeth were decorated with shards of peanut shell. His sallow skin was faintly pock-marked and, beneath his boater, the tight curls of his henna-coloured hair glistened with oil and perspiration. He was not a pretty sight.
“The elongated sexual organ of the female spider monkey is often confused with that of the male. Do not trouble yourself, Mr. Bellotti. It is a common mistake.”
I laughed. “How on earth do you know this, Oscar?”
Oscar smiled. “I have read Mycroft on monkeys. It is the standard text. My reading extends beyond Sophocles and Baudelaire, you know.”
Bellotti sniffed and stuffed his paper bag of nuts into his pocket. He pinched his nose and closely studied his thumb and forefinger as he rubbed them together lightly. “I take it you’ve come about Billy Wood,” he said. “I’ve heard the news. It is very sad. He was a bright boy, one of the best. You were especially fond of him, Mr. Wilde, I know. My condolences.”
“Who told you?” asked Oscar, moving a half-step closer to Bellotti and at the same time indicating to me I should take a written note of what was to follow.
“O’Donnell,” said Bellotti, “the uncle.”
Oscar raised an eyebrow. “When was this?”
“Just before Christmas. He was drunk—and abusive. Made all sorts of threatening noises. Demanded money, the usual thing. I sent him on his way.”
“Did you give him anything?”
“Advice, that’s all. But good advice. I told him to leave the country—return to Canada or go to France. He speaks French of a sort—when he’s sober enough to speak at all. I’ve not heard from him since. Have you, Mr. Wilde?”
“No,” said Oscar quietly. He seemed suddenly distracted, in a reverie, thinking of something other than what Bellotti was saying—though with a brief nod of his head he indicated to me that I should continue to take notes.
“I believe he may have killed the boy himself,” said Bellotti, now peering at a grubby thumbnail as he used it to push back his cuticles, “though he denied it. And vehemently. With more threats and vile abuse. Of course, he could have murdered the poor boy in a drunken rage and clean forgotten that he had done so.”
“In that case, wouldn’t the body have been discovered by now?” I asked.
“Not necessarily. I imagine it happened in Broadstairs. Having killed the boy, he disposed of the body at sea. Or maybe he drowned him in the first place—pushed him off the cliff at Viking Bay or flung him off the end of the pier. I don’t know. I do know Billy Wood couldn’t swim.”
“How do you know that?” asked Oscar, snapping back from his reverie.
“I took him to the baths in Fulham once, Mr. Wilde. With Mr. Upthorpe. Billy told me he couldn’t swim. He told me he had a horror of water. He got it from his mother, he said.”
“Why did O’Donnell come to you at all?” I asked.
“He came for money. He came for Billy’s wages.”
“Billy’s wages?” I asked. Gerard Bellotti was slowly pushing ajar a window on a world with which I was entirely unfamiliar.
“The wages go to the guardian. The tips and presents go directly to the boy. Mr. Wilde gave Billy a beautiful cigarette case—did you not, Mr. Wilde? It carried a charming inscription, I recall. Billy was proud of it—rightly so.”
Oscar said nothing. (I thought nothing of the cigarette case at the time—or later. Oscar was absurdly generous with his gifts. He was particularly partial to presenting his friends with inscribed cigarette cases. Over the years, he gave me three.) “Was O’Donnell the boy’s guardian?” I asked.
“He was his uncle. And his mother’s lover, as I understand it. He was the one who first brought the boy to me, in any event. It was just a year ago. I assume he had the mother’s blessing. I assume they shared the wages. Billy was properly paid—and enjoyed the work. He took to it. He was a natural, wasn’t he, Mr. Wilde?”
“I did not realise that you paid him, Mr. Bellotti,” said Oscar coldly.
“Did you not, Mr. Wilde?”
“I gave the matter no thought, I am ashamed to say.”
“A labourer is worthy of his hire, is he not, Mr. Wilde? And modelling is onerous work—especially when you’re working for an artist as particular as our Mr. Aston Upthorpe.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know his work,” I said.
“You wouldn’t,” said Oscar with a hollow laugh. “And I don’t believe Edward O’Donnell murdered Billy Wood. Why should he—if, as you say, Billy earned him a weekly wage? Why slaughter your own milch-cow?”
“I’m not saying he did, Mr. Wilde. I’m saying he might have done. He has the temperament. He’s a violent man at the best of times, and when he’s in drink…All I’m saying is it’s possible—you’ll grant me that? And assuming the boy was already dead when you and your friend came to see me, Mr. Wilde—you remember, at the skating-rink?—assuming Billy was dead by then—”
“He was,” said Oscar.
“Well,” said Bellotti, “then O’Donnell was, as far as I know, the last man to see the boy alive.”
“What?” exclaimed Oscar. “What are you saying?”
The monkeys in their cage whooped and screeched as Gerard Bellotti looked up towards us with a devilish smile. He lifted his straw boater and took a yellow handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow. He was evidently elated by the effect on Oscar of the intelligence he had just let slip.
“You both came to see me on a Thursday, did you not?”
“Yes,” said Oscar, “on two September.”
“And you asked me when I had last seen Billy Wood?”
“And you told us first it was on the day before,” I said, “and then corrected yourself and said it was on the Tuesday.”
“It was on Tuesday, thirty-first of August, was it not?” asked Oscar. “You told us Billy had been at one of your ‘club lunches’ and you always hold your lunches on the last Tuesday in the month.”
“That’s right, Mr. Wilde—you remember. You’ve been to one or two of them yourself, of course—not for a while, I know, and not since we moved to Little College Street.”
“O’Donnell was not at the lunch, surely?”
“Naturally not,” said Bellotti with a splutter of disgust. “But the point, Mr. Wilde, is this. Billy left the lunch early in order to meet up with him. At two o’clock, on the dot, Billy got to his feet and asked to be excused. I can see the boy now—in my mind’s eye. He was wearing a sailor-suit. Very fetching. He said he had an important appointment with his uncle. He told us he was looking forward to it. He said he had shaved especially, I remember. We all laughed at that—given he was so young. He stood at the door and took his leave of us with a little naval salute. He was a lovely lad. That was the last I saw of him.”
“And you say it was two o’clock?”
“To the minute. We heard Big Ben strike.”
“And within two hours the poor boy was dead,” said Oscar, “murdered in cold blood—not in Broadstairs, but in a perfumed room not two streets away.”
“Now you are telling me what I did not know,” said Bellotti, mopping his face with his yellow handkerchief. The monkey house was hot and airless.
“Who else was at the lunch?” asked Oscar.
“All the regulars—Mr. Upthorpe, Mr. Tirrold, Mr. Prior, Mr. Talmage—Canon Courteney, of course—and a couple of other boys.”
“No strangers?”
“No strangers.”
“I must meet them,” said Oscar. He looked at me, indicating that it was time for us to take our leave. “We must piece together all the details of Billy Wood’s final hours. We must talk to those who saw him last.”
“Come to our next lunch,” said Bellotti, holding out his hands, palms upwards, by way of invitation. “They’ll all be there. I’ll make sure of that. Bring your friend, Mr. Wilde. He’ll be most welcome.”
“Thank you,” said Oscar.
“Little College Street, Number 22. Any time from twelve. I take it you’ve still got your key?”
“But you’ve moved, haven’t you?” said Oscar.
“Different address. Same lock. Canon Courteney’s idea.” Bellotti raised his boater in my direction. “It’s always the last Tuesday in the month. Be sure to breakfast lightly. We lay on a good spread, don’t we, Mr. Wilde?”
“Indeed,” said Oscar without emotion. “Thank you, Mr. Bellotti.”
He made to leave. Bellotti returned his attention to the monkeys, feeling in his coat pocket for his bag of nuts. “You say they’re all females, Mr. Wilde?”
“Without question, Mr. Bellotti.”
The fat man shifted his bulk uneasily and shook his head ruminatively from side to side. “Appearances can be very deceptive,” he said with a small laugh.
“Indeed,” said Oscar. “Good-day.”
As we reached the door of the monkey house, it swung slowly open as if by magic. As we stepped through it, we saw that it was being held open by Bellotti’s dwarf. The ugly creature gazed up at us with ill-concealed contempt. Oscar threw a sixpenny piece at his feet.
When we reached the gates of the zoo itself, we found a hansom cab awaiting us, with, standing by it and holding open the cab-door, the street urchin with the friendly face who had touched his cap to us in Baker Street an hour before. As we clambered into the vehicle, Oscar turned to the lad and said, “Continue to keep an eye on them, Jimmy. They’re not to be trusted.”
As the hansom set off towards town, the boy stood on the roadside watching us, waving us on our way.
“Who is that?” I asked.
“One of my ‘spies,’” said Oscar. “One of the best.”