Oscar Wilde and the Nest of Vipers (41 page)

‘You gave him a message, too, to pass on to your wife?’

‘I did,’ said Conan Doyle. ‘I told him to tell her that I would be home tomorrow night – without fail.’

‘That’s quite possible, Arthur,’ said Oscar, amiably, patting his friend lightly on the knee. ‘Who knows what today will bring?’

‘Cheese straws at Marlborough House, I hope,’ said Conan Doyle, now mellowing. ‘I’m famished.’

‘We see the Prince at noon,’ said Oscar. ‘We are tackling Yarborough first and a keen appetite should sharpen your cross-examination of his lordship, Arthur. As you’re the medical man, I think you should lead for us on this. Don’t you agree, Robert?’

‘I agree, Oscar.’

I smiled. (Oscar never asks me to lead on anything, but I do not mind. I have become accustomed to my role. As Oscar says, ‘They also serve who only stand and wait to note down my quips for posterity.’)

‘I am ready,’ said Arthur, smoothing out his moustache with the sides of his forefingers.

The journey from Langham Place to 117 Harley Street took only a matter of minutes, but it was in vain. Lord Yarborough was not at home. His manservant was uncertain of his lordship’s whereabouts. When pressed, he conceded that the clinic at Muswell Hill was a possibility. He could not be certain. He advised us to leave our cards and wait for Lord Yarborough’s private secretary to contact us to make a proper appointment.

‘His lordship,’ he repeated several times, ‘is a very busy man.’

Our four-wheeler forged north, through Regent’s Park and St John’s Wood, up over Hampstead Heath, to Highgate and on to Muswell Hill.

As we travelled, Oscar smoked – and talked. By his own account, he had slept for no more than three hours
last night, and none the night before, but he had found the Savoy bath salts quite ‘transforming’. He was full of high energy and sly observation.

As we drove through St John’s Wood, he pointed to one of the new suburban villas and declared: ‘That’s the house where Lillie Langtry’s daughter was conceived. Ten years ago, when you, Robert, were being sent down from Oxford, and you, Arthur, were up in Greenland chasing whales, the Jersey Lillie gave birth to her firstborn, a lovely little girl. They say the father was Louis, Prince of Battenburg. Who knows? This entire avenue was built on the back of adultery – every house in it was commissioned by a man for his mistress. The one charm of modern marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary.’

‘I laugh, Oscar,’ said Conan Doyle, reprovingly, ‘but I do not condone.’

‘We need you at your most earnest, Arthur. We need you to put Yarborough to the test – and not take too long about it. We must set off for London again no later than eleven. We must not be late for the His Highness and your cheese straws.’

We reached the Charcot Clinic at just after ten. The village church clock was striking the hour as our four-wheeler turned into the carriage drive. The morning was bright – the sky was clear – and yet Muswell Manor, as we reached it, looked dismal and forbidding. The building is overshadowed by ancient lime trees and overgrown with vines. The upstairs windows all appeared shuttered and, downstairs, the curtains were drawn.

‘The house is all shut up,’ I exclaimed.

‘My God,’ cried Conan Doyle. ‘Has he fled?’

‘Or is he about to flee?’ asked Oscar, peering down the drive towards the house.

There, half obscured in the shadow of the building, in a corner of the forecourt, was a pony and trap and, standing by it, two figures, dressed in black. One was a young woman, heavily veiled, unrecognisable in full mourning; the other was the diminutive yet dapper figure of Lord Yarborough. With one hand he held the woman tightly by the arm; in his other hand he held a coachman’s whip.

‘Stop!’ cried Conan Doyle, jumping down from our moving four-wheeler as it drew up alongside the pony and trap. ‘In the name of the law, stop!’

‘What the devil do you mean, sir?’ answered Yarborough fiercely. ‘Explain yourself – and moderate your tone. This lady is not well.’

‘You may not leave,’ cried Conan Doyle, running up to Yarborough and his companion, and confronting them bodily, standing with his arms and legs akimbo to form a human barrier.

‘I may do as I please, sir,’ replied Yarborough coolly, lightly laying the tip of his whip on Doyle’s right shoulder. ‘I may have you thrown off my land as a trespasser if I so choose – and if I had not recognised you and your confederates, I’d do so without a second thought. What in God’s name is the meaning of this?’

‘You may not leave,’ repeated Conan Doyle, breathing heavily as he stood his ground. He glanced towards Oscar and me as we came up beside him.

‘I am not leaving, as it happens,’ said Lord Yarborough, nodding towards Oscar by way of greeting. ‘I am returning – with this young lady. She is not well. I had hoped
she would be fit enough to accompany me to town – to pay her final respects to her late sister. But I drove her as far as St James’s church in the village and it’s clear that the journey to Grosvenor Square would be too great a strain for her.’

Removing his whip from Conan Doyle’s shoulder, he turned to the woman at his side and, with both hands, carefully, lifted her veil from her face.

‘This is Louise Lascelles, younger sister to the late Duchess of Albemarle. You may recall that you met her when you were last here, Dr Doyle. You were in a calmer frame of mind that day.’

Conan Doyle stepped back and lowered his eyes. The young woman – pale-faced and beautiful, with round brown eyes and auburn hair – gazed steadily at him. Her feathery white cheeks were stained with tears.

‘She has been weeping,’ said Oscar.

‘Yes,’ said Lord Yarborough. ‘Uncontrollably. That’s why I brought her back. I was wrong to think of taking her in the first place.’

He looked at the girl dispassionately, as though he were inspecting a marble statue at the British Museum, then shook his head and pulled her black veil down over her face once more.

‘No,’ whispered Oscar. ‘Please. There’s no need.’

‘She does not see you,’ said Lord Yarborough, crisply. ‘Or, if she does, she is not aware of you. She is under hypnosis. She is in a trance.’

‘And yet she weeps,’ said Oscar.

‘Yes,’ answered Lord Yarborough.

‘And you cannot stop her.’

‘So it would seem. Hypnosis is an imperfect art.
Would it were a science. We have so much to learn about the treatment of hysteria, Mr Wilde. At this clinic, we are experimenting with hypnosis. Others are experimenting with the use of hallucinogenic drugs. In America, I am told, they are looking to pass an electric current through the skull of the patient to clear the madness from the brain. Who knows what’s best? Who knows what lies at the root of the disease? We need to find out. That’s why the research must go on – whatever the hazards.’

He turned to the young woman in black and took her by the arm.

‘Meanwhile, we must do what we can to safeguard the afflicted.’ He held out his whip to Conan Doyle, who took it from him. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I’ll return Louise to the house and then we can talk.’

Clasping the young woman by the elbow, he steered her away from our group towards the main entrance of the building. There, standing in the portico, the door to the house half open behind them, were two other women. One was an elderly nun (a nursing sister, I presumed), ruddy-faced and bespectacled. The other was a younger woman dressed in mourning: a black-velvet bustle dress with a loose-falling skirt draped up at the back and a tight-fitting, waisted jacket. A sheaf of black swan’s feathers swept from her imposing hat, but she wore no veil. She carried herself erect and gripped a large, white envelope in her black-gloved hands. She looked so formal and so elegant that she seemed quite out of place.

‘Do you know them?’ asked Oscar.

‘Sister Agnes is in charge of the asylum,’ said Conan
Doyle. ‘And the other lady is a patient, as I recall. I met her only briefly.’

We watched as Lord Yarborough escorted Louise Lascelles to the doorway and gave the young woman into the nun’s charge. She went without protest, as if in a dream.

‘She walks as if she were a sleepwalker,’ said Oscar.

The other patient, however, was anything but calm. The moment Lord Yarborough was within reach, she grabbed him by the arm. He tried to step aside, but she clung on. She pleaded with him. Her manner was pathetic – supplicatory, not irate. From what I could see, he spoke not a word to her, but shook his head repeatedly and, eventually, raising his arms, managed to break free.

As he turned back towards us, the woman followed him and caught his arm once more, pulling him to her. This time he looked directly at her and, suddenly, appeared to acquiesce to her demand. She laughed and, gratefully, pressed the white envelope she was holding into his hands. Stepping back, she made a deep curtsy in front of him, before finally turning to make her way into the house with Sister Agnes and Miss Lascelles.

Lord Yarborough watched the women go and then, briskly, walked back to us across the gravel courtyard where he reclaimed his whip from Arthur Conan Doyle.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

He threw the whip into the trap and slapped the pony on its flank, then looked at us enquiringly, one eyebrow raised, letting his beady eyes rest briefly on each of us in turn.

‘Dr Doyle, Mr Wilde, kinsman Sherard – what can I do for you, gentlemen?’

‘Answer some questions,’ said Conan Doyle, sharply.

‘If they are asked in a civil manner, I shall do so with pleasure.’

‘I sent you a telegram, Lord Yarborough,’ said Oscar. ‘You did not reply.’

‘I apologise. I am a very busy man. But you are here now and I am at your service. I’d invite you in, except that I am on my way to town and there has been a death at the asylum.’

Conan Doyle looked up at the shuttered house. ‘A death?’ he repeated.

‘A natural death,’ said Lord Yarborough. ‘An elderly patient. A woman in her eighties. She had been here many years. It is a sadness, not a tragedy.’

‘Is that why the curtains are all drawn?’ asked Oscar.

‘We keep the house in darkness on such days.’

‘Out of respect for the dead?’

‘No – to calm the nerves of the living. Death can unsettle us all. It can have a terrifying effect on those with troubled minds. At such times as this, we keep the patients subdued and pacified as best we can. We keep the house in darkness and encourage them to sleep. We give them laudanum – in small doses.’

Conan Doyle turned to Lord Yarborough. ‘How did the Duchess of Albemarle die?’ he asked.

Lord Yarborough did not seem surprised by the question and answered it at once – and simply: ‘From a heart attack – provoked by the dangerous game she was playing or was about to play; provoked by it, but not caused by it, in my opinion.’

‘With whom do you think she was playing this “dangerous game”?’

‘I have no idea. None whatsoever. It could be any one of a dozen men – or more. The duchess was liberal in her favours.’

‘Could it have been the duke?’ asked Oscar.

‘No. The duke and duchess were no longer on intimate terms and had not been for two years at least. She told me so quite frankly – and the duke, when drunk, would admit as much.’

‘It would have been one of her regular lovers—’ Oscar began.

‘Or a complete stranger,’ said Lord Yarborough, smiling. ‘It could have been
anyone,
Mr Wilde – a gentleman or a servant, someone well known to her or someone quite unknown. Anyone. Nympholepsis is the term we give her condition. It amounts to a lunatic desire for carnal relations with men – a desire, in the duchess’s case, sweetened by danger and made more exhilarating by the infliction of pain.’

‘The man will have used his knife on her at her behest?’

‘The pain was part of the pleasure, Mr Wilde. It may even have been her knife.’

‘He used it to cut her breasts,’ said Conan Doyle.

‘To mark them – to cause a sensation – to draw blood … If you examined her breasts, Doctor, you will have noticed how much they had been scarred. That episode in the telephone room was very far from being the first.’

‘The man cut her throat,’ said Conan Doyle.

‘For the thrill of it – at her suggestion.’

‘
He cut her throat,
’ repeated Conan Doyle. ‘Should he not be brought to justice?’

‘He did not kill the duchess,’ said Lord Yarborough
calmly. ‘He was her lover and in all that he did I am certain the duchess acquiesced. She was the instigator, not the victim.’

‘Are you certain of this?’ asked Oscar.

‘Absolutely. I was her doctor. She told me of her desires – without shame. She showed me her wounded breasts – with pride.’

‘Were you her lover?’ asked Conan Doyle.

‘No, sir. I was her physician.’

‘Were you her lover, Lord Yarborough?’

‘Do not presume to repeat the question, Dr Doyle. We have both sworn the Hippocratic oath.’

‘Do you remember it, Lord Yarborough?’

‘How dare you, sir?’

Lord Yarborough’s face was now whiter than ice. His small eyes narrowed; the veins in his neck and forehead began to pulse like the gorge of a toad. I saw his hands tremble, but they remained at his side – and his voice remained steady.

‘I have the oath by heart, from my student days, as I am sure you do. “Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and, in particular, of intimate relations with either female or male persons, be they free or slaves.”’

‘I repeat the question, Lord Yarborough. Were you her lover?’

Lord Yarborough suddenly looked up to the sky and laughed. ‘I almost admire your impertinence, Dr Doyle. I shall take it as an excess of zeal and shall put it down to youthful arrogance. And God knows why, but since you press me, and since, I take it, these exchanges are
confidential, I will tell you frankly: I am no woman’s lover – nor likely to be.’

He looked at the three of us in turn and smiled. ‘But whoever her lover was is beside the point, gentlemen. The Duchess of Albemarle’s lover is not guilty of her murder.’

‘But he is responsible for her death,’ said Oscar gently.