Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders (8 page)

‘His
right hand,’ repeated Oscar. ‘Are you certain of that?’

‘I
think so. I can’t recall. The hand itself was never found, despite an extensive
search. It’s still missing. Curious, that. Perhaps it will turn up tomorrow
night, amid the sherry and Italian cheeses. If it does, it’ll put a dampener on
the fund-raising, don’t you think?’

5

Via del Babuino

T
he
train journey to Rome lasted more than seven hours. We passed the time without
difficulty, talking, smoking, reading our books, dozing, or gazing out of the
window at the sun-drenched Tuscan countryside.

By the
time we had reached Bologna, Oscar had succeeded in establishing a rapport
with the Reverend Martin English. I did not listen intently to their conversation
(I gave my attention to Miss English), but I overheard, in passing, a spirited
exchange on the visions of St Teresa of Avila and the names of Thomas Aquinas,
Augustine of Hippo and Martin Luther, as well as those of Apollo, Aphrodite,
Artemis and assorted popes from St Pius to Leo XIII.

At
Florence, where the train stopped for twenty minutes, Oscar and English went
together in search of bread and Parma ham, fresh and dried fruit, and bottles
of wine and water. As they climbed back aboard with their supplies, the
clergyman said, ‘It is the most beautiful day, don’t you agree, Mr Wilde?’ and
Oscar replied, ‘Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel
certain they mean something else.’ We all laughed.

The
many charms of Catherine English quickly made me forget the horror of the
severed hand lurking in my jacket pocket. Of course, the young lady’s simple,
unaffected beauty was a delightful distraction in itself, but what really drew
me to her was her warmth of spirit. She had a sunny disposition and a generous
soul. She was also keenly intelligent and widely read. Could one ask for more
in a travelling companion? While Oscar and Martin English talked of theology
and theosophy, I told her of my adventures as a student in Edinburgh, of my
explorations in West Africa and of my time whaling in the Arctic Ocean. She
told me of her ‘mundane life’ as her brother’s housekeeper and of her twin
passions — for painting and for poetry. She had much poetry by heart. As our
train neared Rome, she recited for me three of her favourite poems by Mrs
Browning. On the
Milano— Roma diretto
on that long, hot day in late July
1892, I sensed that I had found a friend for life.

It was
early evening when finally we arrived in Rome. The city was dry and dusty, the
streets crowded with carts and carriages, cattle and oxen, horses, mules and
donkeys. Together with our new friends, we took a pony and trap from the
railway station to the Via del Babuino. On our route we passed the ancient
Colosseum where Oscar commanded our driver to halt his trap so that we might
pause and wonder at the ‘vast and wondrous monument’.

‘A
ruin,’ cried Oscar, ‘yet what a ruin!’

‘Gladiators
fought one another to the death here,’ observed the Reverend English. ‘And
those that showed insufficient courage in combat would have their hands cut off
when the day was done.’

‘How
horrible,’ cried his sister. ‘Can that be true?’

‘It was
the price they paid for lack of valour.’

Oscar
was shading his eyes and scanning the stone walls of the ancient amphitheatre.
‘This place has changed since I was last here,’ he muttered. ‘The flora has all
gone. The mosses, flowers, plants, bushes that adorned the ruins — they’ve been
stripped away. Nature has been usurped. The place has been “restored”. And
those people over there — they are not a motley band of beggars as I supposed.
They are tourists!’ He sank back in his seat and sighed despairingly. ‘It’s
true what I say: in this century we know the price of everything and the value
of nothing.
Avanti! Forza!
Drive on!’

The Via
del Babuino was a long and narrow street at the heart of the Eternal City’s English
and artistic quarter. It was cobbled and shaded, as well as noticeably cooler
and less dusty than the streets and squares near by. It had an unexpected
grandeur and boasted a fine pedigree. Rubens came here to die. Poussin painted
here in his prime — in a studio that now provided a spacious apartment for the
British
chargé d’affaires.
As well as residences for diplomats and
studios for more successful artists, the street also housed two grand hotels,
any number of
pensiones,
an English tea-room, a variety of
caffè
and
restaurants, a photographic studio, an assortment of shops selling
confectionery, stationery, artists’ materials and ladies’ fashions, in addition
to two churches — a late sixteenth-century Catholic church built for Rome’s
Greek community and, ten doors down from it, exactly halfway along the street,
the newly built Anglican church of All Saints.

‘Ah,’
cried Oscar, as our pony and trap drew up outside it, ‘a little touch of St
Pancras a stone’s throw from St Peter’s. I am very fond of red brick.’

‘It’s
beautiful inside,’ said Catherine English. ‘Let us show you.’

‘No,
dear lady, not tonight. We’re all exhausted.’ As I helped Miss English down
from the trap, her brother assisted Oscar. ‘Travel may improve the mind,’ said
my friend, ‘but it does terrible things to the body. I need a brandy, a bath
and bed.’

‘Your
hotel is at the end of the street,’ said Martin English, extending a civil hand
to each of us. ‘It’s no more than a hundred yards, if that.’

‘I
know,’ answered Oscar. ‘And these lads will carry our bags for us.’ He gave a
handful of small coins and some pieces of dried fruit to a pair of barefoot
urchins who were hovering close by. The lads pocketed their booty and saluted
him smartly. ‘Which of you is Romulus and which Remus, I wonder?’ They looked
up at him with grubby faces and grinned, uncomprehending. I gave the boys our
cases, while Oscar and English settled up with the driver.

I said
goodbye to Catherine English and felt — or imagined I felt — a special
pressure in her fingers as she took my hand.

‘Goodnight,
Dr Conan Doyle,’ she said. ‘Until eight o’clock tomorrow evening then. And you
must read us one of your stories, I insist.’

I bowed
and clicked my heels as the Englishes stepped up to the front door of the
church and took their leave of us. ‘We have a set of rooms behind the vestry,’
explained the clergyman, unlocking the door. ‘In time, we shall be given proper
accommodation, I dare say. Goodnight, gentlemen.’

‘Goodnight.’

When
they had gone, we turned and made our way down the street, our urchin
bag-carriers at our heels. Oscar, so weary as he had clambered out of the trap
a few minutes before, now seemed possessed of boundless energy.

‘What
did you make of our travelling companions?’ he demanded, lighting a cigarette
and looking sideways at me with mischief in his eyes.

‘Miss
English is enchanting,’ I said.

‘She is
an enchantress, certainly.’ He laughed. ‘She had you spellbound from the off. I
thought quoting Mrs Browning at a first encounter was possibly overstepping the
mark, but let that pass. She knows her business.’ I began to protest, but Oscar
swept on. ‘And what about the brother, Arthur? What did you make of him?’

‘I did
not care for him — to begin with. He is a puzzle.’

‘A mask
tells us so much more than a face,’ said Oscar, putting a hand on my shoulder.
It was one of his favourite lines. ‘This will prove a three-pipe problem,
Arthur, make no mistake.’ He paused.
‘Helloa!’
His right arm was in the
air and he was waving a raucous greeting across the street.
‘Helloa!’

‘Who’s
that?’ I asked.

‘The
fellow in the straw hat—I know him.’

As I
turned to look, a horse and carriage trotted by. When it had passed, all I
could see on the pavement opposite us were a pair of pale-faced priests wearing
birettas and a young washerwoman carrying a basket of laundry on her head.

‘He’s
gone,’ muttered Oscar, disconcerted. ‘Perhaps I was mistaken.’

‘Who
was it?’

‘A
friend from Oxford. I’m sure he caught my eye.

‘And
now he’s gone?’

‘If he
was ever there.’ He stood for a moment, gazing across the roadway and drawing
on his cigarette. ‘Perhaps it was a vision.’

‘It was
a man in a straw hat, you said, Oscar, not the Virgin Mary.’

‘God
moves in a mysterious way, Arthur. And we are in Rome …’ He threw his
cigarette into the gutter. ‘But you’re right, my friend. I’m seeing things.
It’s the heat.’ He pulled a piece of dried fruit from the paper bag in his
pocket, tore it in two, turned around and pushed a portion into each of the
gaping mouths of our young bag-carriers. ‘And we’re all faint with hunger. We
need to find somewhere to eat.’

‘We
need to find our hotel,’ I said.

‘Well,
we won’t find it here,’ exclaimed Oscar. ‘We’ve come the wrong way.

We had
reached the end of the Via del Babuino but the wrong end. The narrow street we
had come down had opened suddenly onto a wide square dominated by a curious
fountain built in the form of a sinking ship.

‘This
is the Piazza di Spagna,’ cried Oscar, raising his arms in the air as if in
exultation. He stopped in his tracks and turned to beam at me. The two urchins,
sensing his delight, set down the bags and started to applaud and cheer.

‘Shouldn’t
we retrace our steps?’ I asked, bemused by this unexpected frenzy of
excitement.

‘No,
Arthur, never go back. Always press on. That’s the rule.’

‘But
isn’t our hotel at the other end of the street?’

‘It is.
It was. But we’re not staying there.’

‘Where
are we staying then?’

‘Here.’
He turned and pointed dramatically across the square. ‘Look, beyond the
fountain, by the steps, behind the flower stall, the pink house …’

He
began striding purposefully across the piazza. The boys picked up our bags and
ran alongside him. I followed, hot in my tweeds, irritable in my exhaustion.
‘But why, Oscar, when we’re booked in elsewhere?’

We had
reached the pink building. I stopped and, sighing wearily, looked up at it. It
was an elegant four-storeyed town house, built, I imagine, in the middle of the
previous century. The stucco was peeling here and there, but the shutters
appeared freshly painted and red geraniums in flowerpots were neatly arranged
on all the window ledges. It looked to be a quiet and respectable
establishment.

‘This,’
said Oscar, sonorously, rapping at the front door as he spoke, ‘is where John
Keats spent the last three months of his short life. This is where we shall
live while we are in Rome.’

‘Is it
a
pensione?’
I asked.

‘It was
in Keats’s day. It will be still. Nothing changes here. This is the Eternal
City.’ He beat on the door once more, then looked around for a bell and turned
to me with a radiant smile. ‘I have long wanted to visit this house, Arthur.
This was meant to be.’ He stepped back and looked up at the building. ‘Have we
got a stone we can throw up at the windows?’ He cupped his hands around his
mouth and hollered:
‘Helloa!
Is anyone there?’