'A ringside seat for history? How could I refuse? And, by way of reciprocation, Mr McMuirtree, if you'd be amused to see my play I'm taking a party to the St James's Theatre on Sat.u.r.day night-I'd be honoured if you'd join us.'

McMuirtree bowed. 'I'd be delighted, Mr Wilde, thank you.' With one hand he was holding open the door for us; with the other he was indicating our way across the vestibule to the exit to the street.

'Excellent,' said Oscar, adjusting his hat, but not yet moving through the doorway. 'I'll leave a ticket in your name at the box office.'

'Excellent,' echoed McMuirtree. 'Forgive me if I go now.

'Oh,' said Oscar, putting out his hand and touching the boxer's arm, 'One more thing, if you would. The parrot. The Cadogan Hotel parrot. Who do you think killed the parrot?'

'Oh, Mr Wilde, I've really no idea.'

'I'd value your opinion. Please.'

'Well,' said McMuirtree, with a sigh, 'they say, don't they, that those found first at the scene of the crime are the most likely suspects? So it could be you or Mr Sherard, I suppose, or me or Alphonse Byrd, or even Mrs Wilde or Mrs Wilde's friend, Mr Heron-Allen ... But isn't it most likely to be a disaffected member of the hotel staff or an irate guest infuriated by the creature's constant squawking and yabbering?'

'Do you think Mr Byrd could have killed the parrot?' asked Oscar.

'No, it won't have been Byrd. He truly loved the wretched creature.'

'Then who?'

'I don't know who would want to do such a thing-and in such a brutal fashion.'

'You're interested in psychology, Mr McMuirtree. What would a modern psychologist tell us?'

'All sorts of nonsense. He might tell you that Mr Heron-Allen murdered the parrot because he is in love with your wife. Heron-Allen is a solicitor. He dares not murder you, so instead he kills a defenceless creature whose exotic plumage rivals your own ...'

'That's an amusing notion,' said Oscar. 'I did not realise that Heron-Allen had made his feelings so self-evident.'

'He might suggest that Mrs Wilde was guilty of the crime because her great-grandfather had a collection of eighty stuffed birds and as a child the oppressive presence of the birds provoked nightmares in the little girl ...'

Oscar's eyes narrowed. 'How do you know all this?'

'He might even suggest that you are the guilty party, Mr Wilde.'

'Me?' said Oscar, laughing.

'At Magdalen, was not the college organist called Parrot? Was he not a friend of yours? Did he not come to stay with you in Dublin in '74? Did you and he not have a notorious falling-out?'

'Good grief, man! You know everything about me.'

McMuirtree laughed as he held out his hand once more to point us on our way. 'Not everything, Mr Wilde, far from it. Would that I did ... But I keep my eyes and ears open. It's in the blood. My father was a footman, as you know.'

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

GILMOUR OF THE YARD.

'What a remarkable fellow,' said Oscar, chuckling, as we emerged from the deserted foyer of Astley's amphitheatre onto the Westminster Bridge Road. It was a perfect May evening: the low, round, orange sun had turned the stonework on the Thames embankment gold; there was a warming breeze in the air and that special smell of the London of my youth-the comforting smell of hay and horses.

'I don't like him, Oscar,' I said. 'He's arrogant. He's impertinent. He's-'

'He confuses you, Robert. You don't know where you are with him, that's all. If Bosie or Drumlanrig spoke as he does, you'd think nothing of it. They're toffs. They can do as they please. But McMuirtree ... he's half-a-gentleman. And that ain't easy-for you or him. He's walking a tightrope.'

'I don't like him,' I persisted. 'I don't trust him.'

'Whereas you have no such qualms about my little friend Antipholus?'

'Indeed not.'

'Is it because he's black and knows his place?'

There was no time to protest. We had already crossed the street and were standing face to face with the bright-eyed African boy whose beaming smile I did indeed trust instinctively.

Antipholus was not alone. He was leaning against the stone parapet overlooking the river with, at his side, an enchanting child-a pet.i.te black girl of perhaps nine or ten years of age-and, next to her, the Hon. the Reverend George Daubeney. The trio were scrutinising a stout piece of card the size of a quarto volume and laughing.

The moment he registered our presence, Antipholus sprang to attention.

'Mr Wilde, Mr Wilde's friend, may I have the honour to present to you my sister, Bertha?'

The little girl, who was dressed in the simplest white smock, curtsied low and squeezed her eyes tight shut and bit her lip as Oscar bent down to her and shook her by the hand.

'You are very pretty,' he said to her softly.

'She is very beautiful, Oscar,' declared George Daubeney loudly. 'She is a princess, Robert-a fairy-tale princess.' He leant over to us each in turn and shook us vigorously by the hand.

'You're in fine form, George,' said Oscar, c.o.c.king his head to one side as he examined the clergyman. 'You seem dressed en prince yourself.' Indeed, since we had seen him last, Daubeney appeared to be a man transformed. His eyes were still puffy and drawn; his skin was rough and grey; there were trickles of moisture at the edge of his mouth; but the man's defeated hang-dog look was entirely gone. He wore his frayed clerical collar as before, but his black serge curate's suit had been replaced by a dandy's frock coat with shiny silk reveres.

'I'm a happy man,' he said, giving one of the girl's little pigtails an affectionate tug. 'I'm a free man. A cloud has lifted.'

'Ah?' said Oscar. 'The inquest.'

'The coroner's court met this morning, at eleven clock sharp, in the front parlour of the Pier Hotel, Cheyne Walk, and the business was done and dusted before the parlour clock had struck the half-hour. The jury followed the coroner's lead and endorsed the verdict of the Metropolitan Police and the London Fire Brigade: "Miss Elizabeth Scott Rivers-Death by misadventure."'

'Congratulations,' said Oscar.

'You'd have been gratified, my friend. In his summing-up, the coroner-a lovely man, a sort of Mr Pickwick but Irish-made specific reference to the important pioneering work of the Rational Dress Society.'

'Indeed,' said Oscar, pursing his lips and teasing his eyebrows with his index finger. 'When all this is over, I'll report the good news to Constance.'

'Well done, George,' I added warmly. 'Bravo. I think a drink is called for.'

'I've had several already, large ones,' Daubeney cried out happily, 'and I'm proposing to have several more, larger still!'

'Is there news of Miss Scott-Rivers's Last Will and Testament?' Oscar enquired. 'Had she revised it as you feared? Or are useful bags of red and yellow gold shortly to be put at your disposal?'

'You don't miss a trick, do you, Oscar?' Daubeney was now holding both of Bertha's pretty little pigtails and pulling her head from side to side as he spoke. 'It seems that my erstwhile fiancee had advised her solicitor of her intention to change her will, but had not yet done so ... She had made an appointment to rearrange her affairs, but failed to keep it. It is not entirely certain-there is the possibility that her family will dispute the will as it stands-but, according to your friend Heron-Allen-a capital fellow, by the way, my kind of lawyer-the odds are in my favour. It looks indeed as though the booty will be mine.'

'He has brought us presents, Mr Wilde! 'Antipholus announced with glee.

Daubeney released Bertha's pigtails and raised his open palms towards us, adopting a sudden, solemn air. 'I regret my fiancee's pa.s.sing-of course I do. We were no longer friends, but I wished her no harm. Whatever she has left me I shall use for G.o.d's purpose. It shall all be devoted to the education and welfare of the young.' He leant forward and kissed the top of Bertha's head.

'He's brought some s.h.a.g for me,' said Antipholus, holding out a handful of tobacco, 'and for Bertha these ribbons and this hoop.' The boy held up one of his sister's pigtails to show off the pale blue ribbon tied to the end of it in a dainty bow. The girl, who was holding the wooden hoop in her left hand, tried to hide it behind her brother's back.

'I'm chaplain here, these are my charges,' said Daubeney, offering us a beatific smile.

'You're drunk,' said Oscar. 'I'm not surprised.'

Bertha took hold of the clergyman's hand and kissed him lightly on the knuckles.

'The hoop is in exchange for the photograph,' Daubeney explained.

'Look!' said Antipholus proudly. He held up the piece of card that the trio had been admiring when Oscar and I had discovered them. It was a photograph-a fine studio photograph-of the little girl in fancy dress. In the picture she was seated on a small three-legged stool, dressed in a patched and ragged skirt with a checked shawl about her shoulders. Her head was tilted to one side, resting against the handle of a kitchen broom. Her hair was untied, full and frizzy. Her shining eyes were looking out straight towards the camera. There were large tears trickling down her cheeks.

'She's playing Cinderella,' explained Antipholus.

'The tears aren't real,' added George Daubeney.

'I trust not,' said Oscar, examining the photograph closely. 'I imagine they are drops of glycerol. He's a clever young man, Master Archer.'

'Who?' I asked.

'The photographer,' said Oscar, pointing to the imprint in the bottom right-hand corner of the picture. It read: John Archer, Battersea Park Road, London S. 'I know him. He comes from Barbados, by way of Liverpool and Ponder's End. He's a bright spark, full of intelligence and invention. Every other photographer makes one look like a stockbroker facing a firing squad. Archer's taken my likeness twice-and Bosie's-and, to our mutual amazement, on both occasions we almost liked what we looked like. We appeared quite human. To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up. Master Archer knows how to contrive it. The boy will go far.' [He did, in 1913, aged fifty, he was elected mayor of Battersea and became Britain's second black mayor.]

Oscar returned the photograph to Bertha, who handed it to George Daubeney, who slipped it into the inside pocket of his elegant knee-length frock coat. 'Did you mention a celebratory drink, Robert?' he asked, circling his index finger in the air, and looking at me while winking at Oscar out of the corner of his eye. 'Shall we get him to take us somewhere rather grand, Oscar? It's not often that one becomes a wealthy widower without having had to experience the miseries of matrimony. I think a gla.s.s or two is in order, don't you?'

'I'm spoken for, alas,' said Oscar, bowing his head towards Daubeney. 'Robert will look after you-and Antipholus will take care of me. He'll roll me a cigarette while we talk of old times and then he'll find me a cab-won't you, my friend?'

The black boy stood to attention once more and gave Oscar a brisk salute.

'We'll go to Gatti's in the Arches then,' said Daubeney. 'You can pay for the champagne, Robert. The entertainment's free. Come.' The merry cleric shook Oscar by the hand once more, playfully boxed Antipholus on the ear, ceremoniously kissed Bertha on the forehead and put his arm through mine. 'I'm free!' he cried as we turned and set off across Westminster Bridge.

'Take care!' called Oscar as we departed. 'I'll send you a wire later, Robert. The game's afoot. I'll need you tomorrow morning-sober!'

In the event I did not drink heavily that night. In fact, I was back in my upstairs room in Gower Street before ten o'clock, enjoying a solitary gla.s.s of bottled beer. Daubeney was not diverting company. As we walked arm in arm along the embankment, from Westminster Bridge towards Charing Cross, he entertained pa.s.sers-by by singing a selection of his favourites from the Anglican Hymnal. I tried to distract him-and cover my embarra.s.sment-with earnest conversation, but he would have none of it. 'Sing up, Robert!' he cried. 'Praise the Lord! Hallelujah!' From a pocket in his frock coat-a different pocket from the one in which he had secreted the photograph of Bertha-he produced a leather-cased hip flask and, between hymns, he pressed me to join him in taking a libation.

'It's altar wine, customarily kept about me in the event that I am called upon to administer the blessed sacrament in an emergency-but you may take a swig, Robert. Indeed, you must. The Lord wants it. Praise the Lord!'

When we reached the pier below Charing Cross Station, by the corner of Hungerford Lane, quite suddenly, he calmed himself. He slipped the hip flask back into his pocket and, with his long, thin fingers, carefully wiped the saliva from the corners of his mouth and slicked back his hair. 'Do you know the hall beneath the railway arches?' he asked.

'The music hall?' I said. 'Yes. I've been here with Oscar and with Wat Sickert. It's one of Sickert's regular haunts. He's painted it often.'

'Have you been backstage?' asked Daubeney, leading us up the lane and into Villiers Street.

'No.'

'You're in for a treat. For a modest payment, if you're a gentleman, Mr Corazza, the manager, allows you to spend the evening in the chorus girls' dressing room. Armchairs are provided. You can watch the girls as they dress. And undress. You may even play with their t.i.tties. With the young ones, you may swallow them whole like peaches.'

Beneath the broadest of the railway arches, at the front entrance of the hall itself, the evening's audience was gathering. The Hungerford Palace Music Hall (better known as Gatti's in the Arches) attracted a universal crowd-butchers, bakers, clerks and costermongers, shop-girls and matrons, noisy swells-about-town and diffident young lovers new to the West End. Other than George Daubeney, however, there appeared to be no one else in holy orders. I followed the frock-coated cleric as he pushed his way through the throng and led us into the shadows, to the arch beyond.

'Here we are,' he said, knocking conspiratorially on an unmarked door.

'I think I'll leave you to it,' I said, 'if you'll forgive me. It's been a long day.'

'As you please, Robert,' he replied, as, slowly, the door opened and a pretty young woman, with close-cropped red hair and a painted face, looked out.

She recognised Daubeney at once and smiled and opened the door further to let him in. 'Is your friend coming, Georgie?' she asked, wrinkling up her nose and glancing at me with amus.e.m.e.nt. Beneath her chemise I saw the outline of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

'No, I must be going,' I said quickly. 'Take care, George. Goodnight.'

'We'll look after the padre, mister,' said the girl, laughing and pulling him across the threshold. 'We'll take care of Georgie, never fear.'

At nine o'clock the following morning-Friday 6 May 1892-as, alone in my room, I breakfasted on a cold pork sausage and a slice of bread and dripping (and thought back to the glories of Mrs Fletcher's goose egg, sliced ham and mutton cutlets of twenty-four hours before), the telegraph boy arrived with Oscar's promised summons: MEET ME AT GILMOURS OFFICE AT TEN.

OSCAR.

I was not in funds. I was writing my novel, but had not yet sold it. I had sold two articles that month, but had not yet been paid for either. My landlord was pressing me for rent that was overdue. My estranged wife's solicitor was pressing me for maintenance payments 'on account'. As Oscar liked to say (and said in different ways on different days): 'Young people imagine that money is everything; when they grow older, they know it.'

I was not in funds, so I took neither the bus nor a cab, but walked in well-worn shoes the three miles across town from Gower Street to Great Scotland Yard. In consequence I did not reach the offices of the Criminal Investigations Department of the Metropolitan Police until gone half past ten.

I found Oscar already ensconced in Archy Gilmour's room and in full flow. The room was gloomy and airless, small and spa.r.s.ely furnished. My friend was perched uncomfortably on the edge of a hard-backed office chair, dressed in one of his more flamboyant summer outfits-the jacket and trousers were dove grey; the high-fastening waistcoat was canary yellow; over grey ankle boots he wore yellow fabric spats; his b.u.t.tonhole comprised a golden hibiscus laid against a sprig of lavender; he held a straw boater and yellow kid gloves upon his lap. When Gilmour's sergeant showed me in, the detective inspector (dressed, much as I was, in a workaday brown worsted suit) was facing Oscar, half standing, leaning against a heavy oak desk, his arms folded across his chest, listening attentively.

'Good morning, Mr Sherard,' he said agreeably (I was gratified that he recalled my name), 'take a pew.' He did not move: he nodded towards the hardback chair adjacent to Oscar's. 'Mr Wilde tells a tale as few men can. I'm gripped. He should be writing for Police News and Law Courts Weekly Record.'

'I have confessed all, Robert. I have broken the Socrates Club solemn oath of secrecy. I have told the inspector all about our dinner at the Cadogan Hotel on Sunday last and about our foolish game of "Murder"-my foolish game of "Murder"! He has listened with exquisite courtesy, despite appearing to be familiar already with all the salient details.'

'We had George Daubeney in for questioning, as you'll recall,' explained the inspector. 'He was very forthcoming-co-operative to a fault. He came clean at once-told us all about the dinner and the game and how he'd named his former fiancee as his intended "victim".'

'Do you think, in fact, he might have murdered her?' I asked.

Gilmour shook his head. 'Murdered her? Having first advertised his desire to do so? I think not.'

'He's a drinker,' I said. 'Men do wild and unexpected things in drink.'

The inspector laughed. 'They walk into walls, not through them. At Number 27 Cheyne Walk the doors at front and back and down below were all locked and bolted from within. The Reverend Daubeney was on the outside looking in. He witnessed the fire. He didn't start it. Miss Scott-Rivers was alone when she died.'

'What did you make of Daubeney?' asked Oscar, turning his straw boater around slowly on his lap. 'As a man, I mean? Did you like him?'

'No,' said the inspector emphatically. 'I did not like him. He's an odd fish. He's a drinker, as Mr Sherard says-you can see it in his face. And he's weak. When we'd finished questioning him, he sat there-in that chair where you're seated now, Mr Wilde-and he wept. He wept like a woman. Not a pretty sight.'

'Weeping is always ugly,' said Oscar.

The red-headed policeman sighed. 'Well, gentlemen,' he said, standing upright and rubbing his hands together. 'I'm grateful to you for calling-and, of course, we must keep in touch-but, candidly, I don't think that anything that has occurred this week suggests that there's a new and unknown murderer in our midst.' He began to move towards the door. It was evident our interview was over.