“My goodness!” Miss Leckie gushed in a whisper. “The Prince of Wales, so close I could reach out and touch him. I am quite giddy!”
Conan Doyle indulged her with a smile, but said nothing, unwilling to allow his low opinion of the Heir Apparent to stifle his companion’s excitement.
The audience resumed their seats. After a brief delay, the curtains at one end of the stage flirted open and Oscar Wilde stepped out. He was immaculately dressed in a black evening suit and white cotton gloves, a green carnation pinned to his lapel. Conan Doyle was dismayed to see that Wilde was smoking one of his aromatic cigarettes (which would seem rude on a normal occasion and positively impudent in the presence of royalty). He sauntered to center stage, his lone footsteps echoing in the anticipatory silence. Here he paused, drew deeply from his cigarette, exhaled languidly, and finally addressed the crowd.
“Unaccustomed as I am to being outshone, tonight our performance is graced by the presence of royalty.” He turned and bowed deeply to the royal box. “And so I find the meager spark of my wit eclipsed by the full sun of majesty.” He began to clap his gloved hands together and the audience joined in, surging to their feet and shouting “Huzzahs!”
The prince rode the surf of applause a moment longer before standing and settling the audience with a gesture, and then spoke in his fruity voice, “Thank you Mister Wilde for your kind comments, but we have all come to be dazzled by your wit and wisdom. On this foul and foggy night, we shall require your genius to burn its brightest, so that it may light our way home.”
The audience roared with laughter at the prince matching wits with Oscar Wilde, who knew when to let a weaker opponent win and merely bowed and joined in the applause.
“Well played, Oscar,” Conan Doyle muttered to himself.
The playwright quit the stage. The play began and soon the theater shook with laughter. But throughout the performance, Conan Doyle noticed that his companion was paying more attention to the prince than to Wilde’s witty dialogue, and suffered the pangs of jealously.
But by the end of the first act, it was becoming clear that the fog was creeping into the playhouse through every crack and crevice. In the open space before the proscenium arch, a misty haze congealed and thickened, dimming the chandeliers and causing theatergoers to look about themselves nervously. Conan Doyle knew it was only fog, but at any moment expected to hear panicked cries of “fire.” By degrees the fog thickened from distraction to nuisance and murmurs began to rumble when the drifting grayness became so opaque as to render the actors onstage as little more than shadow puppets.
The Prince of Wales suddenly stood up and left his box, followed by the countess and his youthful companion. A rising hubbub from worried theatergoers soon drowned out the actors’ voices, and with the tie between audience and actors severed, the illusion of theater collapsed. Theatergoers became aware they were just a herd of people crowded into a large and very foggy room. People began leaving — first in ones and twos, and then whole aisles emptied and scurried for the doors.
The curtains whished shut in the middle of the action. The remaining audience members began to rise from their seats. Some of the ladies uttered tones of alarm. Just as the moment teetered upon the precipice of panic, a lone figure in a black evening suit strode out into the footlights and stood at center stage.
Oscar Wilde.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” he said, raising his arms for attention. “It appears the fog has succeeded where my worst critics have failed: they have silenced the voice of Oscar Wilde.”
A welcome titter of laughter rippled through the audience, and many began to retake their seats.
“As a man of the theater, it gives me great joy to fill the seats of a playhouse. Likewise, it causes me great pain to see them emptied. However, even I must admit defeat in the face of nature’s intrusion, and so I am sad to announce that tonight’s performance must end prematurely. Should you wish a refund, return your tickets to the ticketing booth. However, if you wish to see true genius, retain your ticket stubs and they will be honored at a future, hopefully, less inclement date. I thank you all.”
Wilde bowed and strolled offstage to broken applause. But Conan Doyle noticed the stifled rage in his stiff posture.
“How unfortunate,” Miss Leckie said, disappointment dragging down the edges of her words. “I was so enjoying myself.”
“Fear not,” Conan Doyle said, “there will be other performances. Many, I hope.”
She wrung his heart with an adorable pout. “I am sure there will, but I did not want our wonderful evening to end.”
“But it need not end. There will be a reception for the Prince of Wales. The stage will be cleared and a buffet table laid out. Champagne. Canapés. Many delicacies. I could introduce you to my friend, Oscar. Perhaps even the prince.”
At his words she gasped and gripped his hand warmly.
When Conan Doyle and Jean Leckie wandered backstage looking for Wilde, a sumptuous table groaning with a celebratory feast had been laid out on the stage. The actors and stagehands stood in a receiving line, bowing and curtseying as the theater manager presented each in turn to the prince and countess. (The prince’s young shadow hung back and did not shake any hands.)
However, Conan Doyle was perturbed to find that the playwright himself was inexplicably absent.
The introductions over, the theater manager conducted the royals to the buffet table, where he poured each a glass of champagne. The Prince of Wales had just taken his first sip when he spotted the pair loitering in the wings. He gave the slightest nod of his head, which Conan Doyle took as a command to come forward. Reluctantly, he led Miss Leckie onto the stage to meet the heir to the throne.
“Doctor Doyle,” the prince said. “So good to meet you again.”
“Your Highness,” Conan Doyle said, bowing and shaking the prince’s hand, clammy even through his cotton gloves.
“I have not read one of your Sherlock Holmes tales of late,” the prince continued. “When can we expect the next installment?”
Conan Doyle squirmed, momentarily at a loss. Apparently the prince did not know that the Scottish author had killed off his consulting detective in “The Adventure of the Final Problem,” a move that sent shockwaves through the nation and enraged legions of Holmes fans.
“Ah… soon, Your Highness,” he lied, “quite soon.”
“And who is this ravishing beauty?” the Prince of Wales asked, molesting Jean Leckie with his gaze.
“May I introduce Miss Jean Leckie, a fellow member of the Society for Psychical Research.”
“Ah, yes. Séances? Spooks? Goings on in the dark, eh?” The prince turned and addressed his young companion. “See, Rufie, you’re not the only one to dabble in the dark side.”
Wishing to derail this line of conversation, Conan Doyle quickly interjected, “I had understood that you were traveling abroad, sir?”
“Did you, indeed?” The look of surprise on the prince’s face told Conan Doyle that he had just blundered out a state secret. “And how the devil did you come by that notion?”
Conan Doyle groped for a safe rejoinder. “I believe I read it in The Times.”
Prince Edward shook his head bad temperedly. “There are those in the palace who urge me to journey abroad, what with the damned nihilists setting off bombs everywhere. I, however, prefer to stay in London amongst my friends.”
The prince noticed Miss Leckie eyeing his youthful companion. He turned and slipped a thick arm around the younger man’s narrow shoulders, drawing him forward. “This is my cousin, Rufus DeVayne, the Marquess of Gravistock. He suffers from a nervous disposition, so his doctors packed him off to the countryside to rest. We had to go down and rescue him. Isn’t that right, Rufie?”