“Exemplary stitching, if I say so,” added Wilde. “I wish the woman who did my shirts had hands as skilled as yours.”
“Thank you, Mister Wilde.” The doctor paused to glance at his pocket watch. Reminded of the time, he hefted his Gladstone and stood up to go. “I must take my leave of you gentlemen. As always, I have an infirmary full of patients to attend to.”
Dr. Lamb bowed to them both and nodded to the two warders as he left the cell.
Throughout the conversation, the Italian valet remained placid and dazed. Wilde finally spoke his name, “Vicente,” and the man looked up with hollow, unfocused eyes dripping with mortality.
In fluent Italian, Wilde told the valet who they were and why they had come. “To hear your side of the story, which I believe has not been heard.” He perched on the edge of the cot beside the condemned man and laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Tell us,” he purred in Italian. “What really happened that night?”
Vicente took a deep breath and shuddered from the horror of casting his mind back to that dreadful evening. At first, he stumbled over his words, and then spoke in rapid bursts of Italian, which Wilde translated for Conan Doyle.
“It was late. My master dined at six thirty and then I dressed him. He had a meeting.”
“With who?” Conan Doyle interjected. “Ask him if he knows who Lord Howell was meeting?”
Wilde translated the question, but the handsome valet shook his head.
“I no know. I no know. Important man. Someone high up. Lord Howell was upset… agitated. After dinner he dismissed the cook and the maid-of-all-work. Gave them money and sent them away.”
“And you’ve no idea what he was worried about?”
The Italian shook his head. “Something serious. Something bad. I know because Lord Howell took money from the wall safe… and a loaded pistol.”
Conan Doyle and Wilde exchanged a look.
“He tell me to go away, too. He says there is much danger. But I would not leave. I said I would stay and face the danger standing at his side. And then a gentleman came to the door. He and my master had words.”
Wilde leaned forward and asked in Italian, “Did your master and the gentleman argue?”
“Yes. No. Not an argument. But they spoke too loud. I think the visitor also knows of the danger. He left quickly.”
“What did the man look like?” Conan Doyle queried. “Can you describe him?”
Vicente covered his eyes with a hand, thinking. “A man of past middle years. Big whiskers.” He mimed sideburns with his hands. “A man of wealth, but I could tell he had no servants.”
“How could he tell that?” Conan Doyle asked.
A wan smile crossed the Italian’s face. “Because his clothes were rumpled. Not pressed. And he wore a very ugly hat.”
“What type of hat?” Wilde asked.
The Italian used both hands to mime a tall hat rising from his head.
“A top hat? The man wore a top hat?”
“Like a top hat, but taller. Too tall. Ridiculous.”
Conan Doyle felt an uneasy stirring. “Ask him how the gentleman arrived. Did he come by hansom, or carriage?”
Wilde put the question to the Italian, who responded by acting out a man seated behind a steering wheel and making a hissing noise that needed no translation.
“He arrived by steam car!” Conan Doyle said. “How many people in London wear a stovepipe and drive a steam car? Only one I know of: our Yorkshire friend, Ozymandius Arkwright.”
“And you think such a man is somehow involved in an assassination plot?”
The Scottish doctor’s face projected mystification. He shook his head. “I cannot say, but I am now convinced he is the blurred figure in the photograph of the Fog Committee.” He nodded at the valet. “Ask Vicente what happened next.”
Wilde relayed the question and the Italian grew visibly upset. “After the gentleman visitor left, the master had me order a carriage. He said we must both leave. But the carriage was late because of the fog. I went out into the street to look… and that’s when I saw him.”
“Saw who?”
“A man made of shadows, standing in the fog. When he does not move, I shout at him: ‘Who are you? What you want?’ The man steps forward. He walks like this…” Vicente got up from the cot and shambled up and down the confined cell, his face sweating and manic. “I shout again. ‘Who are you?’ And then he comes on through the fog until the streetlamp — whoosh — lights up his face and I see it is not a man. It is… the devil.” Vicente dropped heavily on the cot and buried his face in his hands, his breath squeezing out in an agonized wheeze.
“The devil?” Conan Doyle repeated. “What does he mean, the devil? Ask him what he means, Oscar.”
Wilde put the question to the valet, who finally peeled his large hands from his handsome face. “He was a man. But he was not. He moved. He walked. But his eyes were dead and a boneyard reek hung about him. I scream and run. My master comes out as I run past him, back to the house, the dead man chasing me. Lord Howell draws his pistol and shoots. BANG! BANG! BANG! Three times. The devil man flinches. Blood spurts. But still he keeps coming. We slam the door. Turn the key. Throw the bolts. Then BOOM! A sound like thunder as the dead man flings himself against it. We back away and then BOOM! The hinges break and the door crashes down. The dead man bellows like a bear and shambles into the house. Lord Howell raises his pistol and fires, but the bullet hits me in the arm. I scream. The pain so bad. I fall down. The devil comes on. Lord Howell runs into the parlor. Slams the door. Locks it. I think I am dead, but the devil steps over me. He smashes down the parlor door. Then, BANG! I hear a shot. And another, and then click, click, the gun has no more bullets. I stagger to the parlor in time to see the devil grab Lord Howell by the throat, lift him off his feet, and then… and then… he twist his neck all the way around. I hear bones snap and crack…”
The Italian’s words dissipated and a silence heavy as syrup poured into their ears.
Wilde nudged the Italian on by saying, “And what happened next?”
By now the Italian was sweating, shivering — a man in a fever. “I faint. I faint away. When I awaken, the devil is gone. My master… Lord Howell… is dead. He is dead. I crawl into a cupboard to hide — in case the devil comes back for me. I find a bottle and drink. I fall asleep and into this nightmare, from which Vicente cannot awaken.”
The Italian began to weep and smite his chest with his own hands. “I did not kill my master! I did not kill my master!”
Conan Doyle was listening intently and heard Vicente quickly mutter something that Wilde did not translate, but which made the Irishman visibly rock back.
“What did he say, Oscar? My Italian’s very limited. Something like: ‘I love my master’?”
Wilde hesitated before answering. Fidgeted. Shot his cuffs. Finally, he leaned close and spoke in a low whisper so the guards could not overhear. “Not precisely. He said he would not kill his master because… because he and Lord Howell were lovers.”
Conan Doyle sat in stunned silence, mouth agape. Finally, he swallowed and said, “Y-you’re quite sure, Oscar? You’re sure he meant—”
“I am quite sure, Arthur. I am quite sure he meant that he and Lord Howell were lovers in the manner of the ancient Greeks.”
Neither man spoke for a full minute. The only sound was the Italian’s soft weeping.
“Well,” Conan Doyle finally managed to say. “That explains why the wheels of British justice turned so quickly for once.”