Epilogue

London, New Year, 1891

 

 

‘What happened to the American?’ asked Arthur Conan Doyle. ‘What happened to Eddie Garstrang, the gambler?’

On New Year’s Day 1891, as planned, we met up once more at Madame Tussaud’s Baker Street Bazaar with our friend, the physician and celebrated creator of Sherlock Holmes, Dr Arthur Conan Doyle.

He was in rumbustious form. Christmas had been a jolly affair in the Doyle household. There was much happiness — Arthur now had a plump baby daughter, Mary, to dandle on his knee — and, thanks to Sherlock Holmes, the wherewithal to do a “proper” Christmas, with all the trimmings. And though a proper, happy, family Christmas, there had still been time for quiet contemplation, for sitting by the fireside cracking nuts, for counting one’s blessings, and for reading.

Doyle had read our story, had read with care (‘with great care’, he said) my humble account of Oscar’s remarkable year, the year that took him from Leadville, Colorado, to the Théâtre La Grange, by way of Reading Gaol. Arthur had read my narrative (and ‘enjoyed it, enjoyed it hugely’), but he had questions to ask — not least about my style. ‘It’s very bold, Robert. There are intimate details I’m not sure that I’d dare share with my readers. Some of your frankness is quite shocking. I know it’s mostly set in France, but all the same … And you write about Oscar as though he were dead.’

Oscar laughed. ‘I’ll need to be before it’s published!’ he cried. Oscar leant eagerly towards the young Scottish doctor and, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, enquired: ‘But what did you make of the story, Arthur?’

‘Ah,’ breathed Arthur, patting the manuscript that lay on the table beside him. ‘The story.’ He looked between us both with stern, appraising eyes. ‘Is it all true? Is it gospel? Is there no invention here?’

‘It’s all true, Arthur,’ Oscar replied. ‘Every word.’ My friend glanced in my direction and smiled. ‘But the story’s not quite complete. A few loose ends remain to be tied. There are one or two questions we’ve left unanswered.’

‘There most certainly are,’ declared Conan Doyle emphatically. ‘For a start, what happened to the American? What happened to Eddie Garstrang?’

‘I’m glad you asked, Arthur,’ said Oscar, looking back at the bright-eyed doctor. ‘And I shall tell you.’ Oscar widened his own eyes. ‘In fact, I might even show you.

Conan Doyle tugged at his thick moustache and chuckled. ‘And while you’re about it, you can tell me who really killed the dog, the unfortunate Marie Antoinette. It wasn’t Carlos Branco, was it?’

‘No,’ said Oscar. ‘Carlos Branco is not the killing kind.’

‘And that’s why you told the police that Edmond La Grange had taken his own life. You needed to convince Brigadier Malthus that La Grange’s death was suicide, otherwise Malthus would have charged Branco; and if Branco had gone to trial he would have been found guilty, and guillotined.’

‘Exactly,’ said Oscar. ‘I have my faults, Arthur, but I don’t like to see a man condemned to death for a crime he didn’t commit.’

‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ responded Doyle, nodding genially. ‘So who did kill Edmond La Grange?’

‘He killed himself, surely?’ I interrupted, confused. ‘Oscar established that — beyond doubt. He showed us how it happened.’

Oscar turned and gazed upon me beadily. He was now thirty-six years of age, but because of his excess weight and the wateriness of his eyes, the discolouration of his teeth, and the blotchiness of his putty-like skin, he seemed older. I was now twenty-nine, but, at times like this, I felt I was a schoolboy again, receiving an admonition from the housemaster for an offence whose nature I did not fully comprehend. ‘Edmond La Grange might have killed himself, Robert,’ said Oscar deliberately, ‘but, in fact, he did not do so. I know that now. And, I confess, I knew that then. I encouraged others — you included, Robert — to think that La Grange had taken his own life because it was necessary at the time in order to save the life of Carlos Branco. La Grange’s death was not suicide. It was murder.’

‘I’m lost,’ I said bleakly.

Oscar laughed softly. ‘Whereas Arthur’s in his element!’

‘Indeed,’ responded the doctor happily, ‘the “elements” are very much a feature of the case, are they not? Earth, air, water, fire: they’re at the heart of it, aren’t they?’

‘They are. They’re the thread that drew me through the labyrinth.’

‘Take us with you, Oscar,’ cried Conan Doyle, smacking his lips and eyeing the pastries now being laid out on the table before us. ‘May we tuck in as you guide us through your maze?’

We sat at the far end of the Grand Tea-room of Madame Tussaud’s, at what was then known as the Directors’ Table, drinking afternoon tea and picking at an assortment of cakes and fancies (and Huntley & Palmer biscuits), while Oscar Wilde took us through the tangled tale of the La Grange murders.

‘Where shall I begin?’ asked Oscar, as soon as our waitress had retreated.

Conan Doyle glanced around the room. The tables nearest ours were all unoccupied. We had our privacy. ‘Begin at the beginning,’ he suggested. ‘Begin with the gifted and beautiful twin children, Agnès and Bernard La Grange.’ He helped himself to a slice of lemon and ginger sponge and looked up slyly at our mutual friend. ‘They were not La Grange’s children, after all?’

‘Bravo, Arthur! The twins were not La Grange’s children, after all.’ Oscar dropped two lumps of sugar into his teacup with a little flourish. ‘Their father was not their father and their mother was not their mother.’ As he stirred his tea, he glanced in my direction. ‘Your eyes are downcast, Robert.’

‘I am confused,’ I said.

‘And a little hurt, I think. You have taken great care in writing up your account of my adventures in America and Paris. At my behest, you kept copious notes at the time. Over the years, we have discussed the details in extenso. But now, suddenly, you sense that I have not always taken you into my full confidence and you feel betrayed.’

‘Not betrayed,’ I said quickly. ‘That’s too strong a word.’ I looked up at him. ‘Disappointed, perhaps.’

My friend rested his hand on mine. ‘Forgive me, good friend,’ he continued, speaking gently in that delicate, lilting way of his. ‘I have been remiss, but consider what I am, Robert, and try to understand. I am a story-teller and a playwright. I need to keep my readers turning the page until the last; I want my audience on the edge of their seats until the curtain falls. I must have my dénouement. Don’t begrudge me my element of surprise.’

I laughed. And I forgave him: he was irresistible. ‘I begrudge you nothing, Oscar,’ I said, now taking some sponge cake for myself, ‘but I’m confused nonetheless. I thought that their mother had died at the time that the twins were born.’

‘Alys Lenoir, the wife of Edmond La Grange, did indeed die soon after the twins were born. She took her own life — as you tell us in your fine narrative. But the twins were not her children and Alys Lenoir could not live with the lie of pretending that they were. She could not live with herself, having failed to provide the great La Grange with any heirs.’

‘The twins were not her children?’ I repeated. ‘But she was half Indian, from Pondicherry. The twins looked like her.’

‘No,’ said Oscar. ‘The twins looked like beautiful young people with Indian blood because that is what they were, but Alys Lenoir was not their mother. Their mother was a maid, a servant-girl from Goa. I have met her, as it happens.’

‘What?’ I gasped.

‘From Goa?’ murmured Conan Doyle. ‘An Indian girl from Portuguese Goa …’ He banged the table with his teaspoon. ‘Carlos Branco was Portuguese, wasn’t he? This girl worked for the family of Carlos Branco?’

‘She did, Arthur. Well done.’ Oscar beamed upon the creator of Sherlock Holmes, who rewarded himself with a look of quiet satisfaction and a slice of cherry cake. Oscar continued: ‘Branco was enchanted by the girl. Branco seduced her. Men, being men, do these things. She was a servant, and not much more than a child, and easily seduced. And when Branco’s friend and employer, Edmond La Grange, was desperate to find a woman who could give him children, Branco proposed his little, simple-minded Goan serving-girl for the purpose. La Grange took her, gratefully. She was the answer to his prayers. Where else in Paris could he have found a girl of Indian blood to be the mother of his children? She fell pregnant at once and when the twins were born, La Grange presented them to his wife as their children — her children, La Grange children, ready-made. The Goan girl supplied the great La Grange with his heirs and Carlos Branco secured his position as La Grange’s “leading character man” for life. To La Grange the La Grange inheritance was everything — and he knew his secret was safe with Carlos Branco. Branco was his creature.’

‘What happened to the Goan girl?’ asked Arthur.

‘La Grange instructed Branco to dispose of her, and Branco did as he was told. Branco always did as he was told. Branco lived in awe of La Grange — and in fear of him. For all his bluff and bluster, Branco was a weak man. Strong actors often are.’

From my coat pocket I produced my notebook. I turned its pages, trying to gather together the strands of Oscar’s story. ‘You are telling us that the twins were not fathered by Edmond La Grange: they were fathered by Carlos Branco. And that the Goan girl was already pregnant by Branco when she was taken by La Grange.’

‘Exactly so.’

‘And the world knew none of this, Oscar? No one suspected?’

‘Why should they? Alys Lenoir was dead and Branco said not a word. Why would he? He was ashamed of what he had done. The twins had the look of their supposed half-Indian mother because they were part-Indian, too. And they appeared to have some of the talent of their famous father, Edmond La Grange, because they were the children of another fine actor —Carlos Branco.’

Conan Doyle flicked some crumbs of cake off his heavy moustache. ‘When did La Grange discover the truth?’

‘Not for twenty years: not until the day of the first run-through of the La Grange production of Hamlet. It was, in Sarah Bernhardt’s estimation, “the perfect Hamlet”, you’ll recall. Branco watched Agnès and Bernard in rehearsal: they were magnificent, and they were his children! They had genius, and it was genius that belonged to him and not La Grange! He could bear to keep silent no longer. He revealed his secret — not to the world, but to La Grange, and to the children, Agnès and Bernard. He did it not to hurt, but to undeceive. He did it because he was so proud. And he was glad that he had done it. On the first night of Hamlet, he told Robert:

“I am happier than I have ever been.”‘

Conan Doyle’s fingers were spread out on top the manuscript that lay on the table before him. ‘Carlos Branco told the twins that he was their true father. Did he tell them about the Goan girl? Did he tell them who their true mother had been?’

‘I cannot be sure,’ said Oscar, ‘but I think not.’ He glanced towards Doyle’s fingers on the manuscript. ‘You’ll recall from Robert’s splendid narrative — chapter twenty-two, I think — that Bernard, on learning of Agnès’s supposed suicide, said, “It’s in the blood.” Bernard believed that he and his sister were the children of Alys Lenoir.’

Oscar leant forward, resting his elbows on the table and bringing the tips of his fingers together in front of his chin. ‘Carlos Branco wanted to share his pride in his children while continuing to hide his shame in the matter of the Goan girl.’ He glanced towards me. ‘Robert and I arrived on the scene at the moment of revelation — or just after it. We came towards La Grange’s dressing room and heard voices raised within. We heard a woman sobbing — whether with tears of sorrow or of laughter we could not tell. We heard Carlos Branco declare, “Mais en fin!” — we were certain of that.’

‘“Mais en fin!” — “But at last!”‘ I translated.

Arthur lifted his hand from the manuscript and raised it as though he were a schoolboy anxious to make a point in class. ‘Branco was Portuguese,’ he volunteered. ‘How accurate was his French accent? Could he have been saying, “Mes enfants!” — “My children!”?’

‘He could,’ answered Oscar, smiling. ‘It was one or the other, for sure.’ Oscar lifted his cup of sweet tea and raised it in Dr Doyle’s direction. He took a sip, before continuing: ‘When we arrived at his dressing-room door La Grange seemed perturbed, distraught, but he recovered himself at once. “Old Polonius here has had some novel ideas,” he told us. “We’ve been taking them on board.”‘ Oscar looked towards me. ‘Do you recall the four faces in the dressing room that afternoon, Robert? They were not easy to interpret. We sensed the presence of mixed emotions, but who was feeling what — and why — we could not tell.’

‘A secret should be kept a secret,’ murmured Conan Doyle, now picking up crumbs from his plate with his forefinger. ‘Once it is no longer a secret, it becomes a serpent — it goes where it will.’

‘So it would seem, Arthur,’ replied Oscar, smiling at our Scottish friend’s gnomic utterance. ‘Branco’s revelation shocked La Grange, angered and confused him. He struck his friend’s name from the visitors’ book at his hide-away in the rue de la Pierre Levée. What Branco had told him had turned his world upside down. But, in one respect, at least, Branco’s startling revelation gave La Grange a freedom that had not been his before. Edmond and Agnès were indeed drawn to one another — but Dr Blanche was right. They were “good Catholics”: for each of them, as for most of us, incest would have been a temptation too far. The old man had lusted after the young woman, as old men will, and the girl had loved the older man, as sometimes happens. It had been a futile attraction, they knew that. But if Edmond La Grange and Agnès were not father and daughter …’

Oscar lowered his eyes discreetly as Conan Doyle widened his and breathed: ‘They could become lovers. There was now no taboo.’

‘Exactly,’ declared Oscar, looking up and smiling. ‘And so it came to pass.’

Conan Doyle found a napkin with which to wipe his lips. ‘My, my,’ he murmured.

‘But the ecstasy did not last long,’ Oscar continued blithely. ‘That’s ecstasy’s way, alas. Agnès was excited to have Edmond as her lover and was ready to share her joy with the world. “I’m free at last,” she said when we all had supper at Le Chat Noir. But La Grange was not so certain. He was wary of the girl’s emotional instability, alarmed by her devotion and conscious that his desire for her was unlikely to stand the test of time. Love might last, but lust rarely does. There was no future for them as father and daughter — nor as man and mistress. A mistress needs to be like Gabrielle de la Tourbillon — a woman of the world who knows the rules. Agnès, young and vulnerable, and passionately in love with him, could only bring brief enchantment. Ultimately, it was doomed. Her love for him made public could well bring down the mighty house of La Grange. The great actor was keenly aware of his profession’s vulnerability to the wrong kind of scandal; he made that very clear to us in an unexpected outburst in his dressing room. When it came to his calling, Edmond La Grange was a passionate man. But, as a character, he was “a cold fish”. Sarah Bernhardt, who knew him well, told us so. Edmond La Grange quickly realised that this lovesick child would prove more trouble than she was worth. She must be disposed of. She was.’

Conan Doyle’s brow was deeply furrowed. He was contemplating a further slice of lemon and ginger sponge.

‘And Bernard?’ I asked.

‘What of Bernard?’ answered Oscar derisively. ‘He was not La Grange’s son. We heard him say it — more than once. “What do I care for Edmond La Grange?” And we heard La Grange publicly repudiate his so-called son — had we but realised it. At the dress rehearsal, when La Grange told Bernard that it did not matter which wig he wore as Hamlet and Maman bleated about the “La Grange tradition”, Edmond declared: “The tradition is dead — forget it.”

‘To La Grange, Bernard was now another man’s bastard — the old fool Polonius’s bastard — and too dissolute, too fond of laudanum. To have such a creature pretending to be the next La Grange: it was not to be endured. Nor to be risked. Might not Bernard reveal the truth of his paternity? La Grange decided to rid himself of Bernard too. What did he care for either of these young people? They were not his children. They were impostors. And, as actors, were they so extraordinary? Were they really any better than the understudies? Wasn’t it the name “La Grange” that had given them their special allure?’

Conan Doyle was cutting his slice of cake into squares the size of postage stamps. ‘So you are telling us that Edmond La Grange killed Agnès and Bernard,’ he ruminated.

‘Not with his own hands. He had them killed. He was a man accustomed to giving orders — and to having them obeyed.’

Conan Doyle looked up sharply. ‘Who killed them then?’

‘The same person who killed the wretched dog and poor Traquair,’ said Oscar quietly. ‘A creature who did La Grange’s bidding — and did it in his style.’

‘Back to the elements,’ murmured Conan Doyle. ‘Earth, air, water, fire.’

‘Yes,’ said Oscar, with a sudden burst of energy. ‘The use of the elements gave a pattern to the murders. It was both a poetic idea and theatrical: typical of La Grange. Commit four murders and commit each one involving a different element. Epicurus was fascinated by the four elements. To La Grange Epicurus was a hero. But La Grange could not have committed the murders himself—’

‘Why do you say that?’ interrupted Conan Doyle.

‘Because Robert and I were in the room with La Grange at the moment that young Bernard was killed. We were La Grange’s incidental alibi. He might have been the instigator of the fire that consumed the boy, but he could not have lit the match. He must have had an accomplice, but who could that accomplice be? His mother? Unlikely. She was an old woman — mad enough, certainly, but not capable. Gabrielle de la Tourbillon? Possibly. She was La Grange’s mistress — his creature, in her way — but she did not strike me as a murderer.’

‘I’m pleased to hear it, Oscar,’ I muttered. My skin was burning, but I do not think that Conan Doyle noticed.

‘And could La Grange have trusted her?’ continued Oscar. ‘Would he have done so? I think not.’ Oscar reached into his pocket for his cigarettes. ‘Besides, these murders did not strike me as being woman’s work. A woman could certainly have struck the dog and buried it alive; a woman could have struck the match that lit the flames that devoured Bernard. But could a woman have tipped Agnès into the tank of water and held down her head until she drowned? Could a woman have asphyxiated Washington Traquair, held the pillow across his face until he died?’

I interrupted Oscar’s flow. ‘Traquair was killed by gas poisoning, surely?’

‘So it seemed,’ said Oscar, lighting his cigarette. ‘Gas was escaping into his room, certainly, but not, I think, enough to kill a man. I believe that poor Traquair was smothered as he slept and that the gas jet was then turned on above his divan to give the impression that he had taken his own life.’

‘This was a man’s doing …’ I began, and then I faltered.

‘And a man who was present when we burst into Traquair’s cubicle,’ Oscar continued. ‘He had locked the door to the dresser’s room from the outside once he had murdered him. He returned the key to the room by dropping it on the floor by the divan when we broke our way into the room and discovered poor Traquair’s body.’

‘Richard Marais?’ I suggested.

‘It might have been. It was Marais who made the cack-handed attempts on my life: attempting to drop a weight onto me from the theatre’s fly-gallery; attempting to drown me in the water-trough in the boulevard du Temple. I think that Marais meant to scare me, not to kill me. He wanted me to go away. He was concerned that I might reveal his fraud to his master — but his master knew about it all along. Marais was a petty villain and not quite so deaf as he pretended, but he had a redeeming feature.’

Conan Doyle, examining a small square of cake, chuckled. ‘He was a dog lover. He was devoted to Maman’s wretched poodles. He was unlikely to have been the butcher of Marie Antoinette.’

‘Bravo, once more, dear doctor! It was not Marais.’

Conan Doyle laid his knife across his plate and pushed temptation to one side. He looked up towards Oscar and smiled. ‘Eliminate all other factors, and the one that remains must be the truth,’ he said. ‘It was the American. It must be. It was Eddie Garstrang, the gambler.’

Oscar sat back and, for a moment, let his eyes stray about the tea-room. We were the only customers remaining. At the far end of the room, at the cake counter, two waitresses stood together gossiping. Oscar drew slowly on his cigarette and watched the thin plumes of pale purple smoke as they rose from his nostrils and filtered into the air above us. ‘Bravo, again, Arthur,’ he said eventually. ‘Bravo, indeed.’ He continued, almost languidly:

‘In certain respects, Garstrang was the most fascinating man of all the unusual men I met during that extraordinary year. We were not destined to be friends, yet, from our first encounter, I sensed we had much in common. Garstrang observed his life even as he lived it. He was an outsider, as I know I am. He was a risk-taker, as I hope I am. He wanted fame and fortune, as I know I do. He was ready to hazard everything on a single throw of the dice — regardless of the consequences. I like to think that I would have the courage to do the same.’

Oscar leant across the table and put his face close to Doyle’s. ‘In Colorado, Garstrang played cards with Edmond La Grange and he lost, as you recall. He went on playing — and losing — long after he had anything left to lose. He played cards with Edmond La Grange until La Grange owned him — lock, stock and barrel.’ Oscar held out his cigarette and contemplated the length of it. ‘The barrel was not insignificant: La Grange, a fine shot himself, was entertained by the notion of having an outstanding marksman as part of his entourage.’

Conan Doyle chuckled. He was holding his new pipe in his hand (it had been his Christmas present from his little girl), and poking at the unlit tobacco leaves with a matchstick. He looked up at Oscar and smiled. ‘So La Grange struck a deal with Eddie Garstrang — yes? He could clear his debt, he could buy back his freedom, in easy stages.’

‘Yes, Arthur, in four easy stages. All Garstrang had to do was kill to order — four times — and then he would be free to leave La Grange’s service, his debt repaid, his fortune restored. To make the game more amusing — for both men — La Grange introduced the conceit of the “elemental murders”: death by earth, air, water and fire.’

‘Why was the dog killed first, Oscar?’ I asked. ‘What harm did the dog ever do to anyone?’

‘The killing of Maman’s dog was just an amusebouche, Robert, a preliminary entertainment designed by La Grange to put Garstrang to the test. The dog’s death was neither here nor there. As La Grange knew, no one would care about the dog, except perhaps for Maman and Richard Marais — and Edmond La Grange cared little enough for them.’

Conan Doyle set down his pipe. His moustache twitched. ‘Was not La Grange devoted to his mother?’ he asked. Arthur was touchingly devoted to his.

‘I think that Edmond La Grange rather despised his mother,’ replied Oscar, who was devoted to his mother, also. ‘He owed her everything and that does not always bring out the best in a man. He accepted her place in his life, but her foibles irritated and her pretensions infuriated him. More than once I heard him say, “Maman, you are utterly absurd.”‘

‘A cold fish indeed,’ murmured Conan Doyle, sucking on his unlit pipe. ‘He was entertained by the idea of having a personal assassin at his disposal, even before he had specific victims in mind.’

‘He was.’ Oscar smiled at his friend. ‘And in Garstrang he sensed that he had picked a man well suited to his purpose. Garstrang killed the ghastly Marie Antoinette in style: burying her in earth in my book case. I imagine that La Grange was much amused by that. La Grange had a lively sense of humour.’ Oscar struck a match to light another cigarette. ‘Garstrang proved that he could kill a dog — but could he kill a man?’ He dropped the lighted match into the dregs of his tea. ‘It seems he could.’

I looked at Conan Doyle. His eyes had taken on a mournful aspect. ‘Poor Traquair.’ He sighed.

‘Yes,’ echoed Oscar. ‘Poor Traquair. On that fateful day in La Grange’s dressing room on the boulevard du Temple, when Carlos Branco unleashed his secret upon the family La Grange, where was the hapless valet? Where was Washington Traquair? The poor wretch was in his cubiculo, of course, adjacent to the dressing room — alone and lonely. Had he heard Branco’s revelation? Had he heard the row that followed it? Most probably. But had he understood what he had heard? Almost certainly not; but La Grange could not be sure of that and dared not take the risk. Besides, he could rid himself of Traquair so easily. He had the man for the task to hand — and in his debt. La Grange instructed Garstrang to kill Traquair: “he’s a valet, he’s a blackamoor, he hardly counts”.

‘Garstrang did as he was bid and did it well. He was an artist in his way. And he served La Grange to perfection. La Grange valued him highly.’ Oscar looked at me. ‘I believe, Robert, that he came to intervene in that duel of yours, as much to ensure Garstrang’s safety as your own.’

I lowered my head over my notebook and shaded my eyes. Even after so many years the absurdity of that duel — and of my infatuation with Gabrielle de la Tourbillon —was still a source of embarrassment to me. From behind my hand, I glanced towards the counter where the waitresses had been standing. They were gone: we were alone in the tea-room now.

‘La Grange needed Garstrang,’ Oscar continued. ‘There was business to be done. The twins must be disposed of. La Grange instructed Garstrang to kill them both. It was not difficult to achieve, even within the rules of the game. Agnès was easily drowned and Bernard was very simply set alight. Garstrang took a bottle of ether from La Grange’s “love-nest” — we saw him leaving the apartment with a box full of such bottles — and used it to douse the seat and floor of the cab which La Grange had ordered to send his so-called son on his way to Montmartre. He told us that the cab had been ordered to take us to Pharamond. It was not so. He had no plans to go out for supper. He knew that if he offered Bernard a carriage at his expense, the boy would take it. Garstrang saw Bernard into the cab and, as he closed the cab door on him, threw his lighted cigarette into the cab to ignite the furnace.’

‘Horrible,’ muttered Conan Doyle.

‘So it was Eddie Garstrang who killed Agnès and Bernard La Grange,’ I said, underscoring Garstrang’s name in my notebook.

‘Yes, on Edmond La Grange’s instructions.’

‘But who killed La Grange?’ asked Conan Doyle. ‘La Grange wasn’t bent on self-destruction.’

‘No,’ answered Oscar, ‘though death held few terrors for him. Epicurus had taught him that “death is nothing”: “for that which has been dissolved into its elements experiences no sensations, and that which has no sensation is nothing to us.”‘

I was still staring down at my notebook. ‘With the twins dead,’ I said, ‘Garstrang was once more free.’

‘Indeed,’ replied Oscar. ‘When you saw Eddie Garstrang on the afternoon of La Grange’s death he told you that he had been a free man since midnight. He told you that he had been “contracted” to La Grange for six months and that, now, his time was up. But what he said made no sense: it was more than six months since the Compagnie La Grange had visited Leadville and less than six months since Garstrang set sail for France on board the SS Bothnia. No, Garstrang was free because he had fulfilled his side of the bargain.’

Suddenly, quite softly, Arthur Conan Doyle began to growl. It was a low rumble, the noise a terrier might make on sniffing out a rathole. He narrowed his eyes and looked towards Oscar expectantly. ‘But Edmond La Grange decided that he did not want to let his murderer go?’

Oscar grinned at the doctor. ‘You should be writing detective stories, Arthur. La Grange told Garstrang that he needed one more murder: the fifth element, what Epicurus called “the quintessence”. Just one more murder and then La Grange would repay him all the money he had lost at cards — and give him his freedom, too.’

‘The American protested that he had already fulfilled his obligation.’

‘Naturally, but La Grange reckoned that he now had the upper hand. Since Garstrang had already committed four murders, he was deep in blood — and vulnerable. “Just one more, that’s all I ask. Kill Carlos Branco for me and then you’re free. Shoot him; use my gun. Here it is. A pistol shot combines the elements of earth and air, fire and water. Shoot Branco and then we’re done.”‘

Oscar paused and, eagerly, Arthur took up the story:

‘But Eddie Garstrang knew that he’d never be “done”! Kill Branco and then who would be next? He had fulfilled his pledge. He was an honourable gambling man and he’d paid his dues. If La Grange was not ready to keep his side of the bargain, La Grange was the man to be killed— and, then, it would indeed all be “done”.’

‘How he did it we know,’ said Oscar, dropping the remains of his cigarette into his teacup. ‘He disguised himself as the Ghost of Hamlet’s father. He put on the cloak. He put on the helmet and visor. He went to La Grange’s dressing room. La Grange opened the dressing-room door; what we saw was La Grange himself, standing at the door, between the door and the mirror. Garstrang entered the room. I imagine he explained his curious disguise with a reference to Carlos Branco, indicating that he was now ready to kill Branco if that was indeed La Grange’s wish. He invited La Grange to give him his gun for the purpose. The old actor did as he was asked and the die was cast. Garstrang took the gun and, at once, without hesitation, turned it on La Grange and shot him. The moment the deed was done, he placed the gun on the dressing table, threw off the cloak, threw down the helmet and left the room, returning almost at once, arriving with Carlos Branco.’

‘Why did you not tell all this to the police at the time?’ I asked.

‘For the same reason that Carlos Branco did not simply tell the world that the twins were his. Who would have believed him? La Grange was dead. What evidence was there? Branco looked to be the guilty man. He had motive, opportunity and means — and you had seen him entering La Grange’s dressing room moments before the murder, Robert. You had seen him with your own eyes. You were very firm about that.’

Arthur Conan Doyle was looking about the tea-room. ‘We are alone.’ He consulted his pocket watch. ‘It’s gone half-past five.’

‘We must be on our way or we’ll be locked in with the waxworks,’ said Oscar, pushing his chair away from the table and getting to his feet. ‘Where is our bill?’

‘We’re Tussaud’s guests, I’m happy to say.

‘Ah.’ Oscar smiled, pulling on his gloves. ‘It is Marie Antoinette who has let us eat cake.’

I picked up the brown paper parcel containing our manuscript. ‘I’ve some work to do here,’ I remarked.

‘Don’t rush,’ said Oscar lightly. ‘It’s to be a posthumous publication, remember.’

We walked through the deserted tea-room, back towards the exhibition halls. ‘Oscar,’ I asked, a thought suddenly occurring to me. ‘How do you know for certain that Agnès and Bernard were, in truth, Carlos Branco’s children?’

‘Because,’ replied my friend, ‘like the act of suicide, the fact of being a twin can be an inherited characteristic.’

‘But Agnès and Bernard did not commit suicide,’ said Conan Doyle. ‘Alys Lenoir committed suicide, but she was not the twins’ mother.’

‘Exactly,’ said Oscar. ‘Alys Lenoir committed suicide, but she was not their mother. But Carlos Branco was their father — and he was a twin.’

‘How do you know that Carlos Branco was a twin?’ I asked.

‘Because I have met his brother. I have met the twin of Carlos Branco. He was another of the remarkable people I encountered in the course of that memorable year. I met him through my friend George Palmer, the biscuit king. Branco’s twin was a clergyman — a convert, a zealot, an Anglican priest, of Portuguese descent. He came to England as a young man to join the Evangelical Alliance. When I first met him I sensed that his English accent was too perfect to be true. It was only when I met him for the second time that I realised who he might be. His eyes, his gestures, his way of speaking, all had seemed familiar, but whereas Carlos Branco at sixty was overweight and red-faced, Paul White was thin and pale. Branco is Portuguese for white, as you know. And Paul was the name he had chosen at the time of his conversion. Paul White was thin and pale — and ashamed. You recall how La Grange told us that, in France, actors count among the damned. Paul White was ashamed of his brother and of his brother’s calling — and ashamed of the favour that he had done his brother twenty years before.

‘Carlos had sent him an unfortunate Goan girl, a simple-minded family servant who had become a fallen woman. Carlos Branco had hoped that she could be his brother’s housekeeper. Paul White, the evangelical, would not have her in his house, but he found a place for her, working in the prison where he was chaplain. I met her on the day I went to Reading Gaol. I met her in the chapel there, a sad, brown-faced creature in an old black dress. Paul White called out to her in a language I half recognised. I thought that it was Spanish. I realised later that it was Portuguese.’

We stood in silence beneath the great glass dome in the entrance hall of Madame Tussaud’s. ‘And the American,’ asked Conan Doyle, sucking on his pipe. ‘What happened to Eddie Garstrang?’

‘Oh,’ said Oscar lightly. ‘He fulfilled his ambition. He became famous in his way. Or notorious, at least. It was what he wanted.’

‘I’ve not heard of him,’ said Conan Doyle.

‘He’s not famous for the way he lived. He’s famous for the way he died.’

‘Did he go back to Colorado?’

‘No, he stayed on in France. He returned to the life of a professional gambler. I sent a note to Brigadier Malthus advising him to keep an eye on him, and he did. And three years ago, Eddie Garstrang was arrested. He had shot a man in cold blood — over an unpaid gambling debt. Eddie Garstang was executed. It was a notable event. He was the last man to be beheaded by the original guillotine. That’s why Eddie Garstrang’s here, in the Chamber of Horrors.’ Oscar glanced up at the clock that hung on the wall above main doorway. ‘It’s ten to six, gentlemen. Let’s go and take a look at him before the exhibition closes. Robert can’t see the likeness, but I can. He has the look of a murderer. It’s in his smile. Never trust a man who shows you his lower teeth when he smiles.’