Free Oscar Wilde and the Murders at Reading Gaol: A Mystery by Gyles Brandreth Page A

but indolent Mycroft Holmes.’
    ‘So Arthur says – but I have not seen him for a time.’
    ‘I imagine not,’ said Dr Maurice, ‘under the circumstances.’ The surgeon stepped away from the bed – his legs were long, narrow and stiff, as though he walked on stilts. He bent over to open his medical bag and, from it, fetched a stethoscope. ‘You’d better rise from that semi-recumbent posture, C.3.3. I am here to examine you.’
    ‘You will be my friend,’ I said. ‘You must call me by my name, Dr Maurice.’
    ‘While you are here, you will be known by your number, sir. That is the rule – and it has its merits.’
    ‘Does it?’
    ‘It does. It reminds us that all men are equal in prison – all will be treated the same, regardless of who they are and where they come from. Now undress.’
    ‘What about the women and children?’ I asked, standing up to take off my jacket and shirt.
    ‘Men, women, children – once convicted and sentenced, they are all treated the same here. There can be no favourites.’ He pressed the cold listening bell of the stethoscope to my chest.
    ‘But Tom, I am told, is Warder Braddle’s favourite.’
    ‘Do not listen to idle gossip, sir. And do not spread it. The prison rule of absolute silence has its merits, also.’
    ‘How is poor Tom?’ I asked, turning my eyes towards the cell door.
    ‘If you’re referring to the prisoner across the way, the answer to your question is that it’s none of your business.’
    ‘But it is – surely? We have a Christian duty to love our neighbours, do we not? No man is an island.’
    ‘Except in prison – under the separate system.’ The surgeon gave a small laugh. I realised that if he had studied with Conan Doyle at Edinburgh he must be younger than he appeared – in his late thirties, at most. He hid his youth behind his heavy beard. ‘Turn around,’ he said. ‘Show me your back.’ I turned my back to him. I felt his hands on my shoulder blades. They soothed me. I felt the pressure of his fingers as he tapped them – hard – against my ribcage. ‘Cough for me,’ he said. I did as I was told. ‘Now take a deep breath and hold it . . . Now exhale.’
    ‘The poet John Donne went to prison,’ I said.
    ‘And his brother, Henry, died at Newgate – of the bubonic plague . . . Turn around . . . At least you’ve been spared that . . . Bend over now, as far as you can . . .’ The surgeon growled softly and pulled on his beard. ‘Stand up – slowly . . . You’re unfit – to say the least. You cannot touch your knees, never mind your toes. You have not treated your body as a temple, have you?’
    It was my turn to laugh. ‘I have eaten, I have drunk, I have smoked – so much! I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease . . . And you see the result.’ I held out my naked arms, I gazed down at my loose and hideous flesh.
    ‘Take down your trousers,’ said Dr Maurice. ‘I must examine your private parts.’
    I pulled down my ludicrous convict’s pantaloons with their obscene black arrows. ‘Once,’ I said, ‘I amused myself with being a flâneur , a dandy, a man of fashion . . .’
    ‘I know,’ said the surgeon, crouching down before me, ‘Conan Doyle told me – and I read the newspapers and the magazines.’
    ‘Look at me now, Doctor.’
    ‘I am,’ he said, examining me. He got to his feet. ‘I have seen worse,’ he added, smiling. ‘But I am a prison surgeon. I have seen the worst.’ He turned back to his bag to put away the stethoscope. ‘Where did it all go wrong, do you think?’
    ‘Did Arthur never tell you?’ I asked.
    ‘He told me that you had surrounded yourself with smaller natures and meaner minds, that you became a spendthrift of your own genius.’
    ‘He is quite correct.’
    ‘Conan Doyle is a keen observer – and a good man.’
    ‘The best of men,’ I said, thinking of him, of his firm grip and steady eye, his tweed coat and walrus moustache, his uncomplicated