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

decency, and recollecting the adventures that we had shared.
    ‘He admires you still.’
    ‘I admire him.’
    ‘ Mens sana in corpore sano – a healthy mind in a healthy body – that’s Conan Doyle’s motto. It’s not a bad one. It’s kept him on the straight and narrow.’
    ‘It’s kept him out of prison!’ I laughed. ‘But I chose a different path . . .’
    ‘You had everything,’ said the surgeon, now examining my ears, ‘but it was not enough?’
    ‘Tired of being on the heights, I deliberately went to the depths in the search for new sensation. What the paradox was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity became to me in the sphere of passion.’
    ‘Desire, at the end, is a malady, or a madness, or both.’
    ‘I see that now, Doctor. I see the error of my ways. I took pleasure where it pleased me, and passed on. I grew careless of the lives of others – my wife, my children, my true friends. I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that therefore what one has done in the secret chamber one has some day to cry aloud on the housetop. I ceased to be lord over myself. I was no longer the captain of my soul, and did not know it. I allowed pleasure to dominate me. I ended in horrible disgrace – as you see. There is only one thing for me now, absolute humility.’
    ‘Your mind seems to be in perfect working order.’ I smiled. He nodded towards my prison clothes lying on the bed. ‘Get dressed now.’ I pulled on my shirt. He watched me as I did so. ‘Can I report to Conan Doyle that I have seen you?’ he asked. ‘When he last saw you he thought that you had gone mad.’
    ‘It was a temporary insanity.’
    ‘I have enjoyed our conversation, sir,’ said the surgeon, gravely, ‘but it must be our last. This is a prison. It is a world apart and you who are obliged to live here and we who choose to work here must abide by its rules. It is the only way.’ He picked up his bag and moved towards the cell door. ‘There is dry blood around your right ear. Wash the outer ear with care. Does the ear itself cause you much pain?’
    ‘Some.’
    ‘Endure it as best you can. I will prescribe an antidote for your dysentery. Take it. Keep yourself clean. Exercise. As you walk around the prison yard, think of Conan Doyle and walk as he would walk – with your shoulders back and your head held high. Eat the food that is provided. You’ll get accustomed to it in time. Do not drink anything but the water and tea and cocoa given to you with your meals. If you are offered illicit alcohol, do not touch it. Whoever offers it to you – prisoner or turnkey – refuse it. It is not safe. And take each day as it comes. Your time here will pass.’
    He pulled open the cell door and called down the corridor: ‘Warder!’ He turned back and looked at me once more with his large owl’s eyes. ‘Goodbye.’
    ‘And Tom?’ I asked, lowering my voice and turning my head towards the cell that faced my own.
    ‘He is not well,’ murmured the surgeon. ‘He has a strong spirit, but a weak chest and . . .’ He hesitated. ‘And other difficulties.’ His voice trailed away.
    ‘But Warder Braddle will watch out for him,’ I said.
    ‘Beware of Warder Braddle,’ said Dr Maurice earnestly. ‘Mark what I say. Beware of him.’
     

7
21 November 1895
Warder Braddle

    T hat evening I was moved from the infirmary to my appointed cell: C.3.3. – the third cell on the third level of the third wing, C Ward.
    The cell itself – narrow, dank and dark, with stone walls painted stone grey – was much like my cells at Wandsworth and at Pentonville, but the regime at Reading was different. Supper was served fifteen minutes earlier – from half past five o’clock. The fare, however, was the same: a pint of foul-tasting oatmeal gruel slopped into a tin bowl and delivered through a hatch the size of the mouth of a letterbox set into the cell door. With mine came what smelt like a saucer