Murder on the Oscar Wilde, chapter two

I stood in the compartment, in my lined slippers and wool robe, and I felt cold. November or not, with so many people in such a small space, I should have been warm, too warm, but I wasn’t. Sixteen hours since I boarded in Burlington and already my little escape has ended. Back on the clock; back on the job. That is, if they weren’t mistaken, if there really were a murder. And a murderer, of course. Looking at the faces that surrounded me, I wondered. In the harsh overhead lights, window shades pulled down against the night, anyone would look guilty. Still, one looks, one speculates. Without coffee, I wasn’t sure how helpful that was going to be.

Seated in one of two chairs was the older gentleman from the dining car, whom I took to be Flynt’s friend; his face white, his eyes glassy. His beige silk pajamas were rumpled, the top button undone and revealing curls of grey hair. Behind him was a woman of about the same years, her bearing erect, her iron-grey hair pulled into a stiff coif, and wearing a high-necked white dressing gown, tightly tied. Her expression was hard, proud, almost military, and she held the hand of the gentleman beside her. Or rather, he clutched her hand and she allowed it. She did not look to be a woman who would allow such a thing. The man scarcely noticed her; his gaze was vague, distant.

At the doorway to the adjoining room, in which the lights were brightly lit, stood a guard, that is, stood a man with an Irish face, a massive chest and shoulder holster. He wore the uniform of the railway line and the look of a combat veteran, belying those playful freckles that decorated his features. His expression was angry, his jaw clenched; he was anything but indifferent, hired muscle. Beside me was the conductor, a smallish and tidy man, his uniform immaculate; his broad, sweaty face matched his voice when he, just now, greeted me anxiously: his voice made clear he was an American Midwesterner, born and bred. Flynt stood just behind me, blocking, no doubt unintentionally, any exit into the corridor beyond. They were not all looking at me, but there was one place that none of them were looking.

The lower bed had been pulled down and set up for the night, made up with sheets and a thick blanket that I knew, from my own smaller room, to be somewhat less soft than it appeared. On the bed lay a man who seemed to be in slumber; his eyes shut, and his expression serene. The crisp sheets and cover were pulled up neatly under his chin, the entire bed very proper, very normal. A man asleep. But of course, a man asleep would not have given excuse to raise me from my own bed, nor assemble such a gathering. Nor would it explain the low, anxious monologue of the conductor at my side, who seemed more terrified of publicity and his superiors than of the death before him. I’d previously observed that behavior at the scene of a crime and I found such callous self-interest distasteful.

I looked at the conductor. "Is there a doctor on the train?"

The man nodded; an abrupt head action. "Yes, he’s in there" He said, pointing into the adjoining room.

"He’s seen the…" I hesitated, glancing back at the seated man and the woman behind him. "The deceased?"

At the conductor’s second nod, I walked toward the bed. Without touching, I examined the man, the body. His face was tranquil; his eyelids drawn down normally, as if in sleep. He was a strikingly handsome man, as I’d noted earlier; his cheekbones were high, his forehead broad, his long nose straight. His looks, in my memory and also before me, were almost too much for a man and would have bordered on prettiness had his jaw been a little less strongly defined.

What had felled him, this Hollywood perfection, so seeming safe and tucked into bed for the evening? If he were older, I’d have suggested that he died naturally, but he couldn’t be more than twenty-five. Still, it looked utterly natural. Poison, perhaps? I leaned down, careful not to make contact, and sniffed the lips and nasal passages. My knowledge of poisons is not extensive, but it would do, and the older, more common brews are not unknown to me. There was no scent of almonds, no smell I recognized. Sleeping pills, perhaps, even unintentional excess can easily prove fatal, as I was quite aware. But the word murder had been spoken. I asked my first question without looking from the corpse.

"Did he take anything, usually, to help him sleep?"

"No, never" said a low voice. I turned slightly, it was the seated gentleman; he looked not at me but above the body, at the wall behind the bed. His face was slack, his eyes red with grief. The woman behind him clenched his hand in hers and glared at me, saying nothing.

"You knew him?" I asked, certain of the answer. He made a choking sound and abruptly brought his gaze to mine.

"Yes." The single word was forced out and almost fierce, but the voice shook. I kept my expression bland, one could not be too careful with the bereaved. Was this his son? Somehow I thought not, but gave no sign. The Oscar Wilde had more than one type of tradition and had earned its name in many ways.

"And is this his room or yours?"

"His…mine…ours, the double room is ours." He said slowly, gathering control with effort. His eyes were blue and piercing; he must have been a handsome man himself when younger, indeed he might now easily be the most attractive person in the room, if one excepted the dead. "The rooms are in his name."

I looked at the conductor, who nodded; his lips pursed in a thin line.

"And he took no sleeping medicines? Are you sure?"

"Yes," he said, "he never did, he hated them. He took very few drugs, in fact. And besides, he doesn’t-" here he caught himself, his voice thickened, "He never did have trouble sleeping." I nodded.

"You seem sure; what was your…relationship to him? Are you family?"

The guard snorted but said nothing. Though I was not facing him, his person seemed excessively en guard; his stance emanated threat, as if he contained some violence. At whom was it directed, and why? Lesser questions, surely, but one never knows. The man I’d questioned glanced to Flynt in the outer doorway, then back to me.

"We are not…were not, related. He was my…companion." he said softly, adding, "We have booked this room before." He seemed to now be breathing faster, heavier.

"You travel together often, then?" at his short nod, I continued, "I’d appreciate it you would have coffee with me in the dining car when we’re done here; I need your statement." The man nodded, his manner distracted, "Good, as I must ask a number of questions; for instance, where you live, and whether you and he reside together there, too?" Another noise from the guard, perhaps amusement. Perhaps. The woman shifted, spoke.

"That’s none of your business, my brother’s life," she said, her voice as harsh as her appearance, "You have no right to ask him questions."

"I do, though I apologize for the intrusion. I was called in to solve a death, perhaps more, and I can do so only by, as you say, asking questions."

The conductor interrupted. "He’s been called here, yes. He’s an investigator; please cooperate with him, it’s in all our interests."

The woman made as if to speak again, but the man beside her patted her hand. "Barbara, let him ask." She subsided but her look to me was, at the least, unfriendly. He looked up at me again, with those deep blue eyes.

"Yes, he…" and again he hesitated, correcting tense, "lived with me. He is, as I said, my longtime companion."

"Who found the body?" I asked the room generally. At this, the man made a sound, a sob, in his chest. The woman eyes blazed at me.

"I did." Her brother said, his gaze unflinching. He took a breath. "I found him, like that, a little while ago. I thought he was asleep, but when I went to wake him…"

"Yes?"

"He was cold. I knew he was dead."

"And what did you do, then?"

He sighed and closed his eyes, but answered. "Niccolo was dead, I didn’t know what to do. I fetched Flynt, then sent the porter for my sister." I turned to look at Flynt, at the doorway, very nearly in the corridor. His hands were in his pants’ pockets; his expression was unreadable. He’d been more readable over dinner, I thought, but not by much.

"You didn’t say there had been a death, you said ‘murder’," I told him. He stared at me, far more composed than he had been when rousing me. Which emotion was most real?

"That’s what the," he looked to his friend, paused, then, "What the charge will be, murder." The sister made a quiet sound, her brother patted her hand, while still meeting Flynt’s, and my, gaze. He looked very tired, with which I could sympathize, but surely none of us would be sleeping soon.

"But how do we know there has been a murder? Perhaps, and I mean no offense, you did not know him as well as you thought, or perhaps he took sleeping pills or powders for the first time tonight and simply misjudged the dose. I still don’t see that a murder has been committed. Either way, this can all surely wait for the police."

The conductor snorted and waved a negation with his hands. "No, not possible, it can’t wait for that." I raised my eyebrows in query; his expression grim, he continued, "If I wait, if I have nothing but a corpse and questions, then I must turn this over not to the Reno police, which will be bad enough, but to the FBI and, either way, the train will be overrun with cameras and reporters" He made a disgusted face, "Reno is crawling with the lowest kind of journalists."

At this, the seated man became anxious; his sister looked fresh daggers at me.

"I don’t understand. There’s been a death, why worry about the press?" I said.

The conductor snorted, "I’m in charge of this train, I’ve made the Zephyr run for twenty years. But with this…I worry about my job and, right now, my job depends on two things. One, keeping reporters away from this train and, two, finding out who killed this man and turning that person over to the Reno authorities. If I can do that, if I have the culprit, then the FBI has no jurisdiction; if I can’t, if all I have is a murder, a mystery and a mess, then the FBI will take this train from me. They will detain everyone, confiscate everything, and there will be no way under heaven to keep it from the next morning’s headlines." He stared hard at me, "I like my job, sir, and so I ask that you do yours, which I’m told you’re good at. Find the killer, and find him before the California Zephyr pulls into the Reno station on Monday morning."

I studied first him, then Flynt, and then the two siblings beside me. I could, of course, refuse but what would that gain me? My peace was lost; my escape was thwarted. In any case, I felt I’d accepted already, in following Flynt to this compartment. My profession had crept up and pounced upon me while I slept. I sighed. I would much rather follow those fictional heroine’s adventures than unravel this, whatever this was. Nonfiction relationships are never as tidy as those in stories. And still I could not say for certain why they were calling it a murder. It is not uncommon to take too much for sleeping, though when the worst happens, survivors can never know the person’s true state of mind. But suicide was not the word that lured me here.

I asked the conductor, "Would you have the doctor join us?" He waved at the guard, who stepped aside and grunted into the further bedroom. A man came out, pajama-clad, nervous and rumpled; he was clearly anxious, clearly frightened. In his arms he clutched a doctor’s bag. His face was round, almost fat, and small wire-rim glasses perched on the sweaty bridge of his nose. He swallowed hard as he looked around the room, blinking behind his lenses like an owl.

"Yes? Yes? I’ve told you already" he said, voice rising as he spoke. "I’ve written out the preliminary death certificate, I’ve done what you asked. What else do you want?" He looked to the conductor, who gestured tiredly towards me. The round man stared.

"Who’re you?" he asked.

"I’m investigating this…death. I was told that you examined him; do you know what killed him?" A muffled sound, almost a sob, came from the seated gentleman. His sister lay her free arm across his shoulder, her left hand still in his. "Are you sure the man didn’t take too much of something to help him sleep?" At the doctor’s puzzled expression, I added, "I mean, Doctor, why are these people telling me that it’s a murder?" The guard snorted rudely. The doctor stared at me, astonished.

"Have you looked at the body?" he asked.

"Looked, yes; it seems he died peacefully." Another nasty snort from the guard. Flynt quietly pulled back from the doorway and disappeared.

"I think not." The doctor said; his jaw clenched.

"I make no claim to be a doctor, I am merely a kind of scientist. I solve crimes but testing blood for substances is beyond me." I said, perhaps too sharply. My patience was wearing thin. "If you know something, I’ll thank you to just tell me what it is."

"He did not die peacefully," said the doctor through gritted teeth, "though he did take, or was given, something that kept him quiet. Not barbiturates, I can tell that much. But something kept him from…" His voice trailed off and he glanced around him. He bit his lip.

"Kept him from what?" I asked. The doctor pursed his lips without answering. No one met my eyes. "Why don’t you just tell me how he died, then?" I was fast losing what there was of my patience. The doctor shook his head, waggling his thick jowls.

"Lift the sheet." he said, his mouth somehow piggish. Light glinted off his lenses.

I was confused; I began to ask, "Lift the-"

"Yes, yes, the sheet, lift the sheet!" Spat the fat man, furiously. "What the hell kind of detective are you anyhow?"

Startled, I looked around the room. Grieving friends, even if not actually family (and one a woman), and perfect strangers, railroad staff, all crowded the room. This was far from the usual way one set about examining a corpse.

The dead may no longer need privacy, but the living require it. Any physical examination I might conduct would be sure to cause distress; no, not to this dead young man but to those left behind to watch.

The older gentleman was crying now, but so softly that I felt sure only his sister and I heard it. Flynt was gone, it seemed. The sister would have killed me with her eyes, had she been able. The guard was smiling, but it wasn’t a pretty sight. I hesitated.

"Go ahead, look." Said the doctor, suddenly resigned. "You’re the only one who hasn’t seen."

Ah, well that was different. I looked steadfastly away from the grief of the seated gentleman and, slowly, I raised the sheet.

[End of Chapter Two]