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

was the more guilty and would receive the harsher punishment.
    The colonel was seated behind his desk. He cracked his knuckles noisily in anticipation of the answer. C.4.8. confessed that he had spoken first – and, when I was called, I confessed the same. The governor was not amused. ‘I do not understand,’ he stammered, turning brick red. ‘C.4.8. says he started it. He is to be punished accordingly. He insists he started it.’ I stood my ground. The governor clasped his hands and pressed the knuckles of his thumbs against his chin. ‘If that’s how it’s going to be, you will be punished equally. You will both have the maximum the regulations allow without reference to the visiting committee – three days in a punishment cell on a diet of bread and water.’ He nodded his dismissal.
    ‘May I speak, sir?’ I asked.
    ‘What is it?’ he growled, looking down at his desk and affecting to find papers on it that he was anxious to study. ‘There can be no appeal.’
    ‘No,’ I said hurriedly, ‘I accept my punishment—’
    ‘That’s gracious of you,’ he sniffed, gazing blankly at the sheet he held before him.
    ‘I wanted to ask about my books, sir.’
    He looked up. ‘Books?’ His face began to redden once again. He gave the impression that he felt threatened by the very word. ‘What books?’
    ‘Mr Haldane kindly arranged for me to be sent some books. He paid for them himself. The Confessions of Saint Augustine, a history of Rome, some essays by Cardinal Newman . . .’
    ‘Spare me the details.’
    ‘They should have been sent on from Wandsworth.’
    ‘Ask Warder Braddle,’ said the governor, dismissively. He turned back to his papers.
    ‘I have done so, sir, but, alas, I am not one of Warder Braddle’s “favourites”.’
    The governor cocked his head to one side and let fall whatever document he was holding. ‘Say that again, C.3.3. I did not hear you properly. Say that again. I was reading.’
    ‘I asked Warder Braddle about my books, sir, but he referred me to you.’
    ‘You said something else, C.3.3. What was it?’
    ‘The books should have been sent on from Wandsworth, sir.’
    ‘No – it was something about Warder Braddle. Repeat what you said – exactly.’
    ‘I said, “Alas, I am not one of Warder Braddle’s ‘favourites’.”’
    ‘Yes,’ said Colonel Isaacson. ‘I thought that’s what I heard you say.’ He leant across the table and gazed up at me with his ferret’s eyes. His face flushed once more. ‘Warder Braddle has no “favourites”. Is that clear? There are no “favourites” at Reading Gaol. We treat all prisoners equally. This is an English prison, C.3.3. We play by the rules. We play fairly – at all times and in all circumstances. Do you understand?’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘One should always play fairly, don’t you agree?’
    ‘Yes, sir. One should always play fairly when one has the winning hand.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘I mean nothing, sir.’
    ‘You are dismissed. Warder Braddle has no favourites. Nor do I.’
    The punishment block was below ground, a set of subterranean cells – like the wine cellars of a great castle – located beneath the main body of the prison and reached from the prison’s inner courtyard by means of a steep and narrow stairway. There were iron gates at the mouth of the stairway and at its foot. The block contained eight cells in all, opening off a single low-ceilinged corridor. C.4.8. and I were the only prisoners being held there. C.4.8. was incarcerated in the first cell, nearest to the stairway; I was placed in the last. Halfway along the corridor was an alcove, within which a turnkey sat on a wooden armchair by a small coal fire. Opposite the alcove, between cells 4 and 5, was a short passageway leading to an open sluice.
    For three days and three nights I was confined to my cell. I was kept in total darkness and fed on bread and water. It did not seem to me to be a very cruel punishment. The darkness was a