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

kind of comfort and the bread and water no worse a diet than thin gruel and bitter cocoa. During my confinement I was released from the cell just three times and then only for a matter of minutes. Each morning, after breakfast, I was permitted to carry my pot of slops along the corridor to the sluice.
    For seventy-two hours no one spoke to me and I spoke to no one. The duty warder, when he unlocked the hatch in the cell door to pass me my bread and water, said nothing. In the morning I knew when it was the hour for slopping out only because I heard the same warder unlock my cell door and bang his fist against it. He spoke not a word.
    Lying in the darkness, I thought of what Private Luck had told me: ‘You must learn to let your ears be your eyes while you are here.’ I thought of my friend Conan Doyle – and smiled – and tried to listen with Holmesian perception. There was much to hear – a distant bell; distant cries; footsteps on the stone stairs (some heavy, some light – were those the boots of Warder Stokes?); muffled conversations in the corridor (was that the voice of Warder Braddle?); laughter; a cough; a turnkey pissing in the sluice; the locking and unlocking of gates; the heavy breathing of a turnkey sleeping at his post . . . I listened to it all, by night and day.
    The chief effect of the darkness and the silence was that I lost track of time. On the final morning of my punishment I woke I know not when. I suppose it was the warder’s banging on my cell door that roused me, but I do not recollect hearing either the banging or the turning of the key in the lock. That it was the hour for slopping out was clear: my door was ajar, the gloom of the corridor filtered into my cell. I got to my feet, pulled on my boots and took my pot of slops out into the corridor.
    As, blearily, I carried my mess towards the sluice I heard voices at the end of the corridor. There was laughter and whispering – and the voice of a girl. I peered along the passageway and saw a cluster of figures gathered by the gate to the stairway. The turnkey’s alcove was deserted: the fire in the grate was dead. I turned into the recess that led to the sluice and emptied my slops in the usual way. As I retraced my steps I looked back towards the stairway. There was only one figure standing there now.
    ‘Where’s your cap? Get your cap or there’ll be trouble.’
    The figure came along the corridor towards me.
    ‘It’s Braddle’s watch,’ he said. ‘Take care.’
    As the figure reached me, I realised that he was not a warder, but a fellow convict.
    ‘C.4.8.?’ I said.
    ‘No, he’s gone. He went last night.’
    ‘But—’
    ‘It’s Braddle’s watch. Braddle does as Braddle pleases.’
    ‘Who are you?’ I asked, peering down at the man’s uniform to find his number.
    ‘C.3.5.,’ he replied, extending a hand to shake mine. He had the voice and manner of a gentleman.
    I felt the grotesque absurdity of the moment. I stood, in a burrow in the ground, dressed in convict’s clothes, with a chamber-pot beneath my arm, greeting a man I did not know whose face I could not see. I put out my hand. ‘I am Osc—’ I began.
    He laughed. ‘I can see who you are. You should wear your cap. Braddle will have you beaten if you don’t. He’s wanting an excuse.’
    ‘Where is he?’ I asked, looking over the prisoner’s shoulder towards the stairs.
    ‘He’ll be back.’
    ‘Why are you here?’
    ‘I am doing Braddle’s bidding. I am a “favourite”.’ He laughed again. ‘At least, I have been. I am Sebastian Atitis-Snake.’
    ‘What a wonderful name,’ I cried.
    ‘I hoped you might recognise it. We were sentenced on the same day. Our cases were reported in the newspapers at the same time.’
    ‘I recollect,’ I said. ‘You claimed to be the Emperor Napoleon. That was your defence.’
    ‘And you claimed to be Oscar Wilde,’ he said. ‘That was yours.’
    It was my turn to laugh. I knew at once I liked this man. I was