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

of poison: Dr Maurice’s antidote for my dysentery.
    Between seven o’clock and seven-thirty a warder would call at each cell to collect any tools that the prisoner might have been using for his day’s labour. At 7.30 p.m. a bell was rung to indicate that it was time for bed. At 7.45 p.m., from a central point in the inspection hall, by means of a single lever, the gas jets in each of the prison’s two hundred and fifty cells were extinguished simultaneously.
    I lay on my back in the darkness. My ear ached. I closed my eyes and thought of Conan Doyle – of his vigour – and of the unspoilt goodness of the man. I thought of Dr Maurice – no doubt at home by now, seated by the fireside with his pretty wife at his bony knee. Was he reading to her from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ? I opened my eyes. Six feet above the head of my bed was my window: a hole in the thick wall, six inches deep and eighteen inches wide, barred and blocked with opaque glass. Beyond it shone the moon (the silver moon!), but through the glass I could discern no more than a pale yellow smudge. I closed my eyes. I could not sleep. I dared not dream. A dreamer, I once said, is one who can only find his way by moonlight – and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.
    What stuff I had said! ‘A little sincerity is a dangerous thing and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.’ What nonsense I had talked! ‘An idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all.’ Had I ever said anything of any worth? ‘A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.’ Was that true or merely clever? Was it even clever?
    As I lay in my cell in Reading Gaol, I smiled as I thought of Arthur Conan Doyle. I had created the Selfish Giant and the man who sold his soul to retain his youth and beauty. Arthur had created Sherlock Holmes! ‘How often have I said to you, Watson, that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable , must be the truth?’ I spoke the words out loud – and as I did so I knew that I had solved the mystery of Warder Braddle. I fell into a deep sleep.
    I had no idea what time it was when I woke up. It was still night. It was a muffled sound in the distance that woke me. Was it the hooting of an owl? Or the sounding of a bell? Was there a church near by, outside the prison walls? Was it the chime of one o’clock – or the quarter? – that I had heard? I pulled myself up and rested on my elbow as my eyes adjusted to the gloom. I looked about my little cell. My furnishings were meagre. Beside my narrow bed, I had one upright wooden chair, a deal table (two foot square) and, in the corner, on the ground, the pan for my slops and a bucket of washing water. Nothing more – apart from the small gong and hammer affixed to the wall by the door to be used to alert a warder in case of emergency.
    My ear, I noticed, no longer ached. And my stomach did not churn as insistently as it had done in recent days. I listened to the stillness and felt, curiously, at peace. I was staring immediately ahead, looking directly at my cell door. I could see the outline of the hatch, the spyhole above it, to the left the locks, to the right the door’s heavy iron hinges. As I gazed on it, slowly, silently, the door began to open. And outlined in the doorway the silhouette of a tall, thin man with a large head appeared. Softly, the man stepped into my cell. Carefully, noiselessly, he closed the door behind him and walked, with measured steps, towards my bed.
    I looked up at him. ‘Warder Braddle,’ I said, quietly, ‘you have returned sooner than expected.’
    ‘You were expecting me?’ he whispered.
    ‘I was.’
    ‘You know me?’ he asked.
    ‘I do,’ I said.
    The man held a box of matches in his hand. He struck a light and, as the blue and yellow flame flared up before his face, I recognised the pockmarked, sallow skin, the lipless mouth, the shining eyes, the