Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime by Oscar Wilde. Part 4.
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Chapter 4 | A Bomb in a Clock
Mr Merton was not very happy when Lord Arthur Savile postponed his daughter’s wedding for a second time. Mrs Merton was very angry and spoke to her daughter about not marrying Lord Arthur, but Sybil’s heart was full of love, and she agreed to wait for the wedding.
Lord Arthur was disappointed about the poison not working, but he decided to try again. This time he felt that a bomb was the best thing to use. He got out his list of family and friends and after thinking very carefully, he decided to murder his uncle, the Dean of Chichester.
The Dean was a very clever man who loved clocks. He had a house full of them. Some were four hundred years old, and some were very modern.
Lord Arthur decided that the easiest way to kill his uncle was by putting a bomb in a clock and sending it to him. But where can you buy a bomb?
Then he remembered his friend Count Rouvaloff, a young Russian who sometimes went to Lady Windermere’s parties. Rouvaloff was writing a book about Peter the Great, but people said that he was a revolutionary. Lord Arthur drove to the Russian’s rooms in Bloomsbury to ask him for his help.
‘I want a bomb!’ he said. ‘Where can I get one?’
‘Lord Arthur.’ replied Rouvaloff, ‘I never knew that you were so interested in politics.’
‘My dear Rouvaloff, politics don’t interest me,’ answered Lord Arthur. ‘It is family business only.’
Count Rouvaloff looked at him in surprise. Then, seeing that the young English lord truly meant what he said, he wrote an address on a piece of paper, put his name at the bottom, and gave it to him.
The English police would love to have this address, my friend,’ he said.
‘Well, they won’t get it from me,’ replied Lord Arthur, laughing, and he shook hands with Rouvaloff and ran downstairs.
Looking at the paper in his hand, he went at once to Soho. There, near Greek Street, he found a place called Bayle’s Court. He knocked on the door of a little green house and a strange foreign man asked him what he wanted. Lord Arthur gave him Count Rouvaloff’s paper. The man took Lord Arthur into a dirty front room.
After a few minutes Mr Winckelkopf, as he was called in England, came into the room with a fork in one hand.
‘Count Rouvaloff told me to come,’ said Lord Arthur. ‘My name is Mr Robert Smith, and I want to buy a clock with a bomb in it.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Lord Arthur,’ said the little German, laughing. ‘Don’t be surprised. It’s my job to know everybody, and I remember seeing you one evening at Lady Windermere’s. I hope she is well. Would you like to sit with me? I am just finishing my breakfast.’
Lord Arthur was very surprised that Mr Winckelkopf knew his name, but he followed him into the back room of the house, and sat and talked in the friendliest way with this famous revolutionary.
‘Clocks with bombs in are not good for foreign murders,’ said the little German. ‘Trains are often late and clock-bombs can easily explode before they get to where they are going. But if you want a bomb in a clock for use in England I can get you one with no trouble. Can I ask you who you want to kill with it? If it’s a policeman or a Scotland Yard detective then I’m afraid I can’t help you.
The English detectives are our best friends. Because they are so stupid, we can do everything we want here. We don’t want to kill any of them.’
‘No, no,’ said Lord Arthur. ‘I don’t want to kill a policeman. The clock is for the Dean of Chichester.’
‘Do you feel strongly about the Church, Lord Arthur?’
‘No, no, he is my uncle. This is family business, not Church business.’
‘I see,’ said Winckelkopf and he left the room and came back a few minutes later with a beautiful French clock. On top of it there was a little revolutionary woman standing on a terrible monster with six heads. ‘Here is your bomb.’
‘That’s just what I want! But how does it explode?’
‘That is my little secret,’ said the German. ‘Just tell me two things. What time do you want it to arrive at the Dean’s house? And what time do you want it to explode? I will do the rest.’
‘Can you send it off at once?’ asked Lord Arthur.
‘Not today. I have some important work for some friends in Moscow.’
‘Well, could you send it either tomorrow night or Thursday morning? And I’d like it to explode at twelve o’clock on Friday, please.’ said Lord Arthur. ‘The Dean always has lunch at that time. Now, how much is that?’
‘Well, the clock was four pounds, and the bomb inside will be a pound. For myself, nothing. Lord Arthur. I am only too happy to help one of Count Rouvaloff’s friends. And I do not work for money.’
Lord Arthur put five pounds on the table, thanked the little German for his time, left the house and went back home feeling very happy.
For the next two days Lord Arthur was terribly excited. On Friday at twelve o’clock he went to his club to wait for the news. All afternoon Lord Arthur waited, but no news came. At four o’clock the evening newspapers arrived and Lord Arthur read them all from front to back, but there was nothing about someone murdering the Dean of Chichester with an exploding clock. There was no news from Chichester at all. He felt very disappointed.
The next day he went back to Bayle’s Court in Soho to see Mr Winckelkopf again. The little German was very sorry about the accident and he promised to send another clock-bomb to the Dean of Chichester as soon as possible. And I don’t want any more money, Lord Arthur,’ he said. But by now Lord Arthur didn’t really trust bombs to do the job well, and even Winckelkopf agreed that it was difficult to find good gunpowder.
‘I’m sure that something went wrong with the clock. Lord Arthur,’ he said. ‘But perhaps the gunpowder will explode without it. I haven’t lost hope.’
But Lord Arthur was not very hopeful.