‘Where is Wilde’s wife?’ he asked Gosse.

‘At home waiting for him, with unpaid bills everywhere and two young sons.’

Henry could not picture Mrs Wilde and did not think he had ever met her. He did not even know, nor did Gosse, whether she was Irish or not. But the idea of the two boys, who looked like angels, Gosse had assured him, struck him forcibly. He imagined the two sons waiting for their monstrous father to return and was glad he did not know their names. He thought of them, both unaware of their father’s reputation, yet slowly gathering an impression of him and longing for him now that he was away.

Despite the fact that he believed, as the gossip came his way, that he had the measure of Wilde, he held his breath and moved about the room in silence when Gosse told him that Wilde was suing the Marquess of Queensberry in open court for calling him a sodomite.

‘It seems that he could not even spell the word,’ Gosse said.

‘Spelling, I imagine, was not ever his strong point.’ Henry stood at the window glancing out as though expecting Wilde or the marquess himself to appear on the street below.

Gosse managed to imply at all times that his information came from the highest and most reliable source. He suggested somehow that he was in touch with members of the cabinet, or the prime minister’s office, or on certain occasions an informant close to the Prince of Wales. Sturges, on the other hand, made it clear that all he knew came from club gossip, or chance meetings with informants who might not be entirely reliable. The visits of Gosse and Sturges never coincided during these frenzied weeks, which was fortunate, Henry thought, as each of them came bearing precisely the same information.

Gosse began to call every day, Sturges merely when there was news, although once the trial opened Sturges came daily too. There was always some embellishment and some new piece of intrigue. Gosse had met George Bernard Shaw who had told him of his meeting with Wilde, of his warning him not to bring the case against the Marquess of Queensberry. Wilde had agreed, Shaw said, that it would not be wise, and everything was settled until Lord Alfred Douglas arrived, brazen and petulant, as Shaw had described him, demanding that Wilde sue his father and attacking those who advised caution, insisting that Wilde leave with him there and then. Douglas was red-faced with anger, Shaw said, a spoiled boy. The strange thing though was that Wilde seemed totally under his power, followed him and appeared to give in to him. He melted under the heat of the young man’s anger.

Sturges was the first to arrive with the news of what the Marquess of Queensberry intended to tell the court.

‘He has, I’ve been told, witnesses. Witnesses who will not spare us any detail.’

Henry looked at Sturges’s young face and his wide-eyed expression. He wanted to pat him on the shoulder and tell him that he was eager to hear the detail, all of it, as soon as it was known, he wanted to be spared nothing.

The story of Wilde filled Henry’s days now. He read whatever came into print about the case and waited for news. He wrote to William about the trial, making clear that he had no respect for Wilde, he disliked both his work and his activities on the stage of London society. Wilde, he insisted, had never been interesting to him, but now, as Wilde threw caution away and seemed ready to make himself into a public martyr, the Irish playwright began to interest him enormously.

‘I HAVE HEARD news of the greatest import.’ Gosse did not wait to sit down before he spoke, and moved as though he were standing on the deck of a ship.

‘I believe that Douglas ’s father will produce a number of scallywags. Young unwashed boys will give evidence against Wilde and, I have been told, their evidence will be irrefutable.’

Henry knew that there was no need to ask questions. He did not, in any case, quite know how to frame the question that needed to be asked.

‘I have seen the names of the witnesses,’ Gosse said dramatically, ‘and they include a number of worms. Wilde, it seems, has been consorting with worms, with thieves and blackmailers. The price must have seemed cheap at the time, but it seems now it will cost him dear.’

‘And Douglas?’ Henry asked.

‘I am told that he is up to his neck in this. But Wilde wants him kept out of it. It seems when Wilde was finished with his filthy young purchases he passed them on to Douglas, and God knows who else. It appears there is a list of those who rented these boys.’

Henry noticed that Gosse was watching him, waiting for his response.

‘It is a dreadful business,’ he said.

‘Yes, a list,’ Gosse said, as though Henry had not spoken.

NEITHER STURGES nor Gosse went to the trial, yet they both seemed to know the exchanges by heart. Wilde, they said, was confident and arrogant. He spoke, Sturges said, like someone who could burn his boats because he was about to go to France. He was witty and lofty, careless and contemptuous. Gosse heard from his usual sources one evening that Wilde had already taken off, but the following day when it was clear that this had not happened, Gosse did not mention it. Nonetheless, both of Henry’s informants were sure that he would go to France and both also had names for the boys who would give evidence and spoke of them as personages, each with his own different character and profile.

On the third day of the trial, Henry noticed a new intensity in the tone of both Gosse and Sturges. They had separately been up late the night before and discussing the case; had waited until they knew that Wilde had turned up in court that day so that they could come with fresh news. Gosse had spent part of the previous evening with the poet Yeats, who, Gosse said, was alone among those to whom he had spoken in his admiration for Wilde and had nothing but praise for his courage. The poet had attacked the public for its hypocrisy, Gosse said.

‘I was not aware,’ he added, ‘that the public had been trawling in the sewers and I told Yeats so.’

‘Does he know Wilde?’ Henry asked.

‘They’re all Irish together,’ Gosse said.

‘Does he know him well?’ Henry persisted.

‘He told me an extraordinary story,’ Gosse said. ‘He told me of a Christmas Day he spent with the Wildes. The house, he said, was more beautiful than anyone has mentioned, everything white and full of strange and beautiful objects. Chief among them, he said, was Mrs Wilde herself, who is clever and quite beautiful, according to Yeats. And the two boys, he said, were curly-headed pictures of innocence and sweetness, perfect creatures. It was all perfect, he said, a household of infinite perfection, not only great taste, but great warmth, he said, and great beauty and great love.’

‘Obviously not enough,’ Henry said drily, ‘or perhaps too much.’

‘Yeats intends to call on him,’ Gosse said. ‘I wished him luck.’

Sturges listened carefully as Henry, for once, passed on what Gosse had told him.

‘It is all clear,’ Sturges said. ‘Bosie is the love of his life. He would give up anything for him. Wilde has found the love of his life.’

‘Then why can he not take him to France?’ Henry asked. ‘That is where such people are normally taken.’

‘He may still go to France,’ Sturges said.

‘The fact that he has not yet gone is inexplicable,’ Henry said.

‘I think I know why he has not gone,’ Sturges said. ‘I have spent much time discussing it with those who know him, or at least think they do, and I think I might know.’

‘Do pray tell,’ Henry said, placing himself in a chair by the window.

‘In one short month,’ Sturges said, speaking slowly as though thinking ahead to the next phrase, ‘he has sat in an audience for two of his plays and witnessed triumph, universal praise and his name in large letters. For any man it would be unsettling. No man should make a judgement who has recently published a book or put on a play.’