He asked Ross to go to Tite Street and get him a change of clothes and bring them to Bow Street.  The two detectives took him away in a four-wheeler, leaving Ross and Turner on the curb.

Ross hurried to Tite Street.  He found that Mrs. Oscar Wilde had gone to the house of a relative and there was only Wilde’s man servant, Arthur, in the house, who afterwards went out of his mind, and is still, it is said, in an asylum.  He had an intense affection for Oscar.  Ross found that Mrs. Oscar Wilde had locked up Oscar’s bedroom and study.  He burst open the bedroom door and, with the help of Arthur, packed up a change of things.  He then hurried to Bow Street, where he found a howling mob shouting indecencies.  He was informed by an inspector that it was impossible to see Wilde or to leave any clothes for him.

Ross returned at once to Tite Street, forced open the library door and removed a certain number of letters and manuscripts of Wilde’s; but unluckily he couldn’t find the two MSS. which he knew had been returned to Tite Street two days before, namely, “A Florentine Tragedy” and the enlarged version of “The Portrait of Mr. W.H.”

Ross then drove to his mother’s and collapsed.  Mrs. Ross insisted that he should go abroad, and in order to induce him to do it gave L500 for Oscar’s defence.  Ross went to the Terminus Hotel at Calais, where Bosie Douglas joined him a little later.  They both stayed there while Oscar was being tried before Mr. Justice Charles and one day George Wyndham crossed the Channel to see Bosie Douglas.

There is of course some excuse to be made for the chief actor.  Oscar was physically tired and morally broken.  He had pulled the fair building of reputation and success down upon his own head, and, with the “booing” of the mob still in his ears, he could think of nothing but the lost hours when he ought to have used his money to take him beyond the reach of his pursuers.

His enemies, on the other hand, had acted with the utmost promptitude.  Lord Queensberry’s solicitor, Mr. Charles Russell, had stated that it was not his client’s intention to take the initiative in any criminal prosecution of Mr. Oscar Wilde, but, on the very same morning when Wilde withdrew from the prosecution, Mr. Russell sent a letter to the Hon. Hamilton Cuffe, the Director of Public Prosecutions, with a copy of “all our witnesses’ statements, together with a copy of the shorthand notes of the trial.”

The Treasury authorities were at least as eager.  As soon as possible after leaving the court Mr. C.F.  Gill, Mr. Angus Lewis, and Mr. Charles Russell waited on Sir John Bridge at Bow Street in his private room and obtained a warrant for the arrest of Oscar Wilde, which was executed, as we have seen, the same evening.