Page 85 of When We Touch

“Is there something in particular to which you’re referring, Your Majesty?” he asked.

She waved an elegant little hand at a stack of newspapers on the table by the tea service. “What is happening now is deplorable! There is a maniac at large in the East End. And what is being written . . . well, I understand. You have passed sad days. But there is a madman on the loose who is busy at work in our country . . . chopping up his victims. And there are those who are using the situation to . . . to topple the Crown.”

“Your Majesty, surely it’s not quite so serious as that?”

“Read!” she said, and it was a command.

Jamie looked at her, and then at the stack of papers. He picked them up. The first was a story on the inquest regarding the death of a certain Annie Chapman. Horrid details regarding the mutilation of the body were written out clearly. At the end of the article was a paragraph suggesting that the tragic circumstances of life in the East End were to blame, and then, the article went on to suggest that debauchery in the highest places might also be to blame. He glanced at the Queen who waited patiently and picked up the next article.

It was much the same.

There were several of them, and they suggested that the nation itself was responsible.

He set the papers down. “Your Majesty, there will always be those who seek not news, but sensationalism, and to turn anything written into a treatise on their own beliefs.”

“The police really have no clues; they arrested a man named Pizer—there’s an article in there about it—and they had to protect the man from being butchered by the mob! At the inquest—if you’ll look at that article—he was called as a witness, really so that he could give his alibi, and clear himself. If you keep reading, you will find that some people believe he is an immigrant, and Lord knows, they can create havoc in an area where so many of the residents do come from other countries. They are crying that the man is surely a Jew, and God help us, but we are responsible for the lives and welfare of all our subjects! There will be mob violence if something isn’t done. Descriptions of the fellow have him as a butcher, a short man, a tall man, a rich man, a poor man. And, if you keep reading, you will discover that the police are receiving all kinds of letters, confessions by dozens of disturbed individuals, missives from mystics, clerics, hypnotists, dreamers, and so forth. There are those who suggest that an eyewitness account states the fellow was exceptionally well dressed, a gentleman, nobleman . . . or—well, so far, they have not stated royalty!”

“I’m sure the police are desperately working as hard as they can,” he said.

She lifted her royal nose. “Yes. Some of the officers on the force are most exceptional men, doing all that they can. Some are . . . perhaps some of them have gained their appointments through political associations. There are even those out there who believe that these heinous crimes are not being com- mitted by a butcher, but by a Communist! I’ve received copies of a few of the letters the police have received as well!” These she drew from a pocket in her elegantly laced black skirt, along with the monocle she used to read. “Listen. ‘I was in Hyde Park the other day when once again a number of the Communist fellows were raising up their red flag. One said to the other, You jolly well wait. Once there’s a few murders happening here in the West End, and they’ll be screaming like stuck pigs!’ ” The Queen paused to stare at him, making certain that she had his full attention, and that he understood the gravity of the situation. “Here, then, Lord James, another. ‘Someone out there is saying, with these horrors happening, that the police might be brought quite low, and then the government might fall. Lord Salisbury would be forced to resign, Gladstone would come in, and voila—there you have it. The ruin of the greatest Empire on earth certain, and a secular object obtained, again, voila—a republic! ’”

Again, the Queen paused, looking at him. And, indeed, he understood the gravity of the situation. Political balance was always a tightrope walk.

“I understand the concern being caused. However, I have read the details regarding the murders, and I don’t think that they are being perpetuated by anyone with a political design. For most men and women alike, killing is not that natural a business, and certainly, carving up another human being is not something most people are willing to do.”

“I, too, believe that only a madman, a true lunatic, could do such a thing. But I must get to the bottom of this situation. While he—they, she, though before God, I cannot believe that a woman could do this thing—is out there, these horrible affairs might well continue.”

“I’m afraid so,” he said quietly. One thing he had learned was that though it was wise to watch one’s language with the Queen, there was nothing she liked more than honesty.

“I’d like you, Lord James, to quietly step in, make a few discreet inquiries, and do all that you can to find out just what is going on!”

“Your Majesty, of course, I am ready to do your bidding. But every policeman in the area is surely combing the streets—”

“I’m not asking you to find this crazed killer for me, Lord James. I am asking you to slip in, watch the police, the people, and keep an ear to the ground for the political climate, and God help us, save the monarchy—and perhaps even the Empire.”

It was a hefty assignment. Jamie just looked at her for a moment.

“Be my eyes and my ears!” she said softly.

She waved a hand in the air, and he knew that he was dismissed.

And that the Queen might have given him an impossible task. And yet . . .

He was quite suddenly grateful to her. With such work before him, he could perhaps, at last, tear his mind from his thoughts of what had been, and what was . . .

And the terrible hunger that remained inside him. When he should have been filled with nothing but pain . . .

All that he felt was need. And when his dreams should have been those of memory and loss, they turned to vivid recall instead, and now, more than ever, she seemed to whisper in his sleep, and haunt his days and nights.

“I will gladly do all that I can, Your Majesty,” he assured her.

Departing Buckingham Palace, he found Randolph awaiting him in the carriage in the vast drive.

“Where to, Lord James?” Randolph asked him.

“The East End,” Jamie said.

“Is your uncle’s widow already busy and about again?” Randolph asked him.