-- Written by Anne
The suggestion for this
story came up waaaaaaaay back in 1986, during an interview with Angela Lansbury
on “Entertainment Tonight.” According to
the plans mentioned, the writers were thinking of doing an episode in which
Jessica dreamed she was Queen
Seth
tipped over his
king.
“All right, all right, I concede,”
he said huffily. “That’s three matches
that I’ve lost in as many weeks!”
Jessica smiled sweetly over the
chessboard at her friend. “Sorry,” she
said.
“Sorry? You aren’t sorry,” Seth retorted. “If you were really sorry, you wouldn’t be
smiling at me like that!” He looked at
his watch, then stood up from the dining room table. “Well, I suppose I ought to be going,” he
said. “But I’m warning you, Jessica,
next time will be different.”
Jessica put a hand to her mouth to
stifle a yawn. “That’s what you said
last week,” she said. “And the week
before that.”
“Ahhrgh. Well, this time I mean it.”
As he walked through the living
room, he noticed a book lying face down on the end table next to Jessica’s
favorite chair. He picked it up and
looked at the dust jacket. “What’s
this?” he asked.
“Oh,” said Jessica, coming over to
him. “That’s a book about Jack the
Ripper. I took it out of the library the
other day.”
“Hm.
Are you planning on putting him in a book, or some such thing?” Seth
asked.
“Oh, no, no,” Jessica laughed. “I read it out of my own curiosity, nothing
more. You know they never discovered the
identity of Jack the Ripper?”
“Ay-yuh, I remember reading that somewhere,”
Seth said, flipping through the pages.
“Well,” he said, setting it back down on the table with an air of
finality, “good night, and I’ll be seeing you tomorrow.”
Jessica saw him to the front
door. “Good night, Seth,” she said, and
she shut the door quietly behind him.
It was nearly eleven as Jessica went
back to the dining room to clear away the chessboard and its pieces, time for
her to go to bed. But before she went
upstairs, she wandered over to the bookshelves in the living room and looked
for something to read. She had finished
the Jack the Ripper book and would return it to the library tomorrow; but in
the meantime she need to start on something new. Jessica was one of those people who wasn’t
comfortable unless she had some fiction close at hand to read.
Her fingertips grazed over the
spines of a number of books, some classics, some works friends had written and
given to her, some fitting no particular category. But what he finally pulled off the shelf was
a favorite of hers, The Complete and
Illustrated Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle. She took this up to her bedroom, curled up
into bed, and began to read.
*******
The thump of the book sliding off
the bed and hitting the floor woke her with a start. She had no idea when she had dozed off, or
how long she had been asleep, but when she turned to look at the clock on her
bedside table, its glowing face wasn’t there.
And then, as her eyes became adjusted to the darkness, she realized that
this was definitely not her own bedroom at home. This room was larger, far larger, and much
more ornate, with all the furnishings looking as if they had been made in the
Victorian era.
She got out of bed and crossed the
floor to the window, hoping to find out where she was. Outside she could see beautifully kept
gardens, lit here and there with gas lanterns, while beyond the walls stretched
a great city that she instantly recognized as
Panic seized her heart momentarily
as she realized where she was, for she had no idea how on earth she could have
gotten here to
Turning back to the bed, she noticed
the book which had fallen to the floor, and
picked it up. It was a very new
looking book, the pages not even cut nor the spine cracked. She gingerly opened it to the publisher’s
page, and read the date: 1895, one hundred years in the past.
Jessica let the book go as though it
had burned her, and took a hasty step back as it dropped to the floor
again. She was still shaking when she
heard an insistent knocking at the door to the room.
“Come in,” she said, trying to
steady her voice.
A woman opened the door slightly and
poked her head inside. She was dressed
in the style of an English maidservant from the late nineteenth century.
“Is everything all right, your
Majesty?” she asked anxiously. “I heard
two thumps, so I came up to see what was the matter. Why are you out of bed?”
Jessica was stunned by the nature of
the maid’s address. Majesty? She took this in, added it to the nature of
the furnishings of the room and the publication date of the book, and, being
quick on the uptake, was able to put two and two together.
“It – it’s nothing,” she said
shakily. “I just couldn’t sleep, and
when I went to open the window, I knocked the book over in the dark. It’s nothing.”
“Very well, your Majesty,” the woman
said. “I’ll be around in the morning to
prepare you for your audience with Lords Melbourne and Palmerston. Good night, Highness.”
When the maid had gone, Jessica sat
down weakly on the bed, and buried her face in her hands.
“They think I’m Queen
*******
The morning brought no relief from
this terrible realization. The meeting
with the two lords, of whom Jessica knew very little except what she remembered
from history class, was a breakfast meeting, but for all the formality involved
in it, it might just as well have taken place in the throne room. The maids had brought Jessica an exceedingly
fancy dress with a huge skirt, black but sewn with jewels and laces and other
frilly things. They had seemed surprised
when Jessica insisted on getting herself into it without their help. She hated the style, and the high collar was
every bit as uncomfortable as it looked, but at least the dress fit.
Lord Melbourne was a tall, aged man
with a hawkish nose and thinning grey hair.
There was a twinkle in his eye, though, and a genuine warmth in his
smile when he saw Jessica enter the royal dining room. Lord Palmerston, on the other hand, was
short, fat, and sour looking; he did not smile at all. Both rose to greet her.
When they had sat down, Jessica
looked around, hoping to see something that would probably prove very useful to
her in the days ahead.
“What are you looking for, your
Majesty?” he asked.
“A newspaper,” she answered simply,
and she beckoned over a page that stood nearby.
Lord Palmerston looked
scandalized. “A newspaper?” he thundered.
“Since when has the Queen of England stooped to reading the rags of the
common people?”
“Since she decided she needed to
know what was going on,” Jessica answered him, looking him straight in the eye.
Lord Melbourne laughed. “Well said, your Majesty,” he said. “If it is a newspaper you want, then you
shall not be denied it. James,” he said,
speaking to the page boy that stood at Jessica’s side, “run and fetch a copy of
this morning’s
“Yes, your Lordship,” he said, and
walked briskly out of the room. Jessica
could hear him break into a run just as soon as he was clear of the tall doors
of the dining room.
A short time later he returned with
a fresh newspaper, which Jessica took with her thanks and spread on the table
before her. Her hope was that by
glancing over this, she wouldn’t appear so hopelessly clueless when the time
came to actually discuss official business.
“Your Highness,” Palmerston began,
“we must discuss with you the
But Jessica had seen something else
that had caught her eye instead. She
raised the paper, read the article more closely. “Ripper Strikes Yet Again,” the headline
screamed.
“Have you seen this?” she asked,
holding up the newspaper so the two nobles could see it.
Lord Palmerston sniffed disdainfully. “Who hasn’t heard, madam?” he said. “Dreadful scandal. Of course, one might say that Jack the Ripper
is actually doing
Jessica was shocked. “Lord Palmerston!” she exclaimed. “That is the most callous thing I have heard
anyone say in a long time. That these
women are prostitutes is irrelevant.
They are subjects of the crown, and entitled to protection under it!”
“Well, your Highness, resources have
been diverted …”
“How many resources?” Jessica
demanded.
“Well … some departments of Scotland
Yard have been assigned to this case, and we expect that …”
“I said,” said Jessica coldly, “how
many?”
“Ah … three departments, Highness.”
“That’s it? Three?”
“We deemed that three would be
sufficient, yes, your Majesty.”
“To catch a serial killer? He’s murdered eight women already!”
Lord Palmerston was turning a fine
shade of purplish red, whether from anger or from embarrassment or both, and it
was at this point that Lord Melbourne stepped in.
“We will have the Yard put this case
at the top of their priority list right away, madam,” he said. “There will be no further delay.”
Jessica seemed to calm down from her
previously agitated state. “Yes, I think
that would be appropriate,” she said.
“Please do that.” And she tucked
the paper under her arm and rose from the table to leave.
Lord Melbourne caught up with her
outside in the corridor.
“That was extremely well done,
Jessica inferred from his use of
“What is his problem?” she said with very un-royal frustration. “I mean, people are out there dying, and what
are we doing about it? Barely anything,
until today!”
“Lord Palmerston has never been your
strongest supporter,”
“Apparently,” Jessica said, and
walked on in silence, concentrating on trying not to step on the hem of her
ridiculous dress.
“Is there anything I can do for you,
Victoria?”
“Nothing I can think of – wait. Yes, yes there is something you can do for
me.” She stopped and turned to face the
elder lord. “Would it be possible for me
to see the records of Scotland Yard’s investigation into this case up to this
point?”
“Well, let’s just say that I am
personally interested about what the Yard has been doing,” she said, realizing
that it was, in fact, a very strange request for a queen. “Call it a performance review.”
“I would be willing to go over the
records myself, and spare you the effort …”
“No, that’s all right. I really would rather have a look at them
myself, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” he said, and at that
Jessica took off down the hall ahead of him.
It was not long before the page
brought a stack of police reports from Scotland Yard to the queen’s office,
where Jessica sat feeling very out of place behind a huge mahogany desk. She thanked the page warmly, then turned to
the files, where the details of each murder were recorded. The cases were all
strikingly similar, at least in terms of victim profile and method. But there was very little that jumped out at
her that could be construed as a “fingerprint” of the killer, nothing that
might give her a clue as to who Jack the Ripper might actually be.
*******
That evening Jessica sneaked out of
She walked the streets alone,
recognized by no one thanks to the battered cloak she had found in a linen
closet. Not the best disguise, but she
was beginning to think that it was good enough until she heard someone say,
“May I ‘ave a smidgen of yer time, your ‘ighness?”
Jessica turned and saw a young woman
jump the low hedge beside the street and perch on a bench beneath it. She had raven-black hair, violet eyes, and a
merry face that couldn’t have been more than twenty, but she was dressed in a
fashion that could only be assigned to the prostitutes of the late nineteenth
century.
“Who are you?” Jessica asked.
“My name’s Rose,” the woman said in
her thick Cockney accent. “I’ve come
‘ere to seek yer ‘elp. Pardon me
forwardness, ‘ighness, but I’ve come a long ways to see you, all the way up
from the East End, indeed.”
“What is it that you want from me?”
“You ‘ave got to ‘elp us, Victoria,”
Rose said. “I know we ain’t much in the
way of the Empire’s best citizens, but we’re at a bloody loss to ‘elp
ourselves. You might ‘ve ‘eard of Jack
the Ripper.”
A sudden chill ran though Jessica at
the mention of this name. “I have,” she
said.
“Well the Ripper’s been slashing us
down at every opportunity, and tis got us all in such a state. ‘E killed another one o’ me chums last
night. Nice girl, she deserved better than
what she got out o’ life. But I ‘ear the
talk, Lady, and what they say is that Queen Victoria’s got the keenest eye of
all for the little details. So we were
‘oping you might keep yer ear to ground, so to speak, and see what ye might
learn – seeing as ‘ow you’re able to get out o’ yonder palace and all, by the
looks o’ things.”
Jessica wasn’t sure what to say, but
when she looked in Rose’s violet eyes she recognized an honest look of appeal.
“Well, I – I’ll do what I can,” she
said at last.
Relief flooded across the young woman’s
face. “I knew you’d not let down any o’
your own subjects,” she said. “God save
the Queen!” And she sprang back over the
hedge and disappeared into the night.
*******
The first thing next morning,
Jessica announced to her advisors that she intended to pay a royal visit to the
Lord Palmerston, as she suspected he
would, laughed the idea off as a mere fancy.
“Your Highness,” he said, “surely
you jest. The city morgue is no place
for the Queen of England to be seen. If
you are so set on having an audience with the coroner, then we can summon him
here to
Jessica shook her head. “Not good enough,” she said.
“Your purpose, then, is not merely
to speak with Dr. Chesterton, the coroner?”
Lord Melbourne asked.
“That’s right,” said Jessica. “I intend to have a quick look at the
bodies.”
Palmerston was aghast. “I do not believe my own ears!” he
sputtered. “Am I to understand that your
Majesty wishes to gaze upon the bodies of murdered prostitutes in the city morgue? How ghastly!
Whatever has come over you?”
“There might be some clue at the
morgue that I wasn’t able to find in the records,” Jessica explained. “I won’t be able to say for certain unless I
have a look at them myself, and talk directly with the coroner.”
“A valid point, Majesty,” Melbourne
said thoughtfully.
“Well, I jolly well forbid it!”
Palmerston said huffily. “It is bad
enough that the Queen of England is taking an interest in the workings of
police business, but to actually leap into this sordid investigation yourself,
madam, is unthinkable! Most unseemly
behavior.”
Jessica could feel her will waxing
strong, and decided that now was the time to use the royal powers that had been
inexplicably forced upon her, if ever.
She stood from her chair, planted her hands on the desk, and leaned
toward Lord Palmerston, eyes flashing.
“You are not in a position to forbid anything,” she said in a dangerous voice. “Member of the House of Lords you may be, but you are still sworn to me, and my wishes you shall not question. Unless, that is, you want me to strip you of your family’s hereditary title and lands. I can do that, you know.”
(No
I can’t, she thought to herself, but
he doesn’t need to know that.)
Out of the corner of her eye she
thought she saw Melbourne trying his best to hide a smile behind his hand. Before her fury Palmerston paled and backed
down.
“Of course, you are absolutely
right, Highness,” he said apologetically.
“Forgive me, I have overstepped my authority. Please excuse me.” He pulled a watch out of his left waistcoat
pocket, checked the time hurriedly, and fairly bolted out of the room.
Satisfied with her performance,
Jessica settled back into her chair, and watched Palmerston retreat with
disapproval. “We are not amused,” she said.
It was all Melbourne could do to
keep from laughing out loud. “I’ll have
your carriage sent for right away, Victoria,” he said, and left the room,
chuckling to himself.
*******
Dr. Chesterton dropped his files as
soon as Jessica walked through the door; apparently no one had warned the good
doctor of her coming.
“Good Lord!” he exclaimed in
shock. “Queen Victoria!”
Jessica was startled by this, and
bent down to help Dr. Chesterton collect his files, despite the little
disapproving noises being made by Lord
Palmerston, who had insisted on accompanying her to the coroner’s office. The doctor was still trembling from surprise
and confusion when she stood up and placed the pile she had picked up back into
his hands.
“Many thanks, your Majesty,” he stammered.
“Think nothing of it,” she said. “I’m sorry I startled you.”
“Ah … er … to what do I owe the pleasure of this
visit?” Chesterton asked, when he had collected himself.
“The Queen is engaged in a review of the procedures
of the city’s coroner’s office in criminal investigations,” Palmerston said
loftily. “She has insisted on inspecting
the premises personally. So if you would
be so good as to …”
Jessica silenced him with a mere look. Then she turned back to the doctor and
smiled. “Actually,” she said, “I would
simply like to have a look at the victims of the Jack the Ripper murders. Would you show them to me?”
“They are not a pleasant sight, your Highness,”
Chesterton said.
“Well, I don’t need to see … everything,” Jessica
replied.
Chesterton nodded.
“Very well,” he said, and showed them into the morgue.
The morgues of the late nineteenth century were not
what they would be in a hundred years’ time, but Jessica was hardened by
experience, and the environment did not distress her too badly. Chesterton revealed the face of first one
victim, then another, giving her time enough to look at each of them
closely. They were prostitutes, all of
them, but one thing that Jessica did notice was that for prostitutes, each of
them wore a surprising amount of rich jewelry – one had a golden necklace,
another a diamond bracelet, and a third, earrings set with pearls. None of the pieces were faked. It was not the sort of thing she had expected
to see prostitutes wearing on the street.
That was the dominant image that she carried away with her when she left
the coroner’s offices.
*******
Jessica knew that somehow she had to get back in
touch with Rose, to find out if the jewelry clue was for real, or if it was her
own misinterpretation of actual historical conditions. There were many limitations to having been
born several decades in the future; not knowing anything more about how people
lived in the past than what could be gleaned from history books was one of
them.
Again she dressed herself as a commoner, and sneaked
out of the palace grounds through the kitchen exit. By horse-drawn cab and on foot she made her
way down to the East End.
She lurked around in the shadows of the narrow
streets, letting darkness and fog add to her disguise. She remembered ruefully that once she thought
there was nothing worse in her (alternate) line of work than being recognized,
while on a case, as a mystery writer.
Now, though, she had discovered that there something much worse than
that – being recognized, while on a case, as the Queen of England. It was a bitter irony.
A short scream pierced the thick, shadowy air, and
looking down an alley she saw a figure fall to the cobbles, and another hurry
away. She rushed forward to help, but
put a hand to her mouth when she saw what had happened. She was too late; a quick look toward the end
of the alley told her that Jack the Ripper was gone, disappeared back into the
mists of London’s underworld.
There was shouting and a clatter of boots from the
entrance to the alley. Jessica looked up
from the body of the unfortunate woman, and saw two men approach, dressed in
long overcoats and bowler hats. She
recognized one of them, a tall, thin figure with sharp features and piercing
eyes, and caught her breath.
“I don’t believe it,” she said.
“We’re too late, Holmes!” the second man exclaimed
when they stood across the body from her.
“Perhaps, Watson, perhaps,” Sherlock Holmes said,
“but we may yet gain from what has been left behind.” He seemed to notice Jessica for the first
time, and held her in his gaze for a long moment.
“Forgive me, madam,” he said, “but may I ask who you
might be?”
Jessica was about to answer with the truth when at
that moment the constables came running around the corner, Inspector Lestrade
in the lead. At the sight of her the inspector
pulled up short, and bowed.
“Your Majesty,” he said. “What are you doing here? This is not a safe place for you to be
walking without a heavy escort!”
“My dear Lestrade,” Holmes said, coming forward, “do
you mean to say that we are in the presence of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria
herself?”
“Are you blind, man?
Who else could it be?” Lestrade retorted. Then, turning to Jessica: “Highness, I must ask again what brings you
out to the scene of a crime as horrible as this.”
“Oh, well, a personal interest, one into which you
ought not enquire too closely,” Jessica said enigmatically. “However, it might be worthwhile to find out
who the victim was, and where she stayed, and who her last, um, customer was.”
“Those first bits we can do easily enough,” Lestrade
said, “but I don’t think we’ll have much luck on the last. It’s impossible to find these men, in most
cases.”
“True, but not in this case,” she said. “See, she has a fine watch on a gold
chain. It’s quite new, not a scratch on
it – it was probably a gift from the man who killed her. Now, I suspect that the name of the
watchmaker is engraved somewhere upon it; from there it shouldn’t be too
difficult to track down who bought it.”
She thought about the other fine pieces of jewelry on the other victims
in the London morgue.
Lestrade stood with his mouth hanging open, and as
she finished, looked at Holmes imploringly.
Holmes smiled, and with a casual wave of his hand
said, “She is quite accurate in all her observations, Lestrade. There is nothing there that I would
countermand. I would follow up on her
suggestions with all due haste, before the trail grows cold.”
The inspector bobbed his head and started barking
orders at his underlings. Holmes looked
at Jessica with approval.
“Well,” he said, “I must confess that I did not know
that our sovereign queen had such a keen eye for observation and deduction.”
Jessica shrugged – not a particularly queenly
gesture, she realized, but it was all she could come up with at the moment.
*******
At Lestrade’s insistence Jessica was driven back to
Buckingham Palace in a special Scotland Yard coach, surrounded by an extensive
police escort that made a quiet return from her adventure impossible. It was quite embarrassing, walking through a
gauntlet of servants and advisors all wondering where she had been, why she had
gone, and if she was all right. Jessica
tried to hold her head high with as much dignity as she could salvage, the sort
of thing she felt that Victoria would have done in her place. But then, she thought wryly, the real Queen
Victoria would probably not have put herself in such a situation to begin with.
Of course she heard about it the next morning, and
she had to send away the blustering Lord Palmerston along with a score of other
outraged or concerned nobles in order to have a little peace. But when that same afternoon Lord Melbourne
requested the privilege of sharing tea with her, she did not deny him.
The servants were dismissed from the elaborate
palace sitting room, leaving her alone with the noble. For a long time neither of them said
anything, sipping their tea in a deafening silence. At last Melbourne broke the quiet, setting
down his porcelain tea cup.
“Well, Victoria,” he said, “news of your exploits
have traveled all over the palace and the Parliament buildings by now.”
“Has it?” Jessica said offhandedly, taking another
sip of tea.
“It is considered highly irregular behavior for the
Queen of the British Empire to be wandering around London’s East End by
herself. However,” he said, stopping Jessica’s
protest before it could start, “they do not know you as I do.”
“And what do you
think of what I did?” she asked. “Knowing me as you do.”
“I find it highly compatible with your well-known
sense of morality. It does not surprise
me that once appealed to by your subjects, you would take direct action on
their behalf. Though I must admit that
usually that direct action entails signing a new bill into law, or a royal
edict, or something along those lines.
Sneaking out of Buckingham Palace to walk the streets alone at night;
that, I confess, did take me more by surprise.”
“It was the only way,” Jessica said lamely, by way
of explanation.
“No doubt, no doubt,” said Melbourne, taking a scone
from a plate of biscuits. “But I do feel
obligated to remind you, Victoria, that this is a particularly dangerous
investigation that you are pursuing. As
you said yourself, Jack the Ripper is a serial killer that not even Scotland
Yard has been able to apprehend. And he
can kill a queen just as easily as he can kill a prostitute. I needn’t remind you what a catastrophic
effect your untimely death would have on this country, and the empire.”
“Of course,” Jessica murmured, and returned to the
intense study of her tea cup.
*******
Despite the implied warning in Lord Melbourne’s
words, Jessica knew that she ad to dare the East End again so that she could
find Rose. A strict eye was being kept
on the kitchen exit now; she had to be resourceful and slip out the laundry
door. Soon enough she found herself
again in the fog-choked alleyways of the lower city, looking for her contact.
“Your ‘ighness!” came a voice that she
recognized. Jessica turned and saw Rose
gaping at her in amazement, having just rounded the corner and seen her.
“Shh!” Jessica hissed, and Rose clapped a hand to
her mouth.
“Ooops,” she said through her fingers.
“I’ve been looking for you,” Jessica said.
Rose nodded.
“I figured ye’d be, m’Lady. I
‘eard about what ‘appened t’other night, I did.
We knew ye’d be back. I’ve been
lookin’ out, ye might say.”
“I wanted to ask you about some of the – um –
customers who come down here,” said Jessica. “Are many of them rich?”
“Some of ‘em, aye,” said Rose. “Why d’ye ask?”
“Because so far all the victims I’ve seen or read
about have each been wearing a piece of expensive jewelry. Do the gentlemen often give gifts?”
Rose shook her head.
“Not often, no,” she said.
“Bloody rare, I’d say. I mean,
most of ‘em can’t, they be too poor themselves.
Can barely pay their way, if ye take my meaning, Lady. And the ones ‘oo can, aye, well, some do,
most don’t. If one did, ‘e’d ‘ave to be
loaded for sure, to throw baubles at a prostitute.”
“I suppose so,” said Jessica thoughtfully.
The sound of an ash can being knocked over made them
both jump.
“What in bloody ‘ell was that?” Rose asked in panic.
“I don’t know,” said Jessica, “but I don’t like it.”
“Quick, m’Lady, down this alley ‘ere,” said
Rose. “We’ll be less exposed.”
Jessica nodded, and followed her companion down the
narrow way between two windowless brick buildings.
“I think we’re safe,” Rose said as they looked back
the way they had come.
“Don’t move,” a voice, no less sinister for being
muffled, said. It sent a cold tremor
through Jessica, the dread she felt every time she found herself in an
impossibly tight spot. Turning, she and
Rose faced a man of average height wrapped in an overcoat with a thick scarf
swathed around his face. In one hand he
held a long knife that gleamed in the muted light of the gas lamps.
“Dear Lord above!” Rose whispered.
The man advanced upon them, backing them up against
the dingy brick wall of the alley. Cold
eyes held them there, staring first at one, then the other.
“I hear you’ve been asking a lot of questions,” he
said to Jessica, “and snooping around the East End where you don’t belong. The East End belongs to me. You have no power
here.”
“’Oo are you?” Rose squeaked, her Cockney accent
getting even thicker, if that was possible.
The cold eyes that pinned them motionless by their
gaze alone almost crinkled up into a taunting smile. “There are some,” he said, “who call me
Jack.”
Rose gave a little shriek and tried to shrink
further back into the wall. Jessica
positioned herself more or less in front of her.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” she said. “Now let us go.”
“Ah, ah, ah, I’m afraid I can’t do that,” the man
said, bringing the knife closer to her face.
“You’ve caused quite a bit of trouble for me, and I have no compunctions
against getting rid of a problem in my usual preferred manner.”
With a swift movement he grabbed Jessica by the
right arm and pulled her away from the wall with such force that she fell to
her knees at his feet. Rose shrieked and
lunged at him, but he pushed her hard back against the wall, which she hit and
slid down to the ground. Jessica looked
up; for an instant her eyes locked with the cold, merciless eyes of Jack the
Ripper. The knife was raised …
… but there was an intervention.
A shout came from the end of the alley, and pounding
feet approached, their sound amplified by the dense mist. Hiding the knife in a fold of his overcoat,
the killer turned and ran off in the opposite direction.
One of the men ran past them in pursuit, but the
other one stopped and asked her if she was all right.
“Yes, I think so,” Jessica said shakily. She looked up into the face of Sherlock
Holmes.
“You have had a close call, Majesty,” he said as he
helped her to her feet. “I admire your
tenacity and resourcefulness, but it is largely luck that saved you.”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “Rose …”
“She will be taken care of and protected,” Holmes
assured her.
At that moment Dr. Watson reappeared, puffing and
out of breath.
“He has escaped us yet again, Holmes,” he said. “He simply vanished as soon as he left the
alleyway.”
“Damn the man!
It is his superior knowledge of these streets that defeats us.”
“You’ll never catch him by trying to catch up with
him,” Jessica said wearily, leaning up against the wall for support. “Only by figuring out who he is during the
day will allow you to catch the killer of the night.”
“Quite right,” Holmes said thoughtfully. “He is but
one person, and day or night he is the same man.”
After seeing Rose safe under Lestrade’s protection,
Holmes and Watson escorted her back to Buckingham Palace in a cab that they
hired. As they went Jessica told them
what she had discussed with Rose, and explained her reasoning behind the
presumed wealthy status of Jack the Ripper. Holmes listened carefully, his
fingers steepled as he sat deep in thought, while Watson asked her various
questions about what she had seen and what had happened during her own
encounter with the man. Jessica shivered
as she related what had happened, haunted by the memory of those cold, cruel
eyes.
They dropped her off behind the
grounds, and this time she was able to arrive safely back inside without any
fanfare or notice. She spoke of her
adventure to no one.
*******
The next morning Jessica turned back
to the files she had sent for from Scotland Yard. There was something in them
that bothered her, but she couldn’t pinpoint what it was. Having no better options at the present, she
emptied her mind of everything else and gazed at the reports, looking for a
pattern to jump out at her.
“…
registered a blow to the right side of the head …”
“… had been grabbed forcefully by the right wrist,
resulting in a discoloured, heavy bruise …”
“… a blemish from a bruise on the right cheek …”
She touched the bruise on her own
right arm where the serial killer had grabbed her so roughly the night before.
And then an image formed in her mind,
that of a Jack the Ripper who was wealthy, and left-handed. And then her
mind settled on the image of a pocket watch, a watch in the left pocket of a
waistcoat …
Her eyes widened at the realization;
it seemed so perfectly obvious now. How
could she have missed the answer for so long?
She rang the bell, and sent the
servant who answered it out bearing a message to Mr. Sherlock Holmes.
*******
It was not too many hours later when
Holmes and Watson arrived at Buckingham Palace, and were shown into the royal
office. Jessica wondered if she looked
as ill-at-ease as she felt as they approached to a respectful distance.
Jessica dismissed the advisors.
“Please, leave us for a moment,” she said.
They gave her strange looks, but one by one they left the room, leaving
her alone with the two men.
“With all due respect, your
Majesty,” Holmes said, “you are not who you claim to be.”
“Holmes!” said Watson in shock.
“It is true, my friend,” Holmes said
sadly. He took a step closer to
Jessica. “Whoever you are, you are not
Victoria, Queen of England. It is
obvious to anyone who cares to see. Your
accent gives you away, madam. It is plain that you have spent the majority of
your life not in England, but in New England.
There is also the matter that you are unfamiliar with the etiquette of
the British court, which speaks against your being of royal blood. And while the gracious queen may have walked
among her subjects from time to time, she would never take the unthinkable risk
of pursuing the darker elements of society down London alleyways alone.”
Jessica was impressed. “You are the first person who has been able
to confirm to me that I am not Queen
Victoria,” she said, laughing. “I can’t
begin to tell you what a relief that is!”
Watson was astounded by the
revelation. “How can that be?” he asked.
“How it can be is less relevant than
the fact that it is,” said Holmes. “In your own time, madam, I suspect that you
are a well respected detective in your own right. Your methods are very sound, and you walk with
the confidence of one who has much experience.
I am honored to have made your acquaintance.”
“And I yours,” she replied. “While I do have a reputation as a detective,
I doubt I will ever come to match your fame.”
Holmes took Jessica’s hand and kissed
it. “Madam, to what purpose did you
summon us here?” he asked.
“I know the identity of Jack the
Ripper,” Jessica told them …
*******
… and she sat bolt upright in her
own bed, in her own time, bright morning sunlight spilling across her quilt.
Jessica looked out the window – yes,
she was definitely in Maine. The rising
sun was sparkling on the Sea, and the flowers in her garden were unfolding to
the strengthening day. The whole
occurrence had been a dream, yet it had all seemed so real.
So real. In her dream, she really
had been Queen Victoria.
Settling back in bed, Jessica
concentrated, trying to recall everything that had happened. The memory of the dream was sharp and clear –
all except the last part. Try as she might,
she simply could not remember who she had determined Jack the Ripper really
was. A wave of disappointment washed
over her at this realization - that the most important detail of all had been
lost forever.