Stunned, open-mouthed silence gripped John Lachley for long moments as he stared at the raving cotton merchant, for once completely at a loss as to how he ought to proceed. He'd never stumbled across anything even remotely like this homicidal fury. What had he said?... killed that filthy little prostitute in Manchester... squeezed the life out of her with my own hands... Lachley gripped the upholstered arms of his chair. Dear God! Should I contact the constabulary? This madman's murdered someone! He started to speak, not even sure what he was going to say, when a frantic knocking rattled the front door, which was situated just outside the closed parlour. John Lachley started violently and slewed around in his chair. In the hallway just outside, his manservant answered the urgent summons.
"Your Highness! Come in, please! Whatever is wrong, sir?"
"I must see the doctor at once, Charles!"
Prince Albert Victor... In a high state of panic, too, from the sound of it.
John Lachley glared furiously at the ranting cotton merchant on the daybed, who lay there muttering about ripping his wife open with a knife for sleeping with some arsehole named Brierly, about keeping a diary some servant had almost discovered, nearly ending in a second murder, and something about a room he'd rented in Middlesex Street, Whitechapel, so he could kill more filthy whores, and hated James Maybrick with such an intense loathing, he had to clench his fists to keep from shooting him on the spot. The crisis of his career was brewing outside and this homicidal maniac had to be dealt with first!
Outside, Charles was saying, "Dr. Lachley is with a patient, Your Highness, but I will certainly let him know you're here, immediately, sir."
Lachley bent over Maybrick, gripped the man's shoulders hard enough to bruise, hissed urgently, "Mr. Maybrick! I want you to be quiet now! Stop talking at once!"
The drugged merchant fell silent, instantly obedient.
Thank God...
Lachley schooled his features and stilled his hands, which were slightly unsteady, then crossed the parlour in two hurried strides, just as Charles knocked at the door.
"Yes, Charles? I heard His Highness arrive. Ah, Your Highness," he strode forward, offering his hand to the visibly distraught grandson of Queen Victoria, "welcome back to Tibor. You know my house is always open to you, whatever the time of day. Please, won't you come back to the study?"
Charles bowed and faded into the back of the house, his duty having been discharged. Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward was a tall, good-looking young man with an impressive dark moustache, a neck so long and thin he had to wear exaggeratedly high collars to disguise the deformity, and the dullest eyes John Lachley had ever seen in a human face. He was twisting expensive grey kidskin gloves into shreds. He followed Lachley down the corridor into the study with jerky, nervous strides. John closed the door carefully, guided his star client to a chair, and poured him a stiff shot of brandy straight away. Albert Victor, known as Eddy to his most intimate friends—and John Lachley was by far the most intimate of Eddy's current friends—gulped it down in one desperate swallow, then blurted out his reason for arriving in such a state.
"I'm ruined, John! Ruined... dear God... you must help me, tell me what to do..." Eddy gripped Lachley's hands in desperation and panic. "I am undone! He can't be allowed to do this, you know what will become of me! Someone must stop him! If my grandmother should find out—dear Lord, she can't ever find out, it would destroy her good name, bring such shame on the whole family... my God, the whole government might go, you know what the situation is, John, you've told me yourself about it, the Fenians, the labor riots, what am I to do? Threats—threats!—demands for money or else ruination! Oh, God, I am destroyed, should word leak of it... Disgrace, prison... he's gone beyond his station in life! Beyond the bounds of civilized law, beyond the protection of God, may the Devil take him!"
"Your Highness, calm yourself, please." He pulled his hands free of Eddy's grip and poured a second, far more generous brandy, getting it down the distraught prince's throat. He stroked Eddy's absurdly long neck, massaging the tension away, calmed him to the point where he could speak coherently. "Now, then, Eddy. Tell me very slowly just exactly what has happened."
Eddy began in a shaken whisper, "You remember Morgan?"
Lachley frowned. He certainly did. Morgan was a little Welsh nancy boy from Cardiff, the star attraction of a certain high-class West End brothel right here on Cleveland Street, a boulevard as infamous for its homosexual establishments as it was famous for its talented artists, painters, and art galleries. Hard on the heels of learning that his ticket to fame and fortune and considerable political power was banging a fifteen-year-old male whore on Cleveland Street, he had drugged Eddy into a state of extreme suggestibility and sternly suggested that he break off the relationship immediately.
"What about Morgan?" Lachley asked quietly.
"I... I was indiscreet, John, I'm sorry, it's only that he was so... so damned beautiful, I was besotted with him..."
"Eddy," Lachley interrupted gently, "how, exactly, were you indiscreet? Did you see him again?"
"Oh, no, John, no, I wouldn't do that, I haven't been with him since you told me to stop seeing him. Only women, John, and you..."
"Then what did you do, Eddy, that was indiscreet?"
"The letters," he whispered.
A cold chill slithered down John Lachley's back. "Letters? What letters?"
"I... I used to write him letters. Just silly little love letters, he was so pretty and he always pouted so when I had to leave him..."
Lachley closed his eyes. Eddy, you stupid little bastard!
"How many letters, Eddy?" The whiplash of his voice struck Eddy visibly.
"Don't hate me, John!" The prince's face twisted into a mask of terror and grief.
It took several minutes and a fair number of intimate caresses to convince the terrified prince that Lachley did not, in fact, hate him. When he had calmed Albert Victor down again, he repeated his question, more patiently this time. "How many letters, Eddy?"
"Eight, I think."
"You think? You must be certain, Eddy. It's very important."
Eddy's brow creased. "Eight, it must be eight, John, I saw him eight weeks in a row, you see, and I sent him a letter each week, then I met you and didn't need to see him any longer. Yes, it's eight letters."
"Very good, Eddy. Now, tell me what's happened to upset you so deeply about these eight letters."
"He wants money for them! A great deal of money! Thousands of pounds, John, or he'll send the letters to the newspapers, to the Scotland Yard inspectors who arrest men for crimes of sodomy! John, I am ruined!" Eddy covered his eyes with his hands, hiding from him. "If I don't pay him everything he wants..."
"Yes, yes, Eddy, he'll make the letters public and you will go to prison. I understand that part of the situation, Eddy, very thoroughly, indeed. Now then, how has he demanded payment? Where is the money to be delivered and who is to take it there?"
"You know I enjoy little jaunts in to the East End, occasionally, dressed as a commoner? So no one suspects my identity?"
Lachley refrained from making a tart rejoinder that Eddy was the only person in London fooled by those pitiful disguises. "Yes, what about your little trips?"
"I'm to take the money to him there, tomorrow night, alone. We're to meet at Petticoat Lane and Whitechapel Road, at midnight. And I must be there! I must! If I don't go, with a thousand pounds, he'll send the first letter to the newspapers! Do you realize what those newspapermen—what my Grandmother—will do to me?" He hid his face in his hands again. "And if I don't pay him another thousand pounds a week later, the second letter will go to the police! His note said I must reply with a note to him today, I'm to send it to some wretched public house where he'll call for it, to reassure him I mean to pay or he will post the first letter tomorrow."