Free Inspector of the Dead by David Morrell Page B

opportunity to view and cheer their queen.
    Her most frequent exposure occurred almost every day at 6 P.M. when she and Prince Albert, her husband of a few months, left Buckingham Palace in an open carriage. Their route always took them left onto Constitution Hill and past Green Park, from where they proceeded to Hyde Park, circled, and returned to the palace. Two horsemen accompanied the carriage.
    The queen had reason to seek the affection of her subjects. Her husband was a foreigner from a poor German state. Although he spoke English, he preferred to use German. The queen’s mother, a foreigner from the same poor German state, also preferred to speak German. Newspapers predicted that soon all of England would be forced to speak German and empty the national treasury to pay German debts. People feared that it wouldn’t be long before England became a German state.
    Thus, the thousands of spectators who had cheered Queen Victoria prior to her marriage now were reduced to mere hundreds during her appearances with Prince Albert. A few people on the street were known to hiss as she rode past. If her carriage happened to be empty, some even threw stones.
    On that balmy Wednesday evening, one member of the crowd made a stronger display of disapproval. As the royal carriage passed Green Park, a man emerged from the onlookers.
    He raised a pistol.
    He fired from fifteen feet away.
      
    “I was only a constable then,” Ryan said, “assigned to the area near the palace.”
    Past the library’s parted curtains, snow gusted. The crowd was no longer audible, the harsh weather presumably having driven the onlookers back to their places of employment.
    “The government buildings, St. James’s Park, and Green Park—those are some of the areas I patrolled. I always made a point of watching the path next to Green Park when Her Majesty went on her customary carriage ride. Even though the crowd was small compared to earlier ones, it still attracted dippers. The evening was rare when I didn’t catch a man with his hand in someone else’s pocket. At the sound of the gunshot, the crowd became paralyzed.”
    Ryan looked at Emily, who continued to stare at the ceiling, avoiding the horror in the chair.
    “The sitting room is a better place for this,” he decided.
    He guided her across the hall, followed by De Quincey and Becker.
    As Emily eased onto a sofa, Ryan took a place across from her, grateful to relieve the strain on his healing wounds.
    “When the pistol was discharged, the queen’s drivers stopped in confusion,” he continued. “No one could believe it was a gunshot. I tried to determine the direction of the sound. Then I saw the smoke rising near the carriage and realized what had happened. A man lowered a dueling pistol. His other hand raised a second one. I struggled through the crowd, but before I could reach him, he fired again. All these years later, I still recall the pain in my ears. More smoke rose, but now the queen’s drivers were finally in motion again, speeding the carriage away.
    “‘The queen!’ someone yelled. ‘He tried to shoot the queen!’ Someone else shouted, ‘Kill him!’ Then everyone was shouting it. ‘Kill him! Kill him!’ By the time I reached the struggle, I found two men with pistols. The crowd was tearing at both of them. ‘ I didn’t do it!’ one of them insisted. ‘I grabbed this pistol from him! ’ ‘They’re both in it!’ someone yelled. ‘Kill them both!’
    “Several constables arrived. Using our truncheons, we separated the crowd. It was clear to me which man had carried the pistols. The first wore a suit too tight to have concealed the weapons. The second wore cheap linen trousers with big pockets. But the mob didn’t care. ‘Kill both of them!’ people kept shouting.
    “The other constables and I managed to drag the two men away from the mob. ‘Take them to the station!’ I yelled. Even though I knew the innocent man from the guilty one, there wasn’t time