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Gideon stopped his tapping and worked his jaw. “It seems he was rather possessive of Miss Collier, but he admitted his jealousy. Indeed, the young man was so expressive that I do not believe he could lie effectively if he tried.”
Electra nodded. “I agree. So what is on your mind?”
“Archibald Kerrigan. Nicholas Frye. Speaking to Detective Sergeant Hardy about the Collier case,” Gideon admitted. “There’s no time to lose. In a murder case, the terrible deed is done, and the only worry is whether the miscreant might strike again. But in this case, it feels as if every moment narrows the possibility that we will find Miss Delacourt unharmed.”
“What time is it?”
Gideon lifted his pocket watch from his waistcoat pocket. “Only a few minutes until five.”
“Shall we try to speak to them now?”
Gideon slipped his watch back into his pocket and considered her question. He had swept her away from a charity event unexpectedly, and she’d seemed taxed after speaking to so many individuals today and attempting to use her inexplicable skills with most of them.
“Are you certain you wish to accompany me?”
That earned him a fierce frown. “Was I only to be included in a few of your interviews, or are we working together on this investigation?”
“I thought you would wish to return to the Redmaynes’ or—”
“I want to continue our search for Miss Delacourt.”
The determined force of her tone brought an unexpected swell of affection. He sometimes feared he allowed himself to get too lost in his cases, too preoccupied and consumed to the point he lost sleep. But if there was anyone who could match his tenacity, it was the lady seated across from him.
“Then let us go seek out Mr. Kerrigan,” he said as he reached up and knocked on the wall of the carriage to let the driver know they would be heading back to Bloomsbury.
“With two young ladies who went missing while under his employment and supervision, he must have some thoughts about what happened to them,” Electra mused.
“‘Mere coincidence’, the director of the Criminal Investigation Division called it when he asked me to take this case earlier today.” The idea left Gideon unsettled.
There was a coincidence here, but Gideon sensed it had to be more. Was there a connection?
Chapter Eight
“So should I touch something when we’re at Mr. Kerrigan’s?” Now that she understood Gideon wished for her to use her abilities freely during this investigation, she intended to do so, whether with the knowledge of those they were interviewing or surreptitiously.
“If you like. I trust your instinct to know, but don’t tire yourself,” Gideon insisted.
Electra scoffed. “You yourself spoke of how there is no time to lose.”
Nothing she had seen or sensed would allow her to say for certain that Iris Delacourt was still alive, but she felt it in her gut. Perhaps she also wanted to believe it, but the intuition was there. “I feel it too. The urgency. The sense that she can still be found.”
Gideon hummed in response, but he was tapping his boot heel again as their cab crawled through traffic.
“I think perhaps we should not reveal my abilities to Kerrigan, assuming he does not know that fact via his connection to the Delacourts.” Electra could not decide whether knowing of her psychic gifts made those they interviewed more likely to reveal truths or less. “You don’t suspect him, do you?”
“I do not know enough yet to say one way or another.”
“Then let’s not explain,” she suggested, “and I’ll see what I might discern.”
A few minutes later, their carriage stopped in front of a red-brick terraced home on the edge of Bloomsbury Square. Ivy that had turned a seasonal crimson covered much of the townhouse’s façade, and a large ornate fanlight window sat atop an emerald-green door.
Gideon knocked twice, and a housekeeper with apple-red cheeks and a damp apron opened it to greet them. Her gray hair was gathered in a bun at her nape, but several strands hung around her face. She looked fatigued and more than a little harried.
“How may I help you?”
Gideon extended one of his calling cards, which she lifted close to her eyes to inspect.
“We are here to see Mr. Archibald Kerrigan. I am Detective Inspector Gideon Pierce, and this is my associate, Miss Poole.”
