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But if it wasn’t Wakefield, then why did the person who had Iris—if the letter were true—decide to send it this morning? Where had their investigation gotten so close to her abductor that he felt compelled to send a note?

All these questions stewed in her mind as her carriage stopped at Russell Square.

She rushed inside, quickly removed her coat, and started up the stairs to wash and pin her hair up properly.

“Miss Poole.” The Redmayne housekeeper stopped her before she had gotten far.

“Yes, Mrs. Hurst?”

“Forgive me, miss, but there are visitors waiting to see you.”

“At this hour?” It was not yet eight in the morning.

Mrs. Hurst looked regretful. “Yes. I know, miss. It was quite a shock to find them on the doorstep. They admitted that they had no prior arrangement to meet with you, but I could not turn them away, miss.”

“Who is it?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Collier. Parents to that poor girl that’s been mentioned in the papers.”

Electra could not see into the drawing room, where Mrs. Hurst had no doubt asked them to wait. She couldn’t imagine why they’d come, but she was eager to speak to them.

She looked down at her rumpled day dress. “I must change quickly, and then I’ll be down to speak to them.”

Electra rushed through her ablutions, washing, pinning her hair, and putting on a fresh day dress over her corset and petticoats. She descended the stairs again quickly and strode into the sitting room to find a middle-aged man and woman sitting quite close to each other on the settee, each with a teacup in their hands.

“Miss Poole?” the gentleman said, a question in his tone.

When he began to get to his feet, Electra urged, “No, please, don’t get up. I understand that you are Mr. and Mrs. Collier.”

“Yes, Miss Poole,” the lady said. She had darker blonde hair than her daughter, but the same bright blue eyes.

Electra took a seat across from them and poured herself a cup of tea while they watched her with gazes so full of a fresh grief that it made her heart ache.

“Forgive us for calling so precipitously, miss, and without any prior appointment. I know it’s dreadfully early for a social call,” the lady said, her voice light and musical.

“But this isn’t quite a social call,” Mr. Collier explained.

“We heard about you, Miss Poole,” Mrs. Collier confided, “that you are helping the police in the investigation of Iris Delacourt.”

Electra wondered how that detail had been shared with them.

“Miss Violet Delacourt told me in a letter.” Mrs. Collier seemed to read Electra’s mind. “I do hope you find her twin sister soon, miss. I truly do. But after we were told the terrible news that our…” Mrs. Collier’s eyes welled with tears that then spilled down her cheeks.

“It’s all right, Maggie,” her husband whispered as he tucked a handkerchief in her palm.

“Prior to the inquest, we were visited by a policeman who told us that our daughter had not taken her own life, but that it was stolen from her.” Mr. Collier’s eyes glittered too, but not with tears. He was angry, and Electra could feel it as much as she could read it in his expression.

“Yes,” she said, “I know Detective Sergeant Hardy is working hard to find who did this to Miss Collier.”

“Mmm. Well, my missus has read about you, Miss Poole. Your other case.”

“The Becknell case,” Mrs. Collier put in.

“You predicted someone’s death, did you not?” Mr. Collier asked.

“I did, yes.”

“But you can see other things. You helped solve that case, didn’t you?”