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He should have mentioned compensation as he’d intended to back at the Redmayne townhouse, but the moment he’d asked Electra to assist him, she had come vividly alive.

Gideon had known that Electra would be eager to take on the case. Not just as an opportunity to use her skills—it seemed she had many opportunities to do so of late—but because she truly had an interest in detection. If society’s strictures eased and women were able to become detectives with the Metropolitan Police, he had no doubt Electra would consider pursuing such a vocation.

Erasmus Poole had made him wish to follow in the man’s footsteps, and Electra had encouraged him to pursue his position in the Metropolitan Police. Had Electra had the same urge but no means of pursuing such work as he had?

“What do you know about the case of Miss Delacourt thus far?” she asked, as if the meat of the case intrigued her much more than whatever interest Scotland Yard had in her involvement.

“Very little, I’m afraid.” He reached into the inner pocket of his coat and pulled out the documents he’d been given. On the top lay a report written by a Constable Anderson, who’d been called to the Delacourts’ townhouse once Iris Delacourt was determined to be missing.

Electra leaned closer and he offered her the single-page report containing the constable’s tight, neat rows of handwriting.

“The family was certain from the first night when Miss Delacourt did not return home for dinner or to sleep in her room that something was amiss.”

Electra hummed as she read. “The young lady is five and twenty and yet it says here that her father denies any possibility that she may have left of her own accord. From the way the constable wrote this, the father speaks of her almost as if she is a child, not a woman of age.”

Gideon nodded. “In most circumstances, it might be my first assumption that a young woman had chosen to stay away from home for a night or two for her own reasons, but the family seems most insistent that it is not in her nature. And there was the complicating factor that her friend had also disappeared only days before.”

“This mentions her employment at the British Museum,” Electra pointed out. “Presumably, she earns her own income, yet she remains living in her family’s home.”

“As I understand it, she volunteered at the museum.” Gideon did not think twenty-five was an unreasonable age for an unmarried lady to remain under her father’s roof, but it was an age where she might not feel beholden to inform him of her associations outside the home.

“And what of Miss Collier?”

He pulled out the reports about Calliope Collier and handed them to Electra.

“How tragic,” she murmured after reading the River Police’s sparse details about Miss Collier’s body being recovered near Blackfriars Bridge. “And how did she befriend Miss Delacourt?”

Gideon gestured to the newspaper clipping she had not yet read. “The two worked together at the museum.”

“And the presumptions in that piece are wrong.” Gideon gestured to the Thames River Police report. “Upon examination of Miss Collier at the morgue, a police surgeon concluded that she had been placed in the Thames after she’d expired. There was violence done to her body, shallow knife wounds and abrasions around her throat. He determined she had been throttled.”

“How terrible.” Electra flipped through the documents in her gloved hands.

“Part of what we must determine is whether there is any connection between Miss Collier’s death a week ago and Miss Delacourt’s disappearance two days ago.”

“What if Miss Delacourt discovered something about Miss Collier’s murder?” Electra gave voice to a question that had been percolating in his own mind.

“I wonder the same, though we don’t yet know how close the two young women were.” Gideon shifted to look Electra in the eyes. “What we need is to form a complete picture of Miss Delacourt’s daily habits. Hopefully her father and sister know of friends or acquaintances who may be privy to facts her family is not.”

There was warmth in his gaze as he looked at her. “They asked for you. The Delacourts. That notoriety from the Becknell case is likely what made them hope you could assist in finding Miss Delacourt.”

Electra’s eyes flickered with surprise, then took on a determined look. “If they offer us something she touched, I may be able to see people or places her family isn’t aware of. Places she frequented or perhaps a conversation that led to her disappearance.”

The prospect was enticing and having Electra’s unique insights to add to whatever he discovered through interviews with the family gave him hope that they might actually be able to find Iris Delacourt.

Chapter Three

Before they could continue their discussion, their hired hansom cab rolled to a stop in front of a whitewashed Eaton Square townhouse. Artfully clipped hedges framed the front door, and two alabaster statues sat on either side of the threshold. Electra suspected they were Greek or Roman divinities, as they were draped in fabric rendered in stone, and the female figure wore a diadem. She wasn’t certain whether they were meant to make visitors feel welcome or stand as sentinels guarding the house.

As they approached the front door, Gideon lifted his hand to grasp the polished brass knocker.

A little niggle of anxiety weighed on Electra, and she placed a hand upon Gideon’s arm to stop him.

“It is helpful that the family asked for me, that they’ll welcome my abilities.”

She had touched objects and sought impressions surreptitiously when working with Gideon on other investigations, but she far preferred honesty.

“Most definitely,” Gideon agreed as he rapped on the door.