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Gideon glanced at Frye, whose voice had risen as he once again proclaimed his innocence, then at Detective Sergeant Hardy.

Hardy held up a hand mid-tirade, stopping Frye, noting Gideon’s attention on him.

“We’re going to depart,” Gideon told him.

Once they’d made their way out of the prison complex on foot, leaving the hired carriage for Hardy, they hailed another. A sleek two-seat hansom.

“So now we have a secret admirer,” Electra said, an eager tension building in her middle once they were seated in the cab side by side. “And the man Iris spoke to Beatrice Longfellow about.”

“And are they one and the same?” Gideon mused.

“They could be.”

“Do you think Violet will have known about this admirer that Iris kept secret?” Gideon asked, turning his head to look at her.

“She is her twin. I understand why Iris may have shared the secret with Miss Collier, and possibly Miss Longfellow, but would she not have also shared it with the person she had been closest to all her life?”

Gideon nodded. “Yet she failed to mention this crucial detail the first time you spoke to her.”

“Miss Longfellow didn’t mention it to Roger Delacourt either. Perhaps Violet thought, like Beatrice, that she was protecting Iris somehow.”

Gideon turned his gaze out the carriage window. “What would seem worth protecting her from when it might aid us in finding her?”

“Something that would bring scandal to Iris. Or to the Delacourt family.” Electra did not know if that impulse was the true one, but she could imagine that Violet Delacourt might wish to protect her sister’s reputation.

“We should speak to Joseph Barclay. Maybe she confided something about Iris to him.” Gideon glanced at her. “Frye did say she trusted him.”

“I agree that we should speak to him.”

“Might you have time after we visit the Delacourts?” Gideon asked.

“Of course.” Electra looked at him, a bit surprised that he would think she had any plans that would take precedence over the case. “I am at the disposal of Scotland Yard until this case is finished.”

Gideon looked away, but she spied the flicker of a smile on his face.

Chapter Twelve

The Delacourts’ housekeeper showed them into a parlor immediately when they asked to speak to Violet, whether from the assumption that what they had to convey was urgent or because Miss Delacourt had been expecting Electra’s visit.

But when the servant led them into the room, Violet sprang up from her chair as if shocked.

“Oh,” she breathed. “Has my father seen you?”

“Mr. Delacourt has gone out to a meeting across town, miss,” the housekeeper informed.

Violet gave a shaky nod. “Very well. See that we’re not disturbed, Mrs. Jones.”

She regarded both of them a moment longer, then fixed her attention on Gideon. “Might I speak to Miss Poole privately, Inspector Pierce?”

Gideon stiffened slightly, and Electra wondered whether she should insist on his presence as she had the first time she spoke to Iris Delacourt’s twin.

“Would you approve of Mrs. Jones showing me Iris’s bedchamber? With her remaining present, of course.”

Violet hedged, pressing her lips together, twisting her clasped hands. “Yes, Inspector. You may do so.” She stepped over to the mantel and tugged the bell pull, then directed Mrs. Jones, when she appeared, to escort Gideon to Iris’s room.

He shot Electra a long look before he departed, as if to remind her that he would not be far. It was an odd reassurance, since she had no worry about speaking to Violet alone. In fact, she suspected the young woman had asked for privacy because she wished to admit something significant.

As soon as Gideon left the room, Violet swept forward. “Would you be interested in taking a turn around Regent’s Park?”