Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Gideon considered returning to Vine Street after his discussion with Lance Pennington, but decided not to delay his meeting with Roderick Beecham.
The man was one of London’s commercial titans, as a recent article he’d read about the man referred to him.
It seemed a good time to catch him at home before he might dine or venture out for the evening.
Beecham had been mentioned by many Gideon had spoken to as the man who held the greatest grudge toward Percival Pennington.
And as his hansom cab rolled toward Beecham’s townhouse, Gideon tried to imagine a scenario in which Beecham would have encountered Percival Pennington on the street in Mayfair at precisely the right moment, or had perhaps laid in wait for him.
When he climbed down from the cab, he surveyed Beecham’s ostentatious townhouse, wider and taller than most of its neighbors. He lifted the polished lion’s head knocker and rapped three times.
A young gentleman in footman's livery answered.
“Good afternoon, sir.”
“Good afternoon. My name is Detective Inspector Gideon Pierce. Is Mr. Roderick Beecham at home?”
“He is, sir, but he has another visitor waiting to speak with him. If you'd like to wait in the drawing room, I’ll let him know you wish to speak to him too.”
Gideon followed the young man across the wide foyer into a room that struck him as intensely blue. He glimpsed peacock-blue wallpaper and sapphire upholstered furnishings past the footman’s shoulder.
And then it was if there was a shift in the air. A familiar scent. And he knew as soon as the footman stepped aside and directed him toward a blue gilded armchair, who he’d find sharing the drawing room with him.
Electra looked initially shocked and then finally pleased to see him. That pleasure curtailed a bit of his own shock.
When the footman departed, she immediately stepped closer.
“You got my note then.”
“What note?”
Her black brows dipped in confusion. “The note I left for you at Vine Street, asking you to meet me here.”
“I received no note, but why are you here?”
“I came to speak to Rodrick Beecham.” She spoke the words with the implication that the answer was the most obvious thing in the world.
Gideon felt the first stirrings of headache. No matter how he attempted to shield her from a case, she inevitably became more entangled in it.
“Why would you come here to speak to him before I have had a chance to?” he spoke quietly, fearing the footman or Beecham himself might overhear.
“Well, I tried to speak to you first. I went to Vine Street, but you were not there. They told me you were likely visiting Mount Street, but I decided not to wait.”
“You very well could have.” And should have.
“I wanted to come before Miss Beecham—”
The footman opened the drawing room door.
“Miss Poole, Mr. Beecham will see you now.”
Gideon stepped forward. “If you would give us a moment, please.”
The young man frowned in confusion. “Yes, sir.”
“Thank you,” Electra said sweetly.
The young man departed once more and pulled the door closed.
“Gideon, I did attempt to speak to you first, but I needed to talk to Mr. Beecham before his daughter returned home.”
“I’m missing some piece of information.” Or several. He still couldn’t parse why Electra would be so fiercely determined to speak to Roderick Beecham.
“Aurora Beecham came to me. She was there when I returned to Russell Square and wished for me to conduct a sitting for her.”
That did make sense. “Yes, I remember her reaction to you at the inquest.”
Electra flicked a look at the drawing room door and stepped even closer. “She wanted me to attempt to discern whether her father murdered Pennington.”
Gideon could not quite follow the lady’s logic. “Miss Beecham suspects her father,” he whispered, “and went to a psychic rather than to the police.”
Electra gave him a long-suffering look, but he meant no offense about her abilities, only to question the young woman’s intentions.
“Perhaps it is the wrong way to go about the matter, but she had only fear, no proof. In fact, the only proof she does have is counter-indicative of him having committed the crime.” She tipped her head and studied him, and the look in her eyes seemed to say look at it another way.
She often challenged him in that regard.
“Sometimes in life,” she said quietly, “fear outweighs reason.”
“Agreed.” When fear overtook him, most often for Electra’s safety, his ability to reason waned. “Were you able to determine anything?”
“No. And yes.”
“Electra…”
“She brought an object that she said was her father's favorite pen. I held it, and I did see something significant, but I did not see him doing any harm to Pennington. They argued, but Pennington walked out of the man's study alive and well.”
Gideon frowned. “Then what was the significant insight?”
She leaned yet closer. “Mr. Beecham spoke to Mrs. Devlin. The lady who came to me as Jane Wilson. He confronted her in Hyde Park. I don't know what was said, but she was upset. She didn't wish to speak to him and walked away.”
“So Roderick Beecham knows Demeter Devlin, who was a paramour of both Percival Pennington and his brother.”
“Perhaps he discovered that fact,” Electra suggested. “And meant to use it as some sort of leverage.”
Gideon couldn’t disagree with that hypothesis.
“There's another thing—”
The door opened once more, and the footman stepped into the room with his brows raised in question.
“Miss Poole and I are acquainted,” Gideon explained, sending Electra a look.
She nodded, seeming to read his intent.
“She has assisted me in the past, and we wish to speak to Mr. Beecham together.”
The footman looked hesitant but then nodded. “Very good, sir. Right this way.”
As they followed the young man down the hall, Gideon glanced at Electra. “What’s the other thing?” he whispered.
“You'll find out soon enough.”
“Electra, please don't be enigmatic in the middle of a murder investigation.”
The footman stopped before a door and pushed it open, directing them inside.
Gideon allowed Electra to precede him, and once he stepped into the man’s study, his eyes landed immediately on a row of dozens of bladed weapons, from swords to knives to a heinous-looking curved saber.
A few looked to be the approximate length and width as what was described in Dr. Farringdon’s report.
All of them were polished and glinted in the gaslight.
At the far end of the room, a tall, broad chested, wide-shouldered gentleman with dark hair stood assessing them.
“I take it you are Detective Inspector Pierce of Scotland Yard, and you must be Miss Poole.” After another searching look, then the man gestured to two chairs arranged before a desk.
“Please have a seat.”
They did, and Beecham examined them a moment longer.
“Neither of you had appointments, but I was willing to meet with each of you. Yet now you’ve come as a pair.”
“Indeed,” Gideon said, wishing to get straight to his questions.
“This is most intriguing,” Beecham said and smiled. “Since you are with Scotland Yard, I can only assume this has to do with the death of Percival Pennington.”
“Yes, Mr. Beecham. Through the course of my investigation, I've come to understand that Mr. Percival Pennington was engaged to your daughter.”
“He was.”
“And he subsequently broke that engagement.”
“Indeed, he did.”
“What were your feelings on the matter?”
Beecham drummed his fingers on his blotter. “My feelings, Inspector?”
“Your reaction, sir.”
“Are you married, Inspector?”
“No.” Gideon felt the weight of Electra’s glance his way.
“Have any children?”
“No.”
“If you did, then you would easily suspect my feelings where Pennington was concerned. I was livid. My opinion of Mr. Pennington went from reluctant admiration to a belief that he was a faithless cad.”
Gideon had no children, but he could understand a father’s dislike of a man who’d harmed his daughter. “I understand there was a possibility of a breach-of-promise case.”
“Yes, as a barrister, I thought he would understand the legalities involved in his decision making, but he tried to persuade me to change my mind. In the beginning, I hoped to persuade him to change his as well. His rash choice to end the engagement was wrong. Far too impetuous.”
“You said ‘in the beginning.’ What changed?” Gideon asked.
“The more I looked into the man's history and personal dealings, I realized he was not a gentleman, but a blackguard guided by impulse and vile predilections.”
Electra knew Beecham referred to Demeter Devlin. A flash of the lady’s face appeared in her mind, not as her own memory, but as if Mr. Beecham’s thought flashed in her head.
“What did you discover about Mr. Pennington that persuaded you of those facts?” Gideon asked.
“I'm assuming the two of you have looked into his history and dealings, Inspector.”
Gideon gave nothing away, but he nodded to agree with Beecham’s assessment.
“Then you likely know he had a penchant for seducing women.
Not women of my daughter's caliber, of course. Not ladies appropriate for any kind of respectable connection.” Beecham glanced at Electra with an almost apologetic frown.
“Nothing a gentleman of manners would want to speak of publicly or would wish to be known by others.”
Beecham reached for a cup in a saucer and lifted it to take a sip, then winced. “Shall I send for tea? This has gone cold.”
“Not for me,” Electra told him, as he’d directed the question her way.
“Forgive me for what I must say next, Miss Poole.”
“You may speak freely, Mr. Beecham.”
Beecham tipped his head at her. “He was known to frequent a bawdy house called the Rosebud Club. If my sources are accurate, he partook of several ladies associated with the house. And then there was the matter of a more respectable lady. I employed a private inquiry agent. He deduced she was someone who would not wish to be associated with him for the scandal of it.”
Gideon shifted his gaze to hers, and Electra worked to steel herself and give no reaction, despite how much she worried over Cordelia.