Chapter 17 #2
The man’s sorrow began to fill the room. Electra felt it, sensed it, like a painful weight pressing on her chest.
Lance Pennington whispered something, but Electra couldn’t make it out.
“Inspector Pierce, I insist,” Callister said. “I will speak to you on Pennington’s behalf, but let Miss Faraday see him to his chamber.”
“What did you say, Mr. Pennington?” Electra asked.
Pennington lifted his head; his bloodshot blue eyes fixed on her. “Did I say it aloud?”
“You did,” Electra took a step toward him, and Miss Faraday shifted to keep her from getting any closer. “Would you repeat it, please?”
“No,” Miss Faraday said, the softness of her voice now replaced with a sharper edge. “He is ill. Can you not see that?”
“I said, we should tell them,” Lance Pennington said more clearly than he’d spoken any words since they’d walked into the room.
Gideon’s body tensed at his words. “We?”
Callister edged away from Mr. Pennington, and Electra saw him glance at the desk piled with ledgers. Among them, a silver etched penknife lay. Its long, thin blade shone in the gaslight.
Electra moved before she could think better of it. She’d stripped off her gloves in the carriage and now she approached so close to Gordon Callister that he backstepped to get away from her.
She grabbed the man, wrapping her hand around his wrist, and willed her gifts to provide her with something quickly.
No images came. She saw nothing, but she felt fury so intense it seemed like a conflagration.
Callister bore her hold for only a moment before tugging his wrist free of her grip.
“How dare you?” he said, then glowered at Gideon. “What is the meaning of this, Inspector? Why is this woman here?”
Gideon was in front of her a moment later. “Have a seat, Mr. Callister. Now.”
For a moment, she thought the parliamentarian might strike Gideon. An urge for violence surrounded Callister. But, to Electra’s surprise, he relented a moment later and sank down in a wingback near the one Pennington occupied.
“You hated him,” Electra said, though Gideon still stood close, all but blocking her view of Callister. Or the older man’s view of her.
But Gordon Callister seemed to have not a single doubt about her meaning. He gave her a twisted smile. “Believe me, young lady, I had reason to.”
Suddenly, a rasping peal of laughter drew everyone’s attention to Lance Pennington. “We all did,” he said, then barked out another laugh. “If you knew him, Miss Poole, I suspect you would too.”
“You had many reasons,” Gideon said to Lance Pennington. “The way he spoke down to you, dismissing your work, refusing your allowance, and treating the woman you love like a harlot.”
Pennington pressed a fist to his mouth but couldn’t stifle the mournful cry that tore from his chest.
“This discussion is not appropriate,” Miss Faraday said. She stood twisting her hands together, her soft features pinched in distress.
Lance Pennington looked as if he might cast up his accounts or burst into tears. To Electra’s shock, he laughed. A loud, bitter chortle. “Oh, Lucy, you know you hated him too.”
The girl’s peaches-and-cream complexion reddened in a fierce blush.
“He hated William for no reason at all,” she whispered. A moment later, a tear slid down her cheek.
Gideon approached and offered her a handkerchief, but he kept his gaze trained on where Callister and Pennington sat.
“So, you hated your brother, Mr. Pennington?” he asked.
This seemed to ignite something in Pennington. He sat up straighter, gripping the arms of the chair. “Where are you holding Demeter? And what evidence could you possibly have against her?”
“It was sufficient to take her into custody,” Gideon bit back.
Pennington dropped forward in his chair, elbows braced on his thighs and sank his face into his hands. “This is wrong. I won’t let her—”
“Mind your tongue, boy,” Callister snarled.
Pennington glared at him. “Why should I heed anything you say?”
While the two men exchanged petty sleights, Electra edged toward the ledger-covered desk and stared down at the silver penknife lying at the edge of the blotter.
Gideon approached, wearing a frown. Looking down at what had caught her notice, his eyes ballooned wide.
“Shall I touch it?” she whispered.
Before Gideon could answer, Pennington pushed up from his chair, swaying a bit. Callister shot up too.
“Sit down,” he hissed at the men.
Pennington shoved Callister hard enough to make him stumble. Then he clutched the lapels of his own frock coat and took a step toward Gideon.
“I did it,” he said in a low voice. “Promise you’ll set Demeter free, and I will tell you all.”
Callister growled, “You will not say a damned word.”
Gideon stepped toward the two men, who looked on the verge of descending into fisticuffs.
Electra reached out and touched the silver penknife. She closed her eyes, pushing away the tension in the room.
An image came into focus. A figure approached in the darkness.
Dark hair. Square jaw. Percival Pennington.
He looked angry. Brows bent, a scowl pulling at his mouth.
He snapped his head up, glared. Then he stopped, but the man whose memory she saw—Lance Pennington, she presumed—moved closer.
So close they might have embraced. Pennington looked down.
Lance Pennington did too. A flash of silver.
A scream pulled Electra from the images, and she spun to find Gideon attempting to tear Callister and Pennington apart. Miss Faraday pulled at her uncle’s arm.
“Cease this!” the girl cried.
Callister lifted his hands as if to signal he would no longer struggle against Gideon’s hold.
“Sit,” Gideon barked at the man. He pointed at Pennington. “And you.”
Both men dropped into the chairs they’d vacated.
“You murdered your brother,” Electra said to Lance Pennington.
Mrs. Devlin had told the truth.
The young man nodded, then dropped his head, his blond hair obscuring his face.
“And what is your involvement, Mr. Callister?” Gideon asked.
“None at all,” Callister insisted.
“He’s lying.” Miss Faraday’s soft voice cut through the room. “He asked my uncle to do it.”
Callister’s lip curled as he looked at the girl. “Hyperbole,” he bit out.
“He did ask me,” Lance Pennington said, lifting his head. “Offered to pay me, and I pondered how I might do it. If I could do it.”
He fell silent.
“Then I saw Demeter climbing out of a carriage in front of the townhouse. I felt such rage, and there was no more thought of planning or plotting.” He gave Gideon a stricken look.
“I struck him down, there on the street. It took but a moment. By the time I spoke to Demeter that night, it seemed like a nightmare. Or perhaps a dream in which there was no longer an impediment between us.”
“I never paid him to do it,” Callister said in a cutting tone.
“He didn’t,” Lance Pennington put in quietly.
“Why are you here tonight, Mr. Callister?” Gideon asked.
The older man pressed a hand to his forehead. “I felt responsible. Not that I am, but the boy is falling apart.” He gestured toward Pennington. “He confided to me what he’d done.”
“And you concealed it,” Gideon said.
“Yes,” he whispered. “I struggled with what I ought to do.”
Electra walked across the room and tugged the bell pull. Gideon nodded at her as if he understood her intention.
When Mr. Burton appeared in the doorway moments later. “You rang for me, Mr. Pennington.”
“Have someone fetch a constable and a police wagon,” Gideon told the butler.
“Promise me you will free Demeter,” Lance Pennington repeated.
“Once I have your signed confession, Mr. Pennington,” Gideon told him.
The tension in the man’s body seemed to ease at that.
Electra approached Miss Faraday. “Will you be all right?” she whispered to the girl, whose tears had dried but left her eyes red-rimmed.
“Yes,” she said softly. “I will marry and leave this house for good.”
Electra laid a hand on the girl’s arm.
It struck her that marriage seemed a secure future to her, whilst it had been one Demeter Devlin had taken extreme measures to avoid.
“And you,” Gideon said as he came to stand beside Electra. “Are you all right?”
“Of course. We have the truth now, don’t we?” Electra arched a brow, wondering if he would take umbrage with the we in her declaration.
Instead, he held her gaze and said, “Yes, we do.”