Gabriel’s nape prickled.
“How long ago?” Kent said alertly.
“She disappeared around three months ago. Left without a word.” Fortescue huffed. “Should ’ave listened to my gut and turned the hussy away from the start.”
Gabriel traded glances with the investigators. The timing matched with when Fournier—or Fontaine, rather—had started in his employ. This had to be the woman they were after.
“Why should you have turned her away?” Gabriel said.
“’Er manner. Hoity-toity, she was. Because she had a bit o’ book learning, she thought she was better than the rest.” Fortescue grunted—his comment on educated females, apparently. “Claimed she’d been a governess for a rich family and ’ad been let go when the children went away to school. Only a fool would believe that tale when she didn’t have a single reference to show for it.” Fortescue’s thin brows rose. “My guess is that Miss High and Mighty got herself compromised and was shown the back door.”
“Then why did you hire her?” Gabriel said.
The proprietor’s eyes slid away. “I’ve a big ’eart, I do.”
The heart wasn’t the part of the anatomy that had made the other’s decision, Gabriel thought with disgust. “After she left,” he said coldly, “you heard nothing else?”
“I’ve said all I know.” Fortescue held his hand out for the purse.
Gabriel kept it back. “We will need to speak to your employees who knew Fontaine.”
“My seamstresses are busy. They ’aven’t the time to—”
Gabriel emptied the purse, the gold clinking onto his gloved palm.
Fortescue’s avarice got the better of him. “All right. You may speak to Alice—she and Manette were as chatty as magpies.” He took the gold, stuffing it into his pocket. “Ten minutes only, mind you. I’ve a business to run.”
***
The woman named Alice was more than happy to talk.
“Well, beats bein’ up in that bleedin’ garret room, don’t it?” Batting her eyelashes, she untied her fichu, making a great show of fanning her exposed décolletage. “La, it’s sohotup there.”
Gabriel observed that the woman’s milkmaid looks were already showing signs of wear. Fine lines were etched around her eyes and mouth, and her gaze was as jaded and assessing as that of any trollop. In fact, her coy manner suggested that she had at least some experience in the world’s oldest trade.
He’d sent Kent and McLeod back to the carriage so as not to intimidate their only lead to Fontaine. He and Alice were out in the alley behind Fortescue’s. Squeezed between buildings, the corridor was stifling and reeked of garbage. The back doors of the other businesses swung open now and again, letting out people or buckets of refuse.
It was the most privacy they were going to get.
“I’m told you know Manette Fontaine,” Gabriel said.
“Knew. ’Aven’t ’eard from ’er since she left this place.” Alice gave him a flirtatious smile. “What’er she did for you, sir, I reckon I can do better.”
“Manette is a prostitute?”
“You’re not one o’ ’er fancy coves?” Alice’s eyes thinned. “Who are you then?”
“Someone who wants to find her.” He held out a quid. “This is yours if you answer my questions.”
“Double that, and I’ll tell you everything I know,” she said.
He gave her half of what she asked. “The rest when you’re done. So you and Manette—you both worked in the streets?”
“I ain’t no common streetwalker. I’m a good girl, I am,” Alice said unconvincingly. “Work my fingers to the bone in my God-given trade, but sometimes it ain’t enough and if there ’appens to be a job or two on the side…” She shrugged. “A girl’s got to make ends meet, don’t she?”
“Manette was doing these side jobs as well?”
“She’sthe one who ’ooked me onto the idea. We started ’ere ’round the same time and got friendly like. One day she says to me she knows o’ a way to make some extra blunt and am I interested? I says, do birds ’ave wings? That’s when she tells me o’ this ’igh-kick place in Covent Garden called the Tickle and Fancy. There, a girl can work whene’er and howe’er much she wants. The nobs there like it that way; they don’t fancy long-toothed whores.” Alice smirked. “They prefer fresh goods—seamstresses and maids wot only do it now an’ again and nicely like. Pay more for the likes o’ us, they do.”
