Page 24 of Rules for Ruin

“I know, sir, but—”

Murphy caught hold of Ollie’s shoulder. “Out you go, runt.”

Gabriel flashed Murphy a look. Murphy immediately released the lad, backing out of the room and shutting the door.

“When I give you a job,” Gabriel said to Ollie, “I expect you to do it.”

“I am doing it, sir.”

“You’re supposed to be following Miss Flite.”

“I did,” Ollie said, harried. “I am.” He pointed wildly to the closed door of the office. “She’s here!”

Gabriel stared at him for a split second, uncomprehending. And then he surged to his feet. “In my bleeding betting shop?”

Ollie followed Gabriel to the door. “Not in the betting shop, sir. In St. Giles. She’s at Mother Comfort’s.”

“The devil she is.” Gabriel pushed through the crowd of men outside. “With an escort?”

“She don’t have any servants with her, only a fluffy little dog,” Ollie said, running after him.

Gabriel muttered a violent oath. Mother Comfort’s gin shop had once been a thriving concern. But not anymore. Now, it was a desperate place, one of the lowest and most disreputable gathering spots in St. Giles.

Miss Flite hadn’t struck him as a stupid woman, but she must be lacking something in the upper story if she’d come to the Rookery alone. A well-to-do young lady like her would be easy prey for every rogue, pickpocket, and procurer.

Pushing open the door of his shop, Gabriel bounded down the steps to the alleyway. He belatedly realized he’d left his coat and necktie in his office. It mattered little. This wasn’t a social call in Mayfair. Indeed, he’d be lucky if this wasn’t Miss Flite’s funeral.

He strode past the brothel, turning right down the next alleyway and then left down the one after. The passages of the Rookery were dark and narrow, a fetid warren filled with a suffocating expanse of humanity at its lowest ebb. Drunkards retched into corners, slatterns sagged against walls in various states of undress, and squalling, red-faced babes clung to the soiled skirts of drink-sotted mothers.

Scattered among them were the true victims of the slum—the hardworking poor struggling to survive with some measure of dignity. Costermongers, rag merchants, and washerwomen; bakers’ assistants, publicans, and children selling flowers from trays. Many of them acknowledged Gabriel as he passed, calling out his name or doffing their caps in respect.

Gabriel hardly noticed. His sights were firmly fixed ahead of him. Mother Comfort’s wasn’t much further. If he could get there quickly enough, Miss Flite wouldn’t come to harm.

Ollie chattered on breathlessly as he kept pace with Gabriel’s long stride. “I’ve been following her just like you told me, sir. She didn’t go out the day after the ball, but she had loads of callers, and more deliveries of flowers than I could count. And then yesterday, she suddenly comes out of the house, all in black like a widow, and she takes a train to the Epping Forest.”

Gabriel flashed him a sharp glance. “Where in the Epping Forest?”

“A big stone house with an iron gate around it. There weren’t no way for me to get in. But the gates had a name over ’em.”

“Which you couldn’t read,” Gabriel concluded.

Ollie reddened. “No, sir,” he admitted, abashed.

Gabriel’s brows sank with displeasure. There was no excuse for the lad’s ignorance. Not now the Rookery had a semblance of a school. Gabriel subsidized it himself. His desire to reform the slum might be rooted in self-interest, but he wasn’t without vision. He was determined every child be given the same opportunity that Rose Quincey had given him. A chance to learn to read and to write. To better themselves.

Ollie had flat-out refused to attend. He’d claimed he was too old to learn, preferring instead to devote the whole of his attention to his new role as a gentleman’s valet. It was a long-standing bone of contention between them.

“But I did ask at the public house in the village,” Ollie continued. “The barman said as how it was called the Crinoline Academy.”

“The Crinoline Academy,” Gabriel repeatedly flatly. He very much doubted that was the place’s official name. “A girls’ school, was it?”

“Something like. Miss Flite returned to Brook Street after. Then, this morning, she comes out again, dressed all in black like yesterday, and she comes here, sir. Straight to St. Giles!”

Gabriel scowled. What the devil could she be up to?

Another turn down an alleyway brought them to a small, crooked building with dirty plate glass windows patched with soiled rags. The premises appeared quiet enough. The sun was shining, and the worst of the slum’s residents hadn’t yet emerged from the shadows. That didn’t make it any safer of an establishment for a young lady.

Gabriel entered the dank interior of the shop, letting the door slam loudly behind him. The shop’s customers looked up as one. There weren’t many of them at this time of day, only a scattering of hard-faced, gin-soaked ruffians, hunched around small wooden tables, nursing their drinks amid a cloud of pipe and cigarette smoke.