"What if I blab? It won't save my 'ide, now, will it?" Memmery asked darkly, his face taking on the resignation of a doomed man.
"It might. If your information proves to be useful to me, you'll be smuggled immediately to the Berkeley shipping docks and taken aboard a packet bound for Australia. There at least you'll have a chance to enjoy a few more years of your miserable life—you're young enough still to want that. However, if you don't tell me what I want to hear, you'll be taken back to your ward and cast upon the infinite mercy of your companions."
" 'Ow do I know you're not shavin' me?"
"You'll have to trust me."
Evidently deciding that the risk was worthwhile, Memmery nodded briefly. "What do you want to know?"
"You're a member of Stop Hole Abbey," Alec said.
"Aye."
"You were acquainted in the past with my cousin Holt Falkner."
" 'E didn't give 'is name. But 'e looked like you."
"And he paid you for information."
"Aye."
"What did you talk to him about?" " 'E was lookin' for that dell… that girl you mentioned."
"Leila Holburn?"
"Aye."
"And what did you tell him?"
"I wadn't in on that part o' Stop 'Ole. But after 'e told me 'ow she disappeared, I told 'im I thought she'd been christened."
"Christened? What does that mean?" Carr asked sharply.
"White slavery," Alec replied, his lip curling in a faint sneer. "A lucrative business, currently in greater vogue than ever before. The youngest and comeliest of the women they kidnap are shipped off to the West Indies and certain parts of Asia. I'm afraid Holt's fiancee is probably located in some exotic bordello… or if she's lucky, a harem."
"How do we know where?" Carr inquired through clenched teeth.
"That's what y'r cousin was tryin' to find out," Memmery said. "I told 'im to look for a tall Frenchie by the name o' Tilter—'e knew about that part o' Stop 'Ole more than most."
"What is Tilter's real name? And where do we find him?"
"I don't know." Memmery leaned against the wall, looking curiously gray. "I don't know."
"Not good enough," Alec said heartlessly. "Unless you can give me something else, I'm afraid your voyage to Australia is in danger of being canceled."
"Wait. Wait, I can tell you 'ow to find 'im." The convict pulled a few ragged playing cards out of his shirt and handed them to Alec. "You got to look for 'im in the flash 'ouses… Tilter will be in one of 'em. Show the seven; it lets y' in anywhere you want to go. Show the jack, it means y're lookin' for information. The king… y' want to talk to one o' the 'igher-ups."
"Call the guard," Alec told Carr, who obeyed withalacrity. The door was opened, and Alec handed a hefty pouch to the guard. "Get him to the west docks," he said quietly. "If I hear from the Berkeley officials that Memmery didn't make it on board tonight, I'll have your hide nailed to the wall and left to dry in the sun."
"Yes, sir."
Carr followed Alec out of Newgate, and when they were out, they both took deep, reviving breaths of clean air. "I never knew it smelled so sweet out here," Carr said, forcing a smile to his face, though his green eyes looked curiously stricken.
"Yes."
"How did Holt do it?" Carr suddenly burst out. "How did he bring himself to associate with scum like that and not tell anyone?" Facing the prisoners at Newgate had given him a sense of what kind of people Holt had been bargaining and dealing with in order to find Leila. For the first time, he realized what type of men had murdered his brother.- Any one of the wretches he had just walked past could have done it, would have done it had they seen something to gain by it.
As Alec looked at the young man, who was losing his idealism so fast, the frightening coldness left his gray gaze, to be replaced by a subtle glow of sympathy. "He did what he had to do. He did it because he was capable of great loyalty to those he loved. And he would have done anything to get Leila back."
"It wasn't worth it. Trying to get her back wasn't worth his life," Carr said in a raw voice.
Alec thought of Mira. He would go to the same lengths to find her that Holt had gone to in order to find Leila. There was no doubt, no question of that in his mind. Had Holt really loved Leila Holburn in such a way, that he would rather die than forget her or try to live without her?
Before Mira, he would not have understood any of this. Like Carr, he would have been confused andresentful of the emotion that had indirectly led Holt to his death. But how could he make Carr understand that having a few months of that kind of love was worth a lifetime? His cousin was too young to regard such a statement as anything but banal. Alec lifted his shoulders and let them drop in a slight shrug. "To Holt, Leila was worth it," he said matter-of-factly.