Investigation
Previously, on "The world of Black Butler / Kuroshitsuji", our Baroness Clarette went to the banquet in Ciel's house with Earl Charles Grey to carry out Queen Victoria's secret mission: eliminate Georg von Siemens. But Charles also attempted to murder Sebastian, thinking that he succeeded. Clare noticed Sebastian watching them as they carried out the murder of Siemens in the wine cellar.
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The next morning, I leisurely took a hot rose bath that I had Mey-Rin prepare. As I finished getting ready, a loud scream from Finny was heard, as expected.
I followed the source of the noise to Siemen's room and found that it also drawn the rest of the occupants of the manor there.
"What in the world is this!?" Grimsby said, staring wide-eyededly at Sebastian's body on the floor.
"How horrible," Irene said shakily.
Next to me, Charles also said, "I didn't expect this..."
Well, I guess I'd have to join in with the act, "Me neither..."
Soon, Ciel arrived with Arthur, still in his silk nightgown. His expression became shocked as he laid eyes on the unmoving corpse of his butler, decorated with splatter of blood all around and a fire iron sticking out of the front of his chest.
Ciel stepped into the puddle of crimson after having freed himself from the attempted restraint from the servants.
"Sebastian..." Ciel started speaking at the still figure on the floor, "How long are you going to fool around? The floor can't be that comfortable. How long are you going to play dead?"
I discreetly rolled my eyes at his acting. Of course he knew that his demonic butler wasn't dead. He was pretty good, I've got to say. His act continued until he was pulled away by the servants.
Lau put his hand to his chin, "The earl was locked up all night, so he couldn't be responsible for this murder." He opened his eyes and smiled, "This is getting interesting."
I could see that disbelief was shown on Arthur's face as he heard Lau's words. Of course, him being a middle-class oculist and an innocent man, he is not accustomed to the danger and the ways things are dealt with in the underworld and upperclass.
Once again, Arthur went up to the body to inspect it. "There are signs of trauma on his head. He might have been hit from behind while clearing the ashes."
"But that didn't kill him, so he tried again." Bard said, "So that means the killer finished him with a poker to the chest."
"Or they just attacked twice withourchecking his pulse," Charles said with squinted eyes, "Two blows would certainly be more effective..." Why did he seem so confused? Oh, right, he stabbed Sebastian from behind when he tried to kill him, but now the iron was sticking out from the front of his chest. He must be wondering who did it... Well, I wonder who it could be!
"Or maybe..." Arthur turned around to look at the lot, "...There's more than one killer. Even if the blow to the back of his head wasn't fatal, I can't see why they would hit him from the front. In that case..."
"It's natural to assume there were two." Charles finished the sentence.
"With or without an accomplice, I don't sense an ounce of mercy or hesitation." Lau started saying, "The culprit managed to kill that butler, so they must be pretty-"
"Stop it already!" Finny yelled, "Talking like that while young master is here... Think how he must feel!"
"Finny!" Mey-Rin shouted. She deeply bowed to the guests, "Please excuse him!"
Charles sighed, "We can't stand around this corpse forever. Let's just take it to the basement for now."
"You're right. Haste will get us nowhere." Lau said in agreement.
"It's decided, then!" Charles said in a slightly more cheerful voice and started walking away, "You guys take care of that thing, alright?" He paused, "Oh, and you better make breakfast too." The servants nodded and everyone started leaving the room. I walked after Charles.
He seemed to be leading me somewhere so I just followed him silently. I followed him into a room, and it turned out to be the library of the manor.
"Did you do it?" Charles asked as the door closed behind me.
"Do what?" I asked, slightly baffled by his sudden question.
"I'm sure I stabbed him through the back. But it was sticking out of the front of him, someone must have moved it. Was it you?"
"No. I retired straight away after the....basement incident."
He sat down in an armchair and held his chin, "Who could it be and... why?"
I sat down opposite him, "I can't think of anyone," Well I do know it was Sebastian, but I cant exactly say that he got killed and came back to live to stab himself on a different side again can I?
"That means someone's seen the body."
"Well, whoever it was, they didn't raise any alarm when they saw the body, so I'm sure it'll be fine." I comforted him.
He sighed, "I'm just confused, who would do that?"
"It won't do us much good just sitting here. Why don't you go get ready for the meal, and we'll look out for clues as the day goes on?"
He nodded, and we went back to our individual room. I fixed my hair a little, and soon it was breakfast.
We all sat at the dining table with Ciel at one end, being the host. I sat opposite Charles and we were the closest to Ciel since we were of the highest social status. Woodley sat to my side. In front of us was a set of nicely laid out full English breakfast.
"Thankfully, Sebastian made the day's preparation in advance." Ciel said.
"It looks good! Let's eat!" Charles was back to his usual cheerful demeanour.
He just started to eat when Arthur interrupted, "Please wait. That seat is..." He looked at the empty seat near the other end of the table.
"Mr Phelps isn't here!" Irene said.
"He is having quite a lie in...." Woodley said and awkwardly laugh. There was a moment of silence as the possibility of things loomed over everyone's mind.
"Excuse me!" Arthur finally broke the silence, "Do you mind... if we check? His room, that is."
Everyone knew what he meant. Ciel nodded, and everyone immediately hurried to the room he stayed in, which was Ciel's master bedroom.
Arthur reached the room first, "Mr Phelps! Mr Phelps!" He yelled as he knocked on the door, "If you're in there, please answer!" He tried the door knob but it was locked firmly. "Earl, where is the key?"
"Sebastian managed the key to my room. Only he knew where it was kept. Now that he is dead, even I don't know where it is..." Ciel answered.
"Move." I suddenly felt a hand on my waist, and I was pulled to the side. The owner of the hand took swift swings at the locked door with his rapier, and it immediately fell apart allowing entrance.
"Hurry it up, we haven't had dessert." Charles said as he removed his hand from me.
While Arthur, along with some others ran in, I remarked at Charles, "Dessert? We haven't even started the main course yet."
He gave me a lopsided grin, "I finished it."
I chuckled and mentally face palmed. Oh, of course he'd already finished his food before everyone else even started.
We went into Ciel's master bedroom. Inside, a wide-eyed Arthur stood before the similarly wide-eyed corpse of Phelps. This time, even Charles was genuinely surprised since he didn't commit this murder.
"Rigor Mortis has already set in..." Arthur, who inspected the dead body, said, "So he's been here a while. I don't see any sign of physical trauma like the others, but..."
He gasped slightly when he saw the fang mark on Phelps' neck. "It looks like something pricked his neck... These are... from a needle? Could he be poisoned?"
"That is very likely, seeing the state of his body." Woodley said.
"These wounds..." Arthur inspected the mark closer, "Also resemble a bite mark."
"Bite marks on the neck... It's just like Carmilla." Irene said.
"Le Fanu's vampire, Carmilla?" Ciel asked, referring to the gothic novella 'The Dark Blue'. Irene nodded.
"You are saying that he was killed by a vampire!?" Woodley took a step back, as if at any moment Phelps would come back to live, "Don't be absurd! It's the 19th century! It could't be anything so blatantly unscientific!"
We discussed the case for a while longer, in which Arthur managed to find out the time of Phelps death with the broken clock on the floor. We then came to the conclusion that it was best to take a moment to analyze the situation elsewhere.
Ciel, and the alive members in the manor all went to the drawing room, and tea was served.
We went through some long winded detection, mainly lead by Arthur. We deducted the time of death of all three murders, and Arthur created an alibi list, which suggested that no one person could have killed all three people, which was true as me and Charles did not kill Phelps.
The atmosphere of the discussion was heavy and chocking. Suddenly, Woodley banged his diamond-adorned hands on the wooden table and had an outburst.
"I can't stay here another minute!" He angrily stood up.
"Where are you going?" Ciel said holding his tea, "In this situation I would like you to refrain from acting irresponsibly."
"I'm acting irresponsibly!?" Woodley turned his anger to Ciel, "This all started with you!
"With me...?"
Woodley hesitated, but the said, "I know about you. You planned everything to kill us off, didn't you? Queen's Dog!"
As soon as that came out of his mouth, Ciel narrowed his eyes and his gaze became cold, "Woodley... I told you to sit down, so sit down."
Woodley's eyes widened in anger at his command, "Don't tell me what to do!" He suddenly raised his fist to hit Ciel.
"Earl!" Arthur shouted, shocked by Woodley's abrupt action.
In a flash, Woodley was down on the floor, with Tanaka holding him down.
"I'm terribly sorry, Mr Woodley." Tanaka said as he pressed his hand against Woodley, "While you are in this manor, if you attempt to harm the young master, no matter who you are, we servants will not tolerate the offense. Please heed my advice."
"What the hell is wrong with this place!?" Woodley hissed.
I silently scoffed. This man, is he really of the upperclass? I guessed he was just a man who managed to make it with his wealth, but inside, he was really an unmannered brute.
After Woodley had been subdued, the discussion continued. We decided that Arthur should take charge of the investigation since he was the only one that had an alibi for all three of the murders. He then decided that we should first search for the Earl's room key. The guys went down to the cellar to do some.... 'thorough' checking on Sebastian.... while I stayed behind with Irene, and Grimsby.
After a while they came back up.
"Did you find the key?" I asked.
"No, Sebastian does not have it on him." Arthur said, "But we're going to check his bedroom now."
"Would it be alright if I come?" I asked.
"Of course." Arthur said.
We went into Sebastian room, which was very tidy. There was not a trace of activity here. We all started going through the drawers, and places that people are likely to keep valuables.
I saw Ciel looking at the wardrobe. Oh no, it's about to happen.
He slowly opens the wardrobe door. Suddenly, a sea of cats flooded out into the room.
"What happe- Cats!?" Arthur shouted in surprise.
"That bastard was keeping cats behind my back!" Ciel shouted as he backed away from the cat.
A pure white cat jumped onto my dress. I picked it up and saw that it had heterochromic eyes, one blue, one green.
"Aww, this cat is cute!" I whispered to myself.
"Get them out!" Ciel should as he tried to hold in a sneeze from his allergy.
Finny and Bard quickly carried the cats out. However, the white cat in my arms just refused to let go and stared right into my eyes as if begging not to be taken away.
When Bard was about to take it away from me, I finally gave in to its cuteness, "Bard, I think I'll keep this one."
He nodded and went onto catch other cats. Afterward we continued searching, but of course, the key was not here. We then searched through everyone's belongings, but to no avail either.
All of us went back into the drawing room. While we talked about the case, the servants volunteered to go outside in the storm to look for the key.
Grimsby suddenly stood up.
Arthur said, "Where do you think you are going?"
"I'm just going to grab some stuff for work. I do have a deadline for my script. I'll be right back." He answered.
"Please wait," Arthur stopped him, "We don't know the killer's identity, so to avoid are casualties, it would be the safest to move in a group."
"That is true," I said as I stroked my newly acquired cat, "The killer might be one of us. But... what if there is another person?"
"What do you mean?" Grimsby asked.
"What if there is another person in the manor?"
"If they're not here with us, where the hell are they?" Charles asked.
"Do you mean... they could be hiding outside?" Irene suggested.
"They couldn't enter a locked room," Ciel said, "Or wander in from the storm without leaving footprints all over the manor."
"But what if there is a fourteenth person, who could make this possible?" I said, knowing fully that Sebasti... I mean Jeremy Rathbone, was about to come.
"Ridiculous!" Woodley said, "Someone like this could never exist!"
"Are you sure?" I said, "If there is a fourteen person, all the things such as the alibi we discussed would be useless, and it would be possible for one person to commit all three murders.... and this person could already be at our door."
All of a sudden, there were loud knocks on the door. Then servants bursted in with a tied up man in a suit. I smiled at the perfect timing.
"Young master, we've captured someone suspicious!" Bard said running in while holding a briefcase, "Come on! Get in here!"
The man in suit stepped in thought the door. Everyone gasped at this revelation.
"Wha-!? He really does exist!? Where the hell was he-!?" Charles said with widened eyes. I've never seen him so shocked before.
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