Soup

"One of the footmen is retiring, so he will have to be replaced. I thought maybe I would hire a new hall boy, and have one of the other boys train as a new footman instead."

Cain sank almost all the way into the bath, blowing bubbles in the water. He knew that his butler meant well, confirming the hiring of new servants with him, but it still bored him. He hated having to sit and listen to an agenda. Finally, he sat back up and turned to look at Riff.

"Do what you want," he said. "You know more about this stuff than I do. I trust you to do what's right."

"I understand, Sir," Riff said, smiling slightly. "I thought maybe I should warn you, though, about any new staff, so you don't get a shock at strange people walking around."

Cain smiled and leaned back into his bath again. It was just like Riff. No doubt he would review the kid as thoroughly as possible before hiring him, too. He would then refuse the boys that did ask for a job, and offer it to a chimney sweep, because Riff knew that the kid wouldn't be in just to get close to Cain. That, and Riff saw it as giving the kid a leg-up, which probably wouldn't be too far from the truth.

There was a knock on the door to the bedroom, and Riff walked across the bathroom and into the next room to answer. Cain heard talking for a few moments, before Riff returned.

"Master Cain, there is somebody on the telephone for you," Riff said.

"You answer it," Cain said, before sinking down again.

"Very good, Sir."

This time the other man shut the bathroom door as well. Cain splashed around for a few minutes, before looking at his hands. He scowled slightly at his puckered fingers. He then tapped his foot on the bottom for a few minutes, sighing impatiently. It was boring being in the bath without Riff to talk to. It occurred to him what a strange thought this was, wanting another man in the room while he was sitting buck-naked in the bath. He dismissed this thought quickly, though, reasoning that as a noble he was simply used to it. It certainly didn't seem to affect Riff in any way.

The door opened again, and his butler reentered, carrying a set of white towels with him.

"Master Cain, I'm afraid you must get out of the bath," he said.

"What?"

"That was Scotland Yard," Riff said, a slightly perplexed look on his face. "It was insisted that you go down immediately for questioning."

"Questioning?" Cain asked. "Questioning about what? I haven't been involved in anything…unusual for weeks."

"They said they couldn't disclose that information to me."

Cain sighed and stood. "Well," he said. "I guess there's not much I can do. Nowadays they don't have any qualms about arresting even nobles for 'resisting'."

"Now, usually we wouldn't hold onto a corpse longer than necessary for an autopsy—which we really didn't need in this case—but I thought it best that you take a look at it first," Detective Landor said, leading them into a room somewhat detached from the rest.

"Do you usually ask other people to look at bodies?" Cain asked.

"Of course, no," Landor said, looking around. "However, this is a special circumstance. Besides, you are known to have a rather strong stomach."

The sheet over the corpse was pulled back, and Riff made a noise of disgust behind Cain. Even the earl flinched slightly. The man was slightly blue in the face. The mouth opened wide and bloodied around the lips, between which a silver soupspoon had been lodged.

"It was the spoon that killed him," Landor said, avoiding looking at the cadaver by watching Cain. "It's jammed into the windpipe. I suppose the poor bugger suffocated…if that was the case, he didn't die immediately."

"Well," Cain paused. "I don't know how I can help you."

"Look closer at the spoon."

Riff handed Cain a handkerchief over the shoulder, which he took and held to his nose. He then leaned closer to examine the spoon—at which point he got the real surprise: engraved on the handle was his family crest.

"This is…mine?" Cain said. "How did this get here?"

"That's what I was hoping you could tell me," Landor said.

The earl and the detective both turned to look at Riff, who looked back at them with surprise.

"I don't know," Riff said.

"Didn't you notice that it was missing?" Cain asked.

"We don't count spoons, Sir," Riff told him, with a slight frown. "There are so many—and it wouldn't seem that odd that one would go missing. Or rather, not in the same way than if a knife did—which, by the way, we do count."

"But you have access to the dinnerware," Landor said.

"As do twenty-five other people, if you leave out Lord Cain and Miss Merry," Riff said. "You are aware that there are twenty-eight servants employed by Lord Cain, are you not? Even a small house, like the one that I work in, has a rather large staff."

Cain looked back at the corpse, a slight smile on his face. "Hm…death by spoon…I wonder what will happen next. Maybe we'll find a fork in somebody's eye."

"Master Cain, I would prefer if you didn't joke about that kind of thing," Riff said, somewhat sourly. "Especially seeing as how it was somebody in our house that has killed this man. Who is he, anyway?"

"Christopher Freeman," Landor said, looking between Cain and Riff. "Let's just say he wasn't in the most noble of trades."

The walk home was a silent one. Cain wished that Landor had actually explained what he meant by "wasn't in the most noble of trades." He refused to acknowledge the whether he knew what he meant or not, as neither was a good idea—if he knew, then that meant he knew who Christopher Freeman was, which would lend even more suspicion. If he showed that he didn't know, it damage his pride in knowing information. And, of course, the police would not be willing to give too much information to the press, which could include the man's "occupation". And what was more, he couldn't very well go asking around about Freeman; both his Christian name and his surname were incredibly common, and people in the slums—Cain had no doubt that's where Freeman was from—were probably never keen on giving information to an earl. Cain wasn't so deluded that he didn't know the obvious disdain that the lower classes had for the upper class.

In the meantime, all he could do was keep a close eye on the staff, which he knew that Riff would be doing as well. Cain hated police as it was, and he wasn't about to let them go snooping around in his private business.

Notes: Okay, another stab at this fandom, only written when I thought of it, which helps the plot move along. Big time. So a rather strange friend of mind brought up the idea that anything could be used as a weapon. And yes, this story has my own morbid sense of humor shining through. Death by spoon. By the way, there was actually something like this in a Shakespeare play. The spoon bit, that is.

That, and what if all evidence did point to Cain or his household? He'd try to figure it out, right?

I tried my best to get both Cain and Riff IC. Landor is actually a character in the first story of "The Sound of a Boy Hatching", The Hanged Man. I highly dislike original characters. They're too hard to pull off.

There will most likely be future RiffxCain. Probably. Maybe. If I feel like it. And yes, I talk too much.