That Butler, Contemplative


I own nothing but my OC.

≤speech in Indian language≥

'thoughts'

"speech"

{setting/stage directions?}

SOUND EFFECTS

An entire sentence like this, without quotes, is narration for dreams or stuff like written letters.

=†=†=†=†= scene shift/time shift

—^—^—^— change of perspective/area of action within one specific time frame/location


Previously:

"Now! Get away!!" Jeremy shouted.

"!!" Ran-Mao promptly kicked the comforter from the bed along with the killer.

FWAP! FWUNK.

The instant it hit the floor, Grey charged.

"You're mine!!" he shouted at the killer, drawing his sword to attack.

CLAANG.

Grey's eyes widened in surprise when his attack was blocked by Jeremy using the spade from the room's fireplace set, while the vicar held the killer in place inside the comforter using the fire poker.

"Wha—!?" Grey said, shocked.

"He is my precious witness," Jeremy said. "I can't have you killing him!" Arthur lit a candle.

"Th—This… is the killer!?" he asked, holding it out to shed more light on the odd scene before him.


KNOCK. KNOCK.

Tanaka knocked on the door of another room.

"Excuse me," he said, opening the door. Inside Ciel was sitting on the bed, wearing Sebastian's coat, surrounded by his servants, who were all armed with pitchforks, brooms and the like, and his nervous guests. "We have succeeded in apprehending the culprit," Tanaka announced. "I have informed their party that Young Master and the other guests are hiding here in Mister Woodley's room, so they should be arriving presently." The other servants all exhaled sighs of relief.

KNOCK. KNOCK.

Arthur opened the door, and he was followed by Grey.

"We've taken the culprit into custody," Grey informed them, gesturing behind him.

"Kyah..." Irene shrieked as she and Grimsby paled and flinched in shock. Standing there behind Grey, was none other than Jeremy holding a dangerous-looking snake that he had tied into a knot.

"Here is your killer," Jeremy said.

"A… A snake!?" Ciel exclaimed. "How is that even possible…!!?"

'I freaking knew it!' Chêne thought.

"It may be hard to believe, but it really did come after the young lady by virtue of her simply wearing the earl's clothes," Arthur said. Ran-Mao nodded. She was dressed in one of Ciel's jackets, which covered very little of her.

"Let me guess, it came through the vent and down the bell pull?" Chêne said.

"H-How did you know!?" Arthur asked, surprised.

"I've heard of a similar incident, but I didn't think anyone would believe me," she replied.

"Well… No, I guess you have a point, since even now it's still difficult to believe..." Arthur said, thinking it over. "But you still should have said something."

"What incident was this?" Grey asked.

"It was in a story I heard," Chêne replied, deciding she could give away that much. "It was a long time ago, so the details are a little vague, but I remember that the snake was trained somehow."

"As weak as a snake's vision may be, its sense of smell and hearing are highly evolved in compensation. Thus it can search out creatures in the black of night by their smells and the sounds of their hearts To put it plainly… the perpetrator must have trained the snake by rewarding it with prey whenever it was made to smell Earl Phantomhive's scent," Jeremy explained, taking over again. "If a snake is the murder weapon, keys and alibis no longer hold any weight. This is a 'black mamba', which inhabits southern Africa. Its venom contains exceedingly potent neurotoxins. Those who receive its bite are sure to die within an hour. As for unique traits, it is the fastest land snake in the world and excels at climbing trees. A perfect snake for any assassination plot. —But a snake is still just a snake, after all. It had no way of knowing whether or not its victim was Earl Phantomhive."

"Now I get it… the earl not sleeping in his own room was an unexpected development for the one behind all this!" Arthur said, taking more notes.

"And that night, my bedroom was being used by… Patrick Phelps!" Ciel said, furrowing his brow.

"Surmising that it would definitely make another appearance once it got hungry again, we stuck around, and sure enough it did just that. What a relief she was able to put on your clothes and was willing to stand in for you, my lord," Jeremy said, referring to Ran-Mao, who was tugging at her tight clothing. He put the snake in a large ceramic container on the mantlepiece. "If that hadn't been the case, Lord Earl wouldn't have been able to dodge the awful snake, right?"

"And if he'd gone and died on us, we would be in a right pinch! Isn't that so, Ran-Mao?" Lau said.

"You are safe. I am glad," Ran-Mao told Ciel, hugging him.

"Wah! Hey..." Ciel said, blushing, shocked to find his head against her bosom. "At least put on a pair of pants or something!!" he scolded her. She was still wearing nothing but his jacket. He somehow managed to find a way out of her grip.

"Oh dear, oh dear? He got away!" Lau said, smiling.

"Too bad," Ran-Mao said. They both thought he was cute when he was embarrassed. Chêne smiled wryly at their antics.

"Ahem!!!" Ciel said, clearing his throat. "To get back to the subject…! You had me wear the butler's coat to disguise my smell, then?"

"Haha! It was convenient since it was able to hide all of what little there is of you," Jeremy said.

"You truly are a man of one too many words, Vicar..." Ciel said darkly with a vein throbbing on his head.

"However, trading vessels are forbidden from importing poisonous snakes," Arthur said. "Having worked as a ship's surgeon on an African route, I can tell you all cargo is thoroughly examined without exception."

"That means it was smuggled in, hm?" Lau said, holding his chin. "The most efficient approach in that case would be to bribe a privately operated freighter, I'd say."

"Yes. But that would require close connections to business in Africa," Ciel pointed out.

"And when speaking of African imports, gold and diamonds come first to mind..." Arthur said, stopping and gasping as he realized what that meant. Everyone stared at Woodley.

"Y-You've got it all wrong! It wasn't me!" Woodley swore, sweating nervously. "If you want to talk trade, 'Kong-Rong' is involved in it as well!"

"Nnn, sorry! " Lau told him with a shrug. "We don't work with any African companies, see?"

"Still, assuming he's guilty just 'cos he deals with Africa is a bit brutal of us, don't you think?" Grey suggested.

"H-He's right! What about the time of Siemens's death!?" Woodley said anxiously. "I have an alibi!!"

"That alibi may not be much of one to begin with," Jeremy said.

"Eh…!?" said Woodley.

"What do you mean?" Grimsby asked.

"What if the corpse the butler and his companions discovered was not a corpse at all?" Jeremy suggested.

"Whaaa—!?" Arthur and Mei-Rin gasped. Almost everyone was shocked.

"But I could not detect a pulse, and his chest was bloody as well..." Arthur said.

"Did you make sure to verify his wounds?" Jeremy asked.

"Well…" Arthur said. "I was unable to see that much in the dark, so…"

"Is everyone familiar with the potion Juliet drank in Romeo and Juliet?" Jeremy asked.

"The one which made her appear as though she were dead, only to revive later?" Irene said.

"No!" Arthur gasped.

"Oh, but yes. It does indeed exist," Jeremy said. "A poison which makes such a thing possible."

"Wha–!?" Woodley exclaimed incredulously.

"There is a substance that has been recently discovered called tetrodotoxin. If it is purified in a certain way, one can enter a state of apparent death by consuming it, like the fair Juliet," Jeremy explained.

'Ah, the 'zombie drug',' Chêne thought, recalling how Lacey had mentioned before that tetrodotoxin was one of the ingredients in the drug used to put people in a fugue state as living zombies. She should have known. She had seen it used on murder mystery shows before, although to be fair, in those cases it had been fatal.

"Tetrodotoxin is a neurotoxin possessed by blowfish and octopi," Arthur said.

"Ah, the professor to the rescue once more. You seem to be up on the latest research, I see," Jeremy said, "I noted a slight scent of the sea when I inspected Siemens's corpse. That was probably the result of the poison being distilled from blowfish venom. Now let me ask you this. Why would someone who was stabbed to death smell of poison?"

'Because he wasn't really stabbed,' Chêne thought.

"… So it was all a performance," Ciel said, furrowing his brow.

"!" Grey furrowed his brow slightly too.

"Yes. He drank the poison himself and pretended to be dead after discarding the vial. That way, it would not matter to which room he was led," Jeremy said. "Someone with no medical knowledge would not want or think to examine a corpse's wounds, so it should have been enough to fool everyone."

"I ought to have inspected the corpse better," Arthur said, feeling some regret.

"But when I inspected the corpse, he had indeed died of stab wounds," Jeremy stated.

"Eh?" Arthur said, taken aback.

"He only intended to fake his death but ended up being murdered for real," said Lau.

"Judging from the situation, the perpetrator might have attempted to frame the earl," Arthur said.

"Me?" Ciel asked.

"However, we do not know whether Lord Siemens was involved as well," Arthur said. "He seemed to go wild when under the influence of alcohol, so the perpetrator might have suggested it by saying, 'let's surprise everyone'."

"This was the first time that he and I had met. He had no reason to frame me," Ciel said. "He must have been used then murdered to keep him from talking."

"Poor man," Arthur said, feeling sorry for him.

"The perpetrator would have had many opportunities to approach the lord at a dinner buffet," Jeremy said.

"Then anybody could have cozied up to him! No one else would have an alibi either!" Woodley argued.

"I could ask each and every one of you about what you discussed with Siemens, but…" Jeremy said. Grey narrowed his eyes slightly. "… I won't. Human beings lie."

"Yes. You might be lying now too," Grey said. "If he ingested poison, where did the bottle go?"

"It's simple," Ciel said. "You discard it where no one will think to look. Like in the fire."

"Now I remember, there was a lotta firewood in the hearth then," Bard said.

"People wouldn't look for it there," Arthur said. "You would only need to retrieve it once things had quieted down..."

"But everything did not go as planned," Ciel said. "… Due to Sebastian."

"I see!" Arthur exclaimed. "The butler came to stoke the fire!!" Jeremy smirked.

"B—Bull!!" Woodley yelled.

"Your alibi would be invalidated if proof of the staged death is found. You killed Sebastian out of haste… retrieved the evidence, and returned to your own room," Arthur said.

"Then whoever has it is the killer!!" Woodley yelled, growing desperate. "I have nothing of the sort in my possession! You've looked already!"

"Ah, yes. We have looked," Ciel said, smirking. "But not in the fireplace."

"!!!" Woodley exclaimed with wide eyes.

"It's the best place to hide something. It's not as if your room would be searched numerous times. You only need to retrieve what you hid there and discard it after the inspection," Ciel said.

"These charges are all false. You won't find anything here…!" Woodley argued defiantly.

"Then prove it to us!" Grimsby barked. "Let's see if you have something hidden here or not!!" He rushed over to the fireplace and began poking about with the spade, shifting the ashes and cinders around. "!!" he gasped when he saw something shiny, coughing from the dust he stirred up. "Ah…!! Shards of glass…!?"

"What!?" Woodley shouted in complete disbelief.

"But I can't tell what these fragments once made up..." Arthur said, also coughing from the dust as he and Jeremy moved closer to examine the shards.

"You must simply collect them and use them to reconstruct the original shape," Jeremy stated calmly, picking up the tiny pieces.

"Huh!?" Arthur said, sweat-dropping. "That's impossible! The pieces are minuscule!"

"It is but a puzzle without a picture," Jeremy replied. "Mmm. Here," he said, presenting the reconstructed glass ampoule.

"A-Amazing!!" Arthur exclaimed.

"It looks like a vial of some medicine," Jeremy observed.

"Th-This means..." Arthur said.

"It was you after all!! You beast!!" Grimsby shouted, pointing an accusing finger at Woodley.

"I-I don't know anything about this!" Woodley said nervously.

"You attempted to frame a child… Why…?" Arthur asked.

"I…!" Woodley exclaimed.

"… Diamonds," Ciel mumbled.

"Eh?" Arthur said.

"There was a secret plan for the Roze Company, the largest in the diamond industry, and our company, which owns some of the world's leading technology, to enter the jewelry market together. However, Mister Roze, the autocratic president, was recently murdered, putting the plan temporarily on hold," Ciel explained. "Still, if the plan moves forward again, Woodley Company, which claims to have the latest technologies, will suffer without a doubt." Ciel narrowed his eyes at Woodley. "So you planned to kill me this time. What a shoddy plan it was."

"I did not do it. Believe me!!" Woodley pleaded. He pointed his finger at Ciel. "I was framed!! By him… the queen's… do—"

"Hold your tongue," Grey told him coldly, coming up from behind Woodley to hold his sword to his throat before anyone could see what had happened. "You don't need to make excuses. I will listen to you at leisure in prison."

"I-I didn't do it… I swear I didn't…!!" Woodley insisted despite the small amount of blood being drawn by the blade on his neck.

"Keep quiet if you don't want to die! I'm cross as a hungry bear right now," Grey said, applying more pressure.

"Ee…!" Woodley squeaked, biting his tongue.

"Earl Grey," Ciel said, getting his attention. He held up the shackles that had been used on him before. "I have just the thing for you." The two earls stared at each other.

CLANK.

Grey wrapped Woodley up in the chain and slapped the shackles on his wrists. Ciel and the others watched while Grey marched him out of the room.

"Let us leave the rest to the Yard," Arthur said.

"With this, we can consider the case closed," Ciel said.

"What a relief..." Irene said, exhaling a sigh.

"Yeah," Grimsby agreed.

"Oh, yeah! So what was that dark red liquid in the end, I wonder?" Finni said aloud.

"F-Finny! Just leave that alone now!" Mei-Rin said, panicking. "The case is done, 'tis indeed!!"

"Ah, yes. I hadn't explained that to you yet," Jeremy said hitting his hand in his palm.

"A dark red liquid?" Ciel asked.

"Mei-Rin discovered a bottle of deep red liquid in Miss Irene's room," Chêne answered.

"And she wondered if the ever youthful and lovely Miss Irene, who does not appear to have aged a day, was a vampire," Jeremy added.

"What in blazes!!? So you were doubting Irene all along!?" Grimsby barked incredulously.

"Grimsby! Please wait," Irene told him. "That is..."

"The probable contents of that bottle—" Jeremy said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a dark red-violet leaf. "It's this, isn't it?"

"A leaf?" Mei-Rin asked.

"Ah," Chêne said.

"Ah! That's red perilla!" Finni said, recognizing it.

"Red perilla is a known anti-aging substance. The extract that is produced from boiling it down is what keeps you looking so young… no?" Jeremy asked Irene.

"Y-Yes," Irene answered, a little embarrassed to have her secret exposed. She held her face in her hands and blushed. "I do apologize. I would never have imagined that the bottle would cause such a great fuss." She held onto Grimsby's arm. "I drink it because I want to stay young with him forever."

"Irene..." Grimsby said happily, blushing.

"Th-That was iiit~?" the three stooges said, deflating. They got all worked up over nothing.

"I've known red perilla can help with exhaustion, but I didn't know about the anti-aging..." Chêne said. Considering it was the main ingredient in her family's old recipe for an antique 'energy drink', and how often her mother and grandma actually made it… some things were beginning to make a lot of sense.

"Exactly so. This is indeed said to help one recover from fatigue as well," Jeremy said, holding up a new bottle of the extract that he had made himself. "And so! What do you say we toast with a draught in celebration of closing the case?" While Mei-Rin bowed in apology to Irene for suspecting her, Jeremy began pouring the red perilla juice into enough glasses for everyone.

"Well, Professor, the toast, if you please," Ciel said.

"Eh!? Me!?" Arthur said, surprised.

"You must be commended for your distinguished service," Ciel replied with a smile.

"W-Well, then," Arthur said, clearing his throat. He raised his glass and the others followed suit. "Let us celebrate the end of the case… Cheers!!"

[And thus dawn broke on the night of devilry at the ghost manor… and each of us returned from whence we came.]

Grimsby and Irene waved goodbye to Arthur as they parted to board their carriages.

[The sky was brilliantly clear as if the previous day and its goings-on had all been a lie. The orchestra of torrential rain played by the hands of devils had changed to the sweet chirping of little birds.]

Arthur waved back and noticed Grey was loading Woodley into the back of their carriage for the Yard. There seemed to be an odd expression on the earl's face, as if he was disappointed with the outcome.

[However still the tiniest sense of unease remained in my heart like a blot, a lone cloud floating in the clear sky…]

Arthur paused for one last look at the manor, then took his seat in the carriage. He couldn't help feeling… off.

'Why is it?' he wondered. 'The case has been solved, yet… I feel as though my vision is being obscured… as though I've overlooked something major…'

KNOCK. KNOCK.

Arthur looked over to see Jeremy knocking on his window.

"Mister Jeremy?" he said.

"That long face is not one of a man who is glad to see the end of the case," Jeremy remarked.

"No, that's not..." Arthur said a little nervously. "You really were a great help to me, Mister Jeremy. Thank you so much for everything."

"You have my thanks as well," Jeremy said. "I doubt we shall meet again, but I do hope the future is kind to you." He reached out his hand to shake Arthur's. "Professor."

'He's speaking French?' Arthur thought.

"Thank you for taking care of the young master," Jeremy told him in French.

KNOCK. KNOCK.

He knocked on the side of the carriage to signal the coachman to start driving.

"Ah..!" Arthur gasped, leaning out the window. He could see Jeremy waving goodbye. 'What was that just now…?' he wondered. He gasped again as he suddenly remembered some of the last words the butler had said to him.

Please. Do take care of the young master.

'No! How could that be!? He was well and truly dead,' Arthur thought with wide eyes as a bead of cold sweat slid down the side of his face. 'It's just not possible…' His eyes widened further. '—No. Wait!! Now that I think back on it, everything he did was odd. When Siemens was killed, the night of his own murder, and the way he spoke and acted, like he knew what the future would bring. And though it seems impossible, what Vicar Jeremy said just now was a reference to that time…?" He quickly leaned his head out the window to address the coachman. "Please return to the manor!! Straightaway!!"

—^—^—^—

The coach pulled up in front of the Phantomhive manor. Arthur jumped out and ran up the steps and into the building.

WHAM!

He threw the door open to find Ciel, Jeremy, and Chêne ascending the stairs to the second level. They all looked back at him.

"You've come back in such haste. Whatever is the matter?" Jeremy asked him. "Perhaps you have forgotten something?"

"I have returned to confirm the truth," Arthur replied. "Vicar Jeremy… or should I say—! The butler. Sebastian."

"Heh!" Jeremy smirked. "Excellent." He reached a hand up to his face. "We've clearly somewhat underestimated you. No..." He gripped the 'skin' on his face and pulled. His voice changed to become smoother, younger. "Rather, we have committed a most inexcusable error." He ripped the mask away, revealing his true face as the butler. "Professor," he finished with another smirk.