Eleanora was silent throughout breakfast. She realized that the other servants were very kind and friendly and wanted to make her feel at home. However, she also realized that they had no idea of the things that she knew and the trouble that she was in. The butler hadn't presented them with this information and clearly had no intention to. He didn't eat breakfast; he had sat at the table with the rest of them and finished mending the clothes.
She didn't eat much and when she was done, the butler led her to the Earl's study, where he was sitting at a desk that was too big for him, flipping through some files and papers.
"Miss Black, my Lord," the butler said when they entered. The Earl looked up.
"Hm? Oh, good! Could you please come closer, Eleanora?"
Eleanora winced but obediently walked up until she was directly in front of him. He set aside his papers and looked at her intensely.
"Eleanora," he said seriously, "we know that you've witnessed a murder of a noble. If you could just tell us what you know, you'll be doing your Queen and your country a great service."
Eleanora couldn't hold back a scoff. Queen. Country. What had they ever done for her? She had to work for everything good that had happened to her; no one had helped her in the slightest.
"You'll be assisting justice. And we'll give you a significant amount of money in exchange for your services."
She perked up. Money?
"How much, sir?" she asked cautiously. He told her. "Oh." That was quite a lot of money; almost triple the amount she made in a week. "So…all I have to do is tell you what I saw?"
"Yes," Ciel said. "I assure you that we'll guarantee your protection afterwards as well."
Eleanora thought about it and slowly nodded.
"Alright," she said. "I'll tell you. But only you." She glanced pointedly at the butler; the Earl quickly got the hint.
"Sebastian, leave the room and don't eavesdrop."
The butler did not look entirely pleased with this development, but he bowed and left the room anyway, glancing at the maid as he passed, who ignored him. Once they were properly alone, Ciel invited her to sit down, which she did.
"Now," he said, "tell me everything you saw."
She told him.
About taking a shortcut through the alley, about hearing the pleas of the noble, about watching him get beaten to death, about running away from it all…The Earl listened politely and earnestly and didn't interrupt until she was finished.
"What did the men look like?" he asked when she was done. "Were they tall, fat, skinny, noble, poor, did they have a mustache, facial disfigurements?"
"N-No, they looked just like ordinary thugs…Do you have a pencil and a piece of paper, my Lord?"
The Earl, confused, found the items and handed them over. Eleanora bent over the paper and spent about five minutes on it before handing it back. She had drawn a rather detailed sketch of the two men glaring at the viewer, with the beaten-up corpse of the nobleman in-between them.
"I see," Ciel said, getting excited. "I see. Eleanora, there's a bell over there; could you please kindly ring it?"
She did so and the butler Sebastian appeared in minutes.
"Yes sir?"
"Sebastian, come here and look at this," Ciel said, impatiently waving the paper at him. He walked over and examined the paper.
"This is…"
"This is a sketch of the murderers, done by Eleanora," Ciel said. "Isn't it good? You could find them using this, right?"
"Normally, I wouldn't be able to by a humble drawing," Sebastian said, looking at the paper with interest, "but this is a remarkably good image. I'm sure that I could find them by tonight."
"Check the rich people's brothels," Eleanora suggested. Everyone looked at her.
"The rich people's brothels?" the Earl repeated. "Why?"
"Well, if I may speak, my Lord," Eleanora said, blushing, "these men were clearly hired by some rich guy to kill this other person. They're simple commoners—more than that, they're men. Doubtless they'll be blowing their hard-earned money on two things: booze and bitches. And of course, with all the money that they've been given, they're not going to go to the average whorehouse. They'll be going first-class all the way."
"How do you know all this?" Ciel asked. Eleanora shrugged.
"Whenever I was down on my luck," she said, "and I couldn't get a job as a maid anywhere, I would go to the high-class brothels and work there as a brawler. You won't believe the amount of drunken idiots who try to sneak in there and abuse the workers. That's where I would come in: I would stop these guys from entering or, if they were inside, I would take them outside and thrash the absolute shi—I mean, I would beat them up and make sure that they wouldn't dare to enter the establishment again. And I was paid well for it—there's good money in brawling, especially if you're working for the higher-class. And if you were paid to actually kill someone, that's even better money. And I know the ways of men, especially poor men; they'll be drunk as lords by this time tonight."
"But you never know; they could be nobles in disguise."
"Ridiculous; no noble could act like a beggar so well unless they've spent the majority of their lives in poverty. Besides which, a noble wouldn't use such crass means to kill a person; they'd think of something else."
"So it wasn't orchestrated by a noble; it was all planned by the lower-class?" Ciel was getting more excited.
"No, it was planned by a noble." The Earl crashed again. "Some noble paid these guys to go and kill this other man and so they went and did it."
"But this noble didn't tell the men how to kill him?"
"They probably told them to keep it discreet and make it look like an accident, which they did. The poorer people are much more acquainted with death than the nobility, sir."
"How is beating someone to death an accident?"
"First they dragged the noble to the bad part of town, where everyone gets thrashed at some point in their life. And sometimes, if the thrasher is drunk enough, the thrashed can actually die from a beating. There are thousands of dead bodies just lying around everywhere from these occurrences. No one in the bad part of town would question it; the corpse would only be discovered when the nobles go looking for it. And if the corpse has been robbed, that also automatically gives an incentive, which makes the poorer people question it less."
"But you said that the men didn't rob the body."
"They didn't; someone else would come along and do it for them."
"How do you know that for sure?"
"I've seen it happen all the time." She shuffled a little. "I've done it myself a couple of times," she mumbled.
"What? You've stolen money off of dead bodies?"
"The dead are easy targets," Eleanora defended herself. "The corpse isn't going to rise up and clobber you for taking their wallet. Besides, if it's an emergency, I'll be needing that money more than it will, right? What—they gonna charge a toll for entering the pearly gates? Bread ain't cheap and the dead ain't gonna be usin' their mouths for a while so I might as well make use of mine and avoid their fate for a few more days."
Eleanora blushed upon realizing her crass speech and quickly mumbled an apology. The Earl kept on thinking.
"Sebastian."
"Yes?"
"Go and find these two men and ask Scotland Yard to interrogate them. I would follow Eleanora's advice, so go and check the brothels first."
"Yes my Lord."
"Thank you Eleanora," the Earl said. "As promised, you'll be receiving some money for your help and you'll be allowed to leave as soon as this wretched ball is over and done with. You may go."
Eleanora curtseyed, thanked them, and practically ran out of the room, leaving the Earl and his butler alone.
"Sebastian?"
"Yes?"
"This Eleanora seems to be remarkably clever."
"Yes sir."
"She seems to know a lot about the world of poverty and of human nature."
"Yes sir."
"Added to that, she's also an excellent fighter. She was able to pin you down once or twice."
"She cheats, sir."
"Which shows that she's not above using immoral means to get what she wants." Ciel paused for a moment. "She could be useful for Phantomhive."
"Perhaps."
"Sebastian, keep watching this girl. I have a feeling that we'll have need of her services again."
Sebastian bowed and left the room to find the murderers.