It wasn't on his body. The young Master and the others checked very thoroughly. The wordsmith—whatever his name was—and the Earl Grey had given Eleanora strange looks when she was just standing there, waiting for them to get on with it, and the young Master told her to turn her back to their…obscene work.

She did so obediently, but she really didn't care much at all. She had seen naked men before; naked dead men were no different. They were probably even better than live naked men because a live naked man usually had other things on his mind besides the weather.

They finished searching and were back to square one. Ciel looked at Eleanora, as if expecting her to magically produce a key from somewhere—as if she could just cough a key up. She sighed. Children could really be so useless sometimes…

"For goodness sakes, if it's not on his person, check his room!"

So they all went up to his room.

Eleanora had never been in the butler's room before. It looked so…bare. Normally servants brought something with them—some keepsake or trinket or maybe something from home. She herself had a box in her room which was filled with various garbage that for some reason she found comforting. The butler's room had absolutely nothing.

"Well," Ciel sighed, "let's get started."

They all fanned out and started searching, opening drawers and cabinets and looking for something—anything—that vaguely resembled a key.

Eleanora was starting to get bored. Normally, poking through someone's room would be rather fun and exciting, but that all that fun and excitement was severely diminished by the fact that there was absolutely nothing fun or interesting in the butler's room. Open a drawer—shirts. Open another drawer—trousers. Open a cabinet—a bunch of tailcoats. The man had only the one outfit. The only thing that seemed remotely interesting was that he had two boxes—big boxes—exclusively for gloves. One box had been neatly labeled CLEAN and the other one was labeled WASH. The CLEAN box was filled with thousands of neatly-folded gloves. The WASH gloves didn't seem to be all that dirty, but what did she know? She wasn't a religious glove-wearer. She wore long white gloves every now and then, but they were only on special occasions to hide her wedding ring and the pentagram symbol on her upper left arm.

The pentagram symbol. She vaguely recalled seeing the same symbol on one of the butler's hands. Was that what he was hiding? Some stupid tattoo? Ridiculous. He was probably a germaphobe or something. Or maybe he had really sensitive hands.

She sighed and opened up another drawer. This one had underwear.

"Nothing to see here," she thought and was about to close the drawer when she realized that now was her chance to do something really naughty. She hadn't been allowed to look at the butler's naked body, and the desire to do something lewd and sinful rose up within her. She looked around; no one else was paying attention to her. Now was her chance.

She began rifling through the underclothing and then realized that what she was doing had absolutely no value whatsoever.

"This is considered indecent?" she thought, staring at the undergarments. "This is just another piece of clothing."

She felt uncommonly dumb and was just about to put everything back again when she noticed a very small key hidden underneath the underwear.

The key looked too small to be really important; it probably went to something else. Like a diary or something. Wouldn't that be fun? To open and read the butler's diary; maybe finally be able to hold her own against him…

But wait. That wasn't possible. That would never happen. He was dead.

She sighed again. Dead as a doornail. He would never irritate or torture or bother her ever again.

She closed the drawer but kept the key in her hand. Who knew? It might prove useful.

She was sick and tired of looking at boring butler clothing. She moved over to the desk and began opening its drawers. Papers…Envelopes…Pens…Stamps…Books…Hello, this one was locked.

She looked around again; still nobody was paying attention to her. She knelt in front of the desk and tried the bottom drawer again. Still locked. She would need a key—a very small key.

And a very small key was what she had! She stuck the key that she had found into the lock and the drawer opened. She hated to admit it, but that butler was—or had been—a clever devil. No decent person would go looking through a gentleman's underwear. Already the incident was making her feel ashamed, but on the bright side, no one had seen her and no one knew except for her. She began rifling through the now-open drawer:

The first thing that she saw was a large file, which looked as if it had been carefully protected but still constantly opened and its contents read and reread. She took the file out and opened it:

It just contained two very official-looking documents. Legal things. How boring. She absentmindedly scanned the first one and paused.

It had been signed by Earl Ciel Phantomhive.

She glanced at the Earl; he was staring at the wardrobe; she went back to the paper.

No, there was no doubt about it: that was his signature. The other signature next to his seemed to be written in a different language. The ink used was a very dark red—as if they had signed it in blood.

Which was absolutely ridiculous, of course. She didn't dare to force a laugh, lest anyone else turn to see what she was laughing at—and looked at the other document. This one looked far more familiar…

It was her marriage contract—the one that legally forced her to be married to that damned, now deceased, butler.

"Why did he have this?" she thought, staring at her signature. "And why would he keep it with another contract between him and the young Master?"

It made no sense, but apparently he liked consulting it, because it looked well-read. It was still in marvelous condition; both of them were; as if the butler's whole existence relieved on contracts.

She set the file aside and took out the next thing in the drawer: a photo album, divided into three parts. The first part consisted of thousands of photos of cats, each one labelled in the precise, neat handwriting of the butler. She couldn't resist smirking at some of the names:

Fluffy…Mittens…Muffins…Missus…

She couldn't spend all day looking at photos of cats and reading their names. She flipped to the second part:

The first photo was of a woman, an achingly beautiful woman. Eleanora couldn't help but stare enviously at her. She looked like some kind of a Venus. It was black-and-white, so she couldn't tell what color her hair or eyes were, but the effect wasn't diminished by the lack of color. She was still the very epitome of beauty.

Her hair spilled down her back in natural ringlets. Her body was just the right size and shape: perfect hourglass curves without being too fat or too thin. Her eyes were laughing and she had the kindest, most amazing smile. There was something familiar about that smile…It was the butler's smile. The woman had the butler's smile.

The photo below the woman was of a man. This man was familiar as well. In fact, he looked exactly like the late Sebastian Michaelis…only he was thinner, with gaunter cheeks. His eyes seemed to have dark circles underneath them, so dark they looked as if he had been punched in the face. His hair was medium-length and tied back with a bit of ribbon. He was smiling as well, only his smile seemed far more evil than the woman's. Maybe it was because his incisor teeth were far longer and sharper than normal.

But it didn't matter. He and the butler—one and the same. She wondered who he was—who he and the lady were.

There was a sinking feeling in her stomach. The man looked just like the butler. Maybe it was because he actually was the butler? And the woman…maybe she was his wife?

But that was just preposterous! He was already married to her!...And then he died and now she was a widow, but still! Could he really have married twice? Maybe he was a widower before he married her. Or maybe the beautiful woman was still alive? Maybe he was—or had been—a polygamist?

She was feeling sicker by the minute as she turned the pages of the photo album. The following photographs were always of the man and the woman, or sometimes showing both. They were both beautiful and glorious and obviously deeply in love with one another. There was a photo of the man kissing the woman's neck and the woman laughing. There was another of them sitting in a garden, with them sitting on a swing, smiling lovingly at each other. There was another of them recreating the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, only the man was on the balcony in a dress, looking overly dramatic, and the woman was below him, laughing with tears in her eyes.

Eleanora couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy. This is what she wanted. She wanted a love like that. She wanted a man to look at her the way that the man in the photographs looked at the woman. But if the man truly was the butler, and the beautiful woman was his wife…The thought alone was almost too much to bear. Would the butler ever be able to love like that again? More importantly, would he ever somehow learn to love her like that?

As if he could. He was dead. Dead and she would never marry again. By the time her mourning period would end, she would be an old hag. No one would ever want to marry her, let alone love her.

She kept on flipping through the photographs, watching the man and the woman smile at each other, kiss each other, laugh with each other, clearly adore each other; it was almost becoming too much for her and then there was a photograph of the woman and she was holding a baby…

Eleanora quickly turned to the third and final section of the photo album. It was blank. Well, that was a bust. She turned the pages quickly and distractedly to get to the end as fast as possible when she stopped.

There was a photograph on one of the pages. It was of a school—a Barnardo's home—with some of its pupils lined up in front of it. They all looked deeply unhappy and uncomfortable, all prim and proper in their ratty school uniforms…Eleanora remembered those uniforms. They were horrible.

Someone had drawn an arrow, pointing to one of the students. She squinted, trying to concentrate on the girl's face…

It was her. Oh god, she remembered this photograph. She and a bunch of other students had to pose for a photograph to advertise the home…She hadn't seen it in years. How did the butler manage to get it?

But no, it was undoubtedly her as a little girl. Why did the butler go to all that trouble of finding it? More importantly, why was it in the photo album, particularly as how there was another much prettier woman inside of it?

A couple more pages and there was yet another photo of her. This one she remembered much more distinctly. A couple of months ago Madam Red had stopped by with a camera. She had wanted to take a bunch of pictures and did so for about a week before she lost interest. This one showed Eleanora sitting demurely on a chair—one of the few that she had actually posed for. The next page had another one. This time she was acting as if she was scrubbing the floor. The third one—the last one that she had posed for—was with her and the butler. They were standing stiffly together, looking very uncomfortable and about as unloving as one could get. Eleanora remembered how Madam Red had yelled at them while the photo was being taken:

"Look at each other! Smile! At least hold hands or something! For goodness sakes, at least try to look like a happily married couple!"

The next few photos were still of her, but rather blurry. They were candid; she hadn't wanted to pose for any others. She thought that Madam Red still had all of these photos and that there were no copies. Why had the butler preserved them? And why were they all of her? She wasn't special enough to deserve her own part in a private photo album…

The very last photograph showed her at the kitchen table, head down, asleep. She didn't remember Madam Red taking that photo, and she had always shown the pictures immediately after they had been developed. There was a shadow falling across the kitchen; it must have belonged to the person who had taken it. Let's see, there was a head with an informal haircut…the body was very stiff and professional…they seemed to be wearing a tailcoat.

"Goddammit, the butler took a photo of me while I was asleep."

She probably would have been filled with more rage if the young Master hadn't screamed. She whirled around, just in time to see a bunch of cats come jumping out of the wardrobe.

Things got settled rather quickly after that; the young Master went to stand in the hallway to control his allergies. Eleanora peeked into the drawer; there was just one more thing left—a journal.

She began flipping through the pages; the butler had carefully documented every day, usually to record something that had to be done tomorrow, but every now and then mentioning a certain occurrence. On a whim, she flipped to that one date, the day that ruined her life:

Bardroy blew up the kitchen again. Repaired it. Finny destroyed garden. Fixed it. Young Master complaining about the noble killings. Kidnapped the maid and took her to the local church basement. Found a stray kitten. Kept it. Thinking of naming it Twisty. Lost one of my gloves; must buy new pair.

That's IT? One lousy sentence? That was all that mattered to him? He didn't care about the next month filled of agony and tortures and how that one day—that one kidnapping—had singlehandedly ruined her whole life? She was boiling with anger; she flipped to that other day:

Twisty ran off. Found him again. Mey-Rin broke more dishes. Had to order in replacements. Expect them by next week. Young Master got a small cold today. Enjoyed watching him suffer. Got married. Found stray pregnant cat. Naming her Bundles. Can't wait to see kittens. Had to order new tailcoat. Expect it by tomorrow.

Again, one sentence. Half of a sentence, really. So that was all she meant to him. She didn't deserve anything more than one sentence. Even the sacred act of getting married meant nothing to him. She flipped to the last several entries. She was half-expecting the last one to be something like: found stray cat. Naming him Snuggles. Was murdered. Guest broke lamp. Had to order new one. Expect it two weeks from today. But there wasn't an entry for this day, so she had to read the last one, yesterday's entry:

German guest murdered. Still thinking about it. Gave orders to the servants. Went to see Eleanora. Worrying about my cats outside in the rain. Hoping the young Master won't find out about them.

"Went to see Eleanora." That was a far different statement from "gave orders to the servants." He had distinctly separated the two. Why? Why, when only a few months back, she didn't even deserve half a sentence? What changed?

Her head hurt; there were too many questions and not enough answers; everyone else had finished searching the room. She put the journal, the album, and the file back into the drawer and locked it. She tossed the key back into the underwear drawer on her way out and went back upstairs, thinking.