The hallway was pompous with marble floors, ornate furniture and a very high ceiling. Directly here was a staircase to the first floor, which was laid out with a red carpet. The staircase was wide enough that three people could use it side by side without any risk of touching each other. A gold and diamond chandelier, larger than the largest carriage wheel, hung in the open space beside the staircase. Apart from a few bold accents, like the carpet, everything was in soft light colours. So up to here, the interior of the house was as Meia had expected, that is, just like the carriage and everything else, very expensive and yet barely but still restrained. In the course of the corridor, this impression did not change, because the rest of the corridor looked exactly the same as the staircase area. It was all one design. Even the flowers in the vases were the same.

After a relatively short walk, the maid positioned herself next to a random door that looked like all the other doors.

"Miss Arvis, I will wait for you here. Feel free to take as much time as you like."

With a small nod, Meia walked past her to the door. Hesitantly and head first, she walked alone into the next room.

The room was elongated and covered with light-coloured tiles. It was a bathroom, but not a normal one. There was no shower and no bathtub either. On the left wall were four separate cubicles and on the right wall was a long marble washstand with four identical washbasins and a mirror of the same length above it, which was elaborately built into the wall. Above the cubicles was a row of shallow windows through which the evening light fell. It appeared that this room was only the guest toilet?

After Meia had gotten a first overview, she put her hat on the washstand and went into one of the cubicles.

In front of her was a modern and free-hanging toilet. Surprisingly, the cistern and pipes were hidden.

Meia bent down next to the toilet so her dress would not touch the floor and knocked the wall examiningly.

She only stopped once she realised how stupid she would look to someone else.

Regardless, it had felt as if the wall under the tiles was made of stone. That might not really come as a suprise since it was, after all, an exterior wall. Nevertheless, someone had obviously put some thought into the layout of this room. If the position of the cubicles and the washstand were swapped, the mirror would be under the windows in the shadow. They could easily have done it that way. But they did not. They had gone to the trouble of hiding all the piping in the outer wall just so it would be a little brighter in the room during daytime. At least that was the assumption. Meia found the fact that they had gone to this trouble more telling than any chandelier that anyone could hang, no matter how opulent it was. This room was here in this layout because it was supposed to be here in this layout. Cost seemingly did not matter.

The toilet was spotless. The room itself was also clean. Still, Meia would not say that one could eat off the floor here. There was dust in the corners.

Only two minutes later, Meia came out of the cubicle again and went to the marble table. Carefully, she opened the lever from the tap, while keeping as much distance as possible from it. But it was unnecesarry. The water made no fuss at all and flowed out normally, and it was even warm, and it could even be turned up to hot.

"Hmpf."

Nevertheless, unimpressed, Meia washed her hands. A trivial thing like hot water was nothing special for someone like her. In their circles, hot water was like money. It was something you bathed in. So she was not impressed by it, even though she had just a moment ago been examining a toilet wall with fascination.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

That being said, if she would be really honest, she was slightly impressed. Everything here worked perfectly and despite a costly improvement recently, still much better than at their place. Out of the past and from home Meia was basically traumatised from water by now, but not due too the flooding they had, but by water in general. She could not swim, was constantly caught in the rain, shocked by cold water when showering or splashed wet when washing her hands.

Thanks to a new tank, at least the last two points were finally a thing of the past. Her father had had to find the money for a new one. The old one had literally exploded because the housemaid had once again overdone it. Viewed roughly, Meia's newly achieved standard of living was therefore actually due to the housekeeper's efforts. But more important was the tank. Thanks to its patented temperature-vacuum-isulation power, they now always had warm water at home, which meant that in future she would no longer have parched hands in winter. Meia could even take a bath in the middle of the day if she felt like it. It was a blessing.

After Meia had dried her hands on an unexpectedly fluffy towel, she left the toilet again.

"Very well, Miss Arvis, I will now take you to the reading room."

Meia nodded in confirmation.

The two walked back to the stairs and then up to the first floor.

Upstairs, it was over with marble. The red carpet split in two directions after the stairs and followed the floor's corridor. The carpet did not cover the whole floor, but only about half. There were free stripes on the sides and dark parquet was visible.

The two followed the corridor to the right. The design remained the same here as well. From inside, this house seemed even bigger than from outside. The amount of doors they passed made Meia wonder what would be more difficult for her, to find a certain room in this house or to find her way out of the garden.

As they walked on, Meia got more and more the feeling that she was slowly getting used to being close to the maid. Although she constantly looked as if she was disgusted with the whole world and would like everything to burn down, she actually seemed to be a nice person. Despite this mental adjustment to the image Meia had of her, the maid uniform was still far too cute for her. Her gait was so elegant and consistent. The uniform was a distraction from that. Something else would suit her considerably better.

"Do-do you always have to stand down there?", Meia dared to ask.

"We are only on standby if we have guests and even then only in certain cases."

"But- Oh, I see."

Meia almost asked a follow-up question, but before she did, it struck her that she had left herself out of her guest count. The two maids had only been at the door for her. The fact that they did not have to stand there now, even though there other guests arrived in the meantime, probably meant that she was one of those certain cases.

A few steps later, a random door opened in the hallway. It was right at Meia's level. Out of the door came a man with a cutter knife in his hand.

It was the butler! When he saw Meia, he was as surprised as she was. For a moment they only stared at each other. Then he snapped out of it and his gaze jumped to the maid. At the same time, he pulled the door shut behind him. Before it could close completely, Meia caught a glimpse of the room and saw an opened suitcase on a rumpled bed with clothes inside and thin ropes on the floor.

~Suspicious.~

"Rujell, wait a minute." the butler stopped the maid and hurried to her side.

Meia followed him with her gaze, narrowing her eyes.

"What is it?" the maid asked, while turning around.

Meanwhile, the butler noticed her detective stare and quickly put the knife in his back pocket so that the maid had never been able to see it.

"Um, do you know where Lijeux is at the moment?"

"She is taking dishes to the kitchen right now, and then she will start to set up the tables."

"Oh, very well. That's all I wanted to know." the butler brushed her off, then turned to Meia. "I deeply apologise for holding you up, Miss Arvis."

"It's all right." ~I apologise for holding you up as well.~ Still, it was only a matter of time before the next crime. His target had changed. That is all.

The butler bowed, then headed in the direction they had come from.

After this brief stop, the two were able to continue again.

.../End Part