Emelia showed up to the Poirot mansion in the middle of morning when all the workers were in full swing of their jobs. She was formally greeted by Butler Morton with his usual stone-cold expression at the mansion's main front entrance.
“Good morning, Constable Rice. We were not expecting your visit today.” He stood upright with impeccable posture and attitude of no nonsense. Ironically, he wasn’t giving off a defensible attitude.
“Good day, sir. No. But you were the person I was hoping to speak with regarding Marcus’s murder investigation.”
This was the moment she saw his body more tense and hands clasp more tightly before him.
“Do you mind if I ask you a few questions on record?”
Morton regarded her question with silent thought before carefully giving a response.
“I’m afraid I will need to gain my master’s permission on the matter.”
“Oh? He speaks for your every action even if he isn’t aware? Surely you are of your own body and mind.”
The man silently paused again then relaxed his hands with a heavy sigh. “Please follow me. It’s best we talk elsewhere.”
She quietly followed him inside and sharply turning left to pass through a modest single door that entered into a stark contrast of a corridor. No windows. Stained stone walls with no windows, and a lot of scratch marks running trails along the stone floor. Clearly this corridor functioned as the servants’ transit lane into the many areas. This fact was confirmed when a few poorly dressed men were wheeling barrels on a cart in their direction.
“Sir, Morton.” The elderly of the men bowed his respects to the butler.
Morton merely turned up his nose at the two workers beneath him, he glossed over the barrels their cart held and waved them off with a warning to not be late in their duty.
Emelia noted the looks of relief on the men's’ faces as they resumed their trail to the other side of the corridor.
“We all have our place. These men need to be reminded of it on occasion.” Morton calmly said over his shoulder.
She didn’t respond and continued to follow him through the corridor, through a working kitchen and into a windowless room that served as a makeshift office with only a small table and two armchairs. Likely due to its compactness. Yet no decorations or evidence of an individual personality made the room feel emotionally empty.
Morton gestured to one of the armchairs. Meticulously poured her a cup of tea from a lavishly painted teapot of purple orchids and flame lilies. Emelia found it an odd sight for the room. When he saw that she was about to take her first sip, eased into the other armchair.
“We can talk here. I will answer questions that do not compromise my majestic will, duty of care and moral baseline.”
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“I can agree to that.” Emelia pulled out her quill and notebook. “Can you tell me the name of the maid who discovered Lord Marcus’s body.”
Morton frowned with pensive silence. He rubbed his chin with his thoughts before soberly nodding and giving the woman’s full name.
“Her name is Bronte Finch. A born maid to the mansion and very adept in her role at only 19 years of age. I wouldn’t be surprised if she one day became the Matron Maid of this mansion.”
Emelia nodded as she took notes and asked on what a Matron Maid was.
“The highest ranking maid with an equal position value as myself. Although, the current matron I would argue is worthy to be of equal status.”
“Why would you say that?”
“She failed to keep the internal workings of the mansion in impeccable order. The weakness to the protection array could arguably be her fault. It’s the maid service responsibility to keep the mansion internal mechanisms operational. Yet—” He paused as he sipped his tea.
Emelia patiently waited for him to resume their conversation, but time had lapsed in such a heavy silence that she imagined time making a long-drawn-out ticktock.
“The matron had a weakness for Marcus and allowed him to do what he liked. Some would say that she left weakness in the array and windows opened to ensure he could slip in and out of the grounds without suspicion.”
“Why would she do that?”
“The same reason a surrogate mother would forgive her child’s misbehaving.” Morton’s words hung over his tea cup edge as he took another slow sip.
Emelia looked shocked by the casually dropped gossip she was hearing. “Are you saying that Marcus could be a love child?”
“It’s not a love child if the master and mistress consent to a proxy party bearing the pains of labor.”
He callously dumped his tea cup on the table and waved off the gossip. “But we digress. You came for the name of the maid. Her name is Bronte Finch.”
“And the name of the matron?”
Morton betrayed a slither of an expression: a smirk that was quickly dispelled with his usual demeanor of no expression, “Melanie Potter.”
Emelia took note of the names and rose to bid her thanks and farewell.
“Of course, compiling with the Royal Guard is our duty.”
She left the room. As she was stepping down the front entrance’s main external steps for her litter parked on the other side of the entrance courtyard, she was called over by one of the elderly groundsmen.
“Good day constable. I see you were talking with our esteem butler. May I have a word.” The elderly man politely asked with timid tones.
He was a wiry old man in a drab dirt stained full body overalls, common garb for the gardeners and groundskeepers.
She nodded but felt something odd about the man. Regardless, she followed his lead further away from the mansion’s main grounds and down a wild growing path into a dense part of the surrounding woods. The air felt unkempt and stale with an eldritch silence stilling the air. Her heart raced with foreboding and an instinct to turn and head back to her litter. Instinctively, she stopped and began to make an excuse for an exit. But before she could open her mouth a cloud of dense purple suddenly overwhelmed her and entered her mouth to make her gag and gasp for breath. The stench of magnolia was assaulting her senses.
“Forgive me, ma’am. This is just a precaution.” Were the last words she heard before she passed out.