Chronicles of Mystery

A detective's dream

At this moment, Maude entered the living room again, as silent and discreet as when she arrived. Her way of moving, with her felted and delicate step, her confident, supple and elegant gait, sent a chill down the spine. Maude didn't seem like an ordinary employee. In some ways she looked like an assassin or mercenary, elusive and deadly.

Without her clearing of the throat, the two companions would not have noticed that she had entered.

 - Forgive me for my intrusion, the meal is ready and so are your rooms. Now, if you please...

Lucy jumped up from the sofa she had been sitting on, causing a dull creak and raising a cloud of dust. Before Maude's arrival, she had tried to peek into the tea cups, but when she saw that one of the cups had become the support for a spider's web, she had quickly given up this project.

Alistair had remained standing the whole time, in the room. In the ambient half-light, he almost passed for a column in a corner of the living room.

All three left the living room and emerged in the hall. They then climbed one of the two stairs leading upstairs. Along the way, Lucy couldn't help but take another look at Izumi Shinzo's painting. Despite the passage of time, she still found it so sublime and could not help but seek the heroine's gaze. In some ways, Izumi reminded her of someone, without really being able to explain why.

Upstairs, the walls were white, made of golden illuminations. The floor was covered with a forest green carpet, just like in the living room, which gave the impression of treading on the moss of the deepest part of a forest, soft and delicate underfoot. Lucy almost wanted to take off her shoes to feel this caress against the sole of her foot. At regular intervals, pedestal tables were posted against the walls, valiant soldiers who seemed almost to salute the guests of the manor and supporting a few unlit candlesticks of half-melted wax. From the ceiling, new chandeliers of the same luxury as those in the lobby and living room hung but produced no light. Lucy remarked to herself that, when they were on, they must produce a veritable cascade of light, a multitude of rays under which people could happily bathe. Each crystal had to shine with its own fire as if each of them were inhabited by a soul.

There were only a few windows in the hallway, making it quite dark. Further on, on the right as well as on the left, you could see closed doors.

The place smelled of dust. There too, the cleaning had not been done for a long time. No noise. The mansion was silent with a heavy atmosphere. This place was gloomy. It looked almost abandoned. The air felt heavier, harder to breathe, thick. It was as if spirits were haunting the place and staring at the living with their sightless eyes, traversing them with their immaterial masses. The silence seemed to greedily absorb every sound, feeding on all noises. The corridor continued deeper, a bottomless mouth, dark and wide open, ready to swallow them.

Lucy shivered. She didn't know if it was because of the cold or because of the atmosphere.

Already, Maude was advancing, without really waiting for her guests.

 - The countess will receive you for the meal in the small dining room. It is more comfortable and more intimate than the large one. It'll be nicer to discuss...some things.

 - Do you have any information on the count's death? Lucy asked.

Maude's face twitched imperceptibly.

 - Very little. He was found in his workshop three weeks ago, dead, strangled I think, but I'm not sure anymore.

 - Do you have any suspicions about the culprit?

Maude paused again slightly and her face contracted, again discreetly.

 - Not really. I think it's better if you discuss all this with my mistress. She will know how to answer you better than me.