The world of Black Butler / Kuroshitsuji

The First Case [1]

The next day, I arrived at the location stated at the French chef's letter at 12 accordingly. It turned out to be the grand restaurant of Dhol & Company, specialized in high class exotic foods. It was a busy time of the day since it was about lunch time, so the restaurant was quite crowded from what I could see.

I instructed Alex to park at a place that would not attract attention, and went into the restaurant alone. As soon as I walked in, a man who was sitting at a table near the door stood up, and whispered for me to follow him. He lead me up the stairs to the second floor of the building, which acted as the office of the company. He knocked on a door right at the end of the corridor, and someone inside said for us to go in.

He opened the door, to which I saw the french chef, Antoine Dhol, sat cross leggedly behind his desk. He stood up, offered me a seat, and sat back down as I did.

"Good day, Mr Dhol." I opened the conversation.

"Good day, Baroness Clarette." He greeted back.

He knew my newly bestowed name?

"I see you've been digging around about me." I said.

His face darkened and he rubbed his chin. He must have let that slipped by accident.

"Well... let's get straight to the point of this meeting, shall we?" He changed the topic.

"Yes, we shall. What was it that you saw back when you followed the Chinese man?"

"Well," he took deeper breathes to calm himself down as he began to recall the event that he witnessed, "As I mentioned in the letter, I followed the Chinese man and the girl he was with to an alley near the Crystal Palace. They came into confrontation with Lord Harold West Jeb and the Indian woman who went berserk during the curry tasting, and then...." his breathe quickened.

"And then what?" I asked impatiently.

"And then... the Chinese man ordered the girl to kill Lord West and the Indian woman, saying something along the line of... 'I need to exterminate the rats investing my city'. When they finished...killing them, they went into a carriage and was gone."

I nodded, "That's all I need to know. You've done a good job."

He was hesitant, but he asked anyway, "Can you tell me.... why do you want to know this?"

"You don't need to know. Anyway, on the letter you mentioned there is something else you wanted to talk about. What is it?"

"Yes, yes, there is." He paused, "It's about what happened in the Royal Warrant contest."

"Oh? You are that worry about it? Don't worry, I won't tell anyone about your dirty little secret. I promised that didn't I? I don't break promises. And you didn't win anyways."

He looked down at his desk, and then said bitterly, "Alright, thank you."

"Actually, I need you to promise me something. Never tell a soul about what you saw that evening. You haven't told anyone have you?"

He shook his head, "I haven't, and I won't."

"Good." Then a thought came to me. "Tell me, how and how much did you find out about me?"

It was obvious that he didn't expect the question, "I... I...I..."

"Don't worry, I'm not going to eat you or anything. I'm just curious."

"...I found out about your title and given name through a friend who attended your investiture. There is no-one in the upperclass who doesn't know about your investiture; it's considered one of the social highlights of the season."