Lady Eizenstrauss must indeed have been the most peculiar of sorts, but it never ceases to amaze me, even to this day, just how adept she is at her clandestine affairs. So subtle were her dealings that, if it hadn't been for her noble name and title, I would have good cause doubt anyone would notice the difference in their day to day lives, even were she to slit their throat.
Take, for example, how my payments always seemed to beat me home. Every day that I worked, regardless of which days I chose to work, I would always find a small, fine envelope just inside my apartment's mail slot, delicately sealed and signed with an ink-stamped 'E' sigil signifying its origin. Yet even when I returned early or when my deliveries were just a short jaunt down the road, never once did I see a messenger deliver it, and nor did any of the local postmen admit to carrying it.'
Though it had taken some time, I eventually grew quite bold in my efforts to uncover more about my employer and her mysterious entourage, at one time or another even going so far as to slip close to the house and try to peer into the windows, but to no avail. The rooms on the first floor were barren or filled with sheet-covered furniture, like a gallery of languid specters.
Only the kitchen seemed to show any sign of recent use, though if the estate had any staff beyond the Lady and her butler, they'd yet to show themselves.
I suppose it must have been around a month after I'd started working for Lady Eizenstrauss, then, that I finally caught a break.
That day, the records office was uncharacteristically busy, and I was held up for several hours after my usual quitting time, thanks in no small part to the city council who had sent an official document that they wished preserved. My specialty, as it would happen; my degree in archaeology from Nevarynn Scholar's University was wholly the reason I had been offered this position at all.
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Afterward, I had nearly settled on foregoing my evening deliveries, but thought I should at least go check and see how many parcels there were and decide then.
Mirroring my first venture, it was some time after sundown when I arrived at the estate, and was just about to exit the small garage as usual when a sharp chord drew my attention. I recognized the familiar sound of piano keys, along with the mellow notes of a somber violin in accompaniment emanating from the upper floor of the building.
Being something of aficionado, I naturally paused, taking in the sound and scrutinizing the melody. It was an arrangement of Lu Gareth's "The Winter Menagerie", albeit lacking the percussion that was often so heavily featured in his work, but still made recognizable enough by the slow, drowned notes of the flats.
At first, I simply listened to the music, admiring the rendition's softer, more doleful beauty for what it was. Though it didn't take long for to occur to me that this was, in fact, wholly unusual. Whenever I'd come to the estate before, the mansion was as unmoving and soundless as a graveyard, and I had invariably come to the conclusion that Lady Eizenstrauss herself likely did not even live there, but rather inhabited some far away mountain retreat or something akin to it.
Could this be the elusive butler, then? And if so, who was playing the accompaniment? Or was this irrefutable proof that the woman of the house did indeed live here, or at the very least, visited from time to time?
I looked down at the two letters in my hand. Earlier, I had noticed that one of them looked somewhat more hastily-scrawled—likely a sudden late addition. And though I could discern the address easily enough, there was a slight smudge over a portion of it that someone not used to examining old, faded documents might be excused if they were to have trouble reading it.
This was it: the excuse I had been looking for, and, wiping away my triumphant smirk so as not to betray the legitimacy of my plot, I turned and stepped towards the mansion.
