The Mistress Inspects the Townhouse
Nina looked around at the staff with a proud, satisfied smile, having just doled out a whole raft of useful tips. Grandmother chose her servants well.
Having been a maid herself, Nina had always harbored a prejudice that the workers of the Free Nation were a lazy, lackadaisical lot.
Yet the staff of this townhouse, curiously enough, all gave off a distinctly sharp and keen air. None of them seemed overly chummy with one another, either — no sign of anyone letting their guard down.
"Have you been in Grandmother's service for a long time?"
"W-well, I suppose you could say that. Most of us have known Her Grace since she was young."
The spy masquerading as a servant was reminded, once again, of just how famous an operative Rikita Bonz had been.
Utterly oblivious to this, Nina felt a rush of emotion and gently took the woman's hand.
"To serve so long under a single employer, even as a worker of the Free Nation — that's truly admirable."
"Pardon? Ah, yes. Yes, indeed."
The spies were flustered by the sight of Nina's eyes sparkling and brimming with tears.
Rikita Bonz had kept few servants, and even those few had scattered to the four winds the moment her funeral was over.
Before the intelligence agencies could even lift a finger, they had announced sudden long journeys or returns to their homelands, as though they'd made a pact beforehand.
It had struck them as odd, but thanks to it, taking over Rikita's townhouse had been a breeze.
Not a single soul in this townhouse had ever actually served Rikita Bonz — with the sole exception of the butler, who had been summoned to cooperate with the notarization of the will.
"What kind of pie did Grandmother like best?"
They had never anticipated Nina striking up a conversation with them — let alone asking something like this — so they could only break out in a cold sweat and improvise.
"P-pecan pie."
"Oh my. So she had a taste for nutty pies, did she?"
Only after saying it did Nina belatedly remember that Soltum was a country where pecans didn't grow, but she didn't press the point. She merely murmured that pecans must have been hard to come by.
"I can't imagine how many pecan pies you must have baked with these hands over the years..."
"Well, you see..."
The spy — who had never baked a pie in her life — launched into a lengthy explanation of just how hard she had worked to bake pies perfectly suited to Rikita Bonz's palate, and even she found herself marveling at her own prodigious talent for lying.
Nina nodded along and beamed radiantly.
"Thank you so much for looking after Grandmother all these years. Shall we bake a pecan pie together sometime, in her memory?"
"Bake a pie, you say?"
"I have no memories of Grandmother myself, so you'll all have to tell me plenty of stories."
The atmosphere in the kitchen turned grave in an instant.
Nina was certainly suspicious — but it was also true that she was a granddaughter longing for a grandmother she had never met.
The trouble was, the only stories they could tell her about Rikita Bonz were all thoroughly unfit for a granddaughter's ears.
Noticing that the servants' expressions had grown oddly uncomfortable, Nina let go of the hand she'd been holding and smiled awkwardly.
"I suppose things have gotten a bit hectic, what with the household suddenly growing, haven't they? I was a maid myself once, so I understand."
Then she scurried out of the kitchen before the staff could grow any more uncomfortable.
Being too friendly right off the bat might just overwhelm them, so I'd better stop here for today! And next...
Her next task, after all her efforts to get closer to the staff, had already been decided.
I need to find out whether the little mice snooping around this house are after Grandmother's fortune — or my family's safety.
Nina had not forgotten the two entry detectors installed near her own room.
Her family had told her not to worry about such things, but since no progress had been made since then, it seemed she would have to take matters into her own hands after all.
Dirty work like this is too much to leave to my frail, delicate family. This is a maid's job, through and through.
Nina changed into the outfit best suited for the job and unscrewed the ventilation grate she'd had her eye on.
It was on the corridor of the floor where Rikita Bonz's bedroom lay.
Just then, two servants carrying cleaning supplies came down the hall and approached her, puzzled.
"Hey. Did our uniforms change?"
"Nobody told me to install anything in the ventilation ducts."
Nina, who had been concentrating on the screws with her lips pursed in a pout, blinked and turned around.
The moment their eyes met not a fellow spy in disguise, but the target herself, they nearly jumped out of their skins.
"Wh-what? N-Nina, miss? Why are you in a maid's uniform...?"
"And what are you doing to the vent...?"
Nina gave an embarrassed little giggle and brushed off her apron.
"I wanted to look over the townhouse, and these are the only clothes I don't mind getting dirty."
"...!"
The spies flinched, hiding their unease as they pressed her.
"Which parts were you hoping to inspect, miss?"
"If anything is troubling you, please tell us."
"Hmm."
Nina deliberated, fiddling with her chin, then nodded.
"You're this household's workers too, so it's better that you know."
And then, soot still smudged on her chin, she said gravely:
"I think someone is spying on this house."
"WHAT?!"
"Th-that's impossible."
The spies struggled to calm their pounding hearts and strained their utmost to keep their servant masks in place.
But Nina had been picking out suspicious details one by one ever since the moment she set foot in this house.
"Someone's been listening and peeking. There's definitely something inside the vents."
"This townhouse is a safe place. You needn't worry."
"It could be my imagination, of course — but aren't these picture frames suspicious too?"
When Nina pointed straight at a frame concealing a tiny listening room, the spies' faces went pale.
"Well now? They just look quaint and lovely to me."
"Trust a maid's instincts."
"You're no longer a maid, miss..."
The spies fidgeted and tried to talk her down, but Nina, without a moment's hesitation, jabbed her finger deep into the ear of the noblewoman in the painting.
From beyond the wall came a faint scream — "AAAGH!"
"Oh my? Didn't you just hear something?"
"Th-that was me. Aaagh!"
"...?"
Nina stared at the servant's bizarre behavior as if it were a curious novelty. Then another servant stammered out an explanation.
"Any servant would want to scream, seeing their employer go around dusting the workplace herself."
"Oh, dear."
A rueful look crossed Nina's face.
"You're right. I've never been an employer, so that never even occurred to me."
Clearly, inspecting the townhouse was best saved for late at night, after the servants had gone home.
"Let's just finish up this one last check, then."
Nina slid one of the picture frames aside and gave the button hidden within a light tap.
It was labeled Intruder-Neutralizing Guided Missile.
"Ugh...!"
The servant who had taken the silent missile dead-on and collapsed, electrocuted, was caught by another servant and stuffed unceremoniously into the cleaning supply crate.
"Hm. Nothing happened? I suppose that means there's no intruder."
Nina tilted her head and slid the frame back into place.
"Well, that's all for today — oh my? Where has one of you gone off to?"
"Something suddenly came up, and she had to leave in a hurry."
At the servant's words, Nina gasped with a look of grave concern.
"Remarkable. To leave in such a hurry without making a single sound."
Her conviction that Grandmother had truly chosen her people well deepened all the more. Every last one of them seemed worth every coin of their weekly wage.
Then Nina clapped her hands with an "Oh!" as if something had just come to her.
"Now that I think of it — has Uncle been handling the wages since Grandmother passed?"
"Ah, that is... in a manner of speaking, yes."
"I trust the amount has been satisfactory?"
"Well... hmm... you see..."
At the servant's evasive answer, Nina realized something and was struck by a great shock.
"Goodness me! You haven't been paid because the inheritance hasn't been properly settled yet, have you?"
Grandmother's estate was to pass entirely to Nina, so Chaison clearly hadn't been able to touch it freely either.
"This was no time to be fussing over the building. Please gather all the staff for me."
Nina hurriedly changed into clean clothes, assembled the servants, and handed out money pouches left and right.
Thank goodness she'd exchanged the maid's wages she'd been saving up into Soltum currency.
"For now, I've paid you a little extra, using Soltum's average servant wage as a baseline."
"...!"
The spies opened their pouches in bewilderment and were flustered by the unexpected windfall.
"Once the inheritance is settled, I'll be raising your salaries."
"...!!"
The spies' eyes went round as saucers.
Noticing that someone was missing from their ranks, Nina added:
"That one who vanished earlier without a sound deserves even more. As they say, you mustn't skimp on money for skilled servants."
The spies gulped at the heavy weight of the money pouches and thought, in the deepest secrecy of their hearts:
Maybe, just maybe, living as servants of this townhouse wouldn't be so bad after all.