Chapter 5: Housekeeper
At night, the housekeeper invited Liang Xi to the restaurant for dinner. In addition to the people from the law firm, there were also other nobles and even representatives of the royal family. The nobles and royal family would not come to the manor to attend the funeral until tomorrow morning. Today, the people who came were the second generation of the nobility and the second generation of the royal family. They went to the manor first to express their condolences to their relatives.
Liang Xi disliked this kind of courtesy the most. It only takes five minutes to eat a steak, but fifty minutes to be polite. Even if no one paid attention to him, he still had to listen to the five minutes of politeness. It would be embarrassing to eat with these noble children and leave after eating. Liang Xi was embarrassed, but he didn't want to be embarrassed. So Liang Xi sat alone on a chair in the back garden, enjoying a meal and a glass of lemonade brought by the maid in the night breeze.
This was not the first time Liang Xi helped John with a case. In the past few years, John had become increasingly lazy, leaving all the work that could be assigned to Liang Xi to him. Every day, John would stay at home and read the newspaper. In addition to meeting with old friends, John would only take a walk with Mary near his home. Forget about these, the work that John assigned to Liang Xi was not profitable, and there was no discussion of compensation.
Liang Xi knew that John was reminding him to get to know more people, including people from the upper class, but Liang Xi was not interested in getting to know people from the upper class. He felt that it was impossible to be friends . What? The upper class can help you and give you opportunities? If I want to sell my face, I might as well change my career to become a Robin Hood and steal things to help the poor. Who is the poorest? Of course, I am the poorest. It doesn't matter whether there is money or not. The key is that as a Robin Hood, I must abide by the principles. Who made me only know a poor guy like myself?
A melodious violin sound came from the side, and Liang Xi couldn't help but walk towards the music. The soft moonlight and the beautiful melody blended perfectly together, making people stop and not want to leave. The performer closed his eyes lightly, not noticing anyone approaching, completely immersed in his own world, intoxicated.
No, the performer was not a beautiful girl , nor was she a princess. It was a gardener, a male gardener, a fat man in his forties wearing work clothes. The melody was soft and the scene was incongruous. Apart from Liang Xi, the only audience was the gardener's wife.
When the song was over, Liang Xi applauded. Liang Xi had no idea how good it sounded, as he was tone-deaf. But he could reason that anyone who dared to play the violin in the land of the nobility must be quite talented, so he applauded first.
The gardener was very embarrassed and shook hands with Yuan Wang modestly, apologizing for disturbing him. The gardener's wife brought some refreshments, and the two chatted about it. After chatting for half an hour, Liang Xi basically solved the case. He knew who stole the will and guessed who the accomplice was. However, he had no evidence in his hand, and could not confirm the identity of the accomplice, let alone whether the new will had been destroyed.
…
The Earl's Manor has two guest rooms and several separate guest villas, which are specially used to receive guests. For example, the children of the royal family or the dignitaries, the butler arranged them to live in the villa. The children of the nobles were sent to Building A, where the rooms, facilities and services are no worse than those of star-rated hotels. In order to cope with this funeral, the butler specially hired chefs and professional service staff from a large hotel.
The law firm staff live in Building B. The conditions are relatively simple, but better than the standard rooms of ordinary hotels. There are also professional room service staff to provide special services for them.
All of this is called face, and you can't maintain such face without money. Therefore, the gap between nobles will gradually emerge. After losing their wealth, nobles with empty titles will take the route of civilians, appearing to be close to the people, and at the same time use closeness to the people as an excuse to cover up their lack of wealth. On the contrary, nobles who have wealth try hard to maintain everything that a noble should have, so as to build an insurmountable identity gap between themselves and the businessmen and wealthy.
Building C is far from Building AB. It is where the staff of the manor live. The conditions are not bad. For example, the housekeeper and the maid who serve the main residence have their own houses in the main residence so that they can respond to the earl's call at any time. The maid lives on the first floor, and the housekeeper lives in the side room on the second floor. The room is not very big, but the style is very high, and there is no aesthetic feeling. Why do you say it has style? This is a real aristocratic manor, it must have style, although Liang Xi doesn't know what the style is.
Guests started arriving today, and there were many things to do, so the housekeeper was very busy. Liang Xi quietly drank tea and waited on the first floor until the housekeeper returned to the main residence at 1 a.m. Liang Xi went to greet him and said, "Can we talk?"
The butler remained standing and replied, "Of course."
The housekeeper asked Liang Xi to sit down. Liang Xi said, "It's the middle of the night and it's disturbing others' rest. Why don't we go to your room and talk? If it's convenient."
The butler kept smiling and said, "I have worked at the manor for 30 years, and this is the first time I heard that someone wanted to come to my room to chat with me, and at one o'clock in the morning."
Liang Xi said ashamedly: "I come from the market and don't know manners."
The housekeeper hurriedly said: "No, no, that's not what I meant."
Liang Xi said: "Even if I don't know how to be polite, I insist on going to your room to chat now. Is that okay?"
The butler looked at Liang Xi for a few seconds and nodded: "Of course, please."
…
The housekeeper hung his coat on the coat rack, and Liang Xi had already walked into the room. It was really rude. Not only that, Liang Xi also looked around the entire living room very rudely, and even tilted his head to look at the bedroom twice.
The housekeeper didn't care, closed the door, and asked, "Isn't Mr. Liang a lawyer at Cook Law Firm?"
Liang Xi nodded: "No!"
The butler asked, "Detective?"
Liang Xi thought for a moment and replied, "I'm not a detective. Detective work is paid. I'm just a shill who runs errands."
The butler rarely encountered such colloquialisms, and it took him a while to understand the meaning. He couldn't help but laugh: "Please sit down."
Liang Xi sat down, and the housekeeper also sat down: "Excuse me, what can I do for you, Mr. Liang?"
Liang Xi asked: "Does it require a process?"
The housekeeper said, "I need to get up early tomorrow."
Liang Xi nodded: "Then I will get straight to the point: Please hand over your will."
The butler asked back: "Will?"
Liang Xi said: "You said you had to get up early tomorrow, and now I have to start explaining again."
The housekeeper looked at Liang Xi and said, "When I first saw you, I knew you were a detective. But I don't understand what the will means."
Liang Xi said: "No way?"
Butler: "I really don't understand what will is."
Liang Xi said: "No, I mean, am I like a detective?"
The butler replied: "From the way you pay attention to people and objects, based on my many years of experience in observing people, I can tell that he is either a detective or a thief."
Liang Xi thought for a while: "What were we talking about just now?" His eyes were too sharp.
The housekeeper smiled and said, "A will."
"Yes, the will." Liang Xi said, "I analyzed the situation of each person, and I don't think the four children of the Earl stole the will."
The housekeeper asked, “And then?”
Liang Xi clapped his right fingers in the palm of his left hand: "You don't even care about the theft of the will." I caught you, I found the right person.
The butler didn't take it seriously and said calmly: "Since you have come to me, I am all ears."
