Chapter 258: A Culprit Behind Locked Doors

“Masters, this way please...” Crisp footsteps rang out, tap by tap, through the castle’s long corridor.

The plump maid wore a blue one-piece gown, her ruffled apron tied into a bow at the small of her back, with tiny floral trim at the neck and cuffs.

She had a fine figure. From the Witcher’s angle, he could take in the full sweep of her soft, curving lines. A body like that inevitably reminded Roy of Lytta Neyd. Though they had kept in touch through the spyglass in the wilderness, it had been some time since he had last seen her in person after leaving Vizima.

Without realizing it, he found himself missing her.

“Kid!” The bald Letho’s dull voice snapped him out of his stray thoughts. “It’s been a month since the incident. You think we can still find anything?”

“I probably can’t...” Roy rubbed at his ribs. “Maybe you can.”

That was precisely why he had brought Letho along. Witcher Senses let them pick up traces ordinary men, even hounds with keen noses, could never detect. In places rarely trodden and little disturbed by the outside world, they could even unearth suspicious traces left behind a year ago.

...

Following the maid, the two arrived at the main banquet hall on the second floor, the very place where the celebratory feast had been held a month earlier.

Bright light laid bare the splendid square table at the center of the hall, the chairs tucked in with tidy precision, and the empty dance floor. The place was so clean there was scarcely a speck of dust to be seen.

Roy gave it a broad, cursory look. “Mistress Hill Vea, you must have this place cleaned several times a day, don’t you?”

The maid looked exhausted, distracted, almost absent-minded. She stared blankly for several seconds before replying slowly, “Lady Luisa is extremely particular about the environment she lives in. She demands absolute cleanliness and order. After giving birth to Lady Anais, she can’t bear the sight of even the slightest filth, or she loses her appetite entirely.”

“So we clean the dining hall three times a day, morning, noon, and night.”

“Three times a day? Lady Luisa likely has a mania for cleanliness,” Roy thought. “With that much scrubbing, even if there had been clues, they’d have been wiped away long ago.” He rubbed at his temples, but there was no blaming them for it. One could hardly expect the residence of Baron La Valette to go uncleaned for a month.

Letho, on the other hand, looked openly disdainful.

To a Witcher like him, who spent half his life eating, sleeping, and rotting in the wild without a bath for ten days at a stretch, any time spent on hygiene was time utterly wasted. “Spend all your time on personal cleanliness, and when the hell do you get any work done?”