Episode 4 Part 1.


"Well?" said Seren to Beth, "What is our newest case?"

"The lady on the phone wants you two to find her Son, she says he hasn't come home, and she does not want to call the police because her son was into 'shady activities,' as she put it"

"So I guess there will be a lot of tree birds." I commented, the situation seemed to call for a more standard detective approach.

I had just put the spare hat back in the hidden hat dispenser in the office. Seren turned to me, and said: "Sounds like a nice change from the action of these past few days."

"Tremendously." I replied, it would be a lot more fun than the epic adventure of the past couple days.

"You are to meet her at her home up in Wuthering Heights, she left her address," Beth handed Seren a piece of paper, "She sounded a bit off during the whole conversation."

"Seems a bit fishy... perhaps this will be more interesting than we thought."

I nodded, and Seren asked Beth if there was anything else.

"Anything more?"

"Umm, yes, she mumbled something about a cake, but I couldn't understand her."

"Cake!?" I was excited.

"Cake?"

"Yes, cake. Now get going, she is expecting you within the hour."

We grabbed our detective coats, and doffed our hats, and were out the door and headed towards Wuthering  Heights.

"So where do you think the Tree is?" I asked Seren what he thought about this cake.

"Well, maybe it was her boy’s birthday..."

"Maybe," I said, but I doubted it, it seemed more important than that, more, I didn't know, but it was something else, something more.
We were halfway there, when Seren spoke up.

"I've heard rumours about this area... Wuthering Heights."

"The trees are speaking," I had heard these rumors, stories about floating objects, and people going missing. Perhaps there was some supernatural reason for our missing boy.
We had just arrived at Wuthering Heights, and were trying to match the address on the paper that Beth had given us.

"91666 Damien Road," Seren flapped the paper around as we wandered down the road. As I had suspected, it was the last house on the left, which had a creepy horror movie feel to it. The Last House On The Left. Yep, slightly creepy.

"This is it here, the last house on the left."

I let out a laugh at my thoughts being said allowed.

"Ha!"

Seren glanced at me, looked like he was going to ask me why I laughed, but thought better of it, and continued on to the house.

Seren opened the screen door, and walked onto the enclosed front porch. Knocking on the door, he turned to me and said:

"You have something on your tooth."

"No, I do not; you have something on your eye." My teeth were perfect, I had had people for that back when I was still rich, and those people did not know that they were not being payed yet.

Seren blinked his eye a few times, and seemed satisfied.

There were footsteps behind the door, and then a kindly looking old lady poked her head out.

"Well hello there, you must be Ben and Seren, Detectives for Hire."

"That'd be us, ma'am."

"That would be the ducklings." I confirmed. She stared at me for a moment, and seemed satisfied.

She escorted us into her house, and down a long hallway which opened up into a living room that had a matronly feeling.

"Please have a seat anywhere."

Seren sat on the sofa, I sat on the corner side table.
She looked at me curiously, and swept into the kitchen, emerging moments later with a tray of snacks, a pot of tea, and 3 mugs.

"Is there sugar?" Seren asked

She set the tray down on the coffee table, and passed Seren the sugar pot.

"Thank you..."

Seren stirred his tea dramatically as always, I however, stirred my tea eccentrically.

"What will the partridge do?" I asked her.

"Oh, well you know." She said, mumbling a little bit.

I sighed, and resigned myself to the background, not speaking until much later, for now, Seren did the speaking.


"So, your son is lost?"

"Well, no. I must admit that I brought you here under false pretenses. You see, my son is not really missing, I just can't find, or contact him."

"Is there a difference between lost, and not being able to find someone?"

"Well, you see, I know where he is. He is with the Elitists. They are a-" She started.

"Oh, we know who they are. We have had problems with them before." Seren said darkly, the Elitists were a small group of powerful men and women devoted to the trafficking of drugs, and other illegal substances. Perhaps there was no supernatural reason for his disappearance after all.

I stared at my cracker and cheese, and listened quietly to their conversation, from the corner side table.


"Then you know what they might do, my son...my son was a Spammer, he left them a year and half ago, around the time of the big Milhouse fiasco."

"What is your son's name?" Seren enquired.


"His name is Dorian, Dorian Black."

"Hmm... so, what exactly do you want us to do?"

"Isn't that obvious? Come on, I thought you were smart detectives, maybe I should have hired that Gently fellow. I want you to find him."

"Right, well, we can do that...could we have something to sniff, so we can get his scent?" I said.

"I don't appreciate your humour. My son is in trouble, why would you make jokes?"

"Oh, it was no joke." Seren turned to me, startled that I was speaking. I took off my massive hat, and started poking around inside. After a few minutes of hunting, I pulled out a Beagle puppy.

"Aww, how cute. Just stay right here, I will get some of his clothing out of the hamper."

She left the room, and Seren stared at me and the puppy that I was holding.

"Where does it go to the toilet?"

I reached back into the hat, and pulled out a picture of a park, and pointed to the hat.

"There's a... a park in your hat?"

I smiled at Seren, and looked up as the lady came into the room holding a pair of smelly socks. She brought them over to me, and I took them from her, holding them at arms length.

"You should start down at the museum; he liked to go there on his free time." She spoke about him as if he were dead.
Seren and I got up from where we were sitting, and Seren assured the lady that we would find her son.

"We will find your son,  I assure you."

She took us out through the long hallway, and pushed us out the door, mumbling something about cake. The door was closed as soon as we were out. I reached into my hat, pulled out a leash, attached it to the puppy's collar, and put him down.

"So what's the dog's name?"

We started on our way in the direction of the museum.

"Dorian."

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