The Lotus ***

Thumb out stretched and arm swaying in the open air, a young man slowly stumbles across the left hand shoulder of a long highway. His posture and the steps he took reminded those who drove by as a child who had taken his first drink. Even if this so called child was wearing fairly expensive trousers and a white cotton buttoned up shirt, he was no better than the war torn orphans who searched through the town at night.

The sun was reigning high above the boy, releasing an unsettling amount of heat off of the cracked pavement he walked by. He once heard before that the United States drove on the opposite side of the road. His drunken state made this thought funnier than it should have been. A car. Driving on the right side of the road. Classic. There were houses far much older than the cement were tucked away behind some trees to the right and farmland to the left. Though his attention continued to go back to the terribly hot sun above. Even if there were heavy storm clouds off in the distance, he predicted that any amount of rain would be an hour off, at least two. He would have probably have felt much better about the situation if he wasn't carrying his precious wool coat- a gift from his grandfather and the one thing to keep any nipping cold nights away- and a heavy suitcase.

The boy, drunk on those couple drinks at the tavern earlier and the heat that beat down above, was trying to run away. Cocking a smile, he recalled back to earlier this morning. His plan was fool proof. He had escaped the estate rather easily. It was that mid time after lunch and afternoon tea where his grandfather would have been nodding off in his study. The old balding man would have never known that his terribly clever grandson had ran off until when the maids would come running to him. Only then would he realize that it has been quiet. No glass has been broken. No one swinging from the oak trees outside and getting stuck at the top. Nothing.

A car had rushed by, disturbing his train of thought. The college kids laughing inside mocked the boy, only a few years younger- and twice as smart- than them. The boy swore at them, attempting to grasp ahold a stone and throw it at the car that moved far much faster than he could throw. The clouds were starting to form closer to where he was walking, he could even hear the thunder far off. Though the sounds that kept his mind occupied at the moment was a car slowing behind him.

A snarl came upon the light freckled face of the boy as he hunched his shoulders and dragged his upper body like a mechanical doll to look behind him. A Hillman Minx slowly followed behind the boy. The four door, dull blue car was not one of the boy's favorites. Not just because the color was awful, but because only one person he knew knew how to drive that car. Just that one. He refused to drive anything else.

“Go away, Alfie,” the boy slurred as he turned back around and continued to run.

The car clicked and the engine called out as the car pulled from it's slowing manner and rushed to the side of the boy.

“Don't be like this, Master Geoffrey...”

He said the name with such disgust. No matter how many years he's called him that, the one driving was the same age as the drunk Geoffrey. The fair blonde haired young man, with a thin face had proved to Geoffrey's grandfather to be the better individual than he. Not like he cared, but it was clear that the well mannered servant was more favored. Picking up his pace, the car only met it, finally Geoffrey took a full sprint across the shoulder shouting like a mad man to another car to save him. He could almost hear Alfie's hand hit his face and the foreign muttering that came from his lips. Geoffrey still believed that the man was Italian, but the blondie always denied it.

The car that Geoffrey tried to call down, did eventually slow. The boy ran up to the passenger side. With hands on the open window he peaked inside to see a lovely couple.

“That man is trying to kidnap me! Where you going?”

“Uh... Bristol?”

“Mind if I catch a lift?”

“Master Geoffrey!”

The blonde Italian escaped from his parked car waving about a pad of paper. Geoffrey could automatically spot the Scotland Yard logo on the pad. A frustrated frown came across the freckled faced boy.

“I refuse!” he yelled, entering the backseat of the car without an answer from the ones driving inside.

The Italian ran to the car as it started to drive off. He started to talk a thousand miles a second explaining a case. The boy sat there with shoulders hunched and arms crossed refusing to even listen to the man. Alfie demanded for him to say something but he only got a furious look instead.

“The last time I did one of your cases, I ended up trapped in a boiler room and watching my hair burn right in front of my eyes!” He scratched at his short brown hair that curled with ugly white ends, that was a week ago and his hair still looked terrible.

“Master Geoffrey, please, they specifically asked for you to solve this!”

“Well, they can just get Reginald from next door. He's a far better suitor for any case than me.”

“The man is deaf in one ear and is senile, Master Geoffrey.”

The couple driving in front were unsure what to do in this situation. Completely caught in the middle of the quarrel, they decided to awkwardly stop on the side of the road and let the two young men battle it out. The blonde continued to be interrupted by the tantrum the unhappy drunk was giving in the back seat. Back hunched and arms crossed, he had the widest frown on his face, completely unmoved from the situation. Alfie's hand resulted to his face (a typical habit of his when talking with the boy) and tried to think of something to get the boy to listen. He pulled out the envelope and started to read off the first page of the case file.

“Master Geoffrey, please, the man who had died is a foreign dignitary. He was found in the pool-”

“The maid did it. May I go now?”

“-surrounded by lotus flowers.”

The oddity made Geoffrey stop mid motion. He was about to give the man driving some money to drive off when the words rang in his ears. He looked down to the floor of the car, slowly reaching Alfie's eyes with a curious yet skeptical look. He asked the blonde haired servant to repeat what he said. The lotus flowers. White lotus flowers, around twenty of them which surounded the dead man in the pool. Geoffrey's eyes instantly lit up, the drunken tantrum gone within a moment. Alfie stared at the boy, for that moment he had finally gotten through to him, though the strangest smile fell upon the man's lips.

This wasn't a smile of excitement or gratitude of the situation, this was a smile of chance. Something that Alfie couldn't ever understand about this specific detail intrigued Geoffrey so much. It scared him to wonder why such a smile came upon his master's lips.

“Well, then,” he said snatching the file from Alfie's hands and throwing open the car door, “what are we waiting for? We've got a murder to solve.”

The boy gave a few confident laughs as he hopped from his position in the back of the stranger's car and raced to the terrible Hillman Minx. Alfie apologized to the couple for the trouble, giving the man some money for his troubles. The looks on their faces and how fast they drove away from the situation was enough for Alfie to grunt in embarrassment. He should have been used to it now, but sometimes he just didn't know how much he could take from his master. Geoffrey repeatedly started to honk the horn of the car and didn't stop till Alfie shooed the man from his seat. With that, they did a U turn and headed back to London for The Hanging Gardens hotel.