The Strange Case of the Abducted Meals

Mr. Otis took thirty walking minutes to reach the building. The appointment had been arranged the night before, in a very dark and shanty train plataform. He stills hadn’t been told the reason of such a mistery way of getting him hired. Then a deep memory came into his mind. It had been a while ago, in that asian town, when he had to execute a debt… but this time it was a different scenario, he thought. At that point, when he was in the limit of getting lost in his own head, he realized that the door was facing him, asking him to get it open. After some beats that he made with his stick, a very old lady let him in.

-          She told me that you were coming, Mr. Otis. I cannot say a single word.

-          Actually I… (said our man)

Then she stated that he had to hold on the lobby, keeping his mouth closed. 

Time passed, so he asked for the keys to the lady to run out of the premises in order to  do some smoke. While doing so, he bought some strawberries from a poor farmer that had established a very informal point of sale. Also had to give some cigarettes to a weird creature that remained there, and that just walked away when a cigar was given to him.

He was complaining in low voice (talking to himself) about all the noise made by the horses  when her client got out of the building and begged him to run out with her to the corner’s tabern.

-I didn´t know that we were in such deep danger, cried her

- But you still have not explained to me the reason of my stay here, if you just say..

-This is a bit embarrasing, you will see. As the anglican girl I am, i should not hire an out-of-law detective, but  I had no chance, as only one Paradise Cake is left. They already stole the first two. In case i got the third lost, I wont be able to reach the climb of the…

-Wait, wait, wait. Are you meaning that you are hiring me to find a Cake stealer?

-Not just so, because they have already carried on his shoulders Gonzalo’s yogurt, Gisela’s half Sandwich, Steampunk’s fine cookies, Mauricio’s lunch. This is terrible, and, as we still live in this dark victorian times, the people started to believe that there is a spirit, a ghost,  or still worst, a monster, stealing the meals.

Mr. Otis asked the poor lady for the estimated two pounds and she gave him that, plus  sixty extra shillings to afford his living expenses during the hunt.

Then every of them run to his destination. That night was quite disgusting for our frantic detective. He wondered about how such an asshole could get an enemy for as little as a paradise cake. He knew that he was due to solve more interesting cases. He was sure that he deserved better.

At 3:00 AM the dirty noise by the mice that lived in that old hotel made him awake. Ten minutes were enough time for him to get dressed and to head to Breton, a very dark place, house of the disadvantaged, the ill, the thieves, the prostitutes and the opium traders. After getting a glass of bad quality scotch, he invited some drink to an old, low class sailor. He knew that such a dirty place would provide him with some evidence. The they talked:

-          And what is your business, my sir.

-          Im looking for a cheap burglar, a lunch and dinners robber.

-          Ohh, I pity a lot those who get their lunch stolen. What may I do with the thieve? To hang him, as we hang the ravens at the county’s doors, in order to be an example for any other,

-          Well, I was wondering if you have any suspect, any target to go for, you know.

-          You’ll see, an old sailor like me have more than one trick to bear in mind the what and the who. So I will give you this envelope. Inside of it you will find anything, but it will guide you to your target. So get’em and give’em hell, for god's sake!! (he said the last phrase punching the metal table very hard, having her eyes a bit red , and bigger than usually)

-          You honour me with your help. Thanks gentleman.

After two coffes and many more vodka shots, Otis ran to his shanty room, feeling like a primary school guy. He knew that the envelope had a meaning but was not possible for him to mark out what was it for. An envelope, an envelope… what means an envelope by itself, if we do not consider its capability for having something inside? So in that moment a light started shining on his brains, so he concluded:

-Of course, an envelope. An envelop is an empty entity, that, by default, has nothing inside in. It got an unexpected conclusion: The burglar was not a single person, but a group. And not neccesary a complot. The context had inspired the others, so there are not one burglar, there are more than one, but none is THE burglar. So no name could be chosen to be written in a paper to go inside an envelope.

Otis left a note to her customer, stating: “The people wants a guilty to blame. But in this story, the guilt is colective, so it is more a concept than a fact (and that is what makes it powerfull, for the good or for the bad). An old sailor teached me  so trough the metaphor of the empty envelope. Now is time to inspire others with something better than burglary. Run, give’em hell”.