Once again, Decoder Ring Theater presents another page from the casebook of that Master of Mystery,

that's Sultan of Sleothing, Martin Bracknell's immortal detective Black Jack Justice,

starring Christopher Mott as Jack and Andrea Lyons as Trixie Dixon Girl Detective.

The name's Dixon. Trixie Dixon Girl Detective. The name's Dixon. Trixie Dixon Girl Detective.

They say that fate is a funny thing, but they're usually not laughing when they say it.

More often they're not, they're looking down at their shoes or shaking their heads kind of sadly.

The point is that life sometimes plays out like the twisted storyline of a demented child god

with a fetish for mild sadism.

But that kind of full-on lamenting isn't very well suited to the stiff upper lips that are

all the rage these days.

So the shaking of heads and the looking at shoes and the grim assurances that it's all in good

fun, isn't it, Lord? Continue.

At quarter to nine in the morning, the day after a long stakeout,

I'm rarely at my most fashionable, lips are otherwise,

so I didn't bother to restrain the sea shanty of curses that sprang from deep within when I saw a letter in the basket bearing Mordecai Bressotso's return address.

Mordecai had employed the agency three times since Blackjack and I cemented our partnership,

and every time we swore it would be the last.

I cracked the envelope and read the letter with great expectation of a shiny new pain in the

neck, courtesy of Monsieur Brousseau.

The news was not at all what I had expected.

But I guess that's what they mean when they say Fates a funny thing.

I couldn't wait for old Square Jod to get a load of this.

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