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.

They say the truth is in the eye of the beholder.

Okay, they don't say that at all, but they should.

Truth might not have originated the phrase, but it deserves it more than beauty.

Some beauty is just too obvious to be open to debate.

The mysteries of the universe have been hashed and rehashed since the beginning of time,

but I've never stumbled across a truth that people could agree on like Betty Grable.

That aside, truth is important.

And it's been pointed out to me more than once that I might not paint a completely objective picture of private detective work.

Some folks say that if you listen to old blackjack tell it, you'd think being a Seamus was nothing more than a long nap in a

bare office, broken up by occasional car wrecks, be girls, gunfights, and concussions. Nuts to them,

I say. They want to tell it they should walk a mile in my suit. Maybe they already have, would explain how it got so wrinkled.

The truth of the matter is, if you've got to be a detective, be a private one. Sure, you miss out on the steady paycheck, but you never have to go out looking for crime.

Sooner or later it comes walking through your door, grinning like the cat that swallowed the canary.

Nicholas Franklin did a lot of grinning.

It was the grin of a man that was extremely satisfied with the place he'd carved for himself in the cosmos,

and he beamed in in every direction as he lulled in the second-best chair in our office that Friday morning.

It was a disarming, toothy grin, and if he hadn't been the closest

thing we'd seen to a client in weeks, I'd have cheerfully smacked it across the room into the

wastebasket. My partner did not seem to share this viewpoint.

...