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.

It has been said more than once that there's always a calm before the storm.

I don't know if that's a certified meteorological phenomenon or just an old saw gone mad,

but I tend to lead towards a ladder. But to be sure, there is a certain breathless anticipation in the moment before a crisis, and I can only assume that it is from this that are cliche

du jour springs. At any rate, if you stretch the metaphor out, it doesn't really hold together in fact like so many others it finds itself directly at odds with other bits of sage wisdom from the farmer's almanac if a crisis comes when it's quiet it's always calm before the storm and if the opposite is true it never rains but pours. The old wives like to keep their options open.

In any event, in addition to our allegedly professional pursuits,

Jack and I were often able to put some of our less reliable proverbs to bed

with the sort of rock-solid proof we were seldom able to scrape together in our casework,

and this proved to be one of those occasions.

Because just before the gray-green door of our palatial offices bust open to reveal the quivering

form of Mary Lou Arden, just before she stepped timidly into the great crime lab of Justice

and Dixon, private investigations dragging her own personal storm with her, it had, in fact, been raining for a day and a half.

It had been the kind of rain that made a regular summer thunderstorm, with all its flash and sizzle,

seemed like a dilettante in the desert. The sky had opened and seemed to be in a great hurry to

rid itself of as much water as possible, as quickly as possible,

and so it had remained. I was passing the time in pleasant stages with my feet up on the

radiator and the office watchdog at my side, both of us staring out the window and wondering

in order if it would ever stop, if it didn't, should we build an arc? And just exactly what was a cubit anyhow.

It was then that I heard the door,

and turned to see what later proved to be Miss Arden,

...