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

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

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

The name's Justice. Jack, Justice. There's an old song that says only mad dogs and

Englishmen go out in the noontime sun. It probably tells you everything you need to know about

the character of the inhabitants of that rainy little island,

that the guy who wrote that song was an Englishman himself.

When you've got a reputation for civility, pale skin, and crumpets,

even a comparison that involves rabies can seem positive.

My apologies to those who've spent more than a couple of months in the English rain,

but I, after what passed for the

summer of 1943 there, I was actually grateful to hit an Italian beachhead before I sprouted

mushrooms, heavy machine gun fire notwithstanding. I don't know if Matt Dawson was an Englishman.

If he was, he hid the fact pretty well beneath the smooth veneer of a lawyer who was nearly

as sharp as he thought he was. But I do know that on the day when he slid open the gray-green

door that bore the proud but peeling letters, Justice and Dixon, it was at least 90 degrees

in the shade, if any could be found, and something like a Turkish bath in the office itself.

And Dawson looked more comfortable than any man

had a right to in his tailor-made three-piece suit. He cut an impressive figure all right,

imposing enough that Old King, the crime-busting dog deluxe, slinked away from the client chair

he had been lazing in without a word, but Dawson worked casually, like it was effortless,

and maybe it was.

...