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 is Justice.

Jack Justice.

Forgive me if I enjoy the present tense a little too much,

rolling the is around on my tongue as though it were a fine wine,

or at least a form of the verb to be which is due to be replaced by the less warm and fuzzy was at any moment. The fact of the matter is that although I am still walking and talking, I am a dead man.

I suppose we all are if you think about it, but I'm being a touch more literal than is my usual want.

I suppose the end seems perfectly logical when you stop and think about it, though it certainly could have been less dramatic.

That would have been fine.

Nice to think that one merits a degree of melodrama, but when it comes down to the pinch, it sounds more fun than it actually is.

I never really stopped along the way to consider the ending I would have picked.

Some folks do.

It seems like kind of a silly exercise, really, though I do find myself quite suddenly a big fan of the now unavailable option,

years from now, peacefully, in my sleep. All of this is at least

somewhat beside the point. The point is I still have a job to do. One last thing to put right

before they put me in the ground, and I don't have more than a handful of seconds to do it in.

The clichés are true. It really does start to feel like slow motion. I can feel them

to the left and right of me in this semi-darkness. Feel them circling and closing in as I step closer to the light.

They think that they are the killers. And they are. But they are jackals circling a tiger.

And I don't say that out of any sense of pride in the fact,

...