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 Dixon, Trixie Dixon Girl Detective.

It is something less than entirely accurate to suggest that the life of a private detective was an unpredictable thing.

Technically, you could take a wild guess that at any given moment on any given day, a girl

detective might be resting quietly upon her famously fabulous derrier while seated behind her desk.

It was a pretty good pitch to hit, and you'd be right more often than not, and we both know it.

But at the same time, other more conventional career choices that might feature more evenly distributed

cycles of activity never even approached the infinite variety of detective work.

If you rolled the dice and lost and did not find me perched delicately within my gilded

cage, there was no telling where I was or what I could be doing.

I might be picking in some windows or running for my life or in a

good car chase or shootout, and almost certainly looking fabulous while I did it. All of this I found good.

But the thing that was fairly predictable was that all of this variety seemed to flow within the banks of

carefully planned financial restraint. Our fees usually met at the corner of Diddley and Squat, if you will forgive me for saying so,

and probably even if you won't.

But every once in a while, opportunity burst through the door, reeking of the mistaken impression

that too much cologne could make up for a laundry list of other failings in a man.

This is the story of one of those times.

Old Squarejaw and I were busy engaged, counting the raindrops on our window panes and ignoring the telephone

when the door burst open and five foot five of dark suit and musk burst in.

Hey, don't answer that phone. What? I mean it. Don't answer the phone. of dark suit and musk burst in.

...