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.

Full Fathom Five, thy father lies.

Of his bones are coral made.

Those are pearls that were his eyes.

Nothing of him that doth fade.

There was no particular reason why these words were rattling around my brain on the morning in question.

Some would argue in favor of precognition, or another sort of extra sensory perception.

Trixie would counter that, given how much I was lacking in regular sensory perception,

it only seemed fair that I get some extra.

And I would postulate that sometimes the universe, like the girl detectives bent her,

was so blazing predictable that you could see

its machinations rolling in like a bank of storm clouds. But in truth, it was probably the weather.

The light snow had turned to rain and it felt like it meant to wash away all traces of a long,

bitter winter and leave the land scrubbed and clean. If only it could shift this pesky stain of a city.

Had the door not opened and the client chair been suddenly filled with a posterior of the

delicate variety, I should shortly have begun constructing an arc. Of course, since the only animal

of any variety that we had on hand was King, the crime-fighting dog deluxe, and there was only one of

him. And in truth, he had long passed over any sort of useful repopulate the earth years he

might have once enjoyed. It was probably just as well. The girl in the client chair was Carol

Dewars, 5-5-56, a comfortable and well-proportioned frame, hair that might have been jet black or

...