Sat, May 17, 1980
Thackeray is to be the best man at the wedding of a friend of his father, elderly Henry Russell who is marrying a woman nearly fifty years his junior. The vicar is suspicious and, when Cribb investigates, it is discovered that both the bride and her sister have been married before to men very much their senior who died soon after the weddings. Something in the garden arouses Cribb's suspicions and he comes up with a neat compromise to try and save Henry's life.
Sat, Apr 19, 1980
When Harriet Smith and two other lady students from the Elfrida Teacher Training College go for a midnight dip in the river they do not expect to see a woman's corpse being dumped over the side of a boat. After Harriet has informed the authorities Cribb and Thackeray are sent,undercover, as boating tourists,which Thackeray,who keeps falling overboard,detests and they link up with local bobby Constable Hardy. There is no shortage of suspects - men in the area at the time - a trio of Londoners re-tracing the journey of the 'Three Men In A Boat',the successful new comic novel, an Oxford professor whose uncle is a local prison governor,and two convicts who have just escaped from his prison. And then another body is discovered...
Sat, May 3, 1980
Joe Calhoun, a key player in London's vice world, is found dead in one of his own brothels. Unreliable witness Charlie Vokins, who had a score to settle with him, claims to know the murderer but wants to make a deal with the police. As well as the deceased's brother the other major suspect is Dr. Hepplewhite who owed gaming debts to the dead man. Const. Thackeray is due to have an operation and Sgt. Cribb arranges for him to be admitted to the same hospital where Charlie Vokins was taken to recuperate from a severe beating. Dr. Hepplewhite therefore becomes the surgeon due to operate on Const. Thackeray and Cribb is anxious to keep his constable safe - particularly as he is a bad patient, constantly exasperating the Matron, Sister Armstrong who is secretly in love with the surgeon.
Sat, Apr 11, 1981
After a pram containing Queen Victoria's grandson Prince Alexander accidentally rolls away and nearly collides with the monarch the nursemaid is sacked, creating a vacancy. The child's parents want young, progressive Miss Temple but the queen is in favour of her daughter's old nurse, Mrs. Innocent, an austere, gin-swigging old dragon. The child's father Prince Henry asks Cribb to investigate Mrs. Innocent, currently employed in caring for the 2 children of an eccentric composer, for proof of unsuitability through senility. Cribb investigates and finds that the pram was sabotaged in order to create a vacancy close to the Crown. The two candidates for the nursemaid position come under suspicion.
Sat, Apr 4, 1981
The police are guarding Jumbo, the elephant that is one of the prime attractions at the London Zoo, because certain people are up in arms about his being sold to American show-man P. T. Barnum and scheduled to be shipped across the Atlantic. Despite being told that Jumbo has occasional attacks of musth (a hormonal condition in mature bull elephants characterized by highly aggressive behavior) which makes him periodically unsafe for giving visitors rides around the zoo, eccentric old Mrs. Pennycook leads a protest against the export - writing anthemic songs about Jumbo to swell her cause. Then she is found murdered. Could the killer have been Barnum's representative or Jumbo's keeper, both of whom were her opponents and who will soon be leaving the country with their four-legged charge? Or was the killer closer to home and the motive more opportunistic?
Mon, May 5, 1980
The pedestrian Championship of the World is taking place in London, an indoor marathon lasting six days and the winner is the man who can be shown to have walked the greatest distance in that time in a style known as wobbling. Hot favourites are gentleman contender Captain Erskine Chadwick and professional athlete Charlie Darrell but when Darrell collapses,what first appears to have been cramp proves to be murder - he has been poisoned and later his trainer is also found dead. It looks like suicide but Cribb believes otherwise,suspecting Chadwick and his trainer,Charlie's wife or indeed any of the other competitors. He agrees that the marathon should be allowed to continue,providing him literally with a race against time to find the murderer.
Sat, Apr 19, 1980
When headless male corpses are found floating in the river the common link is scarred hands,which points to them having taken part in illegal bare-knuckle boxing. Strapping Constable Jago,the force's amateur boxing champion, poses as a boxer in search of a prize fight with Cribb as his manager. This leads to the alluring Mrs. Vibart who has a stable of fighters but when she is murdered Jago is a prime suspect. Cribb has to clear his name before he takes too many thrashings in the ring.
Sat, May 2, 1981
Inspector Jowett is invited by florid ex-school fellow Russell Haygarth to attend a reunion weekend, where Jowett quickly tires of his old class-mates' japes. Discovering that Haygarth is a convicted swindler Cribb and Thackeray travel to warn Jowett and find that Haygarth is hoping to relieve the company of their money for a supposed donation to the school. That night he is found hanged - it is murder made to look like suicide. One of the party confesses that Haygarth seduced his wife and, given that none of the eminent men are what they seem, there is no shortage of suspects.
Sat, May 9, 1981
Fenians intent on the independence of Ireland from Britain are perpetrating a number of bomb attacks around London, including at Scotland Yard. Cribb is sent on a course in the art of bomb-making and poses as an Irishman sympathetic to the Irish Republican Brotherhood in order to get to the heart of the society. However certain members of the brotherhood get hold of him to join them on a submarine where they want him to blow up a brand new British battle-ship to prove his allegiance to the cause.