Despite being awash with Jack Daniels, it was several hours before LaFlamme and I realised it was actually the solution to our problem. That is to say, ‘Jack Daniels' was the solution to the anagram ‘Jackal dines' that my dubious client Ignacious Spore had left whilst dropping dead in my doorway.

By this time LaFlamme's ‘liquid inspiration' had left us very heavily inspired, and we failed to notice that Spore was nowhere to be found. He was a slippery character alright, but he would have had to slip across the landing and down four flights of stairs, something dead clients can't normally do.

"Maybe he was just having a lie down," LaFlamme said helpfully.

"He walked up four flights of stairs with a cryptic message just to have a lie down? Wouldn't it have been easier to stay home in bed?"

"Spirited away?" she suggested, with only a hint of silliness. In our current inspired state this began to sound quite likely, at least more likely than my slipping down the stairs explanation. But something didn't fit.

And if he didn't slide out the door and he wasn't spirited away, that only left one conclusion - I had no idea what was going on.