"Well, Detective," said Madame Aude Amarante, with an appropriate sense of occasion  and challenge, "Can you do it? Can you solve the mystery?"

Yasaman remained silent. He met her beautiful eyes, held her gaze and curved a lip.

Aude Amarante spoke again.

"Can you expose the culprit? Can you reveal which of these men stole my tits?"

She gestured at her flat chest with two cupped hands, indicating where her tiddies had previously been. Honking and fondling the empty space in front of her silky blouse, before sweeping her arms around to encompass the suspects.

TWO TITS were missing from Aude Amarante's chest, and FIVE MEN stood accused of their theft. The sweeping motion of Amarante's arm and the unflinching gaze of Detective Ewan Yasaman took in each unlikely character in turn.

Bishop Phineas Omiros, last of the Neo-Basilideans.

Neil 'Arty' Suchart, born with seven kidneys.

Tal Aristotelis, Space Magistrate.

John Selwyn Gummer, Conservative MP for Lewisham West.

Sotos Heck, the failed stoichiologist. 

“Why yes, Madame Amarante,” Yassaman replied, “I do believe I can.”

None of the five men reacted. All of the five men wanted to react. The atmosphere in the rickety freight carriage constricted into a tighter tension. A particular tension that only came from five dignitaries in an enclosed space all trying not to react to something. Yassaman knew that tension all too well.

“You see what we look for in a case like this are three things…”

“You’re slipping, Yassaman,” Arty Suchart interjected. “The dame clearly said she was only down two teats.”

“Just two,” Amarante affirmed.

Yassaman ignored all this and continued.

“We look for means, motif, and opportunity.”

Tal Aristotelis hovered in close to the detective’s face. The carriage far from afforded the safe or efficient use of his jetpack, but still he persisted. Nobody was happy about it. The dirty straw which lined the floor could ignite at any time.

“You’re out of your depth, Yassaman,” he growled. “The dame clearly said it was her milkers that’ve gone astray. Not...whatever you just said.”

Amarante threw her arm around the detective’s shoulders, brought herself in close, and ear-whispered, “I’m afraid it’s true, Officer. You’ve misconstrued some of the most salient details of this affair. It’s my perky little paps that have been stolen. You must look for those. Not my means, motive, and opportunity. I don’t even know what those things are.”

Gently, Yassaman removed her arm. From his shoulder. Not from her shoulder. Madame Amarante’s arm remained very much attached to her herself. Unlike her slutbags.

“Means, motif, and opportunity are the conceptual apparatus that genius investigative policemen like myself use to solve crimes,” he explained, “Which of these fine gentlemen committed the crime? Why, whoever wins that three square bingo of Em, Em, and Oh.”

“And who might that be?”

Tal Aristotelis was still right up in Yassaman’s face. The Space Magistrate was not risking trying to operate his jetpack’s reverse setting, and the freight carriage offered limited room in which to turn. 

“Sure as beans meanz Heinz, ‘means’ means ‘ways.’ Which of these five men had a way in which they could have removed a lady’s breasts without her noticing?”

“Why they all could!” gasped the udderless lady in question, “Bishop Omiros’ sect holds mastery over anything for which they know the True Holy Name, and over cocktails last night I was foolish enough to divulge that mine chestbumps be named Silky and Sally.”

All eyes turned to the Bishop.

“Now hold on there!” he spluttered, “She said we all had ‘means.’ All of us!”

“That’s right. The Space Magistrate could have done it with Space lasers. The stoichiologist could have done it with stoichiology. The Tory could have done it with satan magic.”

“And I?” enquired Arty Suchart, “What ‘means’ had I?”

“Oh, I don’t know about you,” she conceded.

“And nor do I,” said Yassaman. “Which is to say… I don’t know what means you got, but I know you got means.”

With that the sleuth removed a renal scanner from his valise. The crow inside was still going berserk.

“Arty Suchart. Arty Suchart. What’s the one thing everyone knows about Arty Suchart?”

“You bastard,” Arty spat.

“Arty Suchart. Famous the world over for being born with seven kidneys. So how come this gizmo’s telling me you’re only carrying two on board nowadays? Huh? Maybe I don’t know what means you got for removing organs, but I damn sure know you got such means. You got the means to keep it hushed up too. To keep it real quiet. That puts you back in the frame, buddy. Square in the frame.”

“So what! Sounds like we’ve all got these ‘means’ of yours. Now what was the second thing? Motif?”

“Yeah, motif.”

“So what the hell is that?” asked Heck.

“A motif is a recurring theme or symbol in a work of art. In this case something that would associate the narrative of these men's lives, if considered as a work of art, with the symbology of the female-presenting jigglejug."

"Post-modern hogwash!" said Gummer.

"There can be no such symbol," said the Neo-Basilidean, who rejected visual signifiers in favour of a logocentric overestimation of linguistic symbology.

Yeah they would say that, figured Ewan Yasaman, because they would and they had. But he knew his criminology and these mooks couldn't say squat that'd throw him off that long straight road to Truth Town. The Detective had plenty to say of his own. He laid it all out for them real nice.

Bishop Phineas Omiros, last of the Neo-Basilideans, was married to a woman with breasts and had three daughters, all of whom had breasts.

Neil 'Arty' Suchart, born with seven kidneys, collected vintage magazines containing colour photographs of breasts.

Tal Aristotelis, Space Magistrate, had big naturals of his own.

John Selwyn Gummer, Conservative MP for Lewisham West, was a tit.

Sotos Heck, the failed stoichiologist, had been a victim of so-called ‘breast-feeding’ as a child.

"Five lives!" explained Yasaman, "And Mama's own 'mammary glands' looming large as a theme in each of them. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes indeed, gentlemen. Not a one of you lacks for motif."

"No idea what you're so pleased about. If we've all got means and motif, then you're no closer to cracking your case!"

"The magistrate's right," reflected Madame Aude Amarante, "Unless four of them lack opportunity, then this gets us nowhere."

"Four do," revealed Yasaman.

And he solved the case.

But before he does... CAN YOU?

Consider the clues.

• The contents of Yasaman's valise.
• The flooring of the train carriage.
• Nothing else really. Those are the only two helpful clues.

"Four of these men lack opportunity... because all five of these men lack opportunity."  

And with that he punched Madame Aude Amarante hard in the stomach.

She went down like a sack of straw.

Which was what she was.

"You, 'Madame' never had any Saucy Scones to steal. Because you are in fact... a scarecrow."

Gasps of shock from the exonerated grandees.

"Your purported purloined puppies were, like the rest of you, nothing but handfuls of dirty straw," the Zeroable Detective exposited, "Handfuls which you yourself removed from your own silky blouse and scattered on the floor to cause MAYHEM and INTRIGUE."

"Well, I never," said Arty Suchart.

Ewan Yasaman had done it again. The Zeroable Detective maintained his 100% success rate at solving crimes which hadn't been committed.