A Public Body

One cocked hat, one red robe trimmed with black rabbit and one silver-gilt chain with a gold and enamel knobbly bit at the end... Eddathorpe's mayoral regalia has disappeared in the possession of Councillor William 'Klondike Bill' Lynch, a colourful drunk who has devised the perfect revenge on Eddathorpe's new mayor, his much-detested second wife Muriel. But the joke's not funny when Muriel Lynch turns up dead, with the regalia - and Klondike Bill - carefully arranged in the next room. And less funny still when Robert Graham's least-loved superior officer arrests Bill for a murder he probably didn't commit...