Many writers have shared their thoughts with the public:

"There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you." - Beatrix Potter

"The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say." - Anaïs Nin

"Sharing your writing, being enlarged by others' writing, is what makes you feel famous." - Gretchen Bernabei

"Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth." - Edna Ferber

"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing." - Ben Franklin

"One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones to form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment." - Hart Crane

"There are three rules for writing. Unfortunately, no one can agree what they are." - W. Somerset Maugham

The Nigerian Affair

JS Investigations we called ourselves, and at the time of the Nigerian affair were borrowing money from our parents to maintain our minuscule office in Bay Road in the sleepy seaside suburb of Sandringham. Sandy, the locals call it, which is unfortunately not a synonym for Crime City. My best friend Jonas Adamson had been a fanatic Sherlockian since he was a kid, and decided to get his PI licence and set up in practice the minute he failed his engineering studies. I'd become his partner because he said it would be interesting, and because every other career I'd considered would require me to work. Our arrangement was however tenuous, because I was beginning to think I was only there so he could call me Watson rather than Sebastian when he wanted to pontificate. We were still working nights at our old jobs, Jonas at the Moorabbin McDonald's and me at the local Coles supermarket, which tells you something about our level of business success.

I was brooding on my finances – the term 'intangible assets' sprang to mind - when to my astonishment a potential client entered the office. Jonas had been at the milk bar next door but managed to bustle in, tell her who he was, and offer her a chair all before I could get my feet off our desk.

She introduced herself as Irene Rutherford. A slim woman, with dark hair cut short, aged somewhere in her forties, she looked surprisingly familiar for somebody I'd never met before. Suddenly it struck me she was in fact a double for Sandra Connaught, daughter of a recently deceased mining billionaire, and now one of the richest people in Australia. I doubt I'd have made the connection but for Ms Connaught's recent appearance in the news as a celebrity convert to Buddhism.

Miss Rutherford apologised for troubling us, which was quite unnecessary given she could be our first ever client who wasn't a family member.

"I got your names from a nephew of mine, Clive Ferris. He had a big smile on his face when he said you were detectives, but he did promise I could trust you, and I'd be very nervous picking somebody myself. You are detectives, aren't you?"

"Indeed we are, Miss Rutherford," said Jonas, steepling his fingers in an annoying way he'd picked up from Robert Downey Junior in one of the Holmes films.

"Oh dear ...". She hesitated. "There's something I doubt the police would take seriously, but I'd still like to be sure I'm not being silly."

"We are renowned for our discretion." Renowned? For our discretion?

She took a deep breath.

“I'm afraid you'll think I'm a most ridiculously naïve person, but I may as well tell you everything. It started with an email from somebody who said he was using the name William Barsoom, which was a pseudonym he'd adopted to hide what he was doing from a crime syndicate threatening his family. He said he was a wealthy man and very senior in the Nigerian government.”

Unbelievable, I thought, only we could manage to have a job prospect disappear while it was being described.

“I know what you must be thinking," she said hurriedly, "but right at the start the email said ‘please Miss Rutherford do not ignore this message. I am aware your initial reaction might be one of suspicion, but I was given your name by Dr John Forester from Monash, and I assure you I can be trusted'. I know Dr Forester well, which is why I was a bit interested. Perhaps it was foolish, but I emailed back and said I was sorry about his problems but they didn’t seem to have anything to do with me. I thought if he asks for money or personal details I’ll know it’s a fraud for sure."

"Very sensible," said Jonas. She seemed like a nice person, so I hoped he wasn't being sarcastic.

"Well, I don't know about that. I live rather a dull life, and I remember thinking this was at least something different. And then he sent me another email saying he'd acquired my bank details, that he was sorry to compromise my privacy, but to show goodwill he'd credited a thousand dollars to me without any obligation. Sure enough it was there when I checked. Oh, and he said as soon as our business was over I should close my account."

For the first time, I felt a little curious about what was going on. The Nigerian frauds are famous, but I'd never heard of the fraudsters investing money in a victim before.

"Has there been anything more?" asked Jonas. "I assume the business he mentioned means he wants you to do something for him?"

“He has some key documents in a secure box in a Melbourne bank. He can't leave Nigeria at the moment, so he wants me to take a flight to Lagos on Wednesday and then be at the airport bistro at exactly eleven fifty pm after I arrive on Thursday night. He'll be there to meet me, tell me what the box number is, and provide me with proof I'm acting as his representative. When I come back and get the documents I'll be able to help at the Australian end with getting him and his family out of Nigeria. He said he's putting his entire future in my hands, but based on our dealings so far he trusts me completely."

"Did he explain why Dr Forester couldn't do this for him? Rather than involve you, I mean?"

"He - Dr Forester – is on sabbatical somewhere in Chile and William says this is very urgent."

William? Next we'd be talking about Bill.

"Of course. Is there anything else?"

"Well, he's already sent me the plane tickets for a round trip and transferred another thousand dollars to cover my expenses. My expenses! What are they?"

This sounded really peculiar to me. Since when do Nigerian fraudsters actually want people to go there?

“And this bistro?" said Jonas. "Is it secluded or reasonably public?”

He always goes off at a tangent when he wants to sound like Sherlock. My role will be a lot higher profile in our next case, and I'll ask much better questions.

“He reassured me we'll be in a quiet corner, but the place is essentially open-plan and other people will be around. At no time will I be asked to go anywhere I don’t wish to go. I'm not at all well off anyway, so he can't be after my money.”

“William has certainly gone to an unusual amount of trouble. I assume you would like me – us – to assess the situation and check whether something untoward is going on?"

"Yes."

It was already Monday, so obviously she hadn't given us enough notice to do any investigating. Too bad, not that there was anything we could have done anyway.

"Leave it with us," said Jonas. "If you'd like to come back in two hours, we'll have an answer for you then."

"My goodness!" she said. So did I.

"We can't do this to her," I said when she'd left. "What can you possibly say about a scam like that?"

"My dear Watson, you must listen and learn."

"Do you know how much you're getting on my wick with this Watson bullshit?"

"No, but I'm beginning to understand why Holmes never worked with an Australian."

I let that one go.

"So what are we going to do?"

"I'm going to talk, you're going to listen, then we'll do a little basic research and report to Miss Rutherford."

"You can't mean that. Just tell her she's an idiot and we can move on."

"Listen." He produced a patient sigh. "I'm going to run through a few points and see if you come to the same conclusions as do I."

"Yeah, whatever."

"First off, are you aware there have been rumours of a major platinum find in Nigeria?"

"No."

"Wonderful. I presume your unawareness extends to the speculation around a small Australian mining company known as Platex which highlighted platinum opportunities in its prospectus?"

"It certainly does."

He looked at me curiously.

"I never see you working, so what on earth do you do with your time?"

"I don't fart around reading the business pages, that's for sure."

"Let me take you further then. What's the most important thing we know about our client?"

"She's incredibly gullible?"

"Gullible about what? So far she's made two thousand dollars for doing absolutely nothing."

"She thinks Nigeria is a country?"

We both chuckled. An American senator had recently distinguished himself by telling the world only educated people knew Africa was a country. Yet again Jonas steepled his fingers, and I wondered how I could break one of them.

"The answer is her resemblance to Sandra Connaught. Couple that with the fact Miss Connaught is currently on a religious retreat in Bendigo. What does that tell us?"

"The world is full of nutbags?"

He shook his head like a man avoiding a fly. "Is that your contribution? Now …"

"She's some sort of recluse, too, isn’t she? The Connaught woman, I mean."

"Yes." He thought for a moment. "Very good, yes. Not a complete idiot then. That's actually quite important."

"Aha!" I did my gorilla impression, pounding my chest and grunting for a banana.

He rolled his eyes, then grinned. "Let's not get carried away with a fluke. Now, consider Mr Barsoom's concern with punctuality and the eleven fifty meeting and let me explain what I think will happen."

"Would you stop if I said no? "

"I believe a photographer will take pictures ostensibly of Sandra Connaught at a clandestine meeting in a Lagos bistro with people who could be miners. This will be at a time equivalent to nine fifty am in Sydney. The Sydney stock exchange opens at ten. I expect the pictures to be anonymously uploaded onto the Internet, aiming to tempt people aware of Platex, Nigerian platinum, and the wealthiest mining magnate in Australia to put two and two together in a speculative manner. There will be no worries about them not seeing the pictures because there will be lots of 'gosh, look at this' messages all over the web. Throw in the likelihood some cynical people will suspect the reclusive Miss Connaught claimed to be on retreat so she could sneak unnoticed over to Nigeria, and we would have the ingredients for a feeding frenzy on Platex shares, which are currently trading very cheaply."

Maybe he had something. "So a possible scam. Would it be worth anything much?"

"It's a gamble. It might work, it might not. If it doesn't they're out the few thousand dollars they've been prepared to risk."

"Yes, yes, OK, it mightn't work. But if it did? And please please don't do that poncy thing with your fingers again."

"It helps me think." He did it again, of course. "There are well over a hundred million Platex shares in circulation, and there's been a lot of volatility in the stock price, probably our friends putting in some ground work. The shares are now …" He fiddled with his Ipad. "Twenty cents. So if they got a real run going and pushed it up a dollar or two they'd be laughing. They're risk-takers because they must have bought plenty of stock already, but they obviously think it's worth it."

I sat back.

"It sounds a bit haphazard."

"As I said, I doubt they're risking much. If nothing signficant happens they'll sell the shares they bought and walk away. When you consider that international travel has barely restarted in conjunction with the fact the whole thing must have been triggered by somebody noticing a chance resemblance, it's high-class opportunism. Most impressive."

"So what do we do, stop our client going? Won't that mean there was never a crime?"

"There is an alternative," he said slowly.

"Tell the police?"

He smiled.

"What an extraordinary idea. You said yourself there's been no crime. All they've done so far is give Miss Rutherford money and invest in a minnow company."

He had a sneaky expression on his face.

"What?" I said.

"Listen, Seb." I'm never Watson when he wants me to do something I won't like. "How much money are you making?"

"Working at Coles? That can't be a real question."

"Correct. And we both know how much the McDonald brothers are showering on me. So what I suggest is we pool our resources and invest in Platex stock at an opportune price."

"But … but surely that would be a crime, wouldn't it?" I thought for a moment. "Would Sherlock do it?"

"My dear young fellow, pray remember concepts of right and wrong, honesty and crime are now far more fluid than they were in Victorian England. Think of how our politicians operate. In practice we'd be doing nothing criminal, merely investing in the stock market as every patriotic Australian should."

"What would we tell Miss Rutherford?"

I concede Jonas is a good judge of character and he was all for candour. To my astonishment Miss Rutherford – "please call me Irene" – proved to be as venal as us. She thought it would be the most interesting thing she'd ever done and asked me what could go wrong. I'd barely begun my answer before she laughed excitedly, patted me on the back, and said Jonas had told her I was a real worrier. So I was in cahoots with a man reliving the nineteenth century, and a woman going to Nigeria to see a man about an email.

We expunged records of our meetings with her from the books, then Jonas and I borrowed even more money from our parents, Irene chipped in, and we managed to buy eighty-odd thousand Platex shares over the next few days at an average cost of nineteen cents. Naturally with none of them in Irene's name. With our preparations complete, she went to Lagos and presented herself at the bistro at the scheduled time.

We sold when the shares hit two dollars ten shortly after twelve on the Friday afternoon, a few hours before the ASX suspended trade in the stock. More than a hundred and fifty thousand in profit! Even with our morally challenged parents taking their cut we did nicely. The Fraud squad has been combing through weeks of transactions trying to work out what happened, including why we suddenly decided to become investors, but we only acted on a rumour about platinum and there's nothing illegal about that, officer.

Irene has been under enormous pressure, but she gave the police the emails and showed how bewildered she was. With no Platex shares to her name, she's a thoroughly innocent party.

We've made her a partner – a sleeping partner, no need to publicise our arrangements given the circumstances - and with our first real foray into detective work so successful, we're reviewing our business model.