As a lonely and meaningless retirement beckons after 25 years on the force, the boys are given the task of finding 'The Black Widow' after a series of gruesome lonely hearts murders.

After 30 years of watching and waiting, Superintendent Cottam ropes the boys into helping him catch notorious bullion thief, Ronnie Richardson.

After mixing their drinks at the policemen's ball, Louis and Briggs confront a new horror involving a flasher, a Marquess and the commissioner's wife.

When forced to transfer into the Fine Arts Squad, our heroes are despatched to recover the latest artistic creation of 'enfant terrible' Hadyn Smailes - a pair of maracas, a tin of peaches and a fish tank of the artist's own urine.

Briggs and Louis are assigned a case protecting the eggs of a newly-discovered breeding pair of red kites. Teir lack of enthusiasm soon turns to panic as the eggs are stolen.

When Briggs and Louis investigate an attack on a top figure skater, the pair wind up on ice but fail to gain marks for artistic interpretation.