1 {scene: Pleydell-Smith's office in Kingston, Jamaica}
1 Stud: So Strangways was last seen alive at your bridge game at the Queen's Club? Who else played?
2 Pleydell-Smith: Professor Dent, a metallurgist who runs a test laboratory, respected, clean bill. Potter, old general, ex Indian Army, been here for ages.
3 Stud: Case solved. It was Potter!
3 Pleydell-Smith: But he has a gammy leg, and we were with him the whole time!
4 Stud: Er... Dent then?
4 Pleydell-Smith: Perhaps you'd better meet them first...

We return to James Stud and the Espionage theme, for the first time since #486. He's still in that meeting with the Governor's representative in Jamaica, from Dr No.

It's interesting recreating the same set as before, some three months later. I had to rebuild the whole thing by looking at the previous strip - although in this case it's quite a simple set, so it wasn't difficult. (Yes, an extra leaf has grown on the plants outside the window since last time. This has been a long meeting.)

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2013-09-04 Rerun commentary: Interestingly enough, in the actual movie on which this theme is based, it was Professor Dent who was largely responsible for the disappearance of Strangways. So James Stud's deductive powers are not entirely without merit here!

I never had room to keep many sets built and commonly dismantled them immediately after photographing a strip. Which meant that I had to rebuild and recreate sets by looking at old strips more times than you might imagine would be necessary. The only set I really kept built all the time was the Legacy bridge from the Space theme.