Like the signs of the Zodiac, the months of the year, the Apostles, inches per foot, the days of Christmas, the original tribes of Israel, and the number of players the Dallas Cowboys have on the field when they are penalized for an extra man, the number of obligatory stock characters in British mystery fiction is finite, being exactly twelve. While the origins of this sacred number are lost in the mists of antiquity, scholars believe that these stock characters may once have had mystical associations for pantheistic cultures and are hangovers from older, more savage forms of literature. Or maybe that's just a bunch of hooey invented for a dissertation. You be the judge.

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1. The Butler. He may be tall, cadaverous, and dour, with a prim attitude toward alcohol, or he may be chubby, friendly to a fault, and chatty, with liberal attitudes concerning the grape (he may even have passed out). But he may not be the guy who did it. If he knows anyting of significance about the murder, he'll either zip his lip out of loyalty to The Family or he'll gossip with the police, completely content for the first time in his employment.

2. The Vicar. Same character options as the Butler. The only differences are that he doesn't answer the door and he writes sermons. Plus, although this part is not obligatory, his vocabulary is usually not as good as the Butler's.

3. The Woman in Red. The color may manifest itself on a convertible, a dress, or the debit side of the ledger. She is irrelevant to the story, but not to the tradition.

4. The Police Officer. He is so dimwitted, oblivious, or consumed by arrogance that, without the assistance of the amateur detective, he cannot see the murder weapon glued to the drain pipe, with a note that says, "Hey, somebody tell that copper this is a CLUE!"

5. The Deceased's Attorney. For years he's been waiting to unload the will's nasty little surprise, with a coiled spitefulness of unique purity.

6. The Nervous Nephew. Being British, he's never been really comfortable with the Fifth Amendment, and he goes around saying the most remarkably stupid and self-culpatory things. We wish he were the murderer; alas, he rarely is. But, we can always hope gets run over by a lorry.

7. The Dithery Old Lady. She spouts a running commentary on the strange "goings on" at Smithfield Manor and how such behavior would not have been tolerated in her day (never specifying when that was exactly), and it turns out that when her garden of verbiage is weeded at the end of the story she's the only one who spotted the uncouth mannerism that clearly labelled the killer, thus proving we should listen to our elders.

8. The Rake. He slithers through the story, uttering poisonous and highly erudite insults while sipping cocktails and smoking expensive French cigarettes. He is always a red herring, for no court in England would hang a man who expresses himself better than Alexander Pope.

9. The Siren. She speaks with an unidentifiable foreign accent and flirts with everyone in sight, including the Dithery Old Lady and excepting only the Butler and the Policeman. She turns out to be a thrice-divorced American social climber who could not possibly have done the murder because the deceased was not taken out with a semi-automatic gun the size of a cannon and purchased in the Bronx.

10. The Sensible Englishwoman. She rides to hounds, can tell rye grass from timothy, and smells like a beagle. She's fishy from the start because no seasoned reader likes completely healthful living, tweed, and dullness.

11. The Male Secretary. He reeks of ruthless competence and is the younger son of an Irish Earl. He's in love with the Sensible Englishwoman, so we suspect he'll turn out to be the killer because it's so obvious that the Rake will marry the Beagle, er, the Sensible Englishwoman, after he crushes her in his arms and tells her she's just the sort of bitch he's been looking for.

12. The Awful Young Poet. He embarrasses everyone but the Siren by composing verses to her that include metaphors about lanterns and being lost at sea on her alabaster skin.

*These items are available by catalogue order only and are on sale until the end of this month. Send a cheque with your order to:

Dr. John Worthing
6 Lon Caron
Cwmgwyn
Swansea SA2 OTW
Great Britain

Submitted by Polly Whitney, who's inviting everyone over to her house to see the 3,000 color slides she took during her last visit to the British Isles, including a really good one of a Chinese laundry in London that was once the home of Daniel Defoe.