Crossed Swords

"Crossed Swords" is a fencing story with a family feud at its heart, and it gives the sixth series one of its most satisfying puzzles. The Lefevre brothers, Jack and Alain, run a fencing school on Jersey and are opening the family crypt, where their ancestor Francois duelled Jean-Michel Roussillon in secret and was buried with a pair of Marie-Antoinette swords. The ceremony, filmed for television, is watched by Paul Roussillon — the descendant of the man who lost — who confronts the brothers and slaps Jack across the face, challenging him. The old feud is alive, and the weapons are out of the grave.

Edwin Pearce's script, directed by David Carson, is a murder mystery built on duelling honour. Paul and Jack meet on the beach for a proper duel; Jack draws blood twice but Paul, insisting it must be to the death, refuses to stop. The next morning Paul is missing, and his body is found in his car halfway down a cliff — the car in neutral, no skid marks. The obvious suspect is Jack; the obvious motive is the duel; and the obvious solution, the episode keeps insisting, is wrong.

Ronald Pickup plays Paul with a cold, wounded pride that explains the feud without excusing it. The real story, when it emerges, is domestic: Paul was going to cut his cousin Marianne — Jack's girlfriend, twice ladies' world fencing champion — out of the family fortune, and when he came to the school to taunt her as a cheap whore, she killed him. Jack arrived afterwards and tried to make it look like an accident. Alain, meanwhile, has been quietly stealing the swords and selling out the school to build an entertainment complex around it.

The climax is the best fight scene the series ever staged: Marianne, armed with a sword, attacking Bergerac with real skill while he defends himself with a shield and dodges, until Jack's shout distracts her and Bergerac overpowers her. Crozier, Willy and Ben arrive with Alain under arrest. The episode ends with Bergerac recuperating at his cottage and Susan, anxious about his wounds, turning up — the first thaw in a relationship the season has been testing. A sharp, elegant hour about honour, family and the violence that hides behind both.