Of Meissen Men

Of Meissen Men starts as a missing-person inquiry and ends as a sting. Marion Kershaw wants Ken to find her husband, Geoff, who is in the import and export business. Ken soon learns that Geoff owes money to the taxman, and at the squash court Geoff uses he finds a holdall containing a large sum of cash, a false passport and a gun.

The police have an explanation. Kershaw is wanted over an antiques smuggling ring that steals valuable pieces around the country and sends them abroad. Ken's inquiry has landed in the middle of a police investigation.

Ken and Harry decide to help. They stage a fake robbery at Woodcote Park so that they have stolen antiques to tempt the smugglers with. The local contact turns out to be Eric Beveridge, an antiques dealer who has just sold Helen some chairs for the hotel.

The missing-person story, it becomes clear, was always a cover. Geoff and Marion meet at a deserted quarry, with Harry and the police following. Beveridge takes Ken to the same place, where Marion recognises him. After a chase, Beveridge and the Kershaws are arrested. Helen then catches Ken and Harry as they are returning the antiques they borrowed for the sting.

Harry's other trouble is two men in a van in the Woodcote grounds. They look as though they are digging for Civil War relics, and Harry orders them off in blunt terms. In fact they are preparing for sheepdog trials, which they have held there every year since Helen's late husband invited them. When Harry learns that one of them is a viscount, played by Martin Clunes, his manner changes at once.

Douglas Watkinson wrote the script and Frank W. Smith directs. Wanda Ventham plays Marion, and Peter Kelly is the dealer Beveridge. The title plays on Meissen, the porcelain, and the antiques are what the plot turns on.

The strength is the double use of the client. Marion hires Ken to find a husband she knows perfectly well how to reach, and the inquiry he runs for her becomes the trap that closes on her. It also gives Ken and Harry a game to play together, which is when the series is at its best.

The weakness is in the gag at the end. Helen catching the pair as they replace the antiques is a stock comic beat, and the episode has not set it up with much care. Harry's snobbery in the sheepdog story is the better joke, because it is true to the character: he is rude to two scruffy strangers and charming to a peer. It is an enjoyable if unremarkable case.