Don't Buy From Me, Argentina

Don't Buy From Me, Argentina is a fraud story set among polo players. Helen is hosting a party for a group of Argentinian players at Woodcote Park and falls for Raoul Gomez, a suave member of the party. Among the English guests is Merrily Curtis, whose husband, Aiden, hires Ken to watch her. She is easily influenced, he says, every man in the room fancies her, and he thinks she is having an affair.

Ken follows her and finds something else. Merrily, a local vet called David Rennet and one of the Argentinians, Celestino da Silva, are in a conspiracy. Merrily's horse, Deauville Dancer, is infertile, but Rennet has signed a certificate declaring it in perfect health. She sells the horse to da Silva, which fixes its value. In six months' time Rennet will have no choice but to put it down, and the insurance company will pay out.

The plan is to return da Silva's money when the insurance pays. Merrily does nothing of the kind. She leaves him the owner of an infertile horse and takes off by plane with his money, accompanied by another man.

Rocky has his own troubles. His bike is in the garage, and he has to ride around on a Honda 50 moped, which he regards as the ultimate indignity. An irascible old man in a wheelchair, Thomas Kilverton, asks him to collect a valuable painting from an auctioneer's. When he is stopped by the police for speeding, he discovers that his own name is on the receipt, which makes him the painting's legal owner.

Later a mysterious black car knocks him off the moped and the painting is stolen. Rocky tracks down the thief, who turns out to be Kilverton's ex-wife. Kilverton was trying to cut his alimony by pretending to sell off all his assets. In gratitude for the return of the painting and the exposure of the scheme, Mrs Kilverton gives Rocky a brand-new Yamaha 500.

Guy Meredith wrote the episode and Graeme Harper directs. Kenneth Cranham plays Aiden, Oliver Cotton plays Raoul, Sabina Franklyn plays Merrily, and Malcolm Stoddard is the vet.

The fraud is the strength of the Ken story. Selling an infertile horse to establish its worth is a clear, easily explained device, and the order of events, the sale first and the destruction six months later, makes Merrily's escape more cunning than the usual con. Her husband's jealousy is a decoy that sends Ken in the wrong direction at the start.

The weakness is that the culprits get away. The episode ends on Merrily's flight, and the people she has cheated are left without redress. The Rocky strand is lighter, with the pleasure of a gift of a better bike, though the series forgets the Yamaha by the next episode.