Daddy's Girl

Daddy's Girl is a country-house comedy in which every secret turns out to be known to the person it was meant to be kept from. Ken and Harry are guarding Upper Ridley Hall for a big society wedding, between Kate, the daughter of Sir Alan and Lady Tessa Bolton, and Rupert, a Belgian count.

Sir Alan asks Ken to keep a quiet eye on one of his houseguests, Johnny Hunter, a suave man with an Austin Healey. Ken senses tension. Why is Hunter taking such an interest in Kate, and why is Lady Tessa so evasive about him? Why is Kate making secret phone calls, and who is the man she meets late at night?

Harry has a separate puzzle. Patrolling the grounds, he sees two men stalking one of Sir Alan's stags. The estate manager, Philip Braithwaite, does not seem to take it seriously, and Harry begins to suspect him of involvement. He follows an estate van to a ruined chapel where he finds the poachers keep their stores.

Ken sees Lady Tessa wrapping some of the family's paintings and later hears Hunter threatening her and carrying away the parcel. When he challenges her, she denies it, until Ken tells her that he has seen Hunter selling the paintings at an antique shop. She admits that Hunter is blackmailing her: he is Kate's father and is threatening to tell Sir Alan. Ken tells Hunter that he will give his evidence to the police unless the family is left alone.

Hunter has one more trick. He tries to blackmail Rupert, threatening to tell Sir Alan so that the wedding will be called off and Kate will not inherit. Rupert, who was marrying for her money, cancels the wedding when he learns that Kate will lose it.

On the night before the wedding, Kate tricks Rocky into going with her to the ruined chapel and has him conduct a mock wedding between her and Braithwaite, with whom she has been having an affair, while Ken and Harry are watching the chapel in the hope of catching the poachers. Kate and Braithwaite elope in her Morris Traveller. When Hunter turns up to make his great revelation, Sir Alan tells him he has always known he was not Kate's father and still means to leave her his house and money.

Jane Hollowood wrote the episode and Nicholas Laughland directs, with Lionel Jeffries as Sir Alan, Susannah York as Lady Tessa, and Nicholas Jones as Hunter. Thrumpton Hall stood in for Upper Ridley Hall.

The strength is the last scene. The blackmailer's whole case collapses in a sentence, and the baronet he has been threatening turns out to be the only person in the house who was not deceived. The weakness is that the poachers, who start the episode, are dropped when the wedding plot takes over.