Lucky Streak

Dempsey happens to be at a casino when it is robbed and a security guard is murdered, so Spikings tells him to wake Makepeace in the middle of the night and get the investigation started. And there is no gentle easing into this one. It begins with a corpse on the floor of a gaming house and a room full of people with reasons to keep their mouths shut. The title is the episode's little joke: Dempsey's presence at the scene is lucky for the case and very unlucky for his sleep.

The setting does most of the work, and it is a good one. A casino is a closed room where everyone has something to hide, which is a gift to a detective story and a trap for the detectives trying to get a straight answer out of it. Dempsey and Makepeace work the evidence among the machines and the patrons, and the episode keeps its focus tight, which suits the pair at this stage of their partnership, still learning how the other one thinks.

Dave Humphries wrote it, Tony Wharmby directed, his third week running on the season. The guest cast carries the case: Christopher Strauli as Jamie Bessel, Peter Cleall as Stephen Crane, Robert Austin as Peter Ferris, Tony Stephens as Nick, Raymond Brody as Prince Razul, with Tim Stone's cashier and Genevieve Allenbury's Roz James in the corners, and Greg Powell and Trevor Ray dropping by. Ray Smith's Spikings dispatches the pair with the briskness of a man who is not going back to sleep either.

It is an early-series pleasure, the two leads sealed into a smoky room with a body and told to sort it out. Prince Razul alone is worth the price of admission, a name that belongs in a different, sillier show. The puzzle is decent, but the real sport is watching the partnership find its feet in the middle of it.