Holding the Baby

Lovejoy buys a tatty nineteenth-century kitchen cabinet for a song, after getting advice from a Caribbean specialist, knowing full well that after restoration it is a valuable antique dresser. Then the owners con Beth into parting with it, and the bargain turns into a recovery job. Beth's mother administers hypnosis, and under it Beth recalls who took the piece: the trail leads to the shady dealer Oliver Jeffries. The Caribbean specialist is Duke Garvey, played by Oscar James, and his advice sets the bargain rolling.

By coincidence, Charlotte, who is minding a friend's baby and having mixed feelings about the whole arrangement, gets accidentally locked inside Jeffries' shop overnight. The two threads knot together pleasingly: a stolen dresser, a babysitter trapped in the thief's premises, and Beth confronting the truth of her own gullibility. Lovejoy regains his property, which is the important thing, and is not at all pleased to receive a visit from the tax man at the end of it all. The episode aired on 27 November 1994, and Charlotte's accidental night inside Jeffries' shop keeps the two plots bumping against each other until the end.

Ian La Frenais, Jonathan Gash and Paul Alexander wrote it, Baz Taylor directed. Ian McShane is Lovejoy, Dudley Sutton is Tinker Dill, Caroline Langrishe is Charlotte Cavendish, and Diane Parish is Beth Taylor. Gavin Richards plays Oliver Jeffries, Oscar James is Duke Garvey, David Battley is Norman Ebersley, Albert Welling is Brian Newton, Corinne Skinner-Carter is Alice Taylor, and Maggie Ollerenshaw is Kate Henshaw.

The episode does what the series does best: a modest object, a con, and a rescue, with the regulars bickering and rallying in their usual proportions. The dresser is restored to its rightful owner, the baby survives the night in Jeffries' shop, and the tax man, as ever, ruins a perfectly good ending.