Three Cons Make a Mountain

Three men Arthur has conned in the past decide to pool their grievances and get their own back. It is the sort of plot that could only happen to a man who has conned enough people to form a committee.

Arthur is drawn into a card game for serious money and comes out of it with a Trabant, a car that loses value just by existing. At an auction he thinks he is buying furniture and ends up with a greyhound that has never won anything and shows no signs of starting. Then Ray sells a car, taking a piano in part-exchange because he thinks it is rare, and it proves to be worth about a hundred pounds. Arthur, to his credit, takes ten minutes to work out that he is being played, and sets about turning the tables.

The greyhound turns out to have value at a stud farm. The Trabant is sold back to the man who sold it to Arthur, at ten thousand pounds. The piano goes to the Winchester, where Dave can enjoy it. David Ryall plays Ashley Brown, the business rival waiting to broadcast Arthur's gullibility around the manor, Dermot Crowley is Nick Rutherford, Allie Byrne is Lucy, Geoffrey Greenhill is Big Mike and Terence Harvey is the auctioneer. David Yallop and Leon Griffiths wrote it; Mike Vardy directed.

There is a lovely symmetry to the whole thing, three cons built to trap Arthur and each one dismantled and turned to his advantage. You could read it as a moral lesson about honesty. The truer lesson is that you should never underestimate a man who treats losing as a starting point.

And the best joke is that the conmen spend the episode doing Arthur's best work for him. Everything they sell him turns out to be worth more than they thought, which must sting.