Dead Dogs Don't Bark

At the suggestion of the local rabbi, Delia Rich, a health club owner, asks Danny and Frank to act as private detectives. Her husband Ronnie has been accused of a major art theft, and the aim is to keep him out of handcuffs. Frank and Polish Joe handle the logistics and get Ronnie safely out of the country, earning a £5,000 bonus for their trouble.

But where Frank sees a job done, Danny sees an art theft he could carry out himself, and he decides to press on with it. The clean extraction turns messy because one of the rescuers decides the crime is too good to waste. The irony is that Danny was hired to prevent a theft, and he ends up the one carrying it out.

It is a familiar shape for the series: Frank does the decent thing, Danny does the Danny thing, and Carol and the rest of the club tidy up around them. WDC Tilly Spink watches from an official distance. The rabbi's involvement is the sort of detail that makes the show feel like a neighbourhood, everyone recommending everyone else.

The art theft gives the hour its gloss. The Kanes have been in every line of work by now, but fine art is a new shelf in the shop, and Danny approaches it with the confidence of a man who has never been caught. Pamela Salem plays Delia, and George Little's Ronnie is the man whose luck has finally run out.

Murray Smith wrote it, Ken Hannam directed. Leslie Grantham, Don Henderson, Pamela Salem, George Little, Leon Herbert, Barbara Wilshere, Peter Gowen, Kevin Short, Oona Kirsch and Burnell Tucker make up the cast.

The title is the moral. Dead dogs don't bark, and Ronnie Rich, safely abroad, cannot say anything. Danny, meanwhile, is the live dog who never learns when to shut up.