SPOILER ALERT: This blog is for those watching series one of Partners in Crime. Don’t read on if you haven’t seen episode four.
For the episode three recap, click here.
Now we know the Beresford universe, Partners in Crime can go fully Marple and launch straight into the crime of the week/fortnight. The new mystery involves the kidnapping of a top British scientist, Gilbert Worthing, a bomb specialist who was involved in the Manhattan Project. For those keen to learn more about the subject, get on iPlayer and watch The Race for the World’s First Atomic Bomb: A Thousand Days of Fear (BBC4). It’s a fascinating account of the scientific community holed-up in the New Mexico desert during the second world war, racing Hitler to build the atom bomb.
Meanwhile, in rainy London, Tommy and Tuppence are all spiffed-up for a date, he in a tux and she in fur, heading for the opera in Covent Garden. First they must meet Carter in an unlikely looking drinking den to pitch him their new business idea for a wig emporium.
Obviously, their trip to the opera quickly becomes rather more The Man Who Knew Too Much, my model for all “Aargh, I’m out of my depth” dramas of this nature. David Walliams is Jimmy Stewart and from here on in, I’m going to imagine Jessica Raine as Doris Day because she has something of the latter’s primness that sort of works here. Their contact, Harrison, is apparently poisoned before he has a chance to pass on his vital message about the leak on the Third Floor. Then it turns out he was the wrong Harrison.
The man they assume to be the right Harrison is the handsome fellow who caught Tuppence’s eye in the circle bar, but he looks troubled, drops his umbrella and hurries away. This week’s mystery twitches into life and extra British bunting points for the dropping of that most British of clues, the umbrella. It’s also a brilliant excuse for the Beresfords to visit that real bastion of Britishness, Smith & Sons umbrella shop, which is still on New Oxford Street in London to this day.
It’s another week where the Beresfords dance around each other, concealing information with each trying to fathom what the other is up to. Add in a truck-load of piqued jealousy (which they seem to use as a replacement for actually having a sex life) and you’ve got a recipe for marital disaster. The amount this pair lie to one another can’t be good for their relationship.
And talking of love, they visit Albert at school and find him flirting with a drama teacher. “Chemistry?” asks Tuppence, excited at Albert’s hidden depths. He soon reveals that the shirt they have brought in for testing shows traces of cyanide. A poisoning! Hoorah.
Gilbert Worthing, our missing scientist, is known to Albert because they were at Cambridge together (obviously). Worthing would only have been taken for one reason – his expertise with atoms. Which means bombs. Their country really is in dreadful peril if the supposed Russian agent, N or M, gets hold of what he’s making.
After their foggy pursuit and the near-assassination of Tuppence, Tommy has another entirely human “it’s too dangerous” moment as he tells his wife about the latest postcard from George. It has to be something extraordinary that pulls them back to the danger each time and this week it’s a note from the real Harrison, instructing them where and when to meet him. As they rendezvous with him, he is knocked over by a truck driven by that mean blonde woman who also lurked nearby at the opera.
When Carter later comes to interrogate them, Tommy volunteers to take the heat for them both, as if Carter could administer anything more than a firm ticking off or a denial of sherry privileges. All Carter cares about is the source of the leak on the Third Floor. Is it M or N?
Tommy obfuscates wildly after Carter’s “for your ears only” briefing, trying to pull the wool over Tuppence’s eyes when she twigs he has a new mission. She knows him too well and isn’t fooled for a second. Their county needs them and they must heed the call. Even if one of them did hear it through a glass tumbler and the upstairs floorboards.
And so to a seaside guesthouse for some truly Christie sleuthing as a veritable Cleudo board of characters lines up as the potential Russian spy. Tuppence wastes no time in getting compromised in the major’s wardrobe and Tommy is caught snooping by the predatory Mrs Sprott. His birdwatching cover story unravels quickly as it becomes obvious everyone at the guest house has an intimate knowledge of warbler species. Was this just on the syllabus in the 40s and 50s?
Once again we leave Tuppence in desperate peril, her husband unaware of her plight, as another thrilling cliffhanger rounds off the episode.
Case notes
- Excuse the cod-psychology, but I can only conclude that the Beresfords are using the thrill of espionage as a sex substitute.
- I don’t know how they made George but the twin beds in their marital bedchamber suggest they are more brother and sister than husband and wife.
- Tuppence often ogles other men (see Harrison at the opera) but Tommy is always a deer in headlights when less than 3ft from any woman.
- My friend once took his brolly to Smith & Sons for repair and they sent it to Italy for specialist treatment.
