Clue of the Silver Key

Police superintendent Meredith (Bernard Lee) and his younger partner Sgt. Anson (Stanley Morgan) have two disparate murders to solve: one an alcoholic waiter (Sam Kydd) found shot in the street with a large sum of cash in his pocket, the other a grouchy old blind man (Finlay Currie) who refuses to let his niece (Jennifer Daniel) marry artist Lyndon Brook.

Bernard Lee plays a crusty inspector heading the case of two murders which, he believes, are linked, and they suitably quite baffling. So baffling that you are keen to know the truth. Hence, that's the hook in this fairly pacy little British mystery thriller that features grand performances, especially by Lee and Finley Currie. The mystery gets rounded up with a neat finale where the killer is revealed.

I love this series for its cool early 60s interiors. In this one, a suspect is a painter, and I'd really like to buy something from his "impressionist period". His friend and agent Hennessy has another up in his office. Otherwise, there are room dividers, rubber plants and wallpaper with silhouettes of chyrsanthemums - or was that in another in the series? Anyway, rich old money lender Finlay Currie doesn't want his niece to marry the handsome, penniless painter. Everybody is peeved with everybody else all the time, and the dialogue is quite Pinteresque, especially as it's impossible to work out what's going on. Patrick Cargill is excellent as the butler, and Bernard Lee as the man from Scotland Yard. Here he has a sergeant Anson and a dim PC called Quigley. What happened to Sgt Pepper?