Episode Twelve – "A Dubious Pairing"
 

Temple : Do you know what I think?

Sir Graham : Let me guess, Temple, you think that Mr McLean and Mr Grantham conspired to kill their two best friends so they could inherit their fortunes and become extremely wealthy gentlemen…

Temple : No.

Steve : You mean the hypothesis that Sir Graham Forbes of Scotland Yard expounded regarding the identity of Alan – the blackmailer believed to be persecuting the population of the village of Bendaton in addition to the kidnapping of Dennis Brent and the murders of Donald Brent and Jeff Wicks – and which has been in the minds of the listeners for a whole week, troubling them day and night, is not true and can be dismissed so disappointingly easily?

Temple : Yes.

Steve : Oh Paul!

(jolly laughter)

Sir Graham : Well, what’s your theory, Temple?

Temple : I think that it is a simple case of two shallow and greedy men coming together at a time of crisis and deciding they could save money by pooling their accommodation. Mr McLean was no doubt assisting Mr Grantham’s move to Donald Brent’s former home.

Dennis Brent : You mean to say that my late brother’s house, which may have two fewer bedrooms than my own modest mansion but is never the less and extremely valuable property, has been bequeathed to this… person?

Liam McLean : I beg your pardon. I am perfectly entitled to sub let Donald Brent’s accommodation since I am now the legal owner.

Dennis Brent : It is in rather poor taste.

Grantham : This bungalow has so many unpleasant memories of Wicks.

Dennis Brent : Surely you must have some good memories of him. He wasn’t all bad.

Grantham : I meant being reminded of him was unpleasant. I am in mourning – he only died a couple of hours ago.

Dennis Brent : A misunderstanding for which I will send another note of apology.

Grantham : Don’t forget to send it to my new address – Shatner Towers, Filmeigh Hole, Firkinside.

Dennis Brent : I am aware of its location. Though I fully intend to challenge my brother’s will in a court of law. I cannot, in all conscience, allow the men who may well have murdered him to occupy what is a sacred part of the Brent family’s heritage. That house should, by right, be occupied by total strangers who have paid me in the region of four and a half million pounds for the property. Though of course that valuation is three weeks out of date.

Temple : Getting back to the matter in hand, Mr McLean, how did you and Mr Grantham come to meet? I understood that Dennis Brent’s faction rarely if ever met with Donald Brent’s circle of friends.

Liam McLean : It is true that we prudent media-historians rarely mixed with the rather frivolous telehistorian set. They weren’t really our sort of people. They busied themselves with their unimportant researches and thankfully stayed out of our way. We were free to pursue our serious work unimpeded. However, there is a specialist group which has regular gatherings and Mr Grantham and I encountered each other there. We had to keep our friendship a secret of course as our colleagues wouldn’t approve.

Grantham : We started out by sending each other coded messages and then progressed to late night rendez vous behind the band stand.

Liam McLean : We were afraid our acquaintances would discover us but thankfully they never did. Ours was a forbidden collaboration.

Temple : So it was simply a illicit friendship?

Liam McLean : I trust you are not implying any kind of h-o-m-o-s-e-x-u-a-l tryst.

Temple : Those letters don’t spell a real word.

Liam McLean : They most certainly do – it means…

Dennis Brent : He’s from the 1950s.

Liam McLean : Ahh. Please continue Mr Temple.

Temple : I don’t know about you, Sir Graham, but I believe them. I believe that their motives were entirely innocent.

Liam McLean : And honourable.

Grantham : Oh yes – definitely honourable. Almost always honourable.

Sir Graham : Well, if Grantham and McLean didn’t murder Donald Brent and Wicks then who did?

Temple : Alan?

Steve : Oh Paul!

(time passes)

Sir Graham : I don’t understand this case, Temple. We’ve had two murders, attempts on yours and Mrs Temple’s lives, a blackmailer who seems to know everything that happens in town without anyone knowing who he is and a dashed lot of extremely queer people.

Temple : It all comes down to two phone calls and Alan’s handwriting.

Sir Graham : We’ve had our boys examine those notes that Mr Cunthleigh the postman gave us. They’ve drawn a blank. Alan is as good at disguising his handwriting as he is at disguising his voice.

Steve : You mean the telephone calls that Ian Devine received at the restaurant where he was having dinner with Paul and I and the call that my husband received some time later purporting to be Alan?

Sir Graham : Exactly, Mrs Temple.

Steve : But the call at the restaurant didn’t claim to be Alan – he said his name was Alvin.

Sir Graham : Maybe Alan and Alvin are the same person – perhaps the blackmailer has two secret identities!

(jolly laughter)

Temple : By Timothy – that’s it!

Steve : You don’t mean you’ve figured it all out, Paul?

Temple : I do, Steve, I do.

Dennis Brent : Then what do we do now?