Philip Broadley

16^th March 1969 (IMDb) or 16^th September 1969 (epguides.com)

3^rd July 1970 (It must be 1970 as the last episode was set on the 17^th July 1969)

A man is driving his tanker along a country road. A couple are snogging in a van by the roadside. The man is far too old and ugly for the woman so she’s probably a prostitute with bills to pay.

The van drives off but the couple can’t keep their hands off each other. He takes his eyes off the road just as the tanker is coming towards them. Both vehicles swerve and the tanker gets the worst of it. The van driver notices a peep hole at the back of the tanker – being an obvious pervert he goes for a peep. Instead of chemicals, the tanker is full of an unconscious blonde woman.

He goes for the police but when they arrive the woman has gone. The only clues are a blood stain and a cigarette lighter with a coat of arms on it.

Six and a half minutes in we join Department S in conference. Stewart and Annabelle are pacing about while Jason sits with his feet up, looking at photographs and tossing off theories. No one as thought to show him the lighter up until now – as soon as he sees it he announces who it belongs to, why the girl would’ve been given it and where they might find the man who can identify her.

Patricia Haines (ex-wife of Michael Caine) plays Veronica Bray – she’s mixed up with the affair but it is never quite clear what role she actually plays.

Simon Oates plays Mike Taylor – Veronica’s jealous boyfriend. He mistakes Jason for Paulo and they have a fight behind closed doors. Jason comes out looking like the winner but then collapses in defeat. Oates would go on to play Doctor Ridge – one of the two main characters in Doomwatch.

Bill Nagy appears as Paulo Cortoli – the playboy who gives cigarette lighters away to his conquests. He doesn’t do much but this is a thin episode and doesn’t have much of a guest cast.

It is the Tara King ‘do all throughout the episode. Annabelle is found by Sir Curtis working in the middle of the night. She pretends she didn’t know the time but we know now that she doesn’t have a life beyond the solving of baffling crimes. But her dedication pays off as it is she who solves the mystery. Jason offers to buy her dinner as a reward.

We go to the beach so lots of bikinis on display. Veronica wears a swimsuit (more modest than most but Jason still finds it worth watching her through telescopic glasses). Stewart spends a fair amount of the episode in a pair of swimming trunks. Best of all, Annabelle telephones Jason and we cut to her and discover she’s phoning him in the nude. She’s lying on her chest and the sun lamp carefully positioned over her bottom is all that preserves her modesty.

Jason knows Paolo Cortoli of old – they once played stud poker all night and Jason emerged into the morning air not even owning the shirt he was wearing. Paulo remembers that Jason’s favourite tipple is Stornoway whisky (no ice). He goes to visit Paulo and comes away with more than just information – the girl who was with Paulo is almost certainly the same one later seen having her feet massaged by Mr King. To further impugn or enhance her reputation, Jason later leaves her with Stewart and she seems happy enough. I’m not surprised given the face he’s making while giving her a bit of amateur reflexology.

While on watch, Jason dons some magnifying glasses, the likes of which we haven’t seen since "The Daleks". He is unable to whistle (and therefore warn Stewart that trouble was on its way). Which is an irony as Jason King is meant to be homage to Ian Fleming and Fleming had a theory about men who can’t whistle. He visits the ugly old man who saw the girl in the tanker and the latter shouts at him to "get your hair cut." Maybe he wouldn’t have thought him so fancy if he’d know that Jason knows how to drive a tuck (though he lets Stewart do the actual driving).

It is this episode which features one of the greatest Jason King-isms

"I’d offer you a glass of Champaign but it’s very bad for you in small doses".

We have to wait until the jokey scene at the end where Annabelle is reading "People in Glass Houses Should Not" by Jason King. It contains the entire adventure written as a fictional story – with Mark Caine solving the entire mystery himself.

Although he’s once more in his grey checked suit, he doesn’t disappoint his brown fans – he opens the episode in a brown suede jacket, brown trousers, a yellow (~!) jumper and brown cravat. While examining the inside of the tanker – converted to carry passengers and now resembling the interior of an eastern European caravan – he says it is "beautiful". There is in fact absolutely nothing beautiful about it. Eye of the beholder or no eye of the beholder. Stewart’s tipple of choice is cognac.

Later, he dons a tuxedo and has a bit of a Bond evening. He steals some cash, wins at roulette, picks up a bird, has a fight with a jealous man and gives away all his winnings.

The mystery was never much of a mystery if I’m honest – what looked like a tanker had seating inside. Yes, there was a girl and she "vanished" but that’s hardly a mystery – she got out while he wasn’t looking. The whole "Trojan tanker" gimmick was so a bunch of eager criminals could get up alongside a plane carrying gold from South Africa. They reasoned (correctly as it happens) that no one would look twice at a refuelling tanker in an airport.

They get the gold but Department S knock out the tanker drivers and deliver the gang to the authorities. It’s a pretty poor payoff but is marvellously salvaged by the jealous boyfriend who fought Stewart in the casino - he makes a dramatic lunge at our heroes who just step apart and let him fly pathetically out, landing at the feed of several burly constables.

There isn’t a baffling mystery at the beginning, there isn’t a clever resolution at the end and most of the middle could’ve come from any other show in the genre. I’m not surprised Mark Caine solved the whole puzzle himself – it feels like a discarded Saint episode with a few tweaks to split Simon Templar into three parts.