No other episode epitomises 'Man In A Suitcase' quite as well as Edmund Ward's 'Burden Of Proof'. This is mainly due to the ending, which I'll come to shortly.
Henry Faversham ( John Gregson ) has spent twenty years working for the Government of a South American Republic. He and his wife Carla ( Nicola Pagett ) board a plane. Colonel Felipe Garcia ( Wolfe Morris ) catches up with them, and arrests Faversham for embezzling treasury funds, totalling a quarter of a million pounds. Faversham makes no effort to hide his guilt, much to the alarm of Carla. He threatens to blow up the plane with a grenade, so Garcia is left with no alternative but to withdraw.
Some time later, in London, Faversham hires McGill to plant microphones and cameras in a room. He is expecting Garcia to find him. Sure enough, he does...
The late John Gregson was a popular leading man in British films such as 'Genievieve' and 'The Titfield Thunderbolt' and starred in the I.T.C. police drama 'Gideon's Way'. 'Faversham' is a bit like the 'Dalby' character from 'The Boston Square' in that he too appears to look bad but is on a secret mission. He has not really stolen the money. The whole thing is an elaborate plan to trap Garcia into admitting that he wants the money to fund a private army to take over the country.
The twist comes when Garcia takes Faversham to the Embassy where he is subsequently tortured. McGill, discovering Faversham's innocence from a taped message, sets out to rescue the man, knowing full well he could trigger an international incident. Had this been a 'Saint' or 'Baron' adventure it doubtless would have ended happily, with Faversham back in the arms of his wife. Instead McGill finds that he has died from his injuries. Not the sort of thing viewers were used to then.
The lovely Nicola Pagett was but a few years away from her best-known role, as 'Elisabeth Bellamy' in 'Upstairs, Downstairs'. Roger Delgado a.k.a. 'The Ambassador', went on to menace Jon Pertwee's 'Dr.Who' as the intergalactic super-villain 'The Master'. Charles Lloyd Pack, later to play a French magistrate in 'Three Blinks Of The Eyes', is seen here as 'Sir Charles Grainger'. One of the few returning characters in this show was 'Detective Inspector Hedley', played by Gerald Sim. He had previously appeared in 'Dead Man's Shoes', also written by Ward.
Not an awful lot for McGill to do here, but it stands as one of the series' triumphs all the same.
Henry Faversham ( John Gregson ) has spent twenty years working for the Government of a South American Republic. He and his wife Carla ( Nicola Pagett ) board a plane. Colonel Felipe Garcia ( Wolfe Morris ) catches up with them, and arrests Faversham for embezzling treasury funds, totalling a quarter of a million pounds. Faversham makes no effort to hide his guilt, much to the alarm of Carla. He threatens to blow up the plane with a grenade, so Garcia is left with no alternative but to withdraw.
Some time later, in London, Faversham hires McGill to plant microphones and cameras in a room. He is expecting Garcia to find him. Sure enough, he does...
The late John Gregson was a popular leading man in British films such as 'Genievieve' and 'The Titfield Thunderbolt' and starred in the I.T.C. police drama 'Gideon's Way'. 'Faversham' is a bit like the 'Dalby' character from 'The Boston Square' in that he too appears to look bad but is on a secret mission. He has not really stolen the money. The whole thing is an elaborate plan to trap Garcia into admitting that he wants the money to fund a private army to take over the country.
The twist comes when Garcia takes Faversham to the Embassy where he is subsequently tortured. McGill, discovering Faversham's innocence from a taped message, sets out to rescue the man, knowing full well he could trigger an international incident. Had this been a 'Saint' or 'Baron' adventure it doubtless would have ended happily, with Faversham back in the arms of his wife. Instead McGill finds that he has died from his injuries. Not the sort of thing viewers were used to then.
The lovely Nicola Pagett was but a few years away from her best-known role, as 'Elisabeth Bellamy' in 'Upstairs, Downstairs'. Roger Delgado a.k.a. 'The Ambassador', went on to menace Jon Pertwee's 'Dr.Who' as the intergalactic super-villain 'The Master'. Charles Lloyd Pack, later to play a French magistrate in 'Three Blinks Of The Eyes', is seen here as 'Sir Charles Grainger'. One of the few returning characters in this show was 'Detective Inspector Hedley', played by Gerald Sim. He had previously appeared in 'Dead Man's Shoes', also written by Ward.
Not an awful lot for McGill to do here, but it stands as one of the series' triumphs all the same.