Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) Logo 'Somebody Just Walked Over My Grave'
by Donald James
Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) Cast

One night, Marty finds his headstone knocked over, and people digging near his grave. Both horrified and angry, he goes to Jeff for help. Jeff is annoyed because his is on a date, but he agrees to go to the cemetery. The two detectives find the desecrated gravesite, but Marty is scared off when he hears an owl, leaving Jeff to be knocked out by a man dressed in Eighteenth century attire. Marty who does not believe Jeff’s story, thinking that Jeff fell over and the injury to his head caused a hallucination. Determined to prove what he saw was real, Jeff returns to the cemetery with flowers for Marty's grave, and meets Jean, also there with flowers. They both stop at the cemetery office, where Jeff asks the director why someone was digging at Marty's grave the night before. The director, Dighton, becomes defensive, demanding to know why Jeff was in the cemetery in the middle of the night. Giving the excuse that he was thinking about Marty, Jeff then sees the man in the Eighteenth century outfit. He gives chase through the cemetery, but is knocked out once more. When he comes to he is lying on the grave of Martin Mandrake, and is found by a man who is also named Mandrake. Seeing Jeff’s head wounds, he takes Jeff to his mansion, Mandrake Hall, to patch him up. While there, Mandrake admits that he is a fake: he bought the mansion and the name ‘Mandrake’; he also has a problematic son called Harry, an agoraphobic hippie more interested in Abstract Expressionism painting than in becoming a ‘suitable son and heir’ for the Mandrake name. He offers Jeff the job of ‘improving’ Harry, but Jeff refuses. Later, Jean insists that Jeff go to the doctor for his ‘hallucinations’; but when Jeff reluctantly agrees, the doctor thinks him a violent, dangerous man and calls for a padded ambulance and a straightjacket! Jeff escapes, but now that the police are after him, he has no choice but to accept Mandrake's job offer in order to hide at the manor. The man in the Eighteenth century clothing as actually Harper, the gardener; he and fellow conspirator Dighton are conspiring with Harry to extort money out of Harry's father. Harry then disappears, and a ransom note for a mere £5,000 is delivered to Mandrake. While Jeff wants to get to the bottom of Harry's disappearance, Marty is more interested in going to Germany to watch England's rematch with Germany at football. Jeff finds the entrance to a tunnel in the greenhouse, which runs from Harry's basement room to the hole near Marty’s grave. But the marks on the wall inside Harry's room reveal that he was not kidnapped at all, but was a willing accomplice. Mandrake decides not to pay the ransom and instead marries his young maid Martha, who has indicated she is more than willing to give him suitable heirs to the Mandrake dynasty. Back in the office, Jeff shows Marty the wedding picture, telling him he should have stayed for the wedding. Marty had more important things to do, however: he admits he was the ‘Twelfth Man’ in England's defeat of Germany! The ghost wonders what happened to Harry, but it turns out that he is now happily working in a fairground as a freak: 'The Man Who Lives Underground!'

Jeff Randall (Mike Pratt), Marty Hopkirk (Kenneth Cope), Jean Hopkirk (Annette Andre), George Murcell (Mandrake), Bernard Kay (Dighton), Nigel Terry (Harry Mandrake), Patricia Haines (Martha), Geoffrey Hughes (Harper), Cyril Shaps (Dr. Cholmond)

Directed by Cyril Frankel

TX:
UK: 9th January, 1970 @ 7.25pm

Notes:
*Featuring Jeff Randall, the late Marty Hopkirk, and Jean Hopkirk