The Saint on TV

Episode 34: The Nobel Sportsman

"THE NOBLE SPORTSMAN"

A sporting earl fights his strangest duel - but under-estimates the Saint.

Who is threatening Lord Yearley (ANTHONY QUAYLE) with death? Yearley is a
man who is not likely to be frightened, and he has everything to live for:
wealth, sporting achievements, a young wife, Anne (SYLVIA SIMS), who is
thirty years his junior and is expecting a baby which he is confident will
be a boy. Yearley already has a daughter, Rose (JANE ASHER), by his earlier
marriage.

The threatening letters don't scare him. He refuses to go to the police. But
Rose is responsible for getting Simon Templar, the Saint (ROGER MOORE), to
take an interest in the matter.

There are several possible suspects. One is Paul Farley (FRANCIS MATTHEWS),
a successful young architect. He is in love with Anne and would like her to
divorce Yearley and marry him. She refuses, but Yearley discovers she has
been seeing Farley and wonders if he is the father of the expected child.

It might be Bruno Walmer (PAUL CURRAN), an estate developer whose latest
plans are suddenly ruined by Lord Yearley's change of mind about selling
land to him. And the man who stands to lose a lot, because he has been
expecting a rake-off on the deal, is Yearley's employee Patrick Kelly
(RUSSELL WALTERS). Another suspect is Mr. Bates (MARTIN WYLDECK), a local
farmer who has threatened to fill the earl's rear portions with shot if he
allows the hunt to chase across his farmland again.

Matters take a dramatic turn when Yearley's car brakes are interfered with
and he and Rose narrowly avoid a crash.

The Saint's investigations point to Paul Farley. The threatening letters
have been made up of letterings (sic) cut from a real estate magazine.....
and, the Saint finds, from copies of the magazine owned by Farley.

The climax is reached when Yearley challenges Farley, and pits himself
against him in a macabre duel. But the sporting earl has under-estimated the
Saint. Templar is one step ahead of him.... a step that leads to the
unexpected exposure of the real letter-writer.

CAST

Starring

ROGER MOORE as SIMON TEMPLAR

With

SYLVIA SIMS as LADY ANNE YEARLEY
ANTHONY QUAYLE as LORD YEARLEY

and

FRANCIS MATTHEWS as PAUL FARLEY
PAUL CURRAN as BRUNO WALMER
JANE ASHER as ROSE YEARLEY
RUSSELL WALTERS as KELLY
MARTIN WYLDECK as BATES
HOWARD DOUGLAS as TOM CROFTON

Produced by Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman
Directed by Peter Yates
Screenplay by John Graeme