Swords into Ploughshares
Rosemary & Thyme

Rosemary is reported dead on the job at Engleton Park, she’s at her mother’s having a bath. A schoolmate, later professor of archæology, assumed her identity to examine the grounds and was murdered. Her discovery nearby of “a Romano-English short sword” or gladius was dismissed by the head of faculty as “a Victorian ploughshare”, and then presented to the new department sponsor, a publishing tycoon, as the gladius it is.

The late Lord Engleton spent his fortune on antiquities suppressed by the head, whose position was secured thereby. They are labeled and stored in a locked trunk on the grounds, hence the tycoon’s persistent interest in buying the place. The head’s wife killed his colleague, and a junior member of the department trying to blackmail her husband into retirement.

The present Lord Engleton resolves to sell, “the past is only for archæologists”, but to another buyer, owing to the tycoon’s sudden aversion. Laura can only agree with the principle involved, her ex-husband Nick is said to be thinking of marrying someone else.

The far-reaching astuteness of the teleplay is matched by the loveliness of the filming, particularly among flowers, with a stylistic coup in the late professor’s office where Rosemary is watching a video made by her friend at the Lower Worthington dig (the tape is labeled “ISAIAH 2:4!!!”). The camera sees the monitor from roughly Rosemary’s POV, long enough so that when a noise is heard outside the office (she is about to be knocked unconscious like Philip Marlowe), it comes as a genuine intrusion.