'The Frighteners' by Berkeley Mather

Led by a man called the Deacon, ‘The Frighteners’ is an organisation that can be contracted to "massage patients”, by beating them up in order to persuade them to behave. Steed gives Doctor Keel a chance to see the organisation in action when a wealthy businessman, Sir Thomas Weller, pays to keep Jeremy de Willoughby away from his young daughter Marylin - the prospective groom is pursuing the rich man's daughter in order to pay off his dubious creditors. While Steed investigates de Willoughby, Keel goes after the Deacon. Weller is unable to frighten de Willoughby away from Marylin, and so Steed and Keel decide to form an ‘organisation’ of their own to frighten her away from de Willoughby.

Ian Hendry (Doctor David Keel), Patrick Macnee (John Steed), Ingrid Hafner (Carol Wilson), Willoughby Goddard (The Deacon), Philip Gilbert (Jeremy de Willoughby), Philip Locke (Moxon), Doris Hare (Mrs Briggs), Stratford Johns (Sir Thomas Weller), Dawn Beret (Marylin Weller), David Andrews (Nigel), Godfrey James (Nature Boy), Neil Wilson (Beppi), Eric Elliot (Butler), Ann Taylor (Secretary), Ralph Tovey (Waiter), Benn Simons (Inspector Foster), and Eleanor Darling, Benny Nightingale, Victor Charrington, Frank Peters

Directed by Peter Hammond
Produced by Leonard White

TX:
UK: 27th May, 1961

Notes:
*Featuring Doctor David Keel and John Steed

*This episode was written by Berkeley Mather - a pseudonym of Lt.-Col. Jasper Davies, a former intelligence officer in Cyprus, who served in the Royal Artillery; he wrote thriller novels under the Mather name, and was reputed to have met criminals from the London underworld in order to make sure his characters were true to life