Acmenin

A woman's body is found in a lake; she was run over by a car, as the autopsy by Doctor Lucien Blake reveals. She was Ann Fitzgerald, student at the local reform school, and she was pregnant. The science teacher Phillip Morrisey, son of the local chemist {pharmacist), is one suspect as the father. Jean, who ran the doctor's office for Lucien's late father, stays on for the son returned to Ballarat from abroad. District nurse Mattie and Jean's nephew Danny Parks, a young police officer, board in the large house. Police superintendent Lawson knows Blake from before he left home, before the war, where Lucien fought and was taken prisoner. Patrick Tyneman, owner of the local newspaper, gets a club membership for Blake, who says he will not stay long enough to use it. Sale of illegal amphetamines, made on Keith Morrisey's press for tablets, is involved in this murder. Phillip's mother Rosemary, an ambitious woman, learned of the pregnancy and her son's love for Ann; she arranged to meet Ann, 'the little slut' and killed her, using her son's car.

A member of hospital staff is murdered. Blake suspects the morgue attendant, who has vanished. Police hunt for him. Preparations for marking Anzac Day bring Major Alderton into Ballarat, and Blake encounters him at the club.

Danny and another officer arrive at Sean McBride's house, and Sergeant Bill Hobart is taking cover outdoors as Sean is screaming and waving a loaded gun; Danny wounds him in the shoulder. Inside they find a fourth police officer dead on the floor. Thirteen months later, Sean is in prison, about to be hanged for killing the officer Clive Cooper. Doctor Blake is called to the prison to treat Sean for a high fever. In his fevered state, Sean says he did not kill Clive. Doctor Blake says that is the truth, not what he confessed in court. There is public protest against the hanging, and conflict between Danny and Mattie over capital punishment. Journalist Joy McDonald interviews Blake, trying to get quotes from him. Sean has two brothers, a priest, Xavier, and Peter, married and a father of three children. Blake persists, learning that Clive's wife had an affair with Sean, and Sean is the father of her son. Clive learned of the affair the night he died. Mrs Cooper had called Hobart for aid, knowing he was nearby; but he arrived after the shooting. Xavier decided Sean should plead guilty to the results of the fight between Peter and Clive, and no one should mention that three people were in that room. Blake deduced this from the position of the two wounds. Peter hit Clive on the back of the head, but that did not slow him down. Clive had his gun with him, and in the scuffle, it went off, wounding him fatally in the chest. Sean admits to his innocence as to murder, and Blake has Mrs Cooper arrive with the baby, so Sean can see his son.

Blake is a judge for the Begonia festival in Ballarat. He meets Professor Ormond and Mr Charles Griffith, also judges. That night, Ormond is found murdered in his greenhouse, strangled before the greenhouse was set afire. Nick Manos never wins in this contest; there is a family feud between Griffith and Manos since the prior century. Newspaper publisher Patrick Tyneman argues with Blake's decision of murder, as bad local publicity; Blake demonstrates on Tyneman how the hyoid bone is broken in strangulation, as in Ormond's case. Manos's daughter Maria and Griffith's son Oliver have something going on, but Maria uses Danny as cover while their romance proceeds in secret. Griffith has been buying land in nearby Bendigo, giving him a motive to move the festival there. Angela Waterston, also a judge and a woman with the fatal disease aplastic anemia, plans to marry and asks Blake to stand in place of her father at her wedding. Blake gets a call saying his wife and daughter, lost to him during the war, were seen alive; then a letter comes from Malaya. Evidence is found showing that Griffith had been paying Ormond to agree to the scheme to move the Festival to Bendigo. Others bribed the judge, including Jean with a cake; it turns out Osmond cannot eat the cake, and that triggers Blake to figure out why Angela, his patient, is deteriorating too rapidly. There is a dinner and a contest for Miss Begonia; Maria announces at the contest that she and Oliver are engaged. Blake realizes someone has tampered with Angela's tonic, adding arsenic with sugar to cover that taste; it is her fiancé, Anthony Farmer. Farmer is a conman with a record of killing his wealthy young brides. Ormond recognized him at the opening day, so Farmer killed Ormond and was speeding the death of Angela. He is charged with murder and attempted murder.

At the shoe factory owned by Patrick Tyneman, the plant manager Egan and the foreman argue. Mosca, the foreman, is found dead a few hours later. His hand was cut off by one of the machines, which had no safety switch. Blake has been pushing Tyneman to upgrade the equipment, and calls Joy McDonald before the autopsy is complete. Gus, the other police doctor, sees the wound to Mosca's head, showing he was pushed into the machine and thus murdered. Jean auditions with the director, Robert, for the local production of The Importance of Being Earnest, where she gets a minor role, while wanting a major one, which goes to Tyneman's wife. Robert is interested in Jean, and he proposes to her. She turns him down. Another employee, Gorski, tells Blake that Mosca had been taking a percent of the wages of all the workers. Mattie sees Romana Novak, who works at the plant, and has signs of syphilis, including a rash. Mrs Krol tells Blake that many women in the factory have that rash. Blake does a second test on Mosca's blood, which shows evidence of third stage syphilis and suggests he was forcing himself on the women in the factory. Egan knew that employee wages were skimmed and he benefitted of that scheme. All the employees, but not the management, in the factory are immigrants with no political power. Lawson questions Egan and then Romana as possible suspects. Miroslav Gorski confesses to the murder. He was in the factory when Mosca was murdered and does not believe Romana was guilty, or he believes she was guilty but deserves no punishment. Mattie brings antibiotic to inject in Romana as she waits in the jail, to treat the venereal disease. Lawson lets Romana go, as Gorski's confession is all Lawson has.

Violet Ashby, a nurse, is murdered in the Blackhill psychiatric hospital. David Hoyle, a patient, is seen above her holding the knife that killed her. Danny and Mattie tell Violet's father, Doug Ashby, of her death. Ashby was commanding officer to Superintendent Lawson for 10 years. Blake is not confident that the patient killed her. After visiting David, Blake talks with another patient, Oriel Vogel, who shows him two paintings she did before and after the murder; she paints the light as it is, and the room is often darkened when the ECT is on. Mattie learns that Violet was reprimanded a year earlier because a patient died, perhaps due to an error in medications. Oriel sees Blake at his office, bringing two paintings of him at the hospital, and she gives him information about David's personality. Dr Winters at the hospital tells Lawson and Blake that he loved Violet. Given a clue by Oriel's paintings, Blake examines the log for ECT sessions, finding that David was given more sessions than were recorded; Dr Laine considered he was doing important research on unimportant people. He was responsible for the patient's death; no one missed him, per Laine. Ashby comes to the hospital and grabs Dr Laine, whose name appeared too often in his daughters notes, which have careful notes of all treatments given to patients. Lawson tells Ashby to put his gun down. Lawson arrests Dr Laine for the murder of Violet Ashby. At home, Blake plays the piano.

The winning contestant, James Holbrook, on a television quiz show, the Game of Champions, is killed just after the show ends and he finds his prize in a dressing room, touching the new television set. He is killed by electrocution. Simon, with a long run of right answers, is upset that he lost, but all eyes turn to the murdered man. The show is sponsored by Tyneman Electrics store. Patrick Tyneman is upset. James, Simon, Dawn Prentice from the quiz show, and Roger Lambert from Tyneman's store were all in the same class at school, under Professor Waterman. Waterman considers Simon very bright but such a trouble maker. Waterman, James and Roger provoked Simon, but in the end Roger was kicked out of school. The next program has Simon versus Waterman, student versus master. After Simon does a perfect round, the dial is turned to cut off his microphone, but instead he is electrocuted on live television. Blake and his household puzzle over who has murdered the two men, then realize that the murderer made a mistake, wanting to kill Simon, while unaware that the announcer Alan Coleman and Waterman had devised a scheme to end Simon's winning streak. Dawn and James were engaged; the prize money was going to start them off in life. Dawn killed her own fiance, by accident. Blake confronts her in the darkened television station, in s series of questions to be answered true or false. She admits to her failed scheme, while Lawson and Danny listen in the wings. Lawson arrests her for two murders.

After a party at the hospital, Hazel Mahoney and Carol Stanning argue not far from where Mattie is standing. Later that evening, Mattie finds Hazel Mahoney, Ballarat Hospital's first female surgeon, hanging in apparent suicide. Mattie tries resuscitation, but Hazel is dead. Doctor Geoffrey Nicholson is an officious man on the hospital board who makes Hazel's life a misery, according to her and Mattie's last conversation. The autopsy shows she was dead before being hanged. Nancy Carmody tells the police she was upset about her grades from Dr Mahoney, so Carol had taken Dr Mahoney's record book in an effort to make the grades better; when Blake sees Nancy, he knows that Nancy is not a suspect, and needs some help herself. Joy McDonald appears in town to do a story at the request of Patrick Tyneman, who is on the hospital board, about Blake, but he talks her into digging about Dr Nicholson. At the board meeting, Blake embarrasses himself by accusing Nicholson. Joy offers to help find Blake's long-missing wife and child. Jean is upset at Blake's behaviour, telling him he is making his own troubles. Then he opens a letter telling him that his wife has died. Blake becomes suspicious of the autopsy blood tests and draws his own sample at the mortuary; Gus darkens the room and challenges Blake, but Blake challenges Gus that he is a morphine addict, learned from the records of the hospital pharmacist. Dr Mahoney knew and had offered to help him. Lawson comes in the nick of time to stop the action and take Gus away. Blake gets a telegram saying his daughter is alive, so he leaves by taxi, headed for Shanghai to meet her. He leaves a new placard in his own name for his medical office, to replace his father's name plate, as Ballarat is feeling like home.

Blake returns from Shanghai just as Ballarat's re-elected mayor Graham Trevorrow is murdered. New senior constable Charlie Davis has taken Danny Parks place on the force; he interviews councillor Adeline Campbell, who first saw the mayor's body on the stairs, and the next morning interviews the contentious Bruce Beattie, who failed to win the position of mayor the day before. Lawson thinks that Davis may have been sent by Melbourne to watch over the Ballarat police force. Patrick Tyneman invited reporter Joy McDonald to Ballarat, expecting political change. Blake meets Mrs McDonald for a drink; he recommends she speak with Carl Laidley at the town hall. Mrs Campbell wears the lipstick color found on Trevorrow's handkerchief. She is an independent councillor persuaded to vote for Trevorrow by his ally Doug Calahan. Lawson brings Blake from home to see Joy McDonald, dead in the same place as the mayor; the sight removes the happy smile Blake has had since his return. Blake speaks with Laidley at the jail cell; Blake does not believe Laidley did it, nor does Lawson. Tyneman disliked Trevorrow, backs Beattie. Blake visits town hall and sees blood up on a ceiling light fixture; Doug Calahan enters the office and then runs from Blake, falling over the stair railing. Blake and Laidley save him from the fall that Blake realises killed Mrs McDonald. Calahan killed the mayor after he bragged about being with Mrs Campbell; the self-centered politician took one thing too many. Joy's death was an accident, though Calahan was struggling with her. He is charged. Once it is over, Jean asks about his daughter, Lee. He shows the photo of her at 23. She was not happy to see him, settled with the family that took her in years ago, though he was pleased to see her thriving. He is told that his wife did not survive.

Bobby Lee, lead singer of a rock and roll group, dies in an alley, of a single stab wound, outside Ballarat's concert hall amongst his fans, including Mattie. The police do the autopsy in the basement of the cellar of the nearby pub owned by Mr Bowen, saying the police morgue is full, and the hospital cannot accept the body. Blake does the autopsy with the aid of Charlie Davis, finding Lee was stabbed and he died after the stabbing, but not instantly. The police investigate his fans including the pub owner's 16 year old daughter Peggy, another young female fan, other band members and a preacher with a violent past who hates rock and roll, the devil's music. One of his band mates, Tony the piano player who started the band with Bobby Lee, argued with Lee after the performance, and was overheard outside the venue. He tells them Bobby Lee is the stage name for Gunther Hansen. Mattie spends the day in a cell, next to Tony, after accidentally assaulting senior constable Davis while assisting a 16-year-old girl, Shirley Freedman, who is heartbroken at the death of Bobby Lee. Constable Ned Simmons makes calls on the background of Preacher McArthur, who has prior arrests, including using a knife. Using photographs taken by a man outside the venue, Blake and Charlie Davis walk through the time from when Lee left the building and when he collapsed. It becomes clear that Lee was stabbed inside the venue. Shirley's father comes looking for her; she is at the police station being questioned. She found Lee-related items outside the venue, and she pulled the ring off his finger when he fell down dead. Blake realizes the items belonged to Peggy Bowen, and when her father comes downstairs, Mr Bowen admits that he stabbed Lee when he brought the complimentary beer to the band. Peggy thought she had been pregnant by Lee, and lost the baby, though Mattie learns from her that she never met him. Her father is arrested. Back at home, Blake comes home to find Jean listening to some of that rock and roll music.

Two women from the local library and historical society find the body of a man by a tree in the botanical garden, having been there overnight. The autopsy reveals he died by cyanide, which Blake identifies by its odor during the autopsy and a rhyme learned in WWII on how to identify poison gases. The clothes on the body have no labels. The trail begins when a key is recognized as one from a locker at the train station, where his destination in Ballarat is identified, and a page from a book of poetry by A D Hope is found. People at the botanical garden saw the man kissing a blonde woman under the tree the day before he was found. When his wife, Mrs Lola Lundqvist from Castlemaine, appears at the station, they believe they have his name, Sven Lundqvist, born in Sweden. A mentally impaired man, Aaron, had been hiding in the bushes, and he recognises that Mrs Lundqvist was not the woman seen with the victim in the botanic garden, not the same shape. The librarian tells the police the man was Dutch, because he said so while talking about poetry by A D Hope. The book from the library was not on the shelf; he gave it to the woman who ran his rooming house. There is a page of coded writing in the book. Meanwhile, Lawson has taken calls from several women giving a name for the dead man, their lover or husband; the names belonged to infants or boys who died long before: Sven, Tor Olsen and Niels van der Berg. Blake tries to decode the message in the book; Jean recognizes a phone number in the message and calls it, reaching the historical society. Blake admits to Jean that he spent time after the war working as a government agent, when she tells him that her husband is buried in a foreign country, where he died in WWII. Blake re-enacts the crime scene in the park with Jean, who remarks that the woman may have held the man to hide his body reacting to cyanide. Mattie and Blake find Aaron again in the garden; he wears the coat from the dead man, and a blonde hair from a wig is on the coat. It begins to make sense now. Mattie and Aaron accompany Blake to the library, where Aaron identifies Miss Harris. Miss Martha Harris of the local historical society, and in the local communist party, had been his lover and she left the message in the book. She confesses after Blake stops her from taking a cyanide pill. While wearing a blonde wig owned by her ill aunt, she killed her lover because he was unfaithful to her. His name is never known for sure, an agent for another government, perhaps the Soviet Union. Alice Harvey, a new pathologist joins the Ballarat medical team.

Cec Drury of the Colonists Club is standing outside the club about 9:30 pm when a man falls on to the roof of a car, and dies with serious internal injuries, and a packet of loose tobacco on him. Noel Ashford was the president of the local flying club. Doctors Harvey and Blake start the autopsy together. Blake is called away to assess the injuries to police constable Martin by a hit-and-run driver the same night. Superintendent Lawson and Charlie Davis find the vehicle, a delivery truck owned by Leon Woods, owner of Ballarat Apple Farm. The next morning, the autopsy proceeds; Ashford's body looks like that of a parachutist whose chute did not open, including frost bite on his face; this leads Blake to think Ashford fell from a plane, not the roof of the club. Ashford's wife says Noel did not smoke, leaving the tobacco a mystery. The truck is not one of the two trucks owned by Woods, but a third one painted to look like one of his trucks by an unknown person. At the flying club, Blake and Davis examine the log book and speak with Hugh Dankworth and his co-pilot Lyle Townsend. Barber Willard Baxter has unlicensed loose tobacco for sale; he can get more in 5 hours, the flying time to the nearest source of tobacco. The phony Apple Farm truck was carrying contraband loose tobacco. Blake speaks again with the two pilots and sees that their plane had mud on the tires. The two admit to flying after dark, but say they were back at the airfield by 7:30 pm. Blake observes that Dankworth is red-green colour blind, which makes it difficult to read the plane's controls. Dankworth is arrested, though he and Lyle deny having Noel Ashford aboard. Local farmers complain about plane noise at both 6 pm and 9:30 pm, and Blake realizes it was two different planes. Charlie has a date with Beatrice from the airfield, and Blake interrupts their date. They find another plane in a hangar, with fresh mud on the tires, but Beatrice has no record of it flying. Townsend has a record of flying contraband, so Lawson calls in Willard Baxter to close this connection, and arrests him. At the same time, Blake is at the airfield inspecting the plane, when Beatrice enters the co-pilot seat and then Sarah Alexander gets in the pilot seat. Sarah starts the plane, intending to fly with Blake, but a police vehicle drives on the airstrip until she stops the engines. Those two piloted the tobacco flights. Sarah Alexander's father was killed in a plane accident while Noel Ashford survived and she is bitter about her father's death. Sarah's mother remarried, to Ashford, very difficult for Sarah. Ashford had been inspecting the plane, suspecting illegal use of it, when Sarah and Beatrice entered it, unaware of his presence, and took off. Sarah tells Lawson that Ashford's fall from the plane was an accident, but Lawson says it is murder because she failed to help him when the plane's door popped open as the plane banked without its pilot in her seat. Lawson then calls out Charlie Davis for taking Beatrice on a date, when she was a suspect. How much police information did he share? Lawson is angry. Charlies offers to resign, but Lawson says no.

Jean goes to the cinema to see Vertigo. Instead of a film, the audience sees smoke from the projection room. Richard Taylor, a firefighter from Adelaide visiting Ballarat, races to the projection room and drags Adam Summers from the room, but Adam is dead. In the autopsy, Blake and Harvey find bruising around his neck, and in answering the question, why did Adam not run out when the fire began, realize he had been unconscious; it was a murder. Charlie and Blake separately interview people, learning how Miles McLaren, the manager of the cinema hated his projectionist, and had recently had a sealed door installed on the projection room. Adam had private showings in the cinema for his friends. Charlie learns that McLaren undercounts his sales to cheat the film distributor, explaining his odd lie to Lawson. Blake finds some partially destroyed, 16 mm film in the projection room, which is not the 35 mm standard for the cinema. In Adam's wallet is a bill for a four poster bed delivered to a derelict mansion owned by Patrick Tyneman's son, Edward. Mattie attends a hen party for Amelia, fiancée of Vincent Foster, while Edward Tyneman and other friends host Vincent at the buck (stag) party in the next room. Charlie goes to the stag party, using the invitation to Adam, and finds a 16 mm projector there, perhaps connected to the film found in the projection room. Jean invites Richard home for dinner, after he calls her. Blake comes home early, and asks Richard questions about the fire, how long the oxygen to support a fire would last in that projection room with the new sealed door; just a few minutes. Edward Tyneman is unco-operative when Lawson questions him about what happens at his property. Charlie and Blake save some of the 16 mm film that was in the projectionist's room and show it at Blake's house; Mattie recognizes a woman in the film, her friend Amelia Yorke. Amelia's brother Paddy borrowed money from Edward Tyneman; when he could not pay it back, Edward said Amelia could pay it back by posing for his pornography, for which she is ashamed, though she knows there were other girls filmed as well. Richard and Jean come home when the film is running, which shocks Richard. Then Blake finds Richard at the Ealing Estate, Edward's property, about to set fire to it; his niece Rebecca was one of the other girls in Edward's pornographic films. His niece is now under medical care. The supposedly private pornography was shown all around the country, so her father, the late brother of Richard, saw it shown in his local pub. Blake walks away with him, with no plans of telling anyone what Richard almost did there. In Edward's next visit with Superintendent Lawson, he sees himself caught in the mirror in an image in the salvaged film. Patrick shows up and tells Edward he is on his own, his behaviour is disgusting. The Tyneman wealth will not protect Edward from the penalties associated with making pornography. Jean remarks that Richard was a good man, but he had something sad about him. He did set a fire to burn the films, and it killed a man.

An art class begins; the instructor Geoffrey Ledwith pulls down the screen to reveal a bloody and dead woman, Virginia McKay, the life model and girlfriend of Ledwith. She is posed like a woman in a famous painting in the gallery. Barry Johnstone, director of the gallery, seeks the gallery keys given to Miss McKay, which were not with her possessions. Blake is reminded of his late mother, a painter, at the art gallery. Patrick Tyneman is a main benefactor of the art gallery, which is about to start a special exhibit. Charlie Davis and Blake find broken pottery at McKay's place; they pursue Ledwith at his pottery studio, where he goes after Blake. Lawson questions him at the police station, where Ledwith explains his habit of destroying any pottery not perfect. Blake thinks the murder weapon might have been a potter's tool, but can find no blood on it. Miss McKay was an artist and she worked for the director of the gallery, who had nothing good to say about her. Artist Elaine Greenslade shared her flat and knew her since before Miss McKay studied in Melbourne under Brendan Ross. A painting is stolen from the art gallery, between the guard's rounds. The guard, Ted Baldwin, is found next day hit by a car, in a coma, but alive, with the stolen painting near him. Examining the museum, Blake says that Baldwin gave the stolen painting to a partner in crime. Lawson calls in Ledwith again, and Blake tells him he is wrong to think that Miss McKay was not a true artist just because she was a woman; further, that Ledwith is no artist. In the gallery, Johnstone refers to the one painting by Blake's mother as minor and in the gallery only because the artist was local; he is at least embarrassed when Blake says his mother painted it. Blake's father locked his wife's room in the house when she died, 40 years earlier, when he also sent Lucien off to boarding school. Blake now unlocks the door. A print of a painting by Genevieve Ettienne, his mother, is in McKay's books. David Davies, now a famous Australian painter but once taught by Genevieve Ettienne, gave Blake's mother a painting, which made her husband jealous. She then painted a portrait of her friend Agnes Clasby over the Davies painting because her husband sold the painting to Patrick Tyneman's father, Michael, but the transaction was not completed due to the painting being 'lost'. Blake's father donated the painting of Agnes Clasby to the local gallery. This is the painting that was meant to be stolen from the gallery; Johnstone had moved it in the process of making space for the special exhibit of works by Davies, and it is re-hung in its original space. Professor Brendan Ross of the Melbourne National Gallery is caught easily stealing the Davies painting, painted over by Blake's mother, in the trap set up by the police, with the missing gallery keys in his pocket. Ross killed McKay, the student he rejected but who had realized what was under the painting by Genevieve Ettienne. Ross also hit Baldwin with his car. That settled, Blake and Tyneman discuss the painting by Blake's mother; Blake comes home with it.

A 17 year old champion rower drowns after being thrown into the lake in celebration of a win. Blake is unhappy with the way the extremely fit boy drowned so quickly and with alcohol in his lungs. The boy's obstructive, domineering father with heart trouble hampers the investigation and the boy's recent phobia about the colour yellow may be the key to solving the mystery. Blake offers lodgings to Charlie Davis and in clearing the room finds a medical file on his own mother.

The death of a farmer trampled to death in his own cattle pens and a misidentification leads to problems for Blake when Superintendent Ashby is dismissed and replaced by Superintendent Munroe, who is determined to rein in Blake or dismiss him as police surgeon.

Communist agitators, friends of Mattie from university, descend on Ballarat to cause trouble when a government minister, Mattie's father, is speaking. One of the agitators is found dead and Blake seeks evidence to corroborate forensic evidence on the body. Mattie suspects Charlie is spying on Blake for Superintendent Munroe. Blake is shocked to discover from one of his mother's friends that she died of a diabetic coma.

When a famous actress is murdered at a charity event at the Colonist's Club, it really does become a Night to Remember.

Local hardware store owner is found dead in a hotel room. The second daughter of Norman Baker, owner of the local gun emporium, dies.

A local magistrate is murdered. Blake realizes this murder is linked with the death of his own mother 40 years earlier.

Guest cast:John Wood

It's 1960 and Dr Lucien Blake returns home to find Ballarat hosting a very public stopover in a cross-country, endurance motor race - and a very suspicious death. Chief Superintendent Lawson is seriously injured and retires. Blake recognises his growing feelings for Jean and he takes his mother's engagement ring from his study. A new reporter taken on at the local paper, The Courier, is Lawson's niece Rose Anderson.

Two businessmen/brothers announce plans for a theme park to glorify Ballarat's goldrush past, with assistance from their sister. The following morning one brother is found dead in the local baths. She wanted a park like Disneyland, while one brother wanted the area preserved, like it was in his boyhood. He killed his own brother in the stream, and moved his body to the swimming pool, proved by matching the water in the lungs to the water in the stream. Chief Superintendent Frank Carlyle replaces Lawson. Mattie O'Brien leaves Ballarat for a new post at St Bartholomew's hospital, London. Blake borrows Jean's engagement ring from her first marriage to have his mother's engagement ring resized.

A jockey dies the morning after a big win. Carlyle is in debt to a bookmaker who is one of the suspects. Blake's household is strained with Jean and Mei Lin under the same roof. Mei Lin leaves to stay in a hotel and Blake puts the engagement ring away.

An exhibition boxing match in Ballarat turns sour when one of the boxers dies in front of hundreds of witnesses. The cause of death is difficult to determine, and soon it is clear that it was not a punch from his opponent, Ray, younger brother of Charlie. The dead boxer was a wild man, and slowly a trail of gypsum leads to the body of the corner man for Ray, killed by the wild boxer. The manager of the arena assisted in the burial at a closed agricultural store yard. The wild boxer died of poison in his petroleum jelly applied before the fight, entering his blood when an old wound opens during the fight. Ray is cleared and he and his brother are on better terms. Charlie and Rose have an argument.

Ballarat police are shocked when young policeman Ned Simmons is found brutally murdered at night in the station, his neck broken, files and paperwork strewn all over the office, a police gun stolen. Blake finds an engagement ring near Ned's desk, which Blake shows to Ned's girlfriend. She is being stalked by violent prior boyfriend Gregan and has been afraid to speak. Superintendent Lawson tells Blake he is discharged from the police for past misbehavior and current bad press on Ballarat police. An attempt is made to kill Doctor Blake, but suspended superintendent William Munroe takes the fatal bullet instead. Jean tells her priest that she is leaving the church because it will not allow her to marry again. She goes to the cemetery where her first husband is buried to think over her decisions, where she is confronted by Norman Baker, using that police gun, a man who blames Blake for the death of his daughter in 1960, and who killed both victims and attacked Charlie at the morgue. Blake finds them and tries to protect Jean; then Lawson arrives to resolve the situation, as Blake makes a full apology for his own mistakes. Tyneman fires his son as editor of the local newspaper for all the trouble he is making. The episode closes with a Christmas meal at the Blake home, toasting those who are no longer with them. Jean and Lucien set a date for their wedding.