It was a dark and stormy night. At the Asylum, the incurable patients have escaped from their rooms, the guard, Samuel Drainie has been rendered unconscious, and nurse Collins lies dead in the ward. Time to send for Murdoch.
Murdoch questions Drainie about his lock-up procedure. He goes through it, telling how he locked all of the incurables into their rooms, and finally locks the outer door to the ward. He knows he hasn't mislaid a key, because all the doors share one key, which he has. He also finds this interrogation somewhat demeaning as he has been doing this job fifteen years.
Dr Ogden talks the situation through with Detective Murdoch. She could imagine Drainie might fail to lock one door, but not all of them. Someone must have a key. She takes Murdoch to visit Rose Maxwell, who is presumed to have killed nurse Collins. Dr Ogden was responsible for having Miss Maxwell committed to the Asylum following the weekend at her family's remote log cabin when she murdered her sister-in-law-to-be, and two other women who had had relationships with her brother, Cedric, plus the discovery that she had murdered her parents years before. Rose says she found her door open, and attacked the nurse because she could. As Dr Ogden turns and walks away from Rose's room, she attacks the doctor, presumably because she could.
Another patient, Eva Pearce is there after Murdoch's investigation resulted in her being convicted of murdering her fiancé; Murdoch tells her that he knows she is sane, and should not be there. Charlotte is there because as a child, she killed her parents, a crime solved by Murdoch decades after the fact.
At the morgue, Dr Grace tells Dr Ogden that the nurse was stabbed 11 times. There were also bite marks on the body.
When Murdoch interviews the patients, none of them had a good word to say for Nurse Collins. Each has their different reasons, often tied up in the story of the crime that brought them there, but one complaint that seems to ring true is that Nurse Collins was sexually abusing them in the night. Rose Maxwell describes how she bit nurse Collins during the attack.
Subsequent investigations by Murdoch and Dr Ogden disclose facts from previous investigations, including that Rose was only Cedric's brother by adoption, which explains the passion expressed in letters between them, and also why Cedric has visited every day.
So, how did the women escape from their rooms on the night that Nurse Collins was killed? Was it an inside job? Should Dr Ogden follow Dr Grace's suggestion that these dangerous and incurable women should be dispersed to other institutions for the doctors' safety?
This episode is played out mainly in the dark, which adds to the sense of foreboding, and the ending will probably come back to haunt us in a future story.
Murdoch questions Drainie about his lock-up procedure. He goes through it, telling how he locked all of the incurables into their rooms, and finally locks the outer door to the ward. He knows he hasn't mislaid a key, because all the doors share one key, which he has. He also finds this interrogation somewhat demeaning as he has been doing this job fifteen years.
Dr Ogden talks the situation through with Detective Murdoch. She could imagine Drainie might fail to lock one door, but not all of them. Someone must have a key. She takes Murdoch to visit Rose Maxwell, who is presumed to have killed nurse Collins. Dr Ogden was responsible for having Miss Maxwell committed to the Asylum following the weekend at her family's remote log cabin when she murdered her sister-in-law-to-be, and two other women who had had relationships with her brother, Cedric, plus the discovery that she had murdered her parents years before. Rose says she found her door open, and attacked the nurse because she could. As Dr Ogden turns and walks away from Rose's room, she attacks the doctor, presumably because she could.
Another patient, Eva Pearce is there after Murdoch's investigation resulted in her being convicted of murdering her fiancé; Murdoch tells her that he knows she is sane, and should not be there. Charlotte is there because as a child, she killed her parents, a crime solved by Murdoch decades after the fact.
At the morgue, Dr Grace tells Dr Ogden that the nurse was stabbed 11 times. There were also bite marks on the body.
When Murdoch interviews the patients, none of them had a good word to say for Nurse Collins. Each has their different reasons, often tied up in the story of the crime that brought them there, but one complaint that seems to ring true is that Nurse Collins was sexually abusing them in the night. Rose Maxwell describes how she bit nurse Collins during the attack.
Subsequent investigations by Murdoch and Dr Ogden disclose facts from previous investigations, including that Rose was only Cedric's brother by adoption, which explains the passion expressed in letters between them, and also why Cedric has visited every day.
So, how did the women escape from their rooms on the night that Nurse Collins was killed? Was it an inside job? Should Dr Ogden follow Dr Grace's suggestion that these dangerous and incurable women should be dispersed to other institutions for the doctors' safety?
This episode is played out mainly in the dark, which adds to the sense of foreboding, and the ending will probably come back to haunt us in a future story.
