List of The Doctor Blake Mysteries episodes

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. She is arrested.

A member of hospital staff, Bert Prentice, is murdered. Blake suspects the former morgue attendant Ron Jackson, who has vanished after he was sacked by Bert Prentice. Police hunt for him. Jackson is a boxer, and Prentice was killed by a blow to the throat by someone's left hand. Gordon McRae entered the Prentice home while Danny Parks is searching the house for clues, so he is seized. Preparations for marking Anzac Day bring Major Alderton into Ballarat, and Sergeant Hannam. Lawson promises to help Alderton find a deserter; Blake says he will not be available to help Alderton, recognizing an old acquaintance. At the club, Alderton tries to persuade Blake to rejoin the intelligence service. Blake mentions that his daughter would be 23 now, and he is still seeking her and her mother. Sergeant Hobart and Danny Parks take Ron Jackson in. Mattie is not pleased to hear Jackson was hit by the police, as she knows him and is sure he did not do the murder. Checking the morgue again, Blake and Danny find evidence of another body brought into the morgue by the ambulance, which brought Prentice down to the morgue, and is now gone. Blake finds a boot print near the refrigerator in the morgue. Then he visits his patient Sally Clements, who had described symptoms that were not hers, but her friend's, and the symptoms were radiation sickness. Blake agrees to treat Jimmy and not reveal his presence to the military. Blake tells Jean he does need help, perhaps not the housekeeping, and admits how different he is from his late father. Blake drinks with Alderton and Hannam, who is left-handed, while Jean searches their hotel rooms for boots. At Blake's house, Blake tells Hannam how he killed Prentice while stealing the body of a man who died from radiation poisoning due to Army tests. Jean stops Hannam from killing Blake, holding her late husband's pistol. Lawson charges Hannam with the murder, while Hannam replies only with his name and rank. Alderton appears at the police station, wanting to make it a military matter, with its conclusive forensic evidence against Hannam. Blake and Alderton were 3.5 years in the same POW camp after the fall of Singapore in the war. Parks apologises to Jackson. Jean and Lucien go out for the ANZAC Day events, with Jean wearing her husband's medals.

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's 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.

The story opens in church with the priest, Cyril Morton giving a wandering Sunday sermon against adultery. Jean comes to church the next day for confession in the morning, and finds Father Morton dead in the confessional. He died the night before. Evelyn Toohey, his housekeeper, thinks she killed him by giving him a new fruit to eat, a kiwi from New Zealand, as he died of anaphylactic shock. She gave it to him as he was called out in the evening by a late-night penitent. At the autopsy they learn from specialist Mr Michaels that Father Morton had a brain tumor, and see that he was stung many times by bees, to which Father Morton was allergic. Superintendent Lawson seems a bit jumpy, and tells Charlie Davis to take charge of the case. At the scene, Charlie and Blake find broken glass, dead bees and a bible with candle wax on one page; their theory is that someone knew of the priest's allergy to bee stings and barred the priest's door after tossing in a jar of bees with him and blocking the door. Ben Lloyd and his wife Celia walked out on that sermon. The church sewing circle, including Jean, Celia and Dorothy Turner, prepare the linens for the funeral. Dorothy walks out on crutches. Celia announces that she is pregnant, but has not told her husband yet. Jean reveals that Celia is angry with Father Morton, as his sermons lately seemed to match her confessions, which should be private. His brain tumor is reaching into the frontal lobe and may have been affecting his judgment. Police at the Lloyd house are restraining Ben, who has injured his wife. Blake is called to treat Celia, wounded in the abdomen by her husband. At the hospital, she and her baby are found to be in good condition. Ben is looking like a suspect for killing the priest. Evelyn gives letters written by new priest Father Emery, which she said were complaints to the archdiocese about Father Morton, and she would not mail them; Lawson will not let his officers open sealed mail without a warrant. Father Morton's recent sermons, in review, were about the commandments, but each one tied to the secrets of one person. The next sermon written, not yet given, has the topic of murder, or the sanctity of life and the philosophy of live and let live. The bees in the confessional were Cyprian bees. The police find a keeper of Cyprian bees outside town and away from home, and visit that scene with Father Emery, who keeps Ligurian bees. They find one hive tampered, and see cigar ash, the way an amateur would produce the smoke that normally calms bees. Blake says, we have found our killer; he and Charlie visit the medical specialist, surgeon Mr David Michaels, who confesses when Blake challenges him. Michaels was the specialist operating on Dorothy's husband after a car crash, and let the husband die, as he had brutally beaten his wife, disabling her, and Micheals had confessed that sin to the priest whose brain was being taken over by a tumor. After hearing that the case was solved, Superintendent Lawson tells them he is going to Melbourne, called there to face a disciplinary board. Blake visits the church in early morning, to ask aloud of God, did he give a sign to Father Morton about losing his mind due to the tumor? Did God think of all those people in the parish? Blake was last in church for a funeral; now he expects no answer from God, and ends by saying, I can't.

Jack Beazley, Jean's 24 year-old son, wins a running race, which is how his mother learns he is in town. Charlie Davis is also running in the race. A window washer sees three dead people at the Dennison home. The police find the Dennison parents and one son dead. Another son ran in the race, and the daughter's whereabouts are not known. Acting Superintendent Doug Ashby is at the scene when Blake arrives. Blake finds the terrified daughter, Aileen, in a cupboard. She is blind, and reports to Blake and Ashby what she heard, three shots, but the police know five shots happened. Her brother Owen returns from the race. Cameron Dennison, his wife Lorna and son Samuel are identified by Cameron's brother Clyde, who tells the police there is a third son Albert, a disgrace to the family who goes by Corrigan. The Dennison family are wealthy, old money per Tyneman, and generous; they sponsored the race that day. Patrick Tyneman demands Ashby explain who has been arrested, as people are calling the newspaper for information. Charlie gets Albert to the police station; Albert gets upset and violent when told his mother is dead; Blake sedates him. Albert tells police he last saw his father a week earlier, when it was made official that he was not in his father's will. They had fought earlier, and Albert was injured, leaving a scar. Charlie reveals to Blake his injury from Jack hitting him during the race, when it seemed that Charlie would win. At home, Jean explains that Albert was cut off because he wanted to marry a Catholic girl; she dislikes Clyde Dennison. Jack stays at Blake's home, where he meets Mattie. Ashby questions Clyde Dennison, who has been in court to take control of the family's many assets in the prior year, and he lost. Ashby has the court records opened before he questions Clyde, who will inherit. Police are called to intercept people driving into town after an armed robbery. There is a fierce shoot-out between them and the police. Ashby kills Ray Banford, the man trying to kill Charlie. Ivy Douglas survives the shoot out; she is pregnant, and Jack is the father. Ashby calls Jack in for questioning as a long ago friend of Ray. Jack was arrested ten years earlier by Ashby, and sent out of town at age 14, soon after his father had died. Ashby orders Blake off the case once Jack is suspected. Blake still worries about lividity of the corpses, the changing appearance of the body after death. The dog bowl is full of dinner scraps. Studying the photos, it appears that the morning newspaper was placed on the table after the shootings, staging the appearance; the blood on the newspaper is not human blood. Blake deduces that the murders could have happened up to 12 hours before the morning discovery. Tyneman publishes where Jack is living in the morning paper, and a crowd of men appear at Blake's house, and attack Jean. Charlie and Blake intervene. Charlie takes Owen Dennison in for questioning, while Blake deals with Aileen who faces him with a gun and makes clear that she aligned with her uncle Clyde, that her father was giving away the family wealth, and directed her brother Owen to do the shooting. Blake gets the gun out of her hand, and she too is arrested. Blake tells Jack how his mother stood up to the crowd of men for him. Jack replies with accusations, then goes home and packs his bags to leave. Blake makes it clear to Jean that she lives there, and her son is welcome in the future; they are always our children.

There are two boats in a rowing competition, with a crowd cheering them on, including Patrick Tyneman. The crowd cheers the winning pair of rowers, from the college; then the losers from the high school accuse Dennis of cheating. Arnie Ross and Dennis Goodman are tossed into the water as part of the celebration, and only one comes out. Per the autopsy, Dennis died with a lot of water in his lungs, indicating his larynx never closed, as it should have. Ashby gives Blake 24 hours to demonstrate this is a murder, not an accident, then ups the ante to suspending Blake if there is no quick decision. The boy's father Herbert hampers the investigation, telling no truth to the police. The father had been an Olympian. Dennis's girlfriend Rachel mentions how Dennis would not taste his lemonade because it was not yellow enough. Dennis took Rachel away from his rowing partner, Arnie. Mrs Monica Goodman, before she was married, was the first girl Blake ever courted, but then he left for school and the army. She has a second son, Lucas, considered academically gifted but working hard rowing, too. Beth Webb is the mother of Timmy Webb, on the losing team, and she trained Mattie. Charlie Davis dove into the lake, and found an item in the water; Arnie said he kicked Dennis under the water. Les Bates, one of the losing rowers, reveals that Herbert Goodman roughed up his son before each race, demonstrating on Blake. Tyneman switches from sponsoring Dennis Goodman, to Tim Webb. Dr Harvey finds that Dennis was injecting himself with testosterone, a performance enhancer. Rachel later says Dennis was seeing another girl, so she put vodka in his drink hoping he would be caught, as alcohol is forbidden. Arnie helped her spike the drink with vodka. Then the "yellow thing' is brought up, as Dennis kept saying things were not yellow enough. The other woman friend, Rachel's mother, reports Dennis was dizzy once, but something in his sports bag got him better. Digoxin, a medicine derived from the foxglove plant, makes things appear yellow; it is treatment for heart problems. That medicine is put in Blake's mind by seeing the phrase 'extract of foxglove' on his mother's records. Lucas confirms that his brother was taking something. Tim Webb switched the digoxin for diet medication; without the digoxin, Dennis's heart would stop in the cold water. Dennis's sports bag is finally found on the roof of the boathouse, complete with needles, testosterone and digoxin bottle. Tim had looked all this up once he found what medications Dennis has been taking. a month earlier. Without the digoxin, things that had looked yellow to Dennis, now looked the wrong color – the yellow thing. Tim's life is now changed totally, from that decision to switch the digoxin with pills that looked the same; he will be tried for murder. Dennis's father feels his son's death is his fault, for the inherited heart condition. His son is a boy who is not missed by many besides his parents. Ashby tells Blake he has many enemies, and Ashby is not one of them. From the newly found file, Blake learns his mother had a miscarriage when he was two years old, and she had been diabetic.

A fight breaks out among men who are gambling in a game of two-up in McCain's Alley. One man walks away to the cattle pens, and sits on the fence. Later, boys reach the farm and see him dead, trampled by the unpenned cattle. They report their news the next morning. The body is identified by his watch and being on what they think is his own farm, Mark Dempster. There is a shoe imprint near the body, unusual in its shape. Doctors Blake and Alice Harvey await identification. Mrs Barbara Dempster says it is not her husband Mark, but her brother-in-law Ben. Ashby tells Blake he is leaving, as the new man is here. Superintendent William Munro does not like Blake from the start, and tries to limit him in solving the crimes. Munro is brusque and pushy from the start. Blake examines Nathan Eaton, one of those fighting the night before and beat up. Blake learns that the two Dempster brothers left the fight at the same time, though not together. Ben's wife is Ruth. Blake and Charlie Davis interview Ruth, who describes their money problems, as her husband is not a good manager. Mark Dempster shows up at his farm. He slept in the barn so his wife could honestly say she did not know where he was overnight, when he lost his watch to his brother by gambling. He wears the unusual shoes, custom made for him, but cannot explain how the print appeared next to his brother's body. Blake notices that a Gold Tooth Aloe, at his own home, is the same as found at Ruth Dempster's place. That was once the farm where Jean and her late husband Christopher lived; she took a piece of the plant when she moved to work for Blake's father. She accompanies Davis and Blake for the second meeting with Ruth, as Jean knows her. Jean tells the story of how her husband went away to the war after she argued with him, as she wants to see the world and he was content with a simpler life, and she never saw him again. Her grief is still like Ruth's, despite the time that has passed. The lettuce crop at the farm is ruined by herbicide, so Blake takes a piece of a plant to learn which herbicide. Ruth mentions Nathan Eaton, the real estate agent, who had been trying to sell their farm. Eaton tells police that he did apply the herbicide once, but another realtor arranged the sale of that farm, which Ruth did not know, and is why Nathan punched Ben. The money from the sale cleared the mortgage debt, but there is no money for Ruth to inherit. Peter Muir, the bank manager for the Dempster brothers, pulls the prize money from the upcoming agricultural competition. He proves to be a gambler, who gambled the prize money away, his and his family's money. Blake meets farmhand Helen and her daughter Janet at Mark Dempster's farm; Barbara cannot find her husband's work boots. Someone else was wearing them. Blake remarks to Jean that Janet looks like Mark Dempster; Davis gets confirmation of that. Jean tells Blake where she would hide cash, in the freezer, where Blake finds the cash from the sale of the farm. Mark tells Munro it is the cash from the sale of Ben's farm, given to Mark to manage. Blake is sorting items in old boxes, learning about his mother's death. Blake notices the eye color of people at the two farms; Janet has brown eyes, but the two people said to be her parents are both blue-eyed, and a child from them should have blue eyes. Helen admits that Ben was Janet's father. Blake realizes Ruth's possible role in the murder, at the same time that Ruth tells Jean that she knew her husband had hooked up with Helen, and learned the week before he was giving her money. Blake arrives at the farm in time to stop Ruth from a second killing, and she then tells the police how she killed her husband. Blake has solved this murder; nonetheless, Munro lectures him and sets the job up as with him or against him. At home, Jean mentions that she had plans for when her husband returned, to make clear he was man enough. Blake tells her, now is the start of her "being ready" for the next step in her life.

Young people from the university in Melbourne stage a protest at the memorial for the Eureka Rebellion. Mattie is present when the police break up the small gathering and a photographer takes her picture. Arguments continue at a bar, a fight breaks out and they bar closes. Next morning, Wendy Smith sees Des Somerville lying dead on the steps of the memorial. Mattie's father Martin. the ministry for industry and commerce, is at breakfast at Blake's home, when Blake is called to the memorial. In the autopsy, substantial blood loss is expected, but none was present at the scene. A second blow to the head was post mortem, showing that the body was moved. The students are members of the CPA; they stay at the house of Colin Doyle, where Charlie Davis questions Joseph Beville, a medical student, and Wendy. At the same time, Colin Doyle is punched in the nose by Blake and caught by Munro, while another youth tosses red paint on Martin O'Brien, in protest of his speech that morning, after being introduced by business owner Ken Farmer. Blake meets Davis at Doyle's home, where they find the track of a wheel leading to the memorial. Then Charlie and Blake question Georgie Bromley, nephew of Ken Farmer. Doyle gave photographs to Patrick Tyneman's newspaper, revealed under harsh questioning by Munro. Blake gives Munro an autopsy report, on time but incomplete. Later, Constable Simmons calls Davis and Blake to Doyle's house, where there is a fight. Blake tells Mattie that Doyle used her to get to her father and used Georgie to get to his uncle. At the political dinner at the club, Munro makes a point of mentioning that Blake's daughter is in China, a Communist nation, and Blake has visited her. In return, Blake asks about Munro's war service; Munro did not do any. Wendy tells Mattie about Des and Colin, how Des had not cared for her. Blake is collecting saliva samples from suspects, without their direct knowledge, with aid from Mattie and Cec. At home, Mattie overhears a phone call, leading her to suspect that Davis spies for Munro. Munro detains Joseph on the basis of his father's long ago support of Mussolini in the war. Joseph is freed once Mattie comes forward, as they were together until 4 am at Doyle's house, when Des was likely murdered before midnight. Blake finds the spot where Des was killed, in the back of Doyle's home, and realizes it was Georgie who killed Des, and wheeled his body to the memorial. Further, his saliva was in the bite on Des, leaving traces of Georgie's asthma medication behind. Blake describes the scene, when Des puts a wrestling hold on Georgie, Georgie bites him to break it, then punches Des, who falls on a brick, the fatal wound. Georgie confesses. Munro commends Davis for his work, and suggests he go for detective training. Mattie and her father make peace. Agnes Clasby, a friend of Blake's mother and now patient of Blake, tells him his mother died of diabetic coma, after a party, not appendicitis as he was told.

Jean's son Christopher, in the Army, comes to see his mother in a performance of Electra at the Colonist's Club, in town for the first time in eight years. Coming out for her curtain call after the performance, famous actress Jacqueline Maddern falls dead on the stage. Blake notices red marks on her skin and suspects poison. Superintendent Munro closes the club so that he can interview all present. Mattie is in the audience, too. Christopher updates his mother on his brother Jack (An Invincible Summer}, who is parted from the woman carrying his baby, and she had a miscarriage. Miss Maddern was about to leave for America, having done scenes in Australia for an American film, based on a book by Australian writer Nevil Shute. Her friend Pamela Gilchrist aids in the search of Miss Maddern's possessions in her dressing room after she died. Munro will not allow the actress's body moved to the morgue; samples are carried to Dr Alice Harvey for testing by Mattie O'Brien. Susan Tyneman was in charge of preparing meals, including what Miss Maddern ate before the performance. Patrick Tyneman argues with Justin Reynolds, a reporter from Melbourne, who tries to escape before he is questioned. The police, Sergeant Hobart and Charlies Davis, stop him. Patrick reveals to Munro that he had a brief affair with the actress a few years earlier when he gave money to support a play; Susan hears this news from Reynolds. Patrick is not pleased with Munro. Cec Drury tells Stuart, his nephew and server for the event, to toss the roses that Miss Maddern held at her final bow. Munro is very harsh, scaring Stu who is wearing gloves while putting the roses in the bin. Stu wears them to hide psoriasis, which Blake calmly discovers. Blake believes the poison is on the roses; who put the poison on them? Warwick Simpson is a theatre director, once her lover; he tells Munro the actress wanted money for the charity performance, money that he gave her. Munro is very harsh with everyone, including Christopher Beazley, who wants to call his pregnant wife Ruby back at home. Before they leave, Susan tells Reynolds her husband will hire him, and that his story, about her husband's affair, is not a tale for him to tell. Munro is determining who stands with him, pushing Sergeant Hobart to report on the two police doctors. Munro calls Major Alderton, in the Army, to get a report on a guest from his military days. When Munro challenges Murray Nelson, Nelson grabs and chokes Dr Harvey, now at the club. Dr Harvey faints, then four men grab Nelson. They find personal items from Miss Maddern's dressing room in Nelson's pockets, and a vial of poison with a label in Korean. Christopher reads the Korean, a poem that Nelson finishes. Nelson applied the poison to the roses after they were delivered. Christopher is allowed to call his wife and the guests are released. Blake finds a photo in Nelson's wallet, showing Nelson with both Miss Maddern and Pamela Gilchrist. Blake describes Pamela's actions to her and Munro. Once Nelson was the rejected lover of Miss Maddern; then he connected with Pamela, who killed Maddern by pushing the roses up to her in a hug, holding an old stage program, from A Night to Remember, so the roses would not poison her. Her plan is to go to Hollywood alone and start anew. Instead, she is arrested. Back at home, Mattie brings out the cake she made to mark Jean's birthday; Christopher, Mattie and Blake sing in her honor.

After talking business with Len Webster at the hotel, Henry King staggers up to his hotel room. The next morning, hotel owner Catherine Lewis tries to wake him up. His door is jammed with a chair; Len pushes to open the door. Henry appears dead. Blake joins Chief Inspector Lawson at the scene. Henry is still just alive, but he dies before Blake can administer adrenaline. Norman Baker appears, he is business partner with Len. Henry had been at an AA meeting at a church before meeting with Len; Blake goes the meeting, where Miss Lewis usually attended as did gun shop owner Errol Stott. Doug Ashby is at the hotel, looking out for his friend's daughter, Miss Lewis. He shares his observations of the hotel with Blake. Further examination of the hotel room reveals a bullet hole through the wall and a painting, and it came from the room next door, where Len spent the night. The casing is found on the floor, but there is no bullet in Henry's body. Stott provides a list of people who bought the gun matching that bullet, including Len Webster. Len says the gun went off accidentally, and he was relieved to hear that Henry died of asphyxiation, not the bullet. Mattie finds a young woman wandering on the street, and takes her to the hospital. Her injuries are tended but her short term memory is gone. Henry took to drinking heavily ten years earlier, when he was a builder and someone was killed on the job. He changed to running a hardware store. Norman Baker mentions that his younger daughter died ten years earlier, and he had a memorial for her that day. Charlie Davis and Blake ask Norman when his daughter Jessie died; she was 8 years old when the roof was being repaired by Henry. Henry took a lunch break without securing the tiles, which fell and killed the girl. Norman blames Henry for the loss of his daughter. Norman's family split apart, as his elder daughter moved away and his wife left him. Blake considers that Mattie's patient may be that elder daughter, as she came from Bendigo for the memorial of her sister's death. She clicks when they ask her if she recalls the name Norman Baker. Her name is Anna, though her father took to calling her Jessie. He comes to fetch her. Charlie finds her car, and a cushion from the hotel at that scene. Blake suggests to Anna, with her father present, that she killed Henry by staying in Henry's room after they had lunch in the hotel and suffocating him. She admits to it all, and adds details. She hid under the bed all night, slipping out when the door was open in the morning. She is arrested. Her father says he was happy to let Henry drink himself to death with the money he would get from the sale of his store, as vengeance. Superintendent Munro is angry that Blake did not submit his written resignation. Lawson shows Munro a photo of Munro and another high-ranking police officer with a well-known and wanted criminal, which puts pressure on Munro. Charlie found the photo in Munro's desk earlier and sent it to Lawson. At home, Jean tells Blake she has decided to go help her son and his wife.

Neville Franklin, the magistrate who put Tyneman's son in jail, is found murdered at his own home, with Patrick Tyneman and his son Edward in the house. After Blake says, from visual inspection of the body, that Franklin died of poison, Munro arrests Edward. In the autopsy, Alice Harvey and Blake notice the man had been held down during death, it was a painful death with limbs flailing, and they find half of a Masonic coin inside him. The poison was strychnine. Franklin was a Mason. Sergeant Davis arrives at the scene with Munro, and is sure that Munro changed something after he pushed Davis out of the room where the body was found. Jean has brought in a new receptionist and housekeeper, Evelyn Toohey, for Blake while she is away in Adelaide with her son and his wife. Patrick is concerned about his son, and asks Blake to check him out medically. Edward, still on parole, has been expelled from the Masons, by Franklin's instigation. That makes Edward angry, saying he wants to kill people. Edward's hands are shaking and he will not allow "skin on skin" contact, as Blake calls it; some effect of being in jail. As the killer did touch Franklin's skin, Blake does not believe Edward could be the killer. Dr Harvey tells Blake of the result of tests of the soil above his mother's grave, revealing the presence of strychnine, which killed Franklin, and Blake is upset that his mother died that way. Blake shows the half-coin to a Mason, Jock Clement, who says it was stolen from the lodge cabinet, and the theft had been reported to Munro. Clare Llewellyn is doing the dishes at the Masonic lodge, to help her husband, but she says she seems not to please Masons. Doug Ashby is a Mason, too, arriving for the vote of the new Worshipful Master, to replace Franklin. Mrs Toohey mistakenly cleans up Blake's office, losing his important papers. Jean is at the local hotel until the bus comes; Mattie meets her there and learns that Blake was just 10 years old when his mother died. Blake meets with Clare Llewellyn, who had been a patient of his father for her mood swings. Her husband is now Deputy Warden in the Masonic lodge. Clare did not steal the coin, and does not know who did. At the Masonic lodge, Blake looks at some of the records; then Jock Clement shows to Blake the other half of the coin that Franklin was forced to swallow. It was the coin he received at his initiation; he got the other half in the mail from a person unknown and it scares him. Jock signed a false death certificate for Blake's mother; he says she took her own life and he tells the story in detail, naming Doug Ashby as being present, among others. Clare enters the room, going after Jock with a knife, but Blake stops her. Munro arrests her, despite Blake telling him that she is not stable for interrogation; she confesses to many things that she did not do. After telling Lawson he is "surplus to requirements", Munro once again tells Blake to get out, he is fired. Blake bakes scones with Mrs Toohey's help, and brings them to Jean. He needs to talk to someone who can clear his thinking. Next morning, Blake asks Cec which man pursued his mother 40 years ago; it was Jock Clement, and Doug Ashby protected Blake's mother. Ashby puts new flowers at the grave of Blake's mother, where Blake meets him. Ashby admits to killing Franklin in revenge for Mrs Blake's murder. Clement with Franklin's aid poisoned Blake's mother 40 years ago. Munro took a diary from Franklin's room at his death, as Franklin had started writing down past stories after he fell out with Clement. Blake confronts Jock Clement with killing his mother; Clement points a gun at him. Lawson and Ashby enter the room; Ashby and Clement struggle over the gun and Ashby is shot, dying in Blake's arms. Lawson takes Clement away. At the police station, Lawson and Davis arrest Munro for tampering with evidence and other charges on the advice of the Melbourne office. Blake describes his world view, with hope in people, in sharp contrast to that of Munro, who sees guilt and deceit all around him. He and Jean have each reached a new stage in their lives. Jean boards the bus to Adelaide; Blake stops it to say a proper good-bye to her, holding her hand.

Guest cast: John Wood, Rod Mullinar, John Stanton

Dr Lucien Blake returns home after a week away to find Ballarat hosting a very public stopover in the 1960 cross-country, endurance motor race. A young mechanic, Errol Moore, is found dead under the car of Trevor McKenzie, apparently murder. The new reporter taking photos for The Courier is Lawson's niece Rose Anderson. Back at the scene of the death, Chief Superintendent Lawson pushes Charlie Davis out of the way as a car comes speeding from the garage, hitting him, bouncing him in the air and driving away. Davis does first aid to Lawson. Blake tells the surgeon in the hospital that the leg can be saved, and Blake begins the procedure to save it with Mattie as the nurse. The suspects for the murder are part of the amateur car racing world, which is slowly changing to professional. Jones drove the car that hit Lawson and broke three of Davis's ribs. Herbert Jones works for the auto manufacturers to make their models drive better, or disadvantages cars from those not paying him. Bomber Denman works with Jones; Blake uses fierce methods to get Bomber, mechanic for to Trevor, to admit his use of dynamite against competitors, and to stop it. Miss Beryl Routledge, the one woman in the race and winner of the stage, has ambitions to win it, and make money in racing; she approached young Errol to join her team, as he was the best mechanic. Errol turned her down as he wanted to drive in the next year's race. Jean returns from Adelaide to see Lawson. The famed Clive Hildebrand, the second place driver of the stage who wants to stay amateur, mistakenly thought that his mechanic Errol betrayed him, so he killed him brutally. He then tries to kill Blake as Blake investigates beneath Hildebrand's car. Jean saves Blake by hitting Hildebrand with a wrench as he lowers his car onto Blake. Bill Hobart comes to arrest Hildebrand. Lawson realises that when he can walk, it will be with a stick, and he expects that means he will not pass the medical exam and says good-bye to his staff. Blake trades in the car inherited from his father, a 1930s Standard, for a new model. Jean and Blake come to terms in Adelaide but do not tell anyone else.

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.

Judith Chapman, the woman who won the state lottery, but did not yet get her winnings, is kidnapped. Charlie Davis takes the phone call from the kidnapper at her home, after the neighbor called the police. Her husband Laurie is the first suspect; a woman in his company tried to start an affair with him, giving the motive. She lies to everyone about her liaison, which never happened. Another employee at the company had been friends with the husband since high school. Blake finds the woman after figuring out the particular phrasing of the kidnapper to mean they were near railroad tracks. But Blake is hit on the head before he can give her the medicine she needs, or untie her. The young daughter Elizabeth of the couple goes from the care of the neighbor to her maternal grandmother Irene to Rose, who finds her at home alone, to the police, and then to Jean. When Blake is found, there is a dead hobo called Bluey next to him, killed by the kidnapper. Blake then realises that the Chapman family's business success and the lottery winnings move them to another social class and leave old friends behind; he confronts the employee who was a high school friend, who finally admits what he has done. He thinks Judith is dead, but Blake thinks she had a crisis from her lifelong disease. She is found and recovers in the hospital, surrounded by her daughter, her husband and her mother. Patrick Tyneman has given his son Edward the position of editor of The Courier; Edward seeks articles that sell more papers and had printed the address of the lottery winner. That proved unimportant in the crime. Solving the case provides Blake with the opportunity to propose to Jean just as Mei Lin, Blake's wife long reported dead (last episode of Series 1, first episode of Series 2), arrives at the front door.

Alex Martin, a jockey dies the morning after a big win, riding around the track on a practice run. The winning horse is put down by the owner of the track, Ada McCrae. Alex was nephew to Agnes Clasby, friend to the Blake family; Alex's effects go to her. Carlyle is in debt to a bookmaker who is one of the suspects, which he states openly. He involves Blake with more interviews on this account. The second place winner runs when the police try to question him, running onto the track, run over by two other racers on the track; he dies of his wounds. Among Alex's effects is a note indicating he was asked to throw the race, and let the second place winner come in first. Many bets were placed by people in the stable assuming that would happen. A young woman at the track who favors the horses over people, starts shooting randomly; her actions bring about the denouement at the track. Alex had serious injuries from an earlier fall, and was advised not to race any more. He still wanted to win, and did win, so all those bets were lost. This was the motive for killing him, with a cable stretched across the race track at rider height. When he fell off the horse, the horse fell too, not part of the plan. Ada McCrae had that cable stretched and then removed before the police arrived. She is arrested, as Blake says, your tears were not for Alex, but for the horse. Rose is present trying to get a good story on the front page, to advance in her career at The Courier. 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.

Merv Rogers is killed during a routine midnight training exercise; he was not part of the drill. Major Derek Alderton is in charge of the base, not a person Blake likes though he had known him since the Second World War. Leaving the base with Davis in a police car, they pursue a speeder. A young man has the car, without license plates on it; the car holds a bloody rug and a bayonet. The young man took the car as he found it with the keys in it, untended. Tracing back where the car was stolen, a partially buried body of a woman is found. That woman had been living on the base until she separated from her husband. She has penicillin in her system, which medical records show was to treat a sexually transmitted disease. The circle of friends is described by Keith Ellis, owner of the car, as sharing everything, which includes spouses, as they watch the couples at the gathering in honor of Merv. Blake then confirms this more directly in conversation with the wives, who all need to treat their disease. Rose says that a woman called her with a tip, leaving only a phone number some weeks earlier; she is the murdered woman. The woman are not pleased with this arrangement, feeling relatively powerless. They invent people to add to the military payroll and collect the money. Blake and Rose discover a break in the fence around the base, where Merv was running home, not running because he could not sleep. Blake realizes that Merv did not murder the woman, but aided in moving her body in the Ellis automobile. Daisy Rogers, his mother, killed her, and then her son and a husband buried her. When Merv knew the car was stolen, he ran back to the base, as he was due back by midnight, and got caught in the live fire exercise. Throughout this case, Blake is talking with Jean as he has become accustomed, and also meeting his wife for breakfast at the hotel, and talking with her. The newspaper covers this case at the base and writes about Mei Lin, as well as including more articles on China. Jean tells Blake not to show her affection; it is painful for her and for Mei Lin. The perfect gentleman, he says, yes, of course, as they all cope with the wife alive, back after 17 years, longer than they were together.

An exhibition boxing match in Ballarat turns sour when boxer Mickey Ellis dies in front of hundreds of witnesses. Superintendent Frank Carlyle is away in Melbourne due to his gambling debts. Lawson appears and takes his place after the investigation has begun. The cause of death is difficult to determine, but it is soon clear that it was not a punch from his opponent, Ray Davis, younger brother of Charlie. Charlie has been working to support his mother and brother, and his brother is not getting on with him. His mother is dating Bernie Thompson, the man who manages Ray. Charlie's late father, a policeman, had arrested Bernie years earlier for fraud, so Charlie is not quick to believe Bernie has his family's best interests at heart. The police find Flanagan's van. Two points of interest: Mickey was a wild man and a trail of gypsum leads to the body of Sean Flanagan, the cornerman for Ray, killed by Mickey. Gus Jansons, the manager of the arena and coach for Mickey, assisted in the burial at a closed agricultural store yard. Mickey died of poison in his petroleum jelly applied before the fight by Gus, entering his bloodstream when an old wound opens during the fight. The aconite poison was extracted from flowers in the garden of Mickey's fiancée Tracey Corelli. Gus is charged, Ray is cleared, and he and his brother are on better terms. Charlie and Rose have an argument over the story she wrote about Mickey's death.

Edward Tyneman comes on to Rose, bringing a picnic to show her farmland he is buying. It is the week before Christmas, and Blake investigates the murder of Daryl Fitzpatrick, a local farmer shot to death at point blank range. Angelo Colonna and Norman Baker are business partners wanting to start a winery with a new purchase of land. They were turned down as buyers by the owner, Daryl, in favor of buyer Edward Tyneman. Daryl was found dead after the fire on the land was put out. Colonna and Baker started the fire, which also ruined the topsoil. Baker is angry at Blake, blaming him for the death of his younger daughter Anna, who killed herself in prison while she was being held for a murder she committed (Series 3, Episode 7). Baker has closed his gun store and is planning to leave town. Edward Tyneman makes a scandal of Blake's request for divorce, on the basis of his drinking, in the evening newspaper. Rose rejects Edward's advances firmly but politely. He puts Rose's byline on the offensive article and then fires her. Blake punches Edward for writing about his family. Jean learns that the divorce was filed via the newspaper. Jean speaks again with Father Emery, as she assesses what she leaves behind if she goes ahead with the marriage. He stands firm and rigid on the canon law of the Catholic Church. Lionel Taylor is a neighbour to the Fitzpatricks, and Blake suspects that the Fitzpatrick son, Kevin, may well be Lionel's son. Lionel confesses to having been intimate with Eileen Fitzpatrick years earlier. The autopsy moves slowly, first confused by a sample of dog's blood, resolved when Officer Ned Simmons brings the wounded dog in. The autopsy reveals that Daryl was not killed by a shotgun alone. Blake realizes that Kevin shot Daryl with a 0.22 caliber rifle, and Lionel added a shot from his shotgun so Kevin would not go to jail. Both men are arrested. Mei Lin writes to say she agrees to a quiet divorce. In the closing scene, Cec serves a drink to William Munro, back in town.

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, Amy Kingham. She is being stalked by violent prior boyfriend Walter 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. Simmons was to testify in a few days with evidence against Gregan, who bribed police at another station, so he is the first suspect in this murder. An attempt is made to kill Doctor Blake, but suspended superintendent William Munro takes the fatal bullet instead. Jean tells Father Emery 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 suicide death of his daughter in prison (she murdered the man who the family blamed for her younger sister's death, in Series 3, Episode 7). Blake finds them in the cemetery and tries to protect Jean. Lawson arrives to resolve the situation as Blake makes a full apology for his own mistakes. Baker is arrested as he killed both Simmons and Munro and attacked Charlie at the morgue, all in his furious pursuit of Blake. At the police station, Edward Tyneman insists he wants justice for Blake punching him. Patrick Tyneman follows his son into the station and fires him as editor of the local newspaper for all the trouble he is making. Patrick then says to let Miss Anderson know she can have her job back. 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.