Well-meaning governess Vicki is the prisoner of the fugitive Matthew. Matthew is keeping Vicki in a hidden chamber inside the long-abandoned Old House on the great estate of Collinwood. Today, Vicki tries to reason with Matthew, telling him that it is unlikely anyone realizes she is missing now, but that they will figure it out very soon. So, while the coast is probably clear for him to make his escape now, if he waits for any length of time the place will be crawling with police.
In the great house on the estate, reclusive matriarch Liz is sharing her worries about Vicki with hardworking young fisherman Joe and dashing action hero Burke. They telephone the sheriff and ask him to come with several deputies. Liz tells Joe and Burke that Vicki was going to look for her wallet in the Old House when last she saw her; they pick up some shotguns and flashlights and head that way.
Back in the Old House, Matthew seems to be considering Vicki’s arguments. He tells her that he will indeed make a run for the spot in the woods where he has hidden his car and drive off. He also tells her that he will take her with him so as to discourage the police from shooting at him. She objects to this part of the plan, but he is too strong, and she is too frightened, for her to prevent it.
They reach the front door just as Burke calls to her from the other side of it. Matthew covers Vicki’s mouth and hustles her back to the hidden chamber. He clutches her while Joe and Burke search just outside.
The search goes on for quite some time. After a commercial break, Burke describes the house as “huge,” and says that they’ve searched most of it. He then sends Joe back to the great house to ask Liz about any parts of the Old House they may have overlooked. When they were on their way to the Old House, Joe had said they still had a quarter of a mile to go, so the total distance of a round trip between the two houses must be over a half mile.* Joe goes there, talks to Liz, and comes back. He did that over rough terrain, in the dark, while carrying a loaded weapon and looking for a lost person, so we can be sure he didn’t move particularly quickly. When he gets back to the Old House, Burke tells him that while he was away he found the storm cellar, broke the lock on its entrance, and searched it. They also remark that the sheriff and his men must be at the great house by now. So I think we can assume that Burke was in the Old House for at least an hour altogether.
During all that time, Matthew is gripping Vicki and listening to Joe and Burke. He is frozen in place, and her attempts to struggle against him achieve only a glacier’s pace of movement. We wonder how long he can stay so still, and whether she can find a way to break free. That adds up to considerable suspense.
Only when Joe and Burke are gone does Matthew relax his grip sufficiently that Vicki can let out a shriek. He throws her to the floor and tells her that it was a dumb thing to do. The episode ends with a closeup of her shattered reaction to this.
There are a couple of moments when Joe and Burke are supposed to be elsewhere, but we see the front parlor of the Old House anyway. In those two moments, we see something we’ve seen twice before- the portrait of Josette Collins hanging over the mantelpiece glows with an unearthly light while spooky music swells on the soundtrack. On those previous occasions, Josette’s ghost had emerged from the portrait and become visible to us. This time, it only glows. The glow stops when one of the men comes into the room. So Josette may not be ready to manifest herself to either of them, but she’s around, and we can expect her to come out of the supernatural back-world that the show has hinted at and implied into the foreground, where it will intervene in the action. Vicki didn’t know how right she was when she told Matthew he was missing his last chance to get away. Not only has his shilly-shallying brought Joe, Burke, and the sheriff’s department to the scene, but his defilement of the Old House has stirred up the ghosts who haunt it.
* In this episode- there are other episodes where the distance is much longer or much shorter.
Dark Shadows Commentary 