Adventurer Tim Shaw is in his hotel room with an apparently mute man, trying to get him to speak. The man is struggling to make a sound when artist Charles Delaware Tate enters and produces a revolver. Tate proclaims that the man will never speak. He fires, and the man falls dead to the floor.
The man’s body glows, then vanishes. Tim knows that Tate created the man earlier in the evening. Tate has a magical power that enables him to cause objects and people to pop into existence just by drawing them. Tim says that he ought to call the police, since Tate just murdered a man in cold blood in front of him. But there is no body, and the only other person who has seen the man is Tim’s traveling companion and occasional accomplice Amanda Harris, who turns out to be another of Tate’s creations. So instead Tim pours a drink, and Tate tells him all about how he gained his powers as the result of a bargain he struck with sorcerer Count Petofi.
Petofi is aware of several magical abilities he gave Tate, but does not know that he can bring his creations to life. Tim calls Petofi to his room and brings him up to date. He believes that this report will somehow establish a partnership between himself and Petofi. Since Tate made it clear that his powers are the result of Petofi’s own interventions, it is unclear why Tim would expect even a finder’s fee for this information. It certainly does not provide the basis for an ongoing relationship of any kind.
Meanwhile, a visitor is arriving at the great house of Collinwood. Her face is familiar to longtime viewers- she is played by Kathryn Leigh Scott, who has been in the cast from #1 as Maggie Evans, wisecracking waitress turned The Nicest Girl in Town. When from November 1967 to March 1968 the show was a costume drama set in the 1790s, Miss Scott played the gracious Josette; she had already played Josette’s ghost in some of the episodes in contemporary dress, and in the spring and summer of 1967 vampire Barnabas Collins had tried to brainwash Maggie into becoming Josette. We last saw Miss Scott from March to June in the first part of the still-ongoing segment set in 1897, when she was neurotic intellectual Rachel Drummond.
Before we know the name of this new character, we see that she is wearing widow’s weeds. There is also a first- we hear her thoughts in an interior monologue before she interacts with another character. Whoever she is, the widow is telling herself that she has come to her big moment and she shouldn’t chicken out now. “No one will know,” she assures herself.
The unknown widow knocks, and rakish libertine Quentin Collins lets her in. He appreciates her beauty and asks who in the house is fortunate enough to know her. She says that she and her late husband were friends of the stuffy Edward Collins. Quentin says that Edward is away, and identifies himself as his brother. “Quentin or Carl?” asks the widow. Quentin says, with a sad note, that Carl is dead. This is the first time anyone other than his onetime fiancée Pansy Faye has mentioned Carl’s name in the three months since his death.
The widow finally identifies herself as Kitty Soames, Countess to the late Earl of Hampshire. She says that she is an American, and that after her husband’s death she felt that she was a stranger in England and ought to return home. Quentin invites her to stay in the house.
Kitty is alone in the foyer when Petofi enters. She is horrified to see him. It becomes clear that her husband’s death was a suicide, and that Petofi’s threats prompted it. She goes out to take a walk in the woods.
Along the way, she meets Barnabas, who has traveled back in time from 1969. They have a brief talk. When she exits, he says that she is Josette, returned to him at last.
Back in the great house, Quentin finds Kitty looking at the spot on the wall next to the front door where Barnabas’ portrait has long hung. Some weeks ago, Edward learned that Barnabas was a vampire and ordered the portrait removed. There is a mirror there now, the same mirror that hung in that spot in #195, when the ABC art department was painting Barnabas’ portrait and another portrait was reflected in it. Kitty asks Quentin why Barnabas’ portrait was removed. Since she has never been in the house before, this question perplexes him. He asks how she knows about the portrait and how she knows of Barnabas. At first she is amused by the idea that she would not know of him, but a second later she returns to herself. She insists she has never met anyone named Barnabas and has no idea what Quentin is talking about. Perhaps this time, Barnabas is right- maybe Kitty really is a revenant of Josette.
Miss Scott was one of the biggest stars on the show. She tells a story nowadays about a trip she and her then-husband took to Africa in the late 1960s, when they were on a photo safari deep in the bush. Some people happened by, took one look at her, and all started saying excitedly “Maggie Evans!” So it is inexplicable that today’s closing credits misspell her name as “Kathryn Lee Scott.”
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