Detective Murdoch investigates a bizarre case when a convicted murderer apparently manages to survive the hangman's noose. When Cecil Fox's body is delivered to Dr. Ogden for a post-mortem, she finds a hollow tube inserted in his throat and Fox very much alive. It seems the managed to survive by inserting the tube, thus allowing him to breathe, and by having the hangman's rope shortened so as to ensure that his neck isn't broken. Murdoch and Brackenreid immediately focus on the hangman, Theodore Pleasant, as being complicit in the escape. Brackenreid and Pleasant are good friends but the police Inspector has to admit that it doesn't look good for his friend. With Crabtree and Higgins manning a stakeout, Murdoch realizes that there may have been a miscarriage of justice and that Fox was in fact innocent of the crime for which he was convicted.