After a fire at an insane asylum during the Edwardian era, a young journalist becomes convinced that one of the patients has escaped and taken lodgings at a local middle-class household. The mysterious "Doctor Fell" comes to dominate the three woman in the house - mother, daughter and maid - and increasingly shuts them off from outside contact. Despite a lack of assistance from the authorities, the journalist suspects that the Doctor is in fact the notorious Jack the Ripper who is planning a fresh series of attacks.