- A wealthy art collector is murdered, and all signs point to a robbery gone wrong. But the nephew's alibi is a little too convenient, and Columbo pulls a fast one to ferret out the killer.
- Lt. Columbo investigates the murder of Rudy Matthews, an art collector found shot to death in his home. The killer is the dead man's nephew, art critic Dale Kingston, who, with the help of his accomplice Tracy O'Connor, effectively masks the time of death to give himself an alibi at an art exhibit. From the outset, Columbo can't quite understand why the thief would have first selected a painting of lesser value before suddenly switching to the two most valuable paintings after the killing. Kingston tries to point Columbo in the direction of his aunt, Matthews' ex-wife Edna. The fact that Matthews left his entire art collection to her seems to support that idea. Columbo isn't buying it and sets a clever trap for him.—garykmcd / corrected by statmanjeff
- A popular art critic kills his uncle to increase his chances of inheriting his uncle's prized art collection and tries to pin the crime on his slightly scatterbrained aunt. He is helped by an accomplice who steals the two most valuable paintings, but when she becomes a liability, he kills her and tries to make her death look like it had been caused by an accidental fall down a mountainside.
- When a wealthy art collector is murdered, Lieutenant Columbo refuses to suspect the millionaire's ex-wife, whom numerous clues point to as the killer. He instead persists in pursuing the victim's nephew, prominent art critic Dale Kingston, who apparently has an airtight alibi for the murder. Kingston believes in his carefully wrought plan to frame his aunt and refuses to believe that Columbo can be taken seriously. He is dead wrong.—Leaper
- Dale Kingston (Ross Martin) is a renown LA art critic. At the luxurious mansion of his uncle, wealthy Rudy Matthews (Robert Shayne), all the servants are having the day off. Dale comes in as Matthews is playing the piano, shoots him, and steals two of his uncle's most expensive paintings. He puts the body on the floor, wrapped by an electric blanket. Dale stops and stares when somebody rings the bell of the main door. The audience holds their breath because the person calling may spoil Dale's plan. However, he opens the door when he sees through the door's peering hole and it's his lover, the weak and untalented painter Tracy O'Connor (Rosanna Huffman). Tracy looks unfit for the job, because she isn't even able to look at the dead body, but she has to stay for an hour with the body getting heated up by the blanket, to delay the apparent time of death. Meanwhile, Dale goes to the opening day of an exhibition by eccentric painter Sam Franklin (Vic Tayback). When he arrives in his flashy car, he makes Joe (Dennis Rucker), the parking boy, look for one of his cufflinks. Later, saying that there is a problem with his watch, asks several people, including Sam Franklin, what time it is, to establish the time of his alibi. At home, Tracy waits for a private security patrol to leave after a check, then fires a shot into the air, runs down the steps to her car, and rives away.
Enter Lt Frank Columbo (Peter Falk). He starts questioning aunt Edna Matthews (Kim Hunter), Frank Simpson's ex-wife, whom he had repeatedly declared to be his only mistake during his own life, as he should have never divorced her. Dale treats Edna kindly, but that's just his plot. First, he takes the two paintings to his own flat. Dale had given his keys to Columbo so that he could check some art book Dale had at his apartment. Columbo has fallen asleep on an armchair when Dale comes back with the paintings, wrapped on a painting portfolio. Dale wakes Columbo up and says to him that he's carrying the work of some new painter inside. Columbo asks to see them, but Kingston doesn't want that. Columbo insists and touches the paintings, but Dale obviously won't let him take a look at them.
Tracy is frustrated by her inability to paint well and creatively. However, Dale encourages her, even though he knows that she has not enough talent. Columbo talks to the landlady (Mary Wickes) with Joe, who spent some time looking for the cufflink around the car in vain. Dale simply found it afterwards.
Some clues lead to the aunt of Dale Kingston, the ex-wife who inherited almost everything. Columbo realises that, if the aunt is accused of the murder, she won't be able to keep the money or the properties as her own, because a person guilty of murder cannot inherit anything from the murdered person.
Dale then gets rid of Tracy by meeting her up in the hills, then bludgeoning her with a rock and dumping her body, passing her death off as a car accident. It turns out he never loved her - in fact, she was just a gullible person who happened to fall in love with him, somebody unsure of her own merits and talent (of which he thought she had none). Columbo has been pestering Dale about his relationship with Tracy, whom he denies any knowledge whatsoever, especially at first.
However, some clues still lead to Dale's aunt, so Captain Wyler (Barney Phillips) and another policeman (Claude Johnson) visit her home. Suddenly, they find the two paintings wrapped in cheap brown wrapping paper. They arrest the aunt.
Columbo doesn't seem satisfied with this solution. Aunt Edna is terribly upset because she looks so guilty, in spite of her innocence. He sits around a table with Dale, his aunt, and Wyler. Columbo tells Wyler to check the paintings for prints. Dale says that it's only natural that there are handprints on the prints, as he must have touched them at his uncle's mansion. Columbo says that he himself had touched the paintings at Dale's apartment, in that portfolio he was trying to hide so eagerly, so if the paintings have his (Columbo's) prints, they are the ones which he touched at Dale's apartment. Dale says that everything is a conspiration, that Columbo must have touched the paintings at Edna's apartment. Columbo shows his hands: both are inside gloves.
Dale is trapped, and his aunt is cleared when Columbo's prints appear.
---written by KrystelClaire
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