Columbo - Short fuse

 Not at the top of the stories I like, not even close, because there is very little Columbo in this, it’s all Roger, loud Roger, he’s everywhere and always talking! That’s why this episode was rather annoying. Other than that, the plot was actually interesting, it would have been one of the best without such a loud and annoying character.

So: the plot:

Roger Stanford puts a time bomb into a cigar case, sort of makes it himself I suppose, to kill his uncle David. Stanford chemicals was founded by Roger’s father, but both parents died years ago. He’s lived with his aunt Doris for years, but can’t really get along with her husband David. Not surprising, since Roger keeps acting like a jester. Now David wants to sell the firm, and Roger is against it. David has his man Quincy investigate Roger, and then he drafted a letter/document in which ‘Roger’ states that he wants to leave the firm. Roger pretends to agree, because he knows that David won’t live to see tomorrow.

He takes away all the cigars so that his uncle will have to open a new box, and of course switches the box with the one he tampered with. That night he goes out with David’s secretary, whom he has a relationship with, has for some time. Hecomes back home to find Columbo there: aunt Doris called the police to say David has disappeared. Soon the accident will be discovered, the car went offroad and down a ravine. 

Columbo is soon convinced it’s no accident, but Roger keeps scheming. He has his aunt ‘learn’ of David’s relationship with his secretary - we know it’s a lie, but she doesn’t, and presented with pictures she believes her eyes… and then he has her find out some documents that make her believed that Quincy investigated Logan, the lawyer that was her friend as well as Roger’s, and found out that Logan did something wrong… not sure if it was stealing, gambling, or embezzlement of some kind… so Roger gets David’s office, both the secretary and Logan are fired. But then, when he thinks he got it all, Columbo arrives to say that there’s important news, that he doesn’t know the details but there’s big news, so both Logan and Roger join him. While they ride the cable car, Columbo explains to them ‘how wrong he was’ in suspecting Roger, because the cigar box has been found, basically intact, so it could not have been the cause of the explosion, it appears it was an accident after all, the engine or something, and while he talks Columbo places the open box down next to him, and Roger starts fretting and sweating. The seconds pass by and he can’t stand it anymore, he yells at Columbo to shut up and throw the box away, because they blow up, basically condemning himself. When he understands that it was a set up, Roger starts laughing hysterically, loud till the very end.