A good episode, I liked it. Colombo was fun, and his scenes were good, really good. The murderer was not, but that’s ok. It was a good enough episode, where the bad guy plotted quite well, it was mostly bad luck for him if he didn’t get away with it.
Teddy likes to gamble a bit too much, and more than once he’s lost money, and was saved only by his brother Graham, that must have tired of it since he’s started plotting his murder very meticulously.
Nothing happens by chance from now on, he’s planned every move to kill his brother and blame it on his bookmaker Bruno Romano. And a good plan it was, he might have gotten away with it but, bad luck for him, Romano has an alibi for the night of Teddy’s murder… Romano may be already dead, but the girl won’t stand for his name to be thrown in the mud like that, and insists on her story. She speaks to Colombo, and she also speaks to big boss Vincenzo Fortelli: she calls him to tell him that Romano was with her that night and could not, in any way, have murdered anyone. So Fortelli speaks to Colombo as well, with a clear message: deal with it or I will.
!
Now details:
Graham and Teddy lost their parents and are now the sole owners of their stables where they breed race horses. Teddy owes a lot of money and Graham told him that his horse will win for sure so the debt will be paid. The day of the race, Graham gives his horse a pill, so that he ends up fourth. Teddy is desperate, terrified, and Graham comforts him, tells him he’ll think of everything, he’ll talk to Romano and find a solution.
We saw already at the beginning of the episode that he bought a gun, a specific gun, quite secretly.
He sends Teddy home to wait. He wears a fake beard and goes to Romano’s restaurant (that he owns, that’s his official, respectable job). He frees a rat in the women’s restroom then he orders a scotch and smokes a sigarette, waiting. As soon as a woman starts screaming and screaming (you’d think she met a psycho killer, not a rat…), of course everybody runs to her. Romano and the barman work together to trap the small animal, and Graham sneaks into Romano’s office to call home and speak to Teddy. This way there is proof of a phone call from ‘Romano’ to Teddy.
Back home, he tells Teddy that he’s got the money (maybe by selling a prized horse? Whatever, it’s all lies) and they have to meet Romano that very night, so they drive to an isolated road and Graham kills him with the gun that he bought. He cleans Teddy’s house of his fingerprints, takes away the butt of the cigarette that he smoked earlier, then goes home on a bike that he had hidden in the car trunk (yeah, it looked so small and fragile compared to his big size, the man was like a mountain, but I guess as long as it works for one night, than he can throw it away no problem…)
Columbo really looks worse for wear, we see immediately that he’s not ok because he doesn’t speak to the cop that as usual tries to send him away, never guessing that he’sa lieutenant: indeed he’s not fine, he ate some fish that must not have been fresh at all, and feels very poorly. He’s sharp as always, though, and immediately notices that there is no cigarette butt but there is indeed cigarette ash, the first small thing that makes him think. he finds receipts of his gambling (that indeed might give credit to Graham’s plot) and also one of the car-cleaners, from the day before, so the ash must be new for sure.
He goes to tell Graham, and the man starts throwing immediate suspicions on Romano. Columbo asks him a cigarette - first time ever that we see him with a cigarette!!! - but it’s all for the case, to check that it’s the same ash from the car.
Graham call Romano to set an appointtment, to settle the debt he says, and when Romano shows up at his house, Graham kills him and switches his gun with the one Graham used to kill Teddy. He immediately calls the police, and says that Romano threatened to kill him, that he came to talk about the money Teddy owed him and Graham had to defend himself, and so he shot him.
When Colombo asks, Graham swears he’s not been in Teddy’s car, and cheerfully tries to come up with a solution for the ash. He has no fear whatsoever, he’s sure his plan is foolproof, perfect.
Right enough, everybody believes him, because it is believable, they know Romano. Colombo ‘mostly’ believes him, but there’s still a few small things that trouble him, so he keeps asking questions around, to tie all the knots, as it’s his usual. He goes to Romano’s restaurant, and there’s a girl there that swears that Romano was with her the whole night, and never left, so he could not have killed that Teddy. Colombo talks about the gun and the phone calls, but she doesn’t care, she insists that he was with her… and then Colombo hears the bartender, he’s quite angry about that rat story, because the woman that screamed now wants to sue them. This means that Colombo learns that the night of the phone call, exactly at that hour, there was such a commotion because of a small rat and Romano left his office for a few minutes… he also learns of a man that they didn’t know sitting at the bar, with quite a precious gold lighter. Of course Colombo will ask him to light his cigar, so he sees the lighter.
Colombo is ‘kidnapped’ by a couople of thugs working for Vincenzo Fortelli. This guy speaks Italian (rather badly, my goodness) but Colombo says he doesn’t understand because he never got the hang of it - well, we know that’s not true, I guess he just wants to put some distance. This Fortelli is not exactly a good guy, according to Colombo is known for prostitution and gambling business, although the man says it’s in the past… Colombo wants to leave, until Fortelli mentions Romano, then he agrees to talk. Fortelli says that he believes the girl, she called him to tell her story, and Fortelli now tells Colombo to do something or he will. He tells Colombo that Romano’s gun was recorded at the police, there is a ballistic record, so Colombo can have proof, can know if that was his gun or not.
To neatly close the case, Colombo enlists Fortelli’s help. Fortelli goes with two men to threaten Graham, telling him that he must pay back Teddy’s debt, and that now he wants his whole business. You don’t know for sure before, but as soon as Graham tells Colombo and sergeant Brindle about this, it is obvious that they’re in on it, because of their reaction. It was already suspicious to the audience that Fortelli’s two thugs were not the same as before, but now it’s clear why, there’s no more doubts!
Basically, these two guys are cops, they pretend to work for Fortelli, they do their best to scare the hell out of Graham, and it works. The last straw is when Graham is at a man’s office for work, and the secretary tells him that Colombo left a message, to meet him that night at the Bay Leaf restaurant, so he goes, sits down, orders his scotch and waits. Colombo never shows up, and then Graham starts noticing things, like that both the bartender and the girl from Romano’s restaurant are here. When he tries to leave, there’s the two men outside the door. Graham calls Colombo who says he knew nothing about this appointment, but will come right away. When he arrives, their little play starts: Colombo says they want to leave, the two thugs/cops stop them ‘roughly’, and they’re brought face to face with Fortelli.
Fortelli speaks clearly and says that Colombo now has only two choices, and Colombo chooses to go home alive, he says he’s not paid enough to play hero, and that even though Graham killed two people there is nothing that he can do to prove it… he’s almost out when Graham yells that he will confess, to both murders. Colombo wants more than that, and so Graham tells him where he hid the second gun. Colombo phones Brindle immediately and they find it in just a few minutes.
Not only this, but Fortelli (who carries quite a punch, my word: actually he slaps Graham, doesn’t punch him, and so hard that Graham stumbles backwards…. Really, that mountain of a man, and old Fortelli almost knocks him down with a slap!) clearly implies, and Colombo puts it even more clearly for Graham to understand, that if he hires some fancy lawyer to save him with a technicality, “he wouldn’t be saving you”, it would not be safe for him at all. Because even if it was an agreed plan to get Graham, the truht is that Fortelli would do it for real, so it’s not really just a play, it was not a ‘trick’, more like a warning.
At the end Fortelli invites Colombo in for a drink, but he refuses because, well, they’re not exactly the same kind of people, and not exactly on the same side even.
Vincenzo Fortelli - Rod Steiger
Sergeant Brindle - Bruce Kirby
ITA duplice omicidio per il tenente Colombo
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