Oliver Brandt and Bertie Hastings, two members of The Sigma Society, are partners in an accounting firm catering mostly to corporate clients. The firm handles some individual accounts also, and Bertie discovers that Brandt has been pilfering these accounts in order to maintain his beautiful, high-rent wife. Tired of Oliver's constant insults and condescension, a humiliated Bertie confronts him with the evidence and threatens to expose him. Oliver shoots Bertie with a silencer but constructs a Rube Goldberg-type apparatus that will deflect suspicion to a nonexistent burglar. Although confident that he has the perfect alibi, Brandt has not included Columbo in his calculations.
—duke1029@aol.com