PLOT: Milo Janus owns a chain of health and fitness clubs. The owner of one of his clubs, Gene Stafford, has been frustrated with the amount of profit he has been making. He suspects Janus is up to something so has hired someone to look into Janus' business dealings. Stafford warns Janus that he is looking into all his business dealings. Janus then plans to do away with Stafford. He asks his secretary, Jessica Conroy, to come round to his house that evening, where he is having a few friends round. She is the last to leave the office except for Janus, who is working late. A tape recorder records all the phone conversations that come into the office, for legal reasons. Janus takes the day's tape and cuts a segment from it in which Stafford says "hello Jessica, it's Gene Stafford, can I speak to Mr Janus please?" Then he goes to visit Stafford, who is a workaholic and is also working late. He tries to strangle Stafford with a metal bar but Stafford struggles away and runs into another room. Janus finally manages to grab hold of him and successfully severs his windpipe with the bar. Then he changes Stafford into his gym clothes (they are located in his locker, which Janus has a key to because he is overall charge of the club.) He takes him to the gym and sets his body up to make it look as if he was lifting weights when the weight fell onto his windpipe. He then goes home, where he is entertaining guests. Then he goes into his study and phones the main sitting room (he has two lines in his house). Jessica answers the phone and he then plays the tape with Stafford's voice. Jessica comes into Janus' study and tells him Mr Stafford is on the phone. He goes into the living room and in full view of everyone appears to have a conversation with Stafford. When Columbo finds Stafford's body early the next morning he is walking in the recreation room when the cleaner warns him to keep his shoes off his polished floor. The cleaner polished it at 6pm the previous evening after everyone, except Stafford, had left. Columbo examines the floor and notices some scuff marks made by brown soles. He asks his men if any of them have brown shoes and they all say their soles are black. Then Columbo looks at Stafford's office and finds an empty take-away box. He also notices a coffee stain on the rug, which the cleaner says wasn't there the previous day. Columbo speaks to Stafford's wife. She and Stafford were separated. She tells him that he had been through a lot of stress from herself and Milo Janus. Columbo finds out that Stafford had business problems with Janus. However, on meeting Janus he has the perfect alibi, and also notices Janus has a burn on his hand. He said he had left the hot water tap running that morning and Columbo says he understands, as it wasn't long ago that he burnt himself on some coffee! Janus is an extremely fit man and a lot older than he looks. Columbo sees Janus' fitness regime for himself and even tries to get fit himself, though Janus realises it is a ruse to keep pestering him. Columbo finds the man that was looking into Janus' business dealings and he tells Columbo that Janus was doing nothing technically illegal. Columbo asks Jessica what Stafford said on the phone to her and she told him. Columbo thinks it is odd that Stafford didn't seem surprised that Jessica answered the phone, being that it was Janus' house. Janus is on to Columbo's insinuations almost before he makes them, and Columbo realises that he won't be able to trick Janus into incriminating himself. In the end he doesn't have to. Columbo has found the splice in the tape. He has also found some trivial detail about the victim's gym shoes. The loop was on the wrong side if he had tied the laces himself. Columbo surmises that this must mean the murderer changed the victim into his gym shoes. Along with Janus' statement about the conversation with Stafford, in which he said Stafford had told him he had changed into his gym attire and was exercising, this proved that Janus must have been the killer.
VERDICT: Robert Conrad gives a good performance as the wily Janus in this fine episode. Columbo is aware that Janus is very shrewd throughout the episode and treads very carefully around him. Janus is on to him very quickly and Columbo has to contrive a ruse about wanting to get fit at Milo's club to enable him to interview him. Even then Janus tells Columbo that further comments should be directed through his lawyer. This episode also features Columbo getting angry. Every time he shows anger the scenes are brilliant, because he acts on impulse and the 'real' Columbo comes out, rather than the devious act that is usually present. Other examples of this are Prescription Murder, when he hounds Miss. Hudson and A stitch in crime, when he bangs a statue down on Mayfield's desk. It is good to see this anger, because it shows Columbo cares about how people are treated. This is something I think that changed in later episodes, when Columbo's ego took over. For instance, in Columbo Cries Wolf, when he hears that Dian Hunter is alive and well, he shows clear disappointment at being made a fool of. In earlier episodes he would have been pleased that Dian was alive and well and being made a fool of would have assumed secondary importance. This is, I feel, the main change between the 70s Columbos and the later ones. It is almost like, by the 90s, he had built up a reputation for being a great detective who always got results and that was the most important priority in his life.
Written by Mark Wilson
(C) Copyright Wilson/Young Enterprises 2006.
CAST:
Milo Janus...........Robert Conrad
Jessica Conroy....Gretchen Corbett
Ruth Stafford........Collin Wilcox
Gene Stafford.........Philip Bruns
Buddy Castle.....Pat Harrington jr
Al Murphy..............Jude Farese
Lewis Lacey.......Darrell Zwerling
Jerry.............Dennis Robertson
Sergeant Rickets...Raymond O'Keefe
Medical examiner.......Victor Izay
