PLOT: Dr. Barry Mayfield is an eminent surgeon, who along with his colleague Dr. Heidemann have been working on a research project, though Heidemann is the brains behind it. Heidemann is rushed into hospital suffering from chest pains. Though his condition soon improves, Heidemann realises it is about time he had the valve replacement operation that he had been putting off. The operating theatre is prepared and Dr. Mayfield performs the operation. However nurse Sharon Martin suspects that Mayfield may do something to cause Heidemann's death and during the operation she watches him like a hawk. However, Mayfield completes the operation successfully and Heidemann is taken back to the ward. While Sharon is clearing away the operating table she notices a piece of suture on the floor and is puzzled that the suture doesn't feel like it should do. She rings MAC, who supply the suture and agree to meets a representative later that day. However, Mayfield was listening on the extension when she was on the phone and when Sharon goes to the car park Mayfield is waiting for her. He has an iron bar in his hand and clubs her to death. Then he robs her of her keys and goes to her house. He makes it look like someone has ransacked the place looking for something, and when Mayfield hides drugs under the sink it is obvious what he is planning. He is making it look like a drug addict got into Sharon's house desperate for a fix. Mayfield knows that Sharon helped Harry Alexander kick drugs some months before so frames him for the murder. However, Columbo does not fall for Mayfield's plan. He begins to suspect Mayfield when he first meets him. He enters his office while he is on the phone hearing the news of Sharon's death and adjusting the clock while he is doing it. Columbo found a note on Sharon's body saying MAC and the time, and mistakes MAC for a man called Mac! Eventually the trail leads Columbo to Harry Alexander and he tells Columbo he has been clean for months. Columbo believes him. He already has another suspect in mind. However, later that night Mayfield breaks into Alexander's flat and sits in wait for him to arrive. When he does he takes him from behind and chloroforms him. He then injects him with drugs, leaving the stuff lying around. When Alexander wakes up he stumbled around in a drug induced haze and falls down a flight of steps to his death. Columbo still does not believe Alexander murdered Sharon, partially because he had noticed which hand Alexander was holding his cigarette in, and it was not the same hand as injected the drugs. Meanwhile Dr. Heidemann is still alive, recovering in the hospital and Columbo has realised that Mac is not a man but is a company. He then finds out what the hospital purchased from MAC, and the only thing they purchased was suture. By now Columbo is hounding Mayfield, and has found out what he had done to Heidemann. He had used dissolving suture in the operation instead of permanent suture. Once the suture dissolved after a few days Heidemann would die. Columbo warns Mayfield that if Heidemann dies there will be a thorough autopsy. Mayfield has only one option open to him- he must remove the suture from Heidemann's body and replace it with permanent suture. He tampers with Heidemann's daily afternoon drugs, thus causing Heidemann to take a turn for the worse. He rushes him to the operating theatre and replaces the sutures. However, the moment the operation is over Columbo enters the operating theatre dressed in swabs. He has a warrant to search the room and he and his colleagues do so. Mayfield is uncharacteristically furious and pushes Columbo out of the way. The search is complete and no dissolving suture is found. Columbo then goes to Mayfield's office and congratulates him for beating him. He puts his swabs on the chair in Mayfield's office and leaves the room. For a moment Mayfield thinks he has got away with it but then Columbo returns. He has realised where Mayfield has hidden the sutures- on the only person that wasn't searched, Columbo himself. He says that he thought it was strange for the usually calm Mayfield to blow up like he did in the operating theatre and sure enough, he looks in the pocket of his swabs and the dissolving sutures are there.
VERDICT:
Leonard Nimoy is cool, calm and calculated as Dr. Mayfield in this classic episode. He and Columbo match up well. This is a rare episode when Columbo loses his temper with the villain, banging down a statue on Mayfield's desk. This is a classic moment. It is clear that Columbo is on to Mayfield quite early on, but it takes him some time to unravel Mayfield's clever plot. It is probably the most intricate plot of the 70-minute episodes. It is also unique in that the intended victim doesn't die. Dr. Heidemann survives, though two others die at the hands of Mayfield.
Written by Mark Wilson
(C) Copyright Wilson/Young Enterprises 2006.
CAST:
Dr Barry Mayfield....Leonard Nimoy
Marcia Dalton..........Nita Talbot
Dr Edmund Hiedemann......Will Geer
Sharon Martin.........Anne Francis
Harry Alexander.......Jared Martin
Nurse Morgan.........Aneta Corsaut
Cleaning woman.......Patsy Garrett
Dr. Simpson.........Murray MacLeod
