An above-average entry in the series. A stage magician, the ever-loathsome Jack Cassidy, sneaks away in mid-act while supposedly hidden in a locked box and snuffs his partner and blackmailer, Nehemia Persoff. Cassidy's secret is that he was a guard in a concentration camp when he was young and it simply wouldn't do much for his career if his previous identity were to be leaked out. The murder, of course, is all Persoff's fault anyway. As a blackmailer he's unskilled. A good blackmailer, like a good virus or parasite, never demands so much of the host that the host expires. It asks just enough.<br /><br />Anyway, enter Columbo, stage left, in the brand new stylish brown raincoat his wife just bought him. In the course of the film he does everything possible to get rid of it short of throwing it away. He leaves it out in the open to be stolen -- in his car and at police headquarters.<br /><br />Cassidy, "The Great Santini", has planned several tiers of deception to give himself an alibi. First he won't reveal where he was at the time of the murder because it is a professional secret. (Illusionists take these things seriously. "The trick is told when the trick is sold.") Columbo finds out Cassidy's location despite the lack of cooperation, but Cassidy has another level of camouflage prepared. In the end, Columbo penetrates that as well, not so much by a careful assembling of clues and physical evidence but, as is usual, by an intuition so keen as to be almost magical in its own right. I mean, for instance, what the hell makes Columbo suspect the stage magician in the first place? There are roles for Bob Dishy and Robert Loggia too, but they're so minor as to be almost cameos. The most memorable supporting player is Cassidy's daughter Della, played by Cynthia Sikes. Not that she can act, but she looks mouthwateringly delicious in that glittering one-piece outfit she wears onstage as Cassidy's assistant magician. I wonder who's going to take care of her after Cassidy is put away? I'd have volunteered. She might have shown me some tricks.<br /><br />It's an episode I always look forward to watching. There's nothing unusual about it. It's formulaic. But the formula, at its best, was so good.