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Investigator Brimmer: "You're a very observant man, Lieutenant."
Lieutenant Columbo: "That's not what my wife says."
— Death Lends a Hand


Death Lends a Hand is the second episode of the first season of Columbo and the fourth episode overall. It first aired on October 6, 1971 and was directed by Bernard L. Kowalski. In addition to Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo, the episode stars Robert Culp in the first of his four appearances on the show, in three of which he plays the murderer, as well as Pat Crowley and Ray Milland, who also later reappear as a killer in the second season episode The Greenhouse Jungle.

In Death Lends a Man, a publishing magnate hires a private investigator to assist Columbo in the murder of his wife; the newspaper mogul is unaware that the private eye himself is responsible.

Plot[]

Powerful newspaper publishing magnate Arthur Kennicut (Ray Milland) hires Private Investigator Carl Brimmer (Robert Culp), the head of a private detective agency, to discover whether or not his much-younger wife Lenore (Patricia Crowley) is having an affair. At a meeting at Brimmer’s office, Brimmer hands over his finished report to Arthur, providing his wife with “a clean bill of health” which is to say she has not been unfaithful. However once Arthur has left Brimmer enters an adjoining room to reveal Lenore herself as having been listening in on their conversation. It turns out that she was having an affair, one which Brimmer had uncovered, but he falsified the report. Why? Because Mr. Kennicut is a very powerful and well-connected man, one who deals in information; the type of information which would be highly valuable to an agency like Brimmer Associates. In return for the kind of political secrets her husband would be privy to, Brimmer is willing to keep silent about Lenore’s affair.

He gives her some to think the offer over, but when he arrives home from work that evening, Brimmer finds Lenore waiting for him. It was easy for her to get in, as the Kennicuts own a weekend house only three miles away and Brimmer left his terrace door unlocked. Disgusted by his attempted manipulation, she defiantly tells him the answer is an unequivocal no. Things go to bad from worse for Brimmer as she reveals that she intends to come clean to her husband about the affair, and will also tell him about Brimmer’s attempted blackmail. “He’s going to despise you for lying to him” she spits; “and Arthur’s not the right man to have for an enemy.” Seized by a fit of rage, Brimmer grabs hold of Lenore and in the ensuing struggle backhands her across the face so hard that she is thrown backwards and smashes her head on a glass coffee table. Brimmer checks her pulse but there’s nothing he can do; she’s dead. Thinking quickly, he initiates a desperate cover-up; he thoroughly cleans his house down to eliminate any trace of her ever being there, then he places her body in the trunk of his car and drives out to the edge of town. Before dumping her corpse in an empty scrapyard, he swipes a valuable ring from her finger, then drives home.

The following morning, a traffic cop (Bill Hickman) pulls over the driver of a beat-up-looking French 1969 Peugeot 403 convertible for having a faulty right-hand turn signal. Said driver is actually Lieutenant Columbo of the L.A.P.D., on the way to a “187 PC”, also known as a homicide. The bike cop apologizes for pulling the Lieutenant over and offers to give him a police escort, but not before warning him that his driving licence expires next week! At the scrapyard, the Medical Examiner (Don Keefer) tells the Captain of Detectives (Len Wayland) that Lenore was more than likely killed somewhere else and moved there, and that the cause of death was concussion. The Captain’s heart sinks when he learns who the victim’s husband is; “Newspapers” he moans. “If we don’t handle this to his satisfaction, he’s got an awful lot of front pages to beat us over the head with.” Columbo, meanwhile, is very interested to learn that Lenore exhibits a bruise of her left cheek… Columbo meets with Arthur at the local hospital, where Arthur identifies the body as that of his wife’s. Arthur is already more than well aware that as her husband, he is the most likely suspect and so is more than happy to establish an alibi so that Columbo can move quickly on to catching the real killer; at the time of the murder Arthur was at a conference in San Francisco, which his secretary will confirm. Columbo questions him about Lenore; did she have any enemies, or any other men in her life? No and no, says Arthur; after all, she had just been given a clean bill of health. Before Columbo leaves, Arthur tells him in no uncertain terms “I want this man caught, and I must tell you I don’t intend to be patient!”

The two rendezvous once again the next morning at the Kennicut mansion, but unfortunately Columbo does not have much progress to report. The prevailing theory among his colleagues is that Lenore was the unfortunate victim of a mugger, who took her cash and ran. However no one it seems can explain how or why the body was moved; Columbo thinks she knew her killer. It was unusual, he thinks, that she went out to their beach house in the middle of the week, and that she told the caretaker she needed to think and was going for a walk. This was the last time she was seen alive, and her body was discovered on the opposite side of town. Why would she have walked so far away?

Frustrated by the lack of police progress, Arthur decides to bring in some help of his own, and introduces Columbo to none other than Investigator Brimmer himself. Arthur trusts Brimmer and has taken Brimmer up on his offer to step in and assist in the investigation. Columbo thus agrees to cooperate with Brimmer on the case, and upon learning that Brimmer had taken care of a “personal matter” for Arthur before, the Lieutenant smiles and says “Y’know I suddenly feel very much more optimistic about this whole thing!” Columbo further explains that he is a “superstitious kinda guy” who believes in astrology and offers to read Arthur’s hand; he notices a break in his fate line which refers to his “bad fortune” but it picks up again which he says is a good omen. Columbo then grabs Brimmer’s hand to read it as well, noting that since his Apollo line crosses the mound of the bone, he is “destined to achieve a very particular kind of distinction.” Columbo tries to leave but mistakenly walks through a closet door, inside of which he finds a very nice set of golf clubs. They belonged to Lenore, who had just started taking golf lessons. But not lessons at her own club, Columbo is told by Arthur, but somewhere else; somewhere called Sky Lane. The Lieutenant is finally able to get out of the house by finding the right door, but as he walks down the driveway he pauses to take a suspicious glance at Brimmer’s car…

At Sky Lane, Lenore’s handsome former instructor Ken Archer (Brett Halsey) finds Columbo waiting to talk to him. The Lieutenant has noticed, having flicked through Ken’s appointment book, that he gave Lenore ‘’a lot’’ of lessons. The golf pro is eager to keep Columbo at arm’s length, dismissing his inquiries about how well he knew the dead woman, but ends up agreeing to give Columbo himself a quick lesson, as Columbo apparently wants to pick up a sport. On the driving range, Columbo presses him further about Lenore, noting that their lessons together were always the last of the day. Ken gets tongue-tied trying to cover his back, but Columbo stops him and tells him he shouldn’t say anything else until he gets an attorney. Then, having claimed to know nothing about golf, Columbo executes an expert swing, letting Ken know he’s not to be underestimated.

Over at Brimmer HQ, Brimmer has assembled a team of investigators and explains to them his “theory” on what happened to Lenore; according to him, “Mrs. Kennicut was walking along the Pacific Coast Highway when she was forced into a car… by someone. The motive was robbery. She probably fought back and in any case, she was killed. The murderer drove around in a panic, and finally all the way out to [the scrapyard] where they got rid of the body.” Columbo then drops by to give Brimmer some documents relating to the Kennicut case. They discuss how the investigation is progressing, but Columbo says the only lead he’s got so far is that the killer must’ve been left-handed. He gathered this from the cut on Lenore’s left cheek; a cut in a very particular shape, most likely made by a ring of some sort. Thus the killer must’ve hit her with the back of their left hand, and must’ve been wearing a ring. Similar, perhaps, to the very one Brimmer wears? Columbo also suggests that the murder was ‘’not’’ premeditated and instead was committed in the heat of the moment, identifying the suspect as someone who possesses “a terrible temper”. Needing a receipt for having given Brimmer the files, Columbo gets him to sign a piece of paper, revealing himself as left-handed… As well as right-handed, Brimmer reveals by casually changing hands. He is ambidextrous, meaning he can write with either hand. Since he’s there, Columbo also wants to ask Brimmer how he likes living out near the beach, as his sister is considering getting a place there. “Who told you I was living out at the beach?” asks an amused Brimmer. “Oh, nobody,” replies Columbo; “I noticed your car out in front of Mr. Kennicut’s; y’know you parked it there in the driveway, and I was walking by I saw the chrome was tarnished… Y’know what the salt air does to it, it just eats the life out of it…” Brimmer notes that Columbo is a very observant man; in fact Columbo has also observed that Brimmer’s house and the Kennicut’s beach house are not far apart. “Isn’t that a coincidence?” he says; “I’ll tell ya, this case is just full of ‘em!”

Back at Sky Lane, Ken is closing up for the night and ready to go home when Columbo reappears. Ken finally admits to his affair with Lenore, stating that she called it off after she started to feel guilty. Both being a jilted lover and lacking an alibi (having been at home alone on the night of her death) he lied to Columbo about having known her because he feared becoming a suspect. Columbo calms him down however by asserting that Ken is innocent; he doesn’t wear a ring, but the killer definitely does. With a weight lifted off his shoulders, Ken confides in Columbo that he was sure, during their affair, that he and Lenore were being followed by someone. In fact, though neither are aware of it, both men are being spied on by Wilcox, one of Brimmer’s men. Brimmer then puts in a call to another of his employees, the tough Leo Gentry (Marvin Goux), who’s physical description exactly matches that of the man Ken saw trailing him and Lenore…

The next day, R.J. Denning (Eric James) is showing Columbo around the officers of Brimmer Associates, but ends up running his mouth to the Lieutenant about private details of a previous case. When Brimmer overhears the matter being discussed in public, he explodes into fiery rage and thoroughly chews Denning out; right in front of Columbo, who remembers that he’s looking for a killer with a terrible temper… Columbo joins Brimmer for lunch in his office, where Columbo “reveals” that Lenore was having an affair, and that she was possibly being followed. He lays down his theory on what really happened; a theory that lines up perfectly with the truth, in which a private investigator tried to blackmail Lenore and killed her when she refused to go along with the scheme. The only thing he’s missing is a suspect. Brimmer then takes the conversation is a much different direction by offering the Lieutenant a job with his agency. Such an opportunity, Brimmer says, would triple Columbo’s yearly salary. But when Columbo asks if he would still be working on the Kennicut case, Brimmer says no, as he already has enough men for that job.

On his way out, Columbo runs into Denning in the corridor and apologizes for getting him into trouble. “I’m used to it” says Denning, making it clear that beneath his calm exterior Brimmer is hiding a wicked temper. They chat about the job offer, and the money that comes with it, and Columbo asks who the highest-earning employee is. The answer; Leo Gentry.

At a park, Ceil Gentry (Lieux Dressler) returns to the playground after having got some ice-cream to find her son Teddy being pushed on the swings by Columbo, who wants to ask her husband some questions about his work. Unfortunately, Leo’s been sent away on a special assignment by Brimmer and they don’t know where he went or when he’ll be back. Later, a trip to the optometrist gives Columbo a flash of inspiration; Lenore wasn’t wearing glasses when she was found, but there’s a photograph of her in the Kennicut house with glasses on. Could she have dropped them somewhere? No, says Arthur, because she started wearing contacts not long after that picture was taken. But Columbo isn’t through yet, and with Arthur’s permission he rifles through Lenore’s personal belongings; in her handbag, which she had with her the night she died, he finds the case for her contact lenses… And the case is empty. Columbo makes a request of Arthur; “This is the world’s biggest longshot, and it’s gonna be painful for ya… But I think it’s worth a try” he says. “Alright Lieutenant” Arthur responds; “You have a blank check”.

Wilcox, still tailing Columbo, follows him to the cemetery, where he enters the crypt in which Lenore is buried… with the Medical Examiner. Wilcox calls Brimmer to inform of this latest development, also telling him that Arthur has apparently signed an exhumation order. Brimmer is about to race over to the scene but finds that his car won’t start, despite there being seemingly nothing wrong with the battery. He borrows another car and drives to the cemetery, where he meets with Arthur. Arthur explains Columbo’s reasoning: if Lenore was wearing her contacts when she was killed, it’s possible that one if not both fell out at the scene of the crime. Brimmer is openly dismissive of the theory, finding it too far-fetched, but his mood changes when Columbo reveals that the right contact lens *is* missing and is not anywhere to be found in the coffin.

As night falls, Brimmer methodically searches his entire house for the lens, realizing it could have fallen out during his struggle with Lenore. He is interrupted by Columbo stopping by to tell him that he is going to decline the job offer. Columbo admits the dealbreaker was that he would have been taken off the Kennicut case, and he doesn’t want to quit when he’s so close to solving it. After Columbo leaves, it dawns on Brimmer that the lens may not be in his house, but in fact in the trunk of his car; the same car which is still at the agency garage after having failed to start earlier.

Under the cover of darkness, Brimmer breaks into the agency garage to search his trunk. And sure enough, he does indeed find a contact lens in his car… And just as he does so, all the lights come on, revealing that Brimmer is surrounded by several police officers, Arthur Kennicut and Lieutenant Columbo. Hiding the lens in his pocket, Brimmer explains that he urgently needed papers for a case and he thought they were in his car, but Columbo isn’t buying it and asks him to come downtown to the police station. Brimmer turns away to light a cigarette, but Columbo has a policeman grab his arm. Columbo takes the box of cigarettes from Brimmer and opens it to reveal the missing lens; caught, red-handed. “It was an accident, Arthur” Brimmer says sorrowfully. “It wasn’t… premeditated. I hardly knew your wife… I didn’t want to hurt either one of you.” Arthur can only turn away in disgust. “You never shoulda let me read your palm, cause then I felt the ring… That matched up with the cut on her cheek,” Columbo tells Brimmer. “You should’ve taken that job,” the private investigator sighs as he is led away.

Alone in the garage with Arthur, Columbo reveals that the contact lens isn't actually Lenore’s; both lens were on the body, and Columbo lied to Brimmer; but that doesn’t matter on account of Brimmer’s incriminating actions. “What would you have done if the car hadn’t broken down?” Arthur chuckles; “You couldn’t have set up this trap.” “Well…” Columbo replies; “I guess we woulda found some other way.” The two men begin to walk away. “Y’know what this place reminds me of?” Columbo continues. “Just seeing all these cars… Y’know in our neighbourhood we had buncha jokers, I mean we were a real wild buncha guys… And we figured out a perfect way to put a car outta commission; you take a potato, you stick it in the exhaust pipe. Doesn’t cause any damage, but the car won’t start. It was a terrible thing to do… And I got a feeling, that the reason I became a cop was to make up for all those jokes I played when I was a kid.”

Cast[]

  • Robert Culp as Carl Brimmer, a private investigator who kills Mrs. Kennicut in a fit of rage when his blackmail plot backfires.
  • Ray Milland as Arthur Kennicut, a powerful publishing magnate who hires Investigator Brimmer to look into his wife's murder.
  • Pat Crowley as Lenore Kennicut, Arthur's unfaithful wife. When she refuses to allow Brimmer to blackmail her, he accidentally kills her in a blind fury, then dumps her body on an industrial site, hoping that her death will be investigated as a mugging.
  • Brett Halsey as Ken Archer, a golf pro who was having an affair with Lenore.
  • Eric James as R.J. Denning, an employee of Brimmer's investigative firm.
  • Don Keefer as the Medical Examiner who inspects Lenore's body.
  • Len Wayland as the Captain of Detectives who converses with Columbo at the crime scene.
  • Marvin Goux plays Leo Gentry, one of Brimmer's employees, and Liuex Dressler plays his wife Ceil.
  • Barbara Baldavin as Investigator Brimmer's secretary.
  • Bill Hickman appears as a traffic cop.

Behind the Scenes[]

  • This was the first episode of Columbo to be filmed, not counting the two pilot episodes, but it was the second to be aired, with Murder by the Book acting as the series’ opening episode.
  • The first of only a handful of episodes to feature a somewhat sympathetic villain, with Investigator Brimmer apologizing at the end for the pain he had caused.
  • This is also one of a small number of episodes in which the murder is accidental and not premeditated, and is the first to do so.
  • The location of the wrecking yard where Lenore’s body was found is depicted on the map in Brimmer’s office to be just off the San Fernando Road, between the Valley Steam Plant and Branford Street.

Trivia[]

  • The Universal closing logo jingle is played in E-Major
Columbo (season 1)
1."Murder by the Book" 2."Death Lends a Hand" 3."Dead Weight" 4."Suitable for Framing" 5."Lady in Waiting" 6."Short Fuse" 7."Blueprint for Murder"
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