For Lieutenant Columbo this case must have been like looking through the mirror because he was facing a TV creation here. Of course the elegant, dapper, white suited Lt. Lucerne is so unlike the working class hero that Peter Falk made so immortal.
Our murderer here is William Shatner who as Columbo with his usual dogged style keeps seeking his company and getting bit by bit of information, goes in and out of his TV character. It also turns out that his name of Ward Fowler is also a pretense and he didn't just change it for stage purposes.
I won't reveal the reason, but it's why Lola Albright who was the producer of Shatner's TV show is murdered in a plot that predates the Mark Wahlberg film Four Brothers where Fionula Flanagan is killed during a convenience store holdup. She was also involved with Shatner at one time, but now she's blackmailing him and sucking him dry. It's all she has because husband Alan Manson is out stepping with Shera Danese.
I agree with another reviewer that the solution does come out of the left field bleachers, but the best thing that this Columbo episode has going for it are the scenes of Shatner and Falk together. A real duel of champions.