A retired major who likes to bore people with his tales of safaris and his fortune in emeralds is shot to death in his room in his boarding house. An old friend of Kane, Molly Griffith (Una O'Connor), who is a housekeeper in the boarding house and one of only two people known to be in the boarding house when the major was killed, is a suspect in the murder, so Martin Kane, P. I. is on the case.
Normally an object of derision, this time Harvard educated Sergeant Ross is actually a help in this case, using his knowledge of mathematics and physics to prove a theory that Kane has about the shooting that will, in the process, clear Molly.
The one thing that did not make much sense in this case was that the major's emeralds were assumed to be a motive for his murder. But what would you do with a bunch of emeralds that may or may not exist? It's not like you can buy groceries with them, and what if they are just one of the major's many exaggerations that he was given to in order to seem important in his old age?
There is an odd departure from the normal formula in that the normally very happy Happy McMann, owner of the tobacco store that everybody in the cast ends up visiting, is not happy at all here. In fact he behaves quite grumpily for no reason.
Since this episode is accenting character Sgt. Ross, let me say a word about the actor who played him, Nicholas Saunders. Saunders was born in Kiev, Ukraine in 1914 and lived to be 92. I think it is not a stretch to say that if he had stayed in Ukraine he would not have lived to be 92.
Normally an object of derision, this time Harvard educated Sergeant Ross is actually a help in this case, using his knowledge of mathematics and physics to prove a theory that Kane has about the shooting that will, in the process, clear Molly.
The one thing that did not make much sense in this case was that the major's emeralds were assumed to be a motive for his murder. But what would you do with a bunch of emeralds that may or may not exist? It's not like you can buy groceries with them, and what if they are just one of the major's many exaggerations that he was given to in order to seem important in his old age?
There is an odd departure from the normal formula in that the normally very happy Happy McMann, owner of the tobacco store that everybody in the cast ends up visiting, is not happy at all here. In fact he behaves quite grumpily for no reason.
Since this episode is accenting character Sgt. Ross, let me say a word about the actor who played him, Nicholas Saunders. Saunders was born in Kiev, Ukraine in 1914 and lived to be 92. I think it is not a stretch to say that if he had stayed in Ukraine he would not have lived to be 92.