Oscar Finch (Patrick McGoohan) is a lawyer who uses underhanded methods to get his clients off, like coercing Paul Mackey (Denis Arndt), who worked for the D.A.'s office, into destroying evidence against racketeer Frank Staplin (Louis Zorich) in 1969. Twenty-one years later, Mackey is chosen by a presidential candidate, Governor Montgomery (Arthur Hill), to be his Vice Presidential running mate. Finch himself hopes that he might be appointed as the next Attorney General. Staplin, facing another indictment, threatens to expose the long-ago favor and ruin Finch's and Mackey's political futures if he doesn't arrange the destruction of another document. Finch decides to murder him. He scatters cigar ashes to make it seem he was in a late-night meeting with a contributor when the murder occurred. Finch walks to Staplin's house, shoots him and makes his death look like a suicide.

McGoohan won a second Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series, following his part in "By Dawn's Early Light". Columbo puts the bite on him, so to speak.