Hola, and welcome! If this is your first time joining us, here’s the precis: It irritates me that we have a federal holiday dedicated to the idiot who’s chiefly responsible for the fact that, 500 years later, we’re still referring to the indigenous people of the Americas as “Indians,” which is only going to become more of a problem as the actual Indian-American population grows, so I have taken it upon myself to rebrand the second Monday in October for the far more appropriate purpose of honoring one of America’s favorite fictional detectives, Lieutenant Columbo. Happy Columbo’s Day, everyone!

Over the past few years, we’ve enjoyed watching murders committed by Johnny Cash, Dick Van Dyke, and both Captain Kirk and Mister Spock. This time, join us as the great detective matches wits with The Prisoner’s Patrick McGoohan in “By Dawn’s Early Light,” which originally aired on NBC on October 27, 1974.

We open on Colonel Lyle C. Rumford (Patrick McGoohan), the commandant of Haynes Military Academy, performing surgery on an artillery round in a kitchen. He unscrews the tip, pours out the black powder, and inserts a few ounces of C4. This is supposed to make the shell more… explodey, I guess? It’s already an artillery shell; how explodey does it need to be? He wipes the shell for prints, dons the peaked cap of a military officer and conceals the shell under his jacket. Leaving the house, he walks a short distance across the campus to what is apparently an armory, where he stows the altered round in an ammo box. Rumford then walks across the parade ground to a ceremonial cannon, and stuffs a large rag into the barrel. Looking at a barracks across the parade ground, he spots an open window where someone has suspended a large glass jug from a rope, as one does.

Reveille sounds, and a ramrod-straight young man knocks on Rumford’s door with a pot of coffee. It’s Cadet Miller (Robert Clotworthy), who has been assigned to serve as Rumford’s boodle boy for the current duty period. Most of the results of a Google search for “boodle boy” reference this episode, which isn’t very helpful, but I gather that a boodle boy is a cadet who has been assigned yeoman/lickspittle duties as a punishment (Miller’s geometry grades are in the toilet), in some military traditions. Rumford upbraids Miller on the condition of his shoes, and orders him to “report to my office for… discipline.” Ooh! No, wait; this is from network television in 1974. He probably means actual discipline.

To the office, where Rumford’s day is ruined by a visit from William Haynes (Tom Simcox), whose name may have tipped you off to the fact that he’s a pretty big wheel on the board of trustees of Haynes Academy. Haynes lays down the law: starting with the next fall term, and over Rumford’s strenuous objection, Haynes Academy will become a coeducational institution. This is probably as good a time as any to point out that this episode was filmed on the grounds of The Citadel, the venerable South Carolina military school which had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th century in 1995 when a woman wanted to join the previously all-male institution. Whether the irony of the situation was ever publicly considered in 1974 or 1995 has not been recorded. Anyway, Haynes thinks Rumford is a dinosaur, Rumford thinks Haynes is soft and incompetent, blah blah blah. Haynes wants to fire Rumford, and the board is likely to go along with it. We have our motive!

It’s Founder’s Day at Haynes Academy, and William Haynes is set to preside. Amid much pomp and circumstance, a cadet loads the booby-trapped shell into the ceremonial cannon. William Haynes walks up to the cannon and pulls the cord. Okay, yeah, now I understand why Rumford tampered with the shell. That is super-duper explodey, and Haynes is very dead.

It’s Columbo time! The good lieutenant is examining evidence closely and doing other police things. My goodness, the other cops conclude, an accident like this was bound to happen with a cannon as old as this one. The LAPD sure are stupid in this show. In the academy chapel, Rumford delivers a totally insincere eulogy for Haynes. When Rumford retires to the pews, Columbo naturally takes the opportunity to pester him about the nature of the charge used during the ceremony. Rumford curtly confirms that it was supposed to be a blank charge, comprised of sodium nitrate and cotton wadding. That’s interesting, because Columbo found a scorched scrap of rag under a patrol car after the ceremony, and it’s very definitely not cotton wadding. Is it possible, sir, that a scrap of material like this could have caused the explosion? “If anything blocked the barrel,” Rumford replies, “it would cause the explosion to back up and blow the breech.” Hmm. Rumford sniffs the cloth and deems it a cleaning rag.

Back in Rumford’s office, Number Six checks the duty roster and finds that Cadet Springer (Mark Wheeler) was assigned to cleaning detail, so Columbo heads out to Springer’s dorm to interrogate him. On the way, he encounters the detective responsible for packing up Haynes’s personal effects, and checks out a blueprint found among his things that dictates plans for a new barracks. Odd, since the Academy is currently operating well below capacity. Columbo drops in on Cadet Springer, who confirms that Columbo’s specimen is a cleaning rag for the cannon. Springer has had a lot of demerits, so it’s weird that he would have been assigned to clean the cannon, which is considered a bit of an honor. Nevertheless, the evidence points to Springer being responsible for leaving the rag in the cannon before Haynes fired it.

Columbo joins Rumford in the mess for lunch. He is treated very respectfully by a couple of first-year cadets, which kind of makes me want to visit a military academy myself to soak up some totally unearned respect from the younger generation. He confirms that Rumford personally assigned Springer to cannon detail. Columbo confides that he believes Springer is holding something back, but that he also believes that the young man is being truthful when he denies leaving the rag in the gun. Oh, just one more thing, sir: Rumford personally fires the cannon on three occasions each year — Opening Day, commencement, and Founder’s Day. The implication, Columbo suggests, is that by booby-trapping the cannon before Founder’s Day, someone was trying to kill Rumford, not knowing that William Haynes would actually be firing the cannon that year. And just another more thing, sir: Mrs. Columbo is visiting her mother in Fresno, so would it be possible for the lieutenant to stay the night in one of the barracks? Sure, whatever. The commandant assigns Columbo to Pershing Hall, home of Cadet Springer.

At the barracks, Columbo is placed in the capable hands of Cadet Morgan. Hey, it’s Bruno Kirby! When this episode aired, the Kirbs was only two months away from his breakout role as the young Peter Clemenza in The Godfather: Part II. Boy, it’s still hard to believe he left us in 2006, isn’t it? Such a shame. Anyway, Columbo is jolted out of bed several hours after Taps by the ringing of a distant bell. He ventures across the quad to a pay phone, which is a thing that used to exist before we all had cell phones. He’s calling Officer Corso (Sidney Armus), who is a functionary of some kind at the school whom Columbo met previously. Corso is not pleased to hear from Columbo at 3 am, but confirms that the Founder’s Day cannon blast was much louder than the daily blast. Hmm.

Reveille again. Columbo groggily gets out of bed and encounters Bruno Kirby in the communal bathroom. He notices that Bruno is wearing a ring on a chain around his neck, just like Cadet Springer: it’s a pledge ring, signifying that the cadet has a girlfriend at Valley Stream Girls’ School. Interesting. Columbo relates a tale of his high school girlfriend Teresa to whom he gave a bracelet, blah blah blah. Bruno aggressively does not give a shit about this story. As he leaves, Columbo spies some kind of black residue on the sink where Bruno was shaving, which happens to be directly underneath an air vent on the ceiling.

Rumford is doing various rifle drills on the parade ground, as the shabby detective comes over to bother him. Columbo consulted a ballistics expert and determined that traces of C4 were present in the cannon, which very much should not be the case. That confirms it: Haynes’s death was a murder. Later, Rumford checks in with Cadet Springer, who is scrubbing the beautiful checkerboard courtyard of one of the Academy buildings with a toothbrush, just like soldiers do on TV when they get punished. Number Six tells Springer that Columbo doesn’t buy his story and that he might be charged with murder, but if he cooperates the Academy will stand behind him.

Columbo, being the oblivious goof that he is, stands in the middle of the sidewalk as a platoon of marching cadets approaches him. While he has their attention, he asks the lead cadet to help him interpret his blueprint. Yonder is the Academy’s only gym, and according to the blueprint there should be a door directly in front of them, but instead there’s only a wall. As the lead cadet dismisses his troops, an officer comes up to him and informs him that Springer has flown the coop. Columbo visits the the girls’ school and inquires after Springer’s sweetie Susan Gerard, who, as it turns out, has just boarded the school bus yonder.

Quick, Robin, to the Columbomobile! Columbo guns his shitty car to follow the bus, and finds Springer plotting with Suzie to escape “up North,” which could mean anything from San Francisco to the Yukon. Columbo brings poor Springer back to the Academy, where he admits to Rumford that he couldn’t have left the rag in the cannon the night before Haynes’s death because he was off campus having sexytimes with Suzie that evening. Which raises the question: there are only three people, including Springer, who had keys to the arms room, so given that Springer was off campus at the time, who else could have tampered with the artillery shell? Maybe, Columbo ventures, we’re looking too hard at the cadets. Maybe we should be looking at gun experts instead. Well, Number Six notes, we do deal with guns from time to time in the military. In a diss that is destined to get its own wing in the Museum of Disses, he offers Columbo a cigar “of quality, for a change.” Ohhh, SNAP!! Columbo gratefully accepts the proffered stogie, along with a cigar cutter, which might be the first such implement he’s ever seen in his life. And then this happens:

RUMFORD: Do you have a first name?

COLUMBO: I do. My wife is about the only one that uses it.

Damn!! So close!

Rumford commiserates with Columbo about how hard it is to be as awesome as he is, lamenting the fact that he doesn’t have enough time to take care of his backyard. I HEAR YOU, BROTHER. Columbo tells him that there’s something he wants Rumford to see, and he’s going to go get it.

Later, Columbo runs into Rumford in one of the barracks. The detective shows Rumford the blueprint he’s been toting around. It’s for the campus gym, for which William Haynes has authorized changes to add girls’ locker and shower facilities. Rumford scoffs at Haynes’ “very strange ideas,” which the commandant assures Columbo was never anything more than idle talk. The thing is though, sir, there was a board of trustees meeting coming this week, and you wouldn’t mind if I asked each board member individually what they thought about all this, would you? Rumford blanches. “You’ll do what you have to do,” he says, and strides off.

Reveille again — actually, nope; it seems that Columbo has once again been jolted awake at 3 am, this time for a snap inspection. My decision not to attend a military academy for college has never looked wiser. Rumford is furious: “Someone in this dormitory has been fermenting cider, and no matter how long it takes, I intend to find the cider, and punish the culprits!” Seriously, asshole? Fucking seriously? You ridiculous Barney Fife piece of shit! You rouse young men out of a sound sleep because of fucking hard fucking cider!!? I — I just — it’s — look, I struggle with insomnia sometimes, to the extent that it’s a blessed day when I clock six good hours of sleep in a night, and this piece of absolute shit is so insecure that he’s gonna swing his dick around in the middle of the goddamned night because of motherfucking cider!!?! I just — I can’t — aaaaaagh!! Just — just, fucking — fuck! Fuck!!!

Lieutenant Columbo, to his eternal credit, can’t with this shit, and nopes off back to bed. Meanwhile, Rumford yammers on about his fucking cider. Asshole. The ludicrous little martinet ropes a staffer, Captain Loomis (Burr DeBenning), into checking the ceiling vent in the boys’ shower room, because that’s exactly the kind of Frank Burns piece of shit he is. Having found exactly fuckall in his intrepid investigation, Number Six informs the entire dorm that they are all on report. God I hate this guy. Rumford having left, Bruno Kirby huddles up with a couple of his fellow cadets. “Maybe it’s not there,” one of the cadets says. “Of course it’s there, dummy!” Bruno replies. “I put it there myself.” “Maybe someone else took it,” Columbo says, because of course he’s lurking right outside eavesdropping, and produces the jug of cider, which he retrieved from the ceiling vent earlier, having been clued in to its status as a hiding place for contraband by the dust he saw on the sink beneath it.

Columbo assures Bruno et al. that he’s not going to turn them in, but he needs the who, where, and when about the cider. Meanwhile, Col. Rumford’s phone rings and wakes him out of a sound sleep, because what goes around comes around, asshole. It’s Captain Loomis, and he has a hot tip about the cider!! Holy shit, you guys, everyone stop what you’re doing because we have a lead on the goddamn cider!! Number Six struts onto the parade ground in the breaking dawn. Captain Loomis points out the same window we saw at the beginning of the episode, where a glass jug — of hard cider, we presume — is suspended by a rope. “Whoever’s in that room,” Rumford thunders, “have them fall out and form here…. On the double!! Have the whole second floor fall out!! Do you hear me, Captain!? The whole second floor!! Do you hear me!?” I mean, Jesus Christ, man, it’s fucking hard cider. Jesus.

Bruno appears in the window and attempts to retrieve the cider jug, causing Rumford to lose his shit. “Hey, mister! Don’t touch that! Don’t move till Captain Loomis arrives!” Christ, dude, take a Quaalude already! Columbo hustles out to the parade ground, wondering about all the racket. “The cider, Lieutenant!” Rumford roars, in what must surely be considered the prize quote of the episode. “The elusive cider has finally materialized!!”

Columbo is impressed by Rumford’s eagle eyes. “So that’s how you knew about it. You saw it before?” the detective asks. Wait, what? That happens to be true, as we know from before, but why would Columbo come to that conclusion? After all, it was Captain Loomis who alerted Rumford to the presence of the cider in the window just now. For reasons I can’t even begin to fathom, Rumford confirms that he saw the cider hanging in the same window a few days ago. “I’m surprised that you didn’t start your investigation the moment you saw it,” Columbo says. Yeah, that’s pretty weird, isn’t it? We know that Rumford waited at least a day to do anything about the cider, and then randomly decided to wake everyone up at 3am about it. Why do that? If he’s known about the cider for days, why not bring it up when everyone was still awake? Or better yet, he could just forget about the damn cider entirely, and then maybe he wouldn’t find himself in the trap he’s clearly about to fall into.

The cadets have arrived, and Rumford starts to chew them out — but, one more thing sir: did you previously see the jug at night or during the day? “Day, of course.” But that’s a lie: at Columbo’s questioning, several cadets promptly own up to being involved in the manufacture of liquor, and they all say the jug was never hung out during the day, only at night. “Then it must have been night,” Rumford concedes, because whatever. Columbo turns back to the cadets, and asks when was the first time the cider was ever hung out. “Saturday night, sir!” — in other words, the night before Founder’s Day. It was brought in before reveille so no one would see it, and it would have been too dark to see the jug until just before then. So that places Rumford on the parade ground on Founder’s Day morning between 6:15 and 6:25, in the one spot from which the jug could be clearly seen: directly behind the ceremonial cannon.

Caught out, Rumford confesses to the murder of William Haynes, saying it had to be done and he’d do it again. He seems awfully self-assured, considering that his secret would have been safe if he hadn’t stupidly confessed to seeing the cider earlier—which, and I really can’t stress this enough, he absolutely did not have to do. But that’s Columbo for you. Rumford addresses his men a final time — go get dressed and report to the mess hall for breakfast, shine your shoes, that sort of thing — and dismisses them as he prepares to face the music.

You can watch Columbo: By Dawn’s Early Light for free on IMDb TV, in your browser or on Amazon Fire devices. If you prefer your Columbo recaps with a Scottish accent, go check out this episode on the Columbo Podcast. And above all, report back here this time next year for more Columbo’s Day fun. Be seeing you!