Martini smirks. "Impossible. My stage shoes are in my dressing room. I never left."
Professor Aldo Martini, a celebrated but vain conductor, murders his longtime librettist, Franco, in a fit of rage. Franco had threatened to reveal that Martini stole the score for his award-winning symphony from a young, unknown composer. Martini’s alibi? He was live on stage, conducting Verdi’s Requiem at the Teatro alla Scala, bathed in sweat and spotlights before two thousand witnesses, at the exact moment of the killing.
"Oh," Martini whispers.
"You know," Colombo says, lighting a cigar, "the Requiem is about judgment. Guess the music was right all along."
He drives off in his sputtering Peugeot, leaving the opera house silent. This text captures the spirit of Colombo : the seemingly absent-minded detective, the arrogant intellectual killer, the small overlooked detail, and the satisfaction of a trap closing. colombo episodi
Martini uses a clever trick. He pre-records a video of himself conducting, displaying it on the giant screens behind the orchestra. During a thirty-second fortissimo climax, when all eyes are on the screens, he slips out a stage door, rushes to Franco’s apartment three blocks away, commits the murder, and returns. Total time: 28 minutes. The Requiem lasts 90. No one misses him.
Beat.
Colombo tilts his head, takes a slow bite of his panino, and says: "Just one more thing… If you were on stage all night, how did your old baton end up behind Franco’s piano? With your teeth marks on it?"
As Martini is led away, Colombo pauses at the opera house exit. He looks up at the grand chandelier, then back at the detective who arrested the Maestro. Martini smirks
Lieutenant Colombo arrives. He’s rumpled, his Peugeot 403 is sputtering outside the opera house, and he’s eating a panino with mortadella. He bows to the Maestro. "Oh, sir, that was… beautiful. My wife, she loves the loud parts. Me? I like the quiet bits. You know, when someone misses a note."
The Perfect Alibi (Un alibi perfetto)