At a formal dinner, Clifford Calvert, a lively financier, encounters Howard Seltzer, a former business partner who is now suing him for unscrupulous practices. Heated words are exchanged, and things quickly turn violent.
When Seltzer turns up dead, all signs point toward his hostile rival Calvert as the murderer, but upon further investigation, Columbo senses that all is not what it seems in A Trace of Murder.