I didn't like it all that much either at first but it's grown on me. I particularly like watching Janie use the belt buckle for an ashtray in prison.

Great scene.

The main thing that I didn't like about this episode was the ending. If Ruth murdered her brother and tried to frame her niece (and possibly murdered her sister's husband many years earlier), why would she suddenly decide to confess just to save her family a scandal? Columbo states that the evidence probably wouldn't be enought to convict her.

Maybe if they had dropped the part about murdering Janie's father and portrayed Ruth as someone who really thought she was doing the right thing by murdering her brother so that the museum could stay with the family, then maybe the self-sacrificial confession could have worked better. But everything they show us about Ruth demonstrates that her motives were selfish, not family-oriented.

Clever murder, good clues, decent performances, but inconsistent ending.