Original Air Date: November 4, 1990

Directed by: Jerry Jameson

Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains spoilers for this episode!

Synopsis: Jessica (Angela Lansbury) tries to intervene when she sees a woman named Sheila (Brenda Vaccaro) steal a necklace from a high end jewelry store which somehow ties in to a murder that happens during a campaign event.

Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer): Jessica later learns that Sheila is a bit of a kleptomaniac and that her husband Porter (John Considine) pays for the items she steals. But Sheila is implicated in the murder so Jessica stays with her. In the middle of the night, a man dressed all in black enters Sheila’s house and sneaks into her bedroom. A ginger tabby cat is lying on the floor.

After knocking Sheila out with chloroform, the robber heads for her safe. But he doesn’t see the cat and ends up stepping on its tail (the actor appears not to actually put any weight on his foot with the step). The cat runs away with a Poor Cat Screech. This awakens Sheila’s husband and Jessica who run to her room before the intruder can finish his business.

The next morning Sheila is holding the cat on her lap as her husband talks to a police detective.

“So much for our state of the art security system,” Porter sighs as he sits next to Sheila. “We should have saved our money and bought a few more cats.” At the end of the episode the guilty party admits that if it hadn’t been for that cat no one would have been the wiser.

Final Mewsings: Poor Cat Screeches are even more effective than alarms!

Many thanks to Ted Davis for letting us know about the cat in this episode.

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