- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: The fact that the boy's dead doesn't seem to have made very much of an impression on you.
- Bill Burns: Why should it? Death hasn't endowed him with any new virtues, has it?
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: That's a little brutal, but honest. Do you, eh... You know of anyone who might have had cause to kill him?
- Bill Burns: The way he was cutting throats at the plant, it might have been a number of people.
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: What about you?
- Bill Burns: Mr. Charles, when you've got anything on me, you can serve your papers. But until that time, I figure my time is my own.
- Studs Lonnegan: Hello, sister. Is Nick Charles here?
- Nora Charles: Who wants him?
- Police Officer: Yeah, who wants him?
- Studs Lonnegan: Is your name sister?
- Nora Charles: Just imagine, four murders, all strangulations, no fingerprints, no clues. The police were baffled. All they had were four bodies. So what do they do? They dump the whole thing in Nick's lap. Nobody suspected Stinky, because he's been a cripple ever since some nitro went off while he was cracking a canister in Salt Lake. Everybody thought it was Rainbow Benny, but Nick knew that Rainbow was an expert with the shiv. Strangling was out of his line! Oh, smart Nick! Then they turned the heat on Slasher Martin who ran an dice joint down in China Town. But Slasher had an alibi with Squinty Burke and Studsy Green, so that took care of him. But all the time Nick was certain that Stinky Davis was the killer. Why? Because he had him pegged right away for a two timing double crossing rat! But the police listen to Nick? No! They told him it was a hophead theory, wild as loco buttons, because Stinky was a cripple and couldn't navigate. So Nick got the brushoff from the police. They cold-shouldered him right out. But did that stop him? No sir! He knew the case was hot and he was all set to start cooking on the front burner. He said: "Stinky, you're the two timing double crossing rat who strangled Knobs McClure and Reesy Joe and Horseface Dan and Denver Mike and then he turned his back on him. And the trick worked! Because Stinky got out of his chair and tried to strangle Nick with a piece of wire he had hidden in his mouth. But just in time, Nick turned around and gave him the old one-two and knocked Stinky colder than an ice flounder. Stinky wasn't a cripple at all! He was just using it to cover up his crimes. Now, what do you think of *that*?
- Dr. Bertram Charles: Well, if Nicky suspected that Stinky Davis wasn't really a cripple, why didn't he have him examined by a doctor? The whole thing is so silly!
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: A couple of weeks on this cider and I'll be a new man.
- Nora Charles: I sort of like the old one.
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: Why, darling, that's the nicest thing you've said to me since the time I got my head caught in that cuspidor at the Waldorf.
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: Right there was the little old schoolhouse.
- [laughs]
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: Once on Halloween I burned it down - slightly.
- Nora Charles: Who's Sam Ronson?
- Mrs. Charles: He's the town banker. He has a hand in everything that goes on here. I suppose he's what you call a typhoon.
- Dr. Bertram Charles: Do'nt you mean tycoon, mother? Typhoon is a sort of big wind.
- Mrs. Charles: Well, that's Sam Ronson.
- Police Chief MacGregor: Mr. Brogan, if it isn't too much trouble, would you mind telling me were you came from?
- Brogan: I'm a friend of Nick's, get it? And I was just passin' by, get it? So, I thought I'd just stop in...
- Nora Charles: Get it?
- Nora Charles: I really shouldn't give him a birthday present at all - sneaking off like that, getting drunk, without me. Running into an old sweetheart. If all his old sweethearts were laid end-to-end, you could use them as a sidewalk.
- Laurabelle Ronson: Poor Peter. At least he has outsoared the shadow of our night. Envy, pain and hate can touch him not. That's Shelly. I always turn to the poets for comfort, in all my sorrows.
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: Me too.
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: Thank you very much. Goodbye, now.
- Willie Crump: I beg your pardon?
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: I said goodbye, now.
- Willie Crump: Goodbye - now? There's no sense to that? Obviously, it's now. I mean, you wouldn't say goodbye, tomorrow. Or, goodbye, two hours ago.
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: You've got ahold of something there, brother.
- Willie Crump: I've got ahold of some? I haven't got ahold of anything. And I'm not your brother!
- Nora Charles: Oh, Nicky, you're driving me crazy. This case is serious and all you do is fuddle around and guzzle cider.
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: I'll switch to prune juice.
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: Wait here.
- Nora Charles: Where are you going?
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: I want to do a little business with a blonde.
- Nora Charles: Do you think she'll give it to you?
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: Well, I can try darling. Anything for art.
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: Well, we're very much obliged to you. Buy yourself a little smoke.
- [presses a bill into the attendant's hand]
- Baggage Attendant on Train: Thanks, but...
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: Compliments of the pup.
- [motions to Asta]
- Baggage Attendant on Train: Spitz?
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: No, just growls.
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: Now, about Peter, I just wanted to ask you a few things about his friends, his family.
- Laurabelle Ronson: He was alone. He had - only me.
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: Oh, well, eh, he must have talked about his family though, his childhood.
- Laurabelle Ronson: He talked of nothing. Our souls and spirits communed. The words would have been empty, meaningless.
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: Yes. I can understand that.
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: Now you're going to get it! You're going to get it...
- Nora Charles: Oh, no Nick, not here in front of your parents!
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: [Nick bends Nora over and starts spanking her behind with a newspaper and starts quoting Nora's statement to the press] But you can draw your own conclusions!
- Nora Charles: Ouch! Nicky!
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: This will teach you the power of the press!
- Nora Charles: Oh! A fine son you brought up. A wife-beater!
- Dr. Bertram Charles: A brave boy!
- [laughs]
- Dr. Bertram Charles: I wanted to do that to mother for 40 years.
- Mrs. Charles: I dare you!
- Nora Charles: Nicky, do you really like cider?
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: Like it? I love it. Just the pure, natural juices of the apple. What could be better, for instance?
- Nora Charles: A dry martini, for instance.
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: That horrible stuff. It almost took the lining off my stomach.
- Nora Charles: Why do you care? It didn't show.
- Nora Charles: I don't suppose there's any crime in Sycamore Springs?
- Mrs. Charles: Gracious no. The only excitement we ever had was a runaway horse last Christmas.
- Mrs. Charles: Well, all I can say is if you're looking for crime in Sycamore Springs, you'll have to commit it yourself.
- Nora Charles: I wonder? Nicky always says that there's a skeleton in nearly every closet and if you rattle it hard enough something always happens.
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: I was just thinking about a little gal by the name of Alice Brody. We used to come out here often on hot summer nights and play on her banjo.
- Brogan: You know, Doctor, this is just typical of Nick. Wherever he goes, you always find bodies. It's just typical.
- Laurabelle Ronson: A cigar?
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: I rather lost interest in cigars.
- Laurabelle Ronson: Oh, father has some very good ones. A special brand he keeps all for himself.
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: Oh, a special brand.
- Laurabelle Ronson: Yes. Won't you try one?
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: Cubana Perfecto. Well, yes, yes. This does interest me.
- Nora Charles: I'll be waiting for you, darling. Good luck.
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: I'll need it, sister.
- Nora Charles: And don't call me sister.
- Dr. Bertram Charles: I demand to know what those people are doing in my laboratory!
- Police Officer: I don't know.
- Dr. Bertram Charles: Where's Nick Charles?
- Police Officer: I don't know.
- Dr. Bertram Charles: You don't know much, do you?
- Police Officer: No. But, I don't have to.
- Tom's Wife: Why, I always said something would happen to that boy.
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: Yes? Why?
- Tom's Wife: Bad tempered and ornery. He had a fight the other night.
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: A fight, huh? With whom?
- Tom's Wife: Don't know the name. The other fella ended up with two black eyes like a raccoon.
- Willie Crump: Bad ones. Always gave me his bad pictures to sell. Never his good ones. Just higgledy-piggledy. That's the way he was. You know, artist are all like that. They keep their good pictures and sell there bad ones. It seems that a good artist is just naturally higgledy-piggledy. Maybe that's why he's a good artist. Or, maybe its reversed.
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: Oh, Studs, let's have those other four paintings.
- Studs Lonnegan: Here they are Nick.
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: And, eh, tell them where you got them.
- Studs Lonnegan: Why, where you told me. At Anthony Kroner's Art Gallery in New York.
- Nicholas 'Nick' Charles: Anthony Kroner, known to his intimates as Tony.