A Nero Wolfe Mystery (TV Series)

Prisoner's Base: Part 1 (2001)

Maury Chaykin: Nero Wolfe

Photos 

Quotes 

• Bernard Quest : I have been in this company 62 years. In 1933, when I was made Vice-President by Nathan Eads, he promised me that one day I would be given a substantial share in the corporation. In 1942 he died, and when his will was read, I found he had broken his promise to me, and so I decided to kill his daughter Priscilla. She was 15 years old. I decided to strangle her.

  Viola Duday : [screaming]  Bernie!

  Sarah Jaffee : [shocked]  My God!

  Nero Wolfe : I even worked out the details - where to find a rope, how to employ it, what to do with afterward, and I practiced... I practiced by strangling myself.

  Nero Wolfe : [coughs while Wolfe nods in understanding]  But that was ten years ago, and in the end, I finally came to my senses. I didn't kill her then and... Oh, what's the point? I'm too old, my children are grown, and I have everything I need.

  Nero Wolfe : [laconically]  Oh, perhaps you should have strangled yourself.

• Nero Wolfe : So what happens today? Mr. Rowcliff took advantage of the absence of Mr. Goodwin whom he fears and petulantly envies and entered my house by force.

  Lieutenant Rowcliff : That's a lie! I rang - !

  Nero Wolfe : SHUT UP!

  Nero Wolfe : [pauses]  He was ass enough to think I would speak with him. Naturally, I ordered him out. And when I persisted in my refusal, I turned to leave...

  Nero Wolfe : [growling]  ... and he put a hand on me! He then took me into custody, under warrant, conducted me out of my home, and in a rickety old police car, with a headstrong and paroxysmal driver, brought me to this building. I had assumed charitably that it was some major misapprehension that had driven Mr. Rowcliff to this frenzied zeal. But I learned from you, Mr. Bowen, that it was merely a fit of nincompoopery! That you - you think that I have a client. That I know something you don't know and would like to and that you can bully it out of me. Well, you can't! I haven't got it! But you are correct in assuming that I have a client, I do.

  Lieutenant Rowcliff : I knew it!

  Nero Wolfe : As you may know, Mr. Goodwin is not indifferent to those attributes of young women which constitute the chief reliance of our race in our gallant struggle against the menace of the insects. He is also... especially vulnerable to young women who have a knack for stimulating his love of chivalry and adventure. Priscilla Eads was such a woman. Within hours of her eviction by him at my behest, she was brutally murdered. He then bounded out of my house, like a man obsessed, after telling me he was going single-handedly after the murderer. It was... pathetic. But also, thoroughly admirable. And your callous and churlish treatment of him leave me with no alternative: I am at his service.

  Lieutenant Rowcliff : You mean Archie Goodwin is your client?

  District Attorney T. Bowen : All that rigamarole was leading up to that?

  Archie Goodwin : [kicks door open]  I'm hungry. I had a soda fountain lunch. I could eat a porcupine with quills on it. Let's go home.

  [Wolfe and Goodwin walk to the door. Wolfe taps Archie on the shoulder. They stop and turn around] 

  Nero Wolfe : [to Rowcliff and Bowen]  A paradise for puerility!

• Nero Wolfe : There was no legal or professional obstacle to prevent my disclosing you to him and demanding payment, but, confound it, there is my self-esteem. Also, there is Mister Goodwin. I have rebuked him for installing you and told him to get rid of you, and if I now collect ransom for you, he will be impossible to live with or to work with.