- [arriving at Hanbury House]
- Chief Inspector Morse: Restored of course - look at that window.
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: All that stonework, must take months to do the pointing.
- Chief Inspector Morse: You're not a bloody mason, are you?
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: No such luck - I might have been a Chief Inspector by now if I was.
- Chief Inspector Morse: "Were", Lewis, if you "were". You'll never get on if you can't master your subjunctives. Keep touching your forelock, we may be back in Oxford before lunch.
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: Shouldn't that be "might"?
- [riding in Morse's car, listening to opera aria]
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: I liked that, it was good. What was it?
- Chief Inspector Morse: That, Lewis, was Maria Callas.
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: Was it from "Cats"?
- Chief Inspector Morse: No it most certainly was not.
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: The wife wants to go to "Cats". Dunno why, she's allergic to them.
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: [as Lady Hanbury and Dr. Russell leave separately] Lovely woman, that.
- Chief Inspector Morse: That's not a woman, Lewis, that's a Lady.
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: Dr. Russell, I mean.
- Chief Inspector Morse: You see, Sir Julius wasn't murdered. He fell from a great height, physically and morally. He committed suicide. We've been led up the garden path here, Lewis. A very pretty garden and a highly picturesque path.
- Mrs. Maltby: Have a ginger biscuit, Sergeant.
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: Mmm. Lovely.
- Mrs. Maltby: You sure you won't partake, Inspector?
- Chief Inspector Morse: No thank you. Might spoil my lunch.
- [Lewis chokes on his biscuit]
- Mrs. Maltby: But your sergeant hasn't finished his coffee, Inspector.
- Chief Inspector Morse: He's a very slow drinker. It's something to do with Newcastle ale. They like to suck it drop by drop up there. Come on, Lewis.
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: She's here.
- Chief Inspector Morse: Right.
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: And she knows he's dead.
- Chief Inspector Morse: Thank God for that. The thing I like least about this job is breaking the bad news.
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: I know. That's why you always make me do it.
- Chief Inspector Morse: How did they get back from the school to kill Meadows? I don't see how they had the time.
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: She was there when she said she was. I checked with the headmaster.
- Chief Inspector Morse: She can't drive.
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: Well, she can drive. She just...
- Chief Inspector Morse: Lewis, you've done it.
- Chief Inspector Morse: Get an ambulance to Hanbury House fast as you can. Some fool in a sports car just smashed into a tree!
- Chief Inspector Morse: People like them, they think people like us are only here to keep the servants in order.
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: Does that mean we have to arrest the butler?
- Professor Edward Ullman: Is that what Hanbury told you?
- Chief Inspector Morse: In my profession, sir, I ask the questions.
- Professor Edward Ullman: But if you honestly think...
- Chief Inspector Morse: Oh, I wouldn't be so presumptuous as to think, sir. At least not in an Oxford college.
- Dr. Grayling Russell: Sergeant Lewis? Ah, Russell, Dr. Russell.
- [shakes his hand]
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: Where's Max?
- Dr. Grayling Russell: Ah, not too well, actually. Had a stroke. So, where's the body?
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: Well, it's in the church, but it's not a pretty sight...
- Dr. Grayling Russell: Oh, already? Saving on undertakers, are they?
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: Wait until the Chief Inspector sees you.
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: You think she did it, then?
- Chief Inspector Morse: Still time to find out, although I don't know exactly who did what.
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: Well, that's never stopped you from making an arrest.
- Chief Inspector Morse: But I tell you one thing. They got us thinking the way they want us to think. And I never like obliging the nobility.
- Chief Inspector Morse: You live in a place like this you think the rules don't apply. Delusions of grandeur. Et ego in Arcadia vixi, Lewis.
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: Oh yeah. What does that mean in English?
- Chief Inspector Morse: It means, more or less, there was a serpent even in the Garden of Eden.
- [pause]
- Chief Inspector Morse: God, what an inheritance.