Five Red Herrings

Dr. Cameron:
[to Wimsey as he examines the dead Campbell's skull] There are abrasions here and here, which look like post-mortem injuries to me, and here's where he got the big bump. Nature has ill-protected the brain in those parts. The skull there's remakably thin where a trifling blow would crush it like an eggshell.

Michael Waters:
You know, the trouble with you Scots is that you suffer from an ingrown sense of inferiority.

Sandy Campbell:
Say that again?

Michael Waters:
I'll make it simpler - when a man has to brag about his country the way you do, he's not concerned with anyone else. It's himself he's trying to convince!

Sandy Campbell:
You're safe enough here amongst your friends, but I'm warning you, Strachan...

Henry Strachan:
Warning or threatening, Campbell?

Sandy Campbell:
Take it any way you please! I hope for your sake our paths don't cross on neutral territ'ry - there's some awfu' lonely places 'round here!

Matthew Gowan:
Now that is a threat. A very DEFINITE threat!

Sandy Campbell:
And the same goes for you, ye hairy wee monster!

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Will we require a picnic hamper?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
We shall, Bunter.

Bunter:
Well, I procured a loaf still hot from the bakery and some fresh dairy butter. One hardly needs more. However, to paint the lily as it were, may I suggest some patie de fois de Strasburg, followed by some cold roast capers with a green salad, to be washed down by a bottle of Muscadet cooled in the very same-said Minnoch?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
A suggestion of genius. Act on it instantly!

Lord Peter Wimsey:
[catches a fish and puts it with another he caught earlier] What did I tell you, Bunter? That's two for lunch!

Bunter:
[distracted, deadpan] Excellent, my lord...

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Your enthusiasm overwhelms me.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
What's for lunch, Bunter? I am feeling uncommon ready for it.

Bunter:
Just a simple stew, my lord. Shin of beef with onions, carrots, and dumplings.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
I say sheer bliss.

Bunter:
And equally hard to come by?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Hard to come by?

Bunter:
Shin of beef, my lord, like sheer beef in these parts, equally hard to come by.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Now you do surprise me. I would have thought there were plenty of beeves in this part of the world with their fair share of shins.

Bunter:
Your lordship is perfectly cowed, but the local term for shin of beef is "hough," and I had great difficulty in making myself understood.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Do you know I do believe that you're right.

Bunter:
Would your lordhip like me to refer to the comestible as "hough" during our residence in this country?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Well, it would be a great concession to national feeling, Bunter, if you could bring yourself to do so.

Bunter:
Right you are, my lord.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
[to Bunter] Six painters, and one of them certainly killed Campbell, and all we have to do is eliminate the five red herrings.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
[to Gilda Farren] Nothing as virtuous as a cyclist. I mean, you can't imagine a cyclist commiting a crime, can you... except perhaps murder?

Miss Cochrane:
Why, Peter Whimsey, are we not on your list of suspects?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
[to Bunter] Good heavens! Bunter, a glass of sherry for your master quickly. [to the ladies] Should you be on my list?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
[to Bunter] For my own part, the time has come to talk of many things to one or two of our red herrings.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
[Finishing up a meal prepared by Bunter] High tea rather than luncheon.

Bunter:
[Entering the room] High tea, my lord?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
[With understatement] A meal not to be despised, Bunter. True, you have served me a twaite meunere instead of a kipper and a bottlr of Poilly-Fume instead of a mug of tea, but the result, I assure you, was just as satisfying.

Bunter:
Well, I'm very glad to hear it.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Yes, well, I was pulling your leg, old lad. I was ravenous, and at one epicurean stroke, you have appeased both glutton and gourmet.

Bunter:
Thank you, my lord.

Henry Strachan:
[Angrily] I'll tell you this, Wimsey, one of these days you'll go too far, and somebody will murder you!

Lord Peter Wimsey:
[Nonplused] Do you know, I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised.

Hugh Farren:
[Discussing the circumstances of his disappearance] Well, I can't possibly make you understand.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
You're not doin' badly at all.

Hugh Farren:
Ah, but you're rich, Wimsey. There's nothing to stop you doing exactly what you want. Why do you take the trouble to be respectable?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Precisely because there's nothin' to stop me doin' exactly as I want. I get my fun out of it.

Hugh Farren:
I know you do. It's odd. You create an illusion of liberty. Is it the money or just... just being unmarried?

[last lines]

Bunter:
How does your lordship foresee the outcome?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
"Gentlemen of the Jury, you have heard evidence of the character of the deceased, of his habitual drunkenness and savage temper. You have heard how, on the day of his death, he drove a golf ball at almost point-blank range at the witness Jock Graham - an action which might well have had fatal consequences. You have heard how, in the presence of the Club Committee, he threatened the witnesses Strachan and Gowan with actual bodily harm if they chanced to cross his path again, and of how, on that same evening, he entered into a violent argument with the witness Michael Waters and threw whisky in his face, and fought him in the bar. And also of the far more monstrous attack on the person of Matthew Gowan - an act of unspeakable barbarity which must stir in every one of us the deepest revulsion - not to mention his most questionable advances toward the wife of the witness Hugh Farren. In the light of what you have heard, is there a single one of you who would dare to return a verdict of "guilty" against the accused, John Ferguson? I say with absolute confidence that there is not!" And of course they won't. It'll be self defense or justifiable homicide.

Bunter:
I'm delighted to hear it, my lord.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
So am I, Bunter. Ferguson's a good egg. It was his misfortune to suffer from a rotten neighbor!

John Ferguson:
Well, Chief Constable, you must do what you have to do. But it wasn't murder. I swear to you, it wasn't murder!

Lord Peter Wimsey:
[Sneaks up on Farran, who has been on the run for several days earning money by doing artwork] A bit extravagant with the Flake White, aren't we?

Hugh Farren:
Wimsey! By all that's holy! How the devil did you find me?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Well, if you will go about the countryside leaving a trail of newly-painted pub signs behind you, it ain't exactly difficult.

John Ferguson:
Honestly, MacPherson, what on earth do you hope to prove by this charade?

Inspector MacPherson:
Well, um...

John Ferguson:
I'll tell you one thing, though. This is none of your local lot's doing. I'll give you 10 to 1 that idiot Wimsey's behind this. It's he who's talked the Kircudbright Constabulary into playing at Scotland Yard!