Quotes
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DI Fred Thursday : [as Bright is examining evidence Morse found] According to Morse, sir, this Lakme girl kills herself by eating leaves from the Datura plant. The same as was used to poison Grace Madison. Makes it two, sir.
Chief Superintendent Bright : [after a pause] What makes two?
DI Fred Thursday : Two deaths, sir, with a connection to opera. There was a phrase from... What is it?
DC Endeavour Morse : Otello, sir. By Giuseppe Verdi.
DI Fred Thursday : Chalked on the door of the goods wagon where we found Evelyn Balfour. "One kiss more". His last words, Morse says.
Chief Superintendent Bright : You mean Shakespeare's Othello? The blackamoor?
DI Fred Thursday : That's him sir, yes.
DC Endeavour Morse : Evelyn Balfour was strangled, sir, like Desdemona, Othello's wife. There was a handkerchief stuffed in her mouth embroidered with the initial D.
Chief Superintendent Bright : [gets up and walks across the room to his desk] I thought we had someone for the er... Balfour killing.
DI Fred Thursday : All right, Morse. As you were.
[Morse leaves the room as Bright lights a cigarette]
Chief Superintendent Bright : [not convinced by anything Morse said] Opera? Good God! A man would have to be some sort of raving lunatic to go to such lengths.
DI Fred Thursday : [as Bright sits at his desk] If he is a lunatic sir, I'd have to say he's a very clever one. If you've no objection, I'd like to second Morse from general duties for the duration.
Chief Superintendent Bright : Is that necessary?
DI Fred Thursday : Specialist knowledge, sir; it comes with this sort of thing.
Chief Superintendent Bright : Very well. But for the duration of the inquiry only. I don't want him getting ideas.
DI Fred Thursday : That's kind of what I'm counting on.
[Bright gives Thursday an unconvinced look]
DI Fred Thursday : Sir.
[Thursday leaves the room]
DS Peter Jakes : [in one of the open station rooms] Usual time in the morning is it?
DI Fred Thursday : [putting his coat on] No, you're all right. Morse can fetch me.
[to Morse]
DI Fred Thursday : You're off general duties till further notice. 8.15 sharp. All right.
[Thursday leaves the room, Jakes follows and switches off the light]
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DC Endeavour Morse : [looking at the evidence with Thursday, Jakes and Bright at the police station] He played a record. Tosca.
DS Peter Jakes : [nodding] Tosca?
DC Endeavour Morse : It's a penny dreadful of a plot. Filled with murder, torture and suicide.
DS Peter Jakes : Right up his street, then.
DC Endeavour Morse : At the climax, the heroine, Floria Tosca hurls herself from the battlements of the Castel Sant'Angelo.
Chief Superintendent Bright : In summation then, apart from the method by which he means to dispose of this fifth and final victim, we know neither the where, the when nor the *whom* of it.
DS Peter Jakes : If the killer's sticking to Morse's EGBDF pattern sir, it's got to be someone who's name begins with an F.
[Morse thinks for a moment, then realizes who the killer is]
DC Endeavour Morse : It's Cronyn.
DS Peter Jakes : What is?
DC Endeavour Morse : [walking towards a blackboard, which has the names MASON GULL and KEITH MILLER? written in chalk on it] The murderer. It's Cronyn.
Chief Superintendent Bright : [not convinced] I appreciate your work on this, Morse, but I think you'll find...
DC Endeavour Morse : Doctor Cronyn approached us, didn't he sir?
Chief Superintendent Bright : Yes, but...
DC Endeavour Morse : [confident] He's the one who's had us running around looking for this Keith Miller.
DI Fred Thursday : [shocked] But Morse!
DC Endeavour Morse : [confident] It's a joke sir. A blind. Keith Miller doesn't exist sir.
[Morse writes I'M THE KILLER on the blackboard]
DC Endeavour Morse : [confident] Rearrange the letters of his name and you get... "I'm the killer". He's been toying us us, right from the beginning. Posing as Doctor Cronyn.
[flashbacks of Doctor Cronyn are seen]
Chief Superintendent Bright : So who is he really?
DC Endeavour Morse : [pointing to the other name on the blackboard] Mason Gull, sir.
Chief Superintendent Bright : [impressed] Good grief!
DI Fred Thursday : [confident] Then whose body did we find in Cronyn's consulting rooms?
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Chief Superintendent Bright : [as Cronyn/Gull is handed over to the other officers] All under control Thursday?
DI Fred Thursday : [straightening his hat] More or less sir, yes.
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Chief Superintendent Bright : [after Ben Nimmo's corpse has been found] Bad ju-ju, Thursday.
DI Fred Thursday : Yes, sir.
Chief Superintendent Bright : See you get to the bottom of it - and quick. Morse, I'm relying on you to make yourself useful.
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Chief Superintendent Bright : [With the case finished, looking at Morse for a moment] I imagine getting back to general duties, after all this, will seem like a holiday!
DC Endeavour Morse : [Trying not to look frustrated] Sir.
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Chief Superintendent Bright : No man likes to be thought a cuckold.