Ralph Richardson credited as playing...
Joseph Finsbury
- [last lines]
- Detective: All right, come on, come on, what's going on? Come on, what is it? Come on!
- Clergyman: Please, sir, I beg of you, there's a dead man here.
- Detective: All right, no one move!
- [long pause while he realizes it's a church burial]
- Detective: Finsbury?
- Michael Finsbury, Julia Finsbury, Masterman Finsbury, Joseph Finsbury, Morris, John Finsbury: Yes?
- Detective: MORRIS Finsbury!
- John Finsbury: [turning Morris around and pointing at him] Yes.
- Detective: Morris Finsbury, I arrest you for stealing £100,000.
- Lawyer Patience: But the money has been returned, sir.
- Detective: Who are you, sir? Some sort of accomplice?
- Lawyer Patience: Certainly not: I am his solicitor.
- Detective: Oh, you've brought your solicitor with you, have you? Yes, I've met your type before.
- Lawyer Patience: No, no, no. I mean, I, I, I'm the administrator of the tontine.
- Detective: Tontine?
- Joseph Finsbury: Named after Lorenzo Tonti, a Neapolitan banker.
- Detective: And who are you, sir?
- Joseph Finsbury: I...
- Masterman Finsbury: [interrupting] He's nobody. He's my young brother.
- Detective: And who are you, sir?
- Masterman Finsbury: None of your business, sir!
- Detective: I shall have you arrested for indecent exposure!
- Julia Finsbury: Oh!
- Michael Finsbury: My grandfather was recently buried, sir.
- Detective: And who are you, sir?
- Julia Finsbury: He is Michael Finsbury.
- Detective: And who are YOU, madam?
- Michael Finsbury: She is Julia Finsbury, shortly to become... Julia Finsbury!
- Detective: Young man, did you know there was a body in the piano?
- Peacock: I did it.
- Detective: Who is he?
- Michael Finsbury: He is the butler, sir.
- Detective: The butler did it?
- Michael Finsbury: No, sir. I put the body there.
- Detective: Is this true?
- Michael Finsbury: Yes sir.
- Detective: In that case, you are entitled to a reward of £1,000. You are responsible for bringing the Bournemouth Strangler to his just end.
- Michael Finsbury: A, a thousand pounds? Oh, but I-I-I don't, I don't deserve it. The body just arrived in a barrel.
- John Finsbury: I sent it.
- Detective: And who are you, sir?
- Morris Finsbury: He is of diminished responsibility, officer. It was all my doing. If there's any justice in this naughty world, the reward is mine.
- Detective: And WHO are YOU?
- [falls into open grave]
- Morris Finsbury: You remember me - Morris Finsbury. I was falsely accused of stealing a hundred thousand pounds, whereas in fact it was me, and me alone, who was responsible for bringing the Bournemouth Strangler to his just desserts.
- [Recounting the railway accident]
- Joseph Finsbury: I was in the water closet of the Bournemouth express when it quite unaccountably exploded, thereby extensively damaging the rest of the train. I can't really think that I was to blame, although at the time I was smoking.
- Joseph Finsbury: [riding with the Hackett funeral party] It is, as you know, a statistical fact that in London one person dies every twenty-five seconds - which means that it is extremely probable that one of us may not even live to arrive at the ceremony!
- Joseph Finsbury: [carrying on a one-sided conversation with the Bournemouth Strangler] Ahh, the avocational activities of man are many and varied. Some demand skill - yours for instance! Carpentry... the playing of games with balls of various sizes!