Joseph Finsbury Quotes in The Wrong Box (1966)

[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: [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!

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!