Sister Bryan: Oh yes, Mr Kennedy, I'm sorry but the passenger you're meeting is ill. He'll be brought here as soon as the plane has landed.
Kennedy: Sick? What's wrong with him?
Sister Bryan: I can't say.
Kennedy: You mean you don't know or you won't tell me?
Sister Bryan: Well...
Archibald Bannister: A matter of policy, my dear Sir. Aircrew are discouraged from making medical diagnoses. For example, only last week we were alerted that a foreign passenger, a plumpish woman, was suffering from severe cramp and to have a stomach pump at the ready. An hour after the plane landed she gave birth to twins. Most embarrassing, but there you are.
Kennedy: I'm no doctor but I don't think he's having twins.
Archibald Bannister: Hmm. Touché, Mr Kennedy. It appears that your friend has collapsed.
Kennedy: Collapsed?
Archibald Bannister: Well, er, drunk.
Kennedy: Are we talking about the same guy?
Archibald Bannister: Steven Cooper, an American.
Kennedy: That doesn't make sense. Cooper's been my partner for twelve years. He's strictly a milk drinker.
Archibald Bannister: Well, there's our aeroplane. We'll soon get a doctor's opinion. Maybe he can make sense...
Kennedy: What are you selling?
Archibald Bannister: Hm? Oh, nothing. I'm a detective. But not for Scotland Yard. My criminals are far more dangerous than human beings. Dainty, little killers.
[he points to a map of the world]
Archibald Bannister: White for cholera, red for small pox, black for plague. The pins mark the scene of the crime.
Archibald Bannister: Would it surprise you to know that if World Health Regulations were relaxed for even a month, we'd be ridden by plagues that would put the Middle Ages to Shame? 'Course it would.
Archibald Bannister: Germs are much smarter than people. They never bother with passports or borders. They know it's one world, even if we don't.
Kennedy: Bully for them.
