- Miss Jane Marple: What is this, Mary?
- Mary Hill: Soup.
- Miss Jane Marple: Does it have a name?
- Mary Hill: Bits-and-bobs-and-odds-and-sods-and-the-meat-ration's-been-cut-again soup.
- DI Slack: [to a constable as Miss Marple is some distance walking away] I don't know whether to buy her a box of chocs or kick away her stick.
- Miss Jane Marple: [still walking away] I prefer the chocolates.
- DI Slack: Look, it's easy to imagine all kinds of things after the event, but the simple fact is...
- Miss Jane Marple: Murder is never simple. We would be foolish, stupid, to ignore any possibility.
- DI Slack: 'We?'
- Miss Jane Marple: [smiling] Did I say that? Hm. So sorry.
- Miss Jane Marple: [realizing who committed the murder and how it was done, smiling] How clever!
- [then frowning]
- Miss Jane Marple: How wicked!
- Miss Jane Marple: We're all very ordinary in St. Mary Mead, but ordinary people can sometimes do the most astonishing things.
- Miss Jane Marple: You don't like Mr. Clement, do you?
- DI Slack: Nothing personal. Vicars in general remind me of marriage.
- Miss Jane Marple: [understanding] Ah, of course.
- DI Slack: Of course what?
- Miss Jane Marple: Miss Hartnell's cousin's maid is walking out with a butcher's boy from Melchester who delivers to your mother-in-law. Mrs. Slack has been staying with her for a... little holiday, I gather?
- DI Slack: [frowning] A little, two-month, six-day, holiday so far.
- Miss Jane Marple: [wincing] Oh, dear.
- DI Slack: Hmmm.
- Rev Leonard Clement: I could strangle Protheroe sometimes. May God forgive me.
- Griselda Clement: I'd stab him.
- Currate Ronald Hawes: I'd poison him.
- Dennis Clement: I'd shoot him.
- Lawrence Redding: Use my gun.
- Lawrence Redding: I'll have to leave, you know, for Anne's sake.
- Miss Jane Marple: That's very brave.
- Lawrence Redding: Yes, well, I'll soon be over it.
- Miss Jane Marple: You won't, not for a long while.
- Lawrence Redding: Nothing gets past you, Miss Marple, does it?
- Miss Jane Marple: [smiling] Hardly ever, young man.
- DI Slack: The chief constable sends his regards.
- Miss Jane Marple: How lovely. I have been of some assistance to him from time to time.
- DI Slack: He said.
- Griselda Clement: [Walks in on Leonard looking rather tearfully at Lawrence's portrait of her] Shame, he was on his way to getting me, don't you think?
- Rev Leonard Clement: [Choked up] Was he?
- Griselda Clement: ...oh, you silly man! Yes he's charming, yes he's like a breath of fresh air in the village, yes I was flattered but... no! You are my husband, Len. I would never deceive you.
- [Kisses him]
- Griselda Clement: ... Unless it was for the best.
- DI Slack: The lady in the cottage with a view of the back here.
- Rev Leonard Clement: Miss Marple?
- DI Slack: I need to interview her. Would you tag along? These old maids tend to get nervous.
- Miss Jane Marple: Why does Inspector Slack think the Colonel was shot at twenty past six?
- Dr. Haydock: He'd started writing a note to the vicar saying he couldn't wait. He put the time on it.
- Miss Jane Marple: Had he?
- Dr. Haydock: And the clock stopped at just gone 6:20. He knocked it off the desk when he took the bullet.
- Miss Jane Marple: Oh, dear. I'm afraid I must put a cat amongst the Inspector's pigeons.
- Currate Ronald Hawes: [seeing Miss Marple and Inspector at the vicar's desk where Colonel Protheroe was found dead] You're exactly where he was killed, aren't you? How horrible. Do you know who did it?
- DI Slack: Not yet, no.
- Currate Ronald Hawes: 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.'
- DI Slack: Well, someone beat the Lord to it.
- DI Slack: [Miss Marple reveals that the note Colonel Protheroe left behind may have been altered] Thank you, Miss Marple. That means that he could have been shot after 6:20, and the murderer just put that onto the note, and then altered the clock...
- Miss Jane Marple: To the time when Mrs. Protheroe came here in answer to her anonymous telephone call, and Mr. Redding's gun is the murder weapon.
- [snaps her fingers]
- Miss Jane Marple: I think they were being, um... set up as pasties.
- DI Slack: [correcting] "Patsies," it is.
- Miss Jane Marple: Thank you, Inspector.
- Lawrence Redding: And how would you do it, Miss Marple?
- Miss Jane Marple: I never speak lightly of murder, Mr. Redding. I hate to tempt fate.
- Colonel Protheroe: [Reading the Bible during the church service] But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then, when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth... death. Here endeth the lesson.
- Miss Hartnell: Where's Lettice this morning?
- Miss Jane Marple: Mr. Redding's painting her.
- Miss Hartnell: On a Sunday? You don't think...?
- Miss Jane Marple: Oh, he does have a way with him, but she's just a girl. I'd plumb for an older candidate if there is someone.
- [Colonel Protheroe discovers that the artist Lawrence Redding has been painting a portrait of his daughter in her bathing suit]
- Lettice Protheroe: It - it's more artistic.
- Colonel Protheroe: There's art, and there's SMUT! How dare he! And how dare you!
- Colonel Protheroe: [referring to the artist, Lawrence Redding, while at the dinner table] I forbid you to see him again!
- Lettice Protheroe: He was only painting me.
- Colonel Protheroe: [disbelieving] Oh!
- Lettice Protheroe: But I wish he were doing something, with all the stupid fuss you're making.
- Colonel Protheroe: Don't be common!
- Lettice Protheroe: Well, don't be horrid, then! You've already driven the DuFosses to bed because of your foul mood.
- Colonel Protheroe: Well, you can go, too!
- Lettice Protheroe: Gladly!
- [throws napkin on the table, gets up and walks off]
- DI Slack: [believing Lawrence Redding killed Colonel Protheroe] I've got a confession. And if the bullet that killed the Colonel doesn't match Redding's gun, I'll eat my handcuffs. Sometimes, the simple explanation is the right one.
- Miss Jane Marple: Last night's wasn't.
- Miss Jane Marple: [referring to Colonel Protheroe] If he was shot at a quarter to seven, why would he have stopped in the middle of a sentence at twenty past six?
- Miss Jane Marple: You are quite sure?
- Mrs. Price-Ridley: I always put a pound note into the box on the anniversary of poor Bruce's passing.
- Miss Jane Marple: I know, but perhaps this time...
- Colonel Protheroe: Oh, come on, Miss Marple! If Marjorie said she put a pound in, then she did! So where's it gone? Well, I thought you'd be straining at the leash to sniff out the culprit. You do have a reputation to maintain.
- Miss Jane Marple: My reputation, Colonel Protheroe, if I have one, and how very kind of you to suggest I do, is neither here nor there. I merely wonder if it's a little early to talk of culprits.
- Colonel Protheroe: Nonsense!
- Anne Protheroe: [touches his shoulder in an effort to calm him] Lucius...
- Colonel Protheroe: Anne, don't paw me! Now, look, I'm a churchwarden, and I was in intelligence. I know when something smells fishy! This could be just the tip of the iceberg! Eh... Vicar!
- [marches off to confront the vicar]
- Rev Leonard Clement: [discussing Redding] He'd been painting Lettuce in a bathing suit.
- DI Slack: Oh,
- [not realizing that Lettuce was a nickname for someone]
- DI Slack: How... Avant Garde.
- [In Miss Marple's home, Mrs. Protheroe is attempting unsuccessfully to convince Inspector Slack that she killed her husband, when the phone rings, and Slack answers it]
- DI Slack: St. Mary Mead, two - yes, speaking. Is that definite? Right.
- [hangs up]
- DI Slack: I don't like my time wasted, Mrs. Protheroe. The bullet that killed your husband was fired from Mr. Redding's gun.
- Anne Protheroe: But... he did it for me!
- DI Slack: He didn't do it for anyone! I released him half an hour ago. Just happened to be carrying his gun, which I don't believe. And more important,
- [to Miss Marple]
- DI Slack: and something you didn't think of: if the Colonel was shot at a quarter to seven, why did he stop the note like that at 6:20?
- Miss Jane Marple: [feigning surprise] Oh, yes.
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