- Sarah Dacos: Say, Mr. Goodwin, you could have gone upstairs. I can't hear through walls.
- Archie: No? You might be wired for sound and there's only one way to find out and... I'm not sure you'd enjoy it.
- Sarah Dacos: How do you know I wouldn't?
- Nero Wolfe: You say, "stop him." I take it you mean, compel the FBI to stop annoying you?
- Mrs. Rachel Bruner: Yes.
- Nero Wolfe: How?
- Mrs. Rachel Bruner: I don't know.
- Nero Wolfe: Nor do I. No, madam. You invited it, and you have it.
- Mrs. Rachel Bruner: [trying to goad Wolfe] I thought you were afraid of nobody and nothing.
- Nero Wolfe: [unruffled] I can dodge folly without backing into fear.
- Mrs. Rachel Bruner: [gushing] Is there anything you can't do?
- Nero Wolfe: Yes, madame, there is. I couldn't put sense into a fool's brain if I tried.
- [first lines]
- Archie: [narrating] Since it was the deciding factor, I might as well begin by describing it. It was a pink slip of paper three inches wide and seven inches long, and it told the First National City Bank to pay to the order of Nero Wolfe fifty thousand dollars. Signed, Rachel Bruner, the widow of Lloyd Bruner. At least eight of the several dozen buildings Bruner left his wife were more than twelve stories high.
- Mrs. Rachel Bruner: Do I need to tell you who I am?
- Nero Wolfe: Mr. Goodwin named you, and I read newspapers.
- Mrs. Rachel Bruner: I know you do. I know a great deal about you. That's why I'm here. I want you to do something perhaps no other man alive could do. You read books too? Have you read one entitled "The F.B.I. Nobody Knows?"
- Nero Wolfe: Yes.
- Mrs. Rachel Bruner: Did it impress you?
- Nero Wolfe: [pausing] Yes.
- Mrs. Rachel Bruner: Favorably?
- Nero Wolfe: Yes.
- Mrs. Rachel Bruner: My goodness, you're curt.
- Nero Wolfe: I answered your questions, madam.
- Mrs. Rachel Bruner: I know you did. I can be curt, too.