Dressed to Kill Page #3

barney as a coot.

Barney, why?

Come sit down, old boy.

- Would you like a cup of tea?

- Huh?

Oh, all right.

I'll go and tell

Mrs. Hudson about it.

Why did you say the robbery

was idiotic, Mr. Emery?

Oh, simply from the fact that

with about five thousand

pounds worth

of musical boxes

in my living room

the thief, who

I caught in the act,

made off with one that isn't

even worth five pounds.

I gather you are a

collector of musical boxes?

Yes, I am indeed.

Some of them

are very beautiful

but not the one

that was stolen.

This thief evidently grabbed the first

thing that came to his hand

when he heard me

coming into the room.

Still it's rather odd, isn't it,

that having disposed of you

he didn't pick up

something more valuable.

Well, is there anything

unusual about the stolen box?

No, nothing at all.

I picked it up in

the south of France

several years ago.

You say you have many

valuable music boxes

and yet the thief made off with

one that's isn't worth five pounds.

Sounds like a rather

intriguing little problem.

Yes, well I take it that he was

just an ordinary petty thief

and didn't know the value.

That is a possible explanation,

yet I adventure to say

that the average petty thief has a

more extensive knowledge of the value

of the objet d'art than

the average collector.

Well anyway, that's

Scotland Yards theory

they didn't get very

excited about it.

That's consistent anyway.

I wonder if I might see

your collection, Mr. Emery?

Why of course you can.

Yes.

Nothing that a

collector likes more

than showing off

his trophies.

- When would it suit you?

- No time like the present.

Good.

My place is just around

in Pullman Square.

- Shall we?

- Yes, right.

Hello.

Where you going?

- Stinky hasn't had his tea yet.

- Oh, I'm sorry.

We're going round

to my place

where I'm going to give you

something better than tea.

Now this one was

made for Louis the XV

and is one of the very few still

in the existence from that period

and a particularly

fine specimen at that.

Charming isn't it?

Quite.

They all sound to me

like a lot of mice

running about

on a tin roof.

I'm afraid you have no ear

for music, Watson.

Give me a good old band

playing a rousing march,

you have all your silly

little tweet tweets.

Oh, that's another one

of them.

Good gracious me.

Stupid thing,

singing rabbit, huh.

What would you say offhand is the

value of a box like that, Mr. Emery?

Well, it's hard to say offhand

but I think it would bring

about five or six

hundred pounds today.

It's the gem

of my collection.

Yet a thief, who steals an oddity

like a musical box,

passes up one worth

Rate this script:5.0 / 2 votes