To the attention of the New Fiddleham Police Department: You've got my middle-C, and I would like it back....Please return Jackaby's tuning fork. He's getting even more obnoxious than usual.

I whispered across the bars to Jackaby as I rose, "Shall I tell them the truth?""Have you killed anyone?" he asked, quietly."No, of course not!""Then I can't imagine why you shouldn't.

Nellie Fuller was racing down the stairs as we returned to the hallway, nearly tripping over her tripod in her haste. "I heard a noise," she said. "Have I already missed all of the excitement?""Nothing of consequence," answered Jackaby. "Stay indoors, however, unless you're enthusiastic about the prospect of being eviscerated.

Follow my lead, Miss Rook," Jackaby said, rapping on the ornately trimmed door to 1206 Campbell Street. Were my employer a standard private investigator, those might have been simple instructions, but in the time I've been his assistant, I've found very little about Jackaby to be standard. Following his lead tends to call for a somewhat flexible relationship with reality.

I had heard of offices feeling like prisons, but in this case our prison felt, rather anticlimactically, like an office.

Mr. Jackaby, really! Jenny isn't some scientific oddity--she's your friend!"Jackaby raised an eyebrow. "In point of fact, Miss Rook, she's both, and that's nothing to be ashamed of. All exceptional people are, by definition, exceptions to the norm. If we insist on being ordinary, we can never be truly extraordinary.""That is a very well-rehearsed and eloquent excuse for being an absolute brute to a sad, sweet woman.

Commissioner Marlowe stood on the platform with his arms crossed as we disembarked. He had the cheerful demeanor of someone who has been beaten about the face all night with a sock full of porridge--only even more so than usual.