- Santini: And I thought I'd performed the perfect murder!
- Lt. Columbo: Perfect murder, sir? Oh, I'm sorry. There is no such thing as a perfect murder. That's just an illusion.
- Lt. Columbo: [talking to his dog] I'm gonna leave this coat in the car. If someone tries to lift it, you look the other way.
- Santini: Ladies and gentlemen, each evening here at The Cabaret of Magic we like to ask a member of our audience, a volunteer, to step forward on the stage to be Santini's attendant - or assistant, if you would. Perhaps a beautiful young woman.
- [Columbo immediately jumps up and approaches the stage eagerly]
- Santini: We have a beautiful young man, instead.
- Lt. Columbo: Now, when the cube is in the water tank, you're not really in that cube, right?
- Santini: Perhaps. Perhaps not.
- Lt. Columbo: It's not that I want you to give away any professional secrets.
- Santini: My dear friend, I'd rather confess to a murder than to do THAT.
- Santini: [Handing him the handcuffs back] Your handcuffs!
- Lt. Columbo: [satisfied he is the murderer] I knew you could do it!
- Santini: Why, Lieutenant, you've been checking up on me.
- Lt. Columbo: Well, I really don't have any choice, sir.
- Santini: Why are you so preoccupied to find out my real identity?
- Lt. Columbo: Your origin may be more humble than you make it appear.
- Santini: And what about you, Lieutenant? Beneath that ruffle exterior there ticks away the heart of an empiricist philosopher, probing for the truth at all costs.
- Lt. Columbo: I'm just doin' my job.
- Santini: You make it sound so proletarian.
- Lt. Columbo: [Sgt. Wilson taps on the window and hold up Columbo's raincoat] I'll be a son-of-a-gun. Where did you find that? I've been looking all over for it.
- Sgt. John J. Wilson: In the lost-and-found. You left it in the cafeteria.
- Lt. Columbo: I thought somebody stole it.
- Sgt. John J. Wilson: At police headquarters?
- Lt. Columbo: I figure he's the kind of man that could do almost anything if he put his mind to it.
- Michael Lally: You mean his hand to it.
- Lt. Columbo: Right.
- Lt. Columbo: I hope you were watching carefully. That's my best trick. Of course, I don't have your style, but I get pretty good results.
- Lt. Columbo: [applying deductive reasoning to the crime scene] He never did what he came up here to do. He came up here to count his money, double-locked the door, put the money on his desk, but he never opened the box. Why? Was it because he got absorbed in listening to music, or did he have something more important to do?
- Sgt. John J. Wilson: I would assume it was because he had something more important to do.
- Lt. Columbo: I think he had something more important to do.
- Lt. Columbo: How does a man get shot from the front and have the body land here? The door has to be opened. The murderer opened the door. Jerome did NOT open the door. Jerome is in his office. He's ANYWHERE. He HEARS the door open. Now he comes walking forward to see what happened. The murderer sees HIM, shoots him from the front, and the body falls just where we found it. THAT I can understand.
- Jesse Jerome: No, no, dear man, we've been over this before.
- Santini: Jerome, I'm bored with you bleeding me. I'm afraid we're going to have to make a change in our little arrangement.
- Jesse Jerome: There are no changes... Sergeant Mueller! You see how the very mention of that name renders you completely helpless. You keep forgetting that I know who you are, and where you came from.
- Santini: I was 21. I was merely a boy.
- Jesse Jerome: No one in the SS was "merely a boy," Mueller. No one in the camps was just a boy. Unless he was being taken into the oven. Don't misunderstand me. If you push me, I will tell. The newspapers, the immigration service, the Israelis - yes, the Israelis! Oh, how they'd love to get their hands on you!
- Santini: I think not. I'm far too valuable to you.
- Jesse Jerome: You call that value?
- Santini: Mmm-hmmm.
- Jesse Jerome: I'd do much better turning you in right now, while I still have the chance, before you break in here again, trying to find the old man's letter, and don't deny that it was you!
- Santini: Let me clear your head up for you: I had absolutely nothing to do with the crime. I've spent half my life working on that grand illusion. It's been wonderful for me, and audiences love it, and I'm not about to divulge the secret; but, if at some point in time you and your superior - and I know he's a "tough man" - insist that I come up with an alibi, I promise you I'll produce one, but until that time, at least allow me the privacy of my professional secret. Is that fair?
- Lt. Columbo: I'm trying to explain something that is not explainable.
- Harry Blandford: [chuckling] It sounds like you're talking to Santini.
- Lt. Columbo: You know, I would have bet money that he couldn't get out of those cuffs.
- Michael Lally: Don't ever bet with Santini. He's the cream of cream.
- Santini: We all have our particular talents, Lieutenant. Mine happens to be illusion, and yours, I suspect, is reality - and a rather grim one at that.
- Santini: Lieutenant, what IS it about me that you find so irresistible?
- Lt. Columbo: Why, you know how it is, sir. I gotta check out all the leads until I get my man.
- Sgt. John J. Wilson: You know, Lieutenant, you WOULD wear reading glasses if you were typing.
- Lt. Columbo: Yes, you WOULD wear reading glasses if you were typing, but there was no paper in the typewriter.
- Sgt. John J. Wilson: Hm.
- Lt. Columbo: And there was no typewritten documents on either the desk, in the drawers, or on top. There is nothing in this room to indicate that that man was typing.
- George Thomas: Oh, uh, Mr. Jerome was lookin' for you a while back, sir.
- Santini: Huh?
- George Thomas: Seemed important.
- Santini: Uh-huh. Everything's important to him.
- George Thomas: Could you do me a favor, sir?
- Santini: Sure, name it.
- George Thomas: Could you make him disappear?
- [Santini laughs]
- George Thomas: Don't tell him I said it.
- Santini: Oh, trust me, you're safe.
- Jesse Jerome: Tell me, Santini, last month before you left for New York, you didn't by chance break into this office and search through my effects?
- Santini: What a silly question. Of course I did. And I stole your Manet, your Picasso, and got a lovely price for your Reubens. You know I didn't.
- Jesse Jerome: I thought not. It was dreadful of me even to, uh, suggest it.
- Santini: Thank you.
- Jesse Jerome: Um, speaking of New York, uh, I take it that...
- [taking a wad of cash out of an envelope]
- Jesse Jerome: ...this too is, uh, some sort of joke?
- Santini: Five thousand dollars is hardly a joke.
- Jesse Jerome: Come, come, dear friend, I've assimilated the rudiments of arithmetic. Your recent tour netted 100,000 dollars, fifty percent of which is...
- Santini: Five percent of which is five thousand dollars.
- Santini: Jerome, you really are an animal.
- Jesse Jerome: You're lucky! I'm a businessman. When that old man recognized you last year, didn't I give you the money to keep him quiet? That was good business. And when he died and I realized that I was the only one who knew, well, that was very good business, too. That's why we're such a good team, you and I. You know, you do rather well, considering the circumstances. Certainly better than spending the rest of your life in an Israeli prison. I urge you to look at it realistically. Have the other 45,000 for me tonight before the performance, or believe me, it will be your last performance... anywhere.
- [as Santini gets up to leave, Jerome gives a Nazi salute]
- Jesse Jerome: Heil Hitler! Have the money for me before the show.
- Rogers: Handmade. Two special baffles. I figured as much when I saw the key. That's why I can't figure out how it happened.
- Lt. Columbo: How WHAT happened?
- Rogers: This lock was picked.
- Lt. Columbo: Are you sure?
- Rogers: Take a look. Now, you see those scratches? Somebody picked it open with a thin piece of steel. Impossible - but it happened.
- Lt. Columbo: Can you verify that?
- Santini: Can I verify WHAT?
- Lt. Columbo: That you were actually here?
- Santini: Well, you really ARE something.
- Police Officer: [as lieutenant columbo approaches wearing a different raincoat than he usually wears] Oh, I'm sorry lieutenant I didn't recognize you. You look different somehow.
- Lt. Columbo: I've had a haircut.
- Santini: Oh, didn't I tell you? I always have brandy brought to me exactly at the same time each evening. It calms the nerves.