(TELLING HER STORY, WHICH SHE'S REPRESENTED BY PLACING TWO SNAILS ON AN ELECTRIC TOY TRAIN SET) So these strangers get talking, about... I dunno. Small talk. (SQUEAKY SNAIL VOICES) “Oh I’m sorry, did I accidentally brush you with my pseudopod? My name’s Bruno, what’s yours?” “Hi Bruno, I’m Guy!” “What do you do, Guy?” “Oh, the usual. You know, radula scraping, secreting mucopolysaccharides”--(HIGHSMITH’S REGULAR VOICE) when one of them suddenly changes the subject. (SQUEAKY SNAIL VOICE) “Hey, Guy, did I ever tell you about my idea for the perfect murder?”

(QUESTIONING MARY SHELLEY AND MARY'S EX-GIRLFRIEND JANE WILLIAMS, COLUMBO STYLE, AT MARY'S MOTHER'S GRAVE) Insinuating? No, no! I’m just tryna get a clear picture here. I’m a crime writer, I’m interested in this stuff. No offense meant. I’ll leave you two to—whatever you happen to be doing in the middle of the night at Mary’s mom’s grave. Which, by the way, (LAUGHING INCREDULOUSLY) I heard the *wildest* rumour about the things you’ve gotten up to here, Mary. No, I said, that’s an urban myth, you know, playing on Mary’s reputation as a rebellious goth girl and Percy as a noncomformist libertine with a shady past. What was it he got rusticated for? Contumacy, huh? Nasty business. Musta been embarrassing. I mean if I got rusticated for contumacy, my wife, well, I think she’d wanna kill me. But those claims about your using this grave for, uh, unconventional purposes—there is some historical evidence, would you believe that? Entries in Percy’s diary, Mary’s letters, and—well, it does look like a nice comfy grave. Look at that moss there. Uh, may I? (CLIMBING ONTO THE GRAVE) Oh. Oh, that’s lovely. I’m telling ya, my back is in bliss here. Oh, I should get one of these for the wife.

(EXAMINING A TOP HAT, WHICH TURNS OUT TO BE A CRUCIAL PIECE OF EVIDENCE) I’m thinking of maybe getting one of these for formal occasions. I’m usually more of a fedora gal, you know? Ah, too bad, it’s on the big side. Right over my eyes. You know, this hat looks like it was made for someone with a bigger head, a guy perhaps. What’s that say on the label there? “W. H.” That reminds me of something. Oh yeah--William Huskisson, you know who that is? He was a politician who was hit and killed by one of the very first trains. Locomotive number one, in fact, or, uh, Stephenson’s Rocket, as it was nicknamed. Huskisson was a Tory centrist, you know, sat on so many fences his ass stank of creosote. He had this long, flowing grey hair that—say, there’s a piece of long grey hair right here on the hatband there, next to all the dried blood. Huh, and a bit of scalp tissue and, uh—that mark there, see that? That looks a lot like a steam burn. Hey, you don’t think this coulda been Huskisson’s actual top hat, do ya? I mean, he was torn to bits by Stephenson’s Rocket, arms, legs, all over the place, but the one thing they never found was his top hat.