- Lucy Eames: I know you, Stanley Bone. You proclaim to these good people about the future's gleaming hope, but the tongue you speak with is forked. And the future you speak of, it, it is built on evil and corruption. You had me as your slave, denied our children, had my mother murdered, and you would have sent me to a living hell had it not been for this inspector here. You are no man but you are a beast that has risen deep from the earth in which you dig into.
- Long Susan: Lucy, look at you. The truth of this world is that men have designed it for their own purpose and pleasure. And you, my darling, there is not one primitive desire in their childlike minds that you do not fulfill.
- Stanley J. Bone: Gentlemen, ladies! The switch is thrown. The line is live. And beneath this earth here, the electric age forges on. This railway, this underground railway, is the capstone of all we, your grateful servants, would build here. The foundation, ladies and gentlemen, of a new city. A city that, though it rises from dank and fetid earth, will gleam with the purpose and clarity of a summer morning. Because, if the future stands for anything, it stands for hope!
- Deborah Goren: [referring to Lucy's baby, whom she is to care for] No father or uncle?
- Det. Insp. Edmund Reid: No, it's men who are the ruin of this family, Miss Goren.
- Deborah Goren: This family and many like them, Inspector... you disagree?
- Det. Insp. Edmund Reid: No, no. No, merely my wife would say the same.
- Deborah Goren: Mrs. Reid must be a woman of great sense and clarity.
- Det. Insp. Edmund Reid: She is that - yes.
- Deborah Goren: Then I would like to meet her.
- Fred Best: Fred Best tells you he needs something shown in return.
- Det. Insp. Edmund Reid: You do as I ask, I will give to you a story that, though you connive and bribe your way to the Devil himself, it will not be bettered.
- Fred Best: [smiles] Go on.
- Det. Insp. Edmund Reid: "How Stanley Bone, secret slumlord, is exposed by the actions of a whore-runner." Corruption and sex, Mr. Best. Surely it does not come more honeyed than that!
- [Jackson has just swallowed a vial of Lucy's "medication"]
- Cpt. Homer Jackson: [yelling, waving a revolver] Oh yeah, mama, I have you now!
- [aims his revolver at Hobbs]
- Cpt. Homer Jackson: Where's Reid?
- Sgt. Donald Artherton: He's out. He may be a while...
- Cpt. Homer Jackson: Well, you tell me where he's gone or I'm gonna shoot Hobbs here. Ah, I'm just joking! I could no more shoot you than I could shoot my own mother.
- [throws an arm around Hobbs and his gun arm points at Artherton]
- Cpt. Homer Jackson: Artherton, however...
- [Jackson, high as a kite, barges into The Star's offices, waving a revolver]
- Cpt. Homer Jackson: You will let me pass, or you're gonna suck on this iron!
- [aims his gun at Drake]
- Cpt. Homer Jackson: Drake... I'm serious... you tell Reid... tell Reid...
- Det. Insp. Edmund Reid: [emerges from Best's office] What?
- Cpt. Homer Jackson: The vial... Lucy's medication... it is... it is...
- Det. Insp. Edmund Reid: It is what?
- Cpt. Homer Jackson: [triumphantly] It is... amphetamine!
- Commissioner James Munro: [to Reid referring to the new subway tunnel under construction] They are but a few weeks old, but these places already have the chill of eternity.
- Fred Best: As you know, Inspector, he was one of the first raised up in January by our new council. Now, in March, he and his friends agree that the Dockhead slum in Southwark make way for the S&C Railway and its very first tunnel.
- Det. Sgt. Bennet Drake: The Dockhead was also owned and collected by the Stickleton Trust?
- Fred Best: It was.
- Det. Insp. Edmund Reid: Thus, Mr. Bone recommends the compulsory purchase of his own slum.
- Fred Best: Mm-hmm, and profits tidily.
- Det. Insp. Edmund Reid: Mr. Best, the last I saw you, you made heavy weather of matters that relate more closely to Mr. Bone's personal status.
- Fred Best: I did, it is true.
- Det. Insp. Edmund Reid: Elaborate, if you please.
- Fred Best: Mr. Bone is a man who came to ambition late. His youth was not a happy one, beset with fits.
- Det. Insp. Edmund Reid: He's epileptic?
- Fred Best: Was. He eventually found the cure.