Approximately

     "Yes," he said. "The footprints after all, and I can tell you exactly how they would be described by the know-alls. Several confused impressions of the Booted Foot, two being more clearly defined and making an angle of approximately thirty degrees the one with the other. Distance between inside margins of heel, half an inch. Distance between position of outside margin of big toes, approximately ten inches. This latter pair of impressions was found in damp clay but had been protected from recent rain by a bank which overhung them at a height of approximately three feet. There's great virtue in the word 'approximately.'"

(from Colour Scheme, by Dame Ngaio Marsh)

Don't jump!

    "If you want to see anything," said Simon, "You'll have to get up there. Do you mind heights?"

    "Speaking for myself," said Gaunt, "they inspire me with vertigo, nausea, and a strongly marked impulse toward felo-de-se. However, having come so far I refuse to turn back. That fence looks tolerably strong. I shall clint to it." He smiled at Barbara. "If you happen to notice a mad glint of suicide in my eye," he said, "I wish you'd fling your arms round me and thus restore me to my nobler self."

(from Colour Scheme, by Dame Ngaio Marsh) 

Theatrical sissies

     "Look, Mr. Bell, don't start telling me it's 'incredible.' You've been getting round with theatrical sissies for so long you don't know a real man when you see one."

    "My dear Claire," said Dikon with some heat, "may I suggest that speaking in the back of your throat and going out of your way to insult everybody that doesn't is not the sole evidence of virility. And if real men spend their time trying to kill and bribe each other, I infinitely prefer my theatrical sissies." Dikon removed his spectacles and polished them with his handkerchief.

(from Colour Scheme, by Dame Ngaio Marsh)

LIkable parasite

 In contrast to Smith, Simon appeared to be almost cordial. Dikon was not quite sure how he stood with this curious young man, but he had a notion that his passive acceptance of the role cast for him in the lake incident as the remover of Barbara, and his suggestion that Simon should drive the car, had given him a kind of status. He thought that Simon disapproved of him on general principles as a parasite and a freak, but didn't altogether dislike him.

(from Colour Scheme, by Dame Ngaio Marsh)

Buckle down!

 After breakast Mrs. Claire and Barbara, assisted in a leisurely manner by Huia, bucketed into their household duties with their customary air of laying back their ears and rushing their fences.

(from Colour Scheme, by Dame Ngaio Marsh)

The soul of discretion

     "You're feeling a bit better now?"

    "A bit. You're very kind, aren't you?" said Barbara rather as if she saw Dikon for the first time. "I mean, to take trouble over our frightfulness."

    "You must stop being apologetic," Dikon said. "So far I've taken no trouble at all."

    "You listen nicely," Barara said.

    "I'm almost ghoulishly discreet, if that's any recommendation."

(from Colour Scheme, by Dame Ngaio Marsh)

Not our sort

     "Barbara darling," said Mrs. Claire in her special voice, "some day you will understand that there are folk who move in rather loud and vulger sets, and who may seem to be very exciting, and who I expect are all very rich. But, my dear," Mr. Claire added, gently, exhibiting a photograph of an enormously obese peer in bathing shorts, supported on the one hand by a famous coryphee and on the other by a fashionable prize fighter - "my dear, they are not Our Sort."

(from Colour Scheme, by Dame Ngaio Marsh)

Getting above himself

     "It's a touch of the old blood-and-thunder dope, isn't it, sir? Mortgage and all. The villain still pursued her. Only the juvenile to cast, and there, as we say in The Dream, sir, is a play fitted. I used to enjoy them old pieces."

    "You talk too much, Colly," said Gaunt mildly.

    "That's right, sir. Beg pardon, I'm sure. Associating with young Mr. Claire must have brought out the latent democracy in me soul. I tell him there's no call to worry over his sister. 'It's easy seen she hates his guts,' I said, if you'll excuse me."

    "I'll excuse you altogether. I'm going to work."

    "Thank you, sir," said Colly neatly, and closed the door.

(from Colour Scheme, by Dame Ngaio Marsh)

Scunner

 "He's taken a scunner on anything that looks like smart business." (from Colour Scheme, by Dame Ngaio Marsh)

Scunner - "an unreasonable or extreme dislike or prejudice"