From They Rang Up the Police, by Joanna Cannan:

[The You Had to Be There on this is that Mrs. Willoughby is an impossibly pretentious character who affects no interest in the "sordid" material world. The protagonist from Scotland Yard is asking her where she was during the key interval.]

"My dear man, how do I know? I'm too intelligent to worry about something that isn't. Time isn't."

[He apologetically presses her, reminding her that he's investigating a murder, to which her evasive answer culminates in the rhetorical question, "What's death?"]

[Finally the inspector takes leave of her, "after giving her a chance to prroduce a firmer alibi and getting a dissertation on the nonexistence of place."]

***

[From a later scene: Mrs. Willoughby is also highly judgmental. Here she is speaking of an inoffensive stranger whom she has observed only for a few minutes after he entered a public room, lingered briefly, and then left.]

"As he stood there by the fireplace I could see right into his twisted little soul."

"I wonder why he went away," said Nancy.