Page 115 - SHERLOCK transcripts

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JOHN (to Sherlock): I saw it on the telly. Are you okay?
SHERLOCK: Hmm? What? (He looks around at the mess of broken glass and scattered
paperwork as if he has forgotten it – which he probably has.) Oh, yeah. Fine. Gas leak,
apparently.
(He turns his attention back to his brother, who stares at him pointedly while Sherlock plucks
his violin strings again.)
SHERLOCK: I can’t.
MYCROFT: “Can’t”?
SHERLOCK: The stuff I’ve got on is just too big. I can’t spare the time.
(John looks across to him in disbelief.)
MYCROFT: Never mind your usual trivia. This is of national importance.
SHERLOCK (sulkily flicking his fingers across the strings): How’s the diet?
MYCROFT (refusing to rise to the implied insult): Fine. Perhaps you can get through to him,
John.
JOHN (who has walked nearer to the windows to investigate the damage): What?
MYCROFT: I’m afraid my brother can be very intransigent.
SHERLOCK: If you’re so keen, why don’t you investigate it?
MYCROFT: No-no-no-no-no. I can’t possibly be away from the office for any length of time – not
with the Korean elections so ...
(He trails off as John turns towards him in surprise and Sherlock raises his head from looking at
his violin.)
MYCROFT: Well, you don’t need to know about that, do you?
(He smiles humourlessly in a clear message to forget what he just said.)
MYCROFT: Besides, a case like this – it requires ... (he grimaces in distaste) ... legwork.
(Sherlock mis-plucks one of his strings, an irritated look on his face. He turns to John, who is
absently rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.)
SHERLOCK: How’s Sarah, John? How was the lilo?
MYCROFT (consulting his pocket watch and not even looking at John): Sofa, Sherlock. It was
the sofa.
(Sherlock briefly looks John up and down.)
SHERLOCK: Oh yes, of course.
JOHN (incredulously): How ...? Oh, never mind.
(He sits down on the coffee table. Mycroft smiles across at him.)
MYCROFT: Sherlock’s business seems to be booming since you and he became ... pals.
(Sherlock throws him a dark look.)
MYCROFT (to John): What’s he like to live with? Hellish, I imagine.
JOHN: I’m never bored.
MYCROFT (smiling condescendingly): Good! That’s good, isn’t it?
(Again Sherlock glares at him. Mycroft stands up as Sherlock picks up his bow and whips one
end through the air in front of him. Picking up a folder from the table beside him, Mycroft steps
forward and offers the folder to his brother but Sherlock just looks back at him stubbornly.
Grimacing and poking his tongue into the corner of his mouth, Mycroft turns and offers the
folder to John instead.)
MYCROFT: Andrew West, known as Westie to his friends.
(Looking startled, John takes the folder.)
MYCROFT: A civil servant, found dead on the tracks at Battersea Station this morning with his
head smashed in.
(Cut-away flashback to a Tube guard walking along a railway line in the early morning. The
beam from his flashlight picks out the body of a young man lying just beside the tracks.)
JOHN: Jumped in front of a train?
MYCROFT: Seems the logical assumption.
JOHN (quirking a brief smile): But ...?
MYCROFT: “But”?
JOHN: Well, you wouldn’t be here if it was just an accident.
(Sherlock, who is now applying rosin to his bow with a small cloth, smirks noisily.)
MYCROFT: The M.O.D. is working on a new missile defence system – the Bruce-Partington
Programme, it’s called.
(He looks at Sherlock while John starts flicking through the folder.)
MYCROFT: The plans for it were on a memory stick.
(John sniggers quietly.)
JOHN: That wasn’t very clever.

Transcripts by Ariane DeVere (arianedevere@livejournal.com)