Page 241 - SHERLOCK transcripts

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221B. Sherlock’s phone trills another text alert. John lowers his newspaper.
JOHN (tetchily): I’ll get it, shall I?
(He stands up and walks over to the phone, picking it up and checking the message while
Sherlock continues to look into his microscope. John’s face slowly fills with shock. He turns and
takes the phone into the kitchen, holding it out to Sherlock.)
JOHN: Here.
SHERLOCK (not looking up): Not now, I’m busy.
JOHN: Sherlock ...
SHERLOCK: Not now.
JOHN (breathing heavily): He’s back.
(Sherlock lifts his head and takes the phone. The message on the screen reads:

Come and play.
Tower Hill.
Jim Moriarty x.

Sherlock’s eyes widen and he sinks back on his chair and gazes into space.)

Back at the Tower, Jim is smiling calmly as he is being put into the back of a police car. Behind
him, Greg and Sally come out of the building and watch, then Greg looks down at Jim’s phone
which he is holding.

Later, Sherlock and John have arrived at the Tower and they are watching the recorded security
footage taken from behind Jim as he sticks the gum onto the glass. From a distance it’s not
clear what he then pushes into the gum.
LESTRADE: That glass is tougher than anything.
SHERLOCK: Not tougher than crystallised carbon. He used a diamond.
(Greg adjusts the footage, which shifts to a recording taken from the other side of the glass.
The footage also goes into reverse, showing the glass rising back up into place before it
shattered. As Jim pulls back the fire extinguisher again and the glass becomes whole, the
message which he scrawled onto it becomes clear. He deliberately wrote the words backwards
on the glass so that they would be seen from the camera on the other side of the case. With the
smiley face inside the “O,” the message reads:

GET
SHERLOCK

John turns and stares at Sherlock but his eyes are fixed on the screen.)

Nina Simone’s song “Sinnerman” plays over the next few scenes.
The “Daily Express” has somehow obtained the security image with the message clear on the
glass, and has run it on its front page with the headline: “Crime of the Century?” The rest of the
text reads: “Questions are being asked in parliament as to how the Tower of London,
Pentonville Prison and the Bank of England were all broken into at the same time by the same
man – James Moriarty. // There are unconfirmed reports that Scotland Yard’s favourite sleuth
Mr Sherlock Holmes has been called in to help the team piece together the most audacious
crime ... Turn to page 5”.
Some indeterminate time later a new front page headline [from the “Daily Mail”, I think] reads:
“Jewel Thief on trial at Bailey” and the first few paragraphs read: “Crown Jewel thief is to be
tried at the Old Bailey and Sherlock Holmes is named as a witness for the prosecution. // Master
criminal Moriarty taunted Holmes with his graffitied GET SHERLOCK at the scene of the crime.
The crime is attracting huge attention internationally too. // Irish born Moriarty – of no fixed
abode, seems to be taunting the master detective. // Boffin Holmes, accompanied by confirmed
bachelor John Watson – refused to comment. // Crowds gathered yesterday for what is being
described as the trial of the century.” [After that the text keeps repeating. Do the production
team not know that we have the ability to freeze frame and read these articles because we are
ludicrously obsessive and will not only notice the repetition but the annoying mixed up use of
dashes and commas?!]
“The Guardian” leads with the headline “Amateur detective to be called as expert witness” and
the strapline “Scotland Yard calls upon ‘nation’s favourite detective’ in Moriarty trail” [which

Transcripts by Ariane DeVere (arianedevere@livejournal.com)