Page 279 - SHERLOCK transcripts

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Standing some distance away under a tree and obscured from view by other headstones,
Sherlock Holmes watches his best friend walk across the graveyard until he disappears from
view. He looks reflective for a long moment, then turns and walks away.

Many Happy Returns

THE HIMALAYAS. In a monastery in the mountains, a Buddhist monk lights the last of many
small white candles. Close by, several monks are kneeling side by side, their heads covered by
cowls and their hands raised in front of them. Another monk, apparently the abbot, comes into
the large tent, his head also hidden under a cowl, and hobbles towards them. He works his way
along the row, running his hands quickly over each monk’s head, murmuring, “Tashi delek,” and
then briefly clasping his hands. When he reaches the last monk in the row he reaches towards
that monk’s head but pauses for a couple of seconds, then reaches towards the cowl and flips it
up to reveal a blonde woman. She glares up at him.
WOMAN: You bastard!
(The other monks, all men, pull back their own cowls and stare in surprise at the abbot. He
begins to raise his head, his face still in shadow.)

LONDON. Greg Lestrade and Doctor Anderson are sitting at a table in a corner of a pub. Greg is
wearing a shirt and jacket, and Anderson has a beard and is wearing an oatmeal knitted
jumper. Greg stares at Anderson in disbelief.
LESTRADE: A breakaway sect of Buddhist warrior monks infiltrated by a blonde drug smuggler?!
That never really happened!
ANDERSON: A-A blonde drug smuggler who was exposed by an abbot with unusual powers of
observation and deduction!
LESTRADE: A blonde woman hiding amongst bald monks? That wouldn’t exactly take Sherlock
Holmes!
ANDERSON: Well, perhaps it did.
LESTRADE: He’s dead.
(Anderson looks at him with a hurt expression on his face.)
LESTRADE: I’m sorry. I wish he wasn’t, but he really is dead and gone.
(Anderson looks away.)
ANDERSON: Well, how d’you explain this?
(He pulls a map of the world towards himself and points at a red cross drawn above New Delhi.)
ANDERSON: Sighting number two: Incident at New Delhi.
(Greg looks at him, appalled.)
LESTRADE: You haven’t been titling these?

FLASHBACK. NEW DELHI. Photographers are taking pictures of a police inspector sitting at a
table with a couple of his colleagues either side of him. Many microphones are set up on the
table in front of him. He smiles smugly at his audience.
INSPECTOR PRAKESH: After that it was simply a matter of tracking down the killer, which I did
by working out the depth to which the chocolate Flake had sunk into the victim’s ice-cream
cone.
(He chuckles contentedly as the photographers and reporters crowd closer to the table.)

Shortly afterwards he leaves the room while the photographers continue trying to get one last
picture. Closing the door behind him, he turns and looks at someone waiting a little way down
the corridor.
PRAKESH: My friend!
(He looks over his shoulder as if to make sure that nobody is looking through the round glass
window in the door, then turns back to the person in front of him.)
PRAKESH: Will you not take any of the credit? This was all down to you.
(We see who he’s looking at. A very familiar shape with curly hair and wearing a greatcoat is
standing facing him. His face is obscured in shadow.)

THE PRESENT. PUB.
LESTRADE: Clever man, Inspector Prakesh.
ANDERSON: Oh, for ...! What police inspector could have made that deduction?

Transcripts by Ariane DeVere (arianedevere@livejournal.com)