Page 308 - SHERLOCK transcripts

307

Save souls now!
John or James Watson?

SHERLOCK: First word, then every third. Save ... John ... Watson.
(Mary pulls up the next message:

Saint or Sinner?
James or John?
The more is Less?

The unimportant words seem to fade, leaving just the vital ones:

Saint
James
The Less

SHERLOCK (urgently): Now!
(Dropping his chips to the floor, he races down the stairs with Mary following.)
MARY: Where are we going?
SHERLOCK: St James the Less. It’s a church. Twenty minutes by car.
(He pelts out into the street.)
SHERLOCK: Did you drive here?
MARY: Er, yes.
SHERLOCK (pacing about in the middle of the road): It’s too slow. It’s too slow.
(He is oblivious to the approach of a car, which swerves around him, the driver blaring his
horn.)
MARY (frantically): Sherlock, what are we waiting for?
(Sherlock turns towards a single oncoming headlight.)
SHERLOCK: This.
(He steps directly into the path of the approaching motorcycle and holds up an imperious hand.
The driver slams on the brakes and the bike skids to a halt just in time.)

Shortly afterwards Sherlock and Mary – wearing the helmets of the driver and his pillion
passenger – are racing through the streets on the bike. In Sherlock’s mind, he is calculating
how long it will take to get to St James the Less Church. Currently the journey will take 10
minutes. Mary’s phone sounds a text alert and she checks it. It reads:

Getting warmer Mr Holmes
You have about ten minutes

They drive on.
MARY: What does it mean? What are they going to do to him?
SHERLOCK: I don’t know.

Wherever John is, he is struggling to move. The sound of children’s voices can be heard some
distance away. He grunts as he frantically strains to escape but he can make no louder noise.

On the motorcycle, Mary holds her phone over Sherlock’s shoulder so that he can see the latest
message:

8 minutes
and counting...

Sherlock turns his attention back to the road and accelerates, but shortly afterwards they
approach a roadblock. The road ahead is cordoned off with police tape, and two police officers
are explaining the situation to stopped cars.
SHERLOCK (slamming on the brakes and halting the bike): Damn!
(He looks to his left and rapidly works out an alternative route which he overlays onto the
original route. The original one has an ETA of 8 minutes; the new, more direct route shows an

Transcripts by Ariane DeVere (arianedevere@livejournal.com)