Page 325 - SHERLOCK transcripts

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being rescued from the bonfire. Some of it is on a loop, and Mary’s anguished cry of “John!”
repeats several times while Sherlock drags John out from underneath the bonfire. The man
watches intently as the footage repeats over and over again, and his gaze finally settles on a
freeze-frame of Sherlock leaning down to the fire just before he pulls John free. The man looks
fixedly at Sherlock’s image ... and his pupils rapidly contract.

The Sign of Three

EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO. A newspaper article is headed, “BANK GANG LEAVE COPS CLUELESS”.
The accompanying photograph shows two men outside a court holding their hands up in front of
their faces so they cannot be recognised in the pictures. At the entrance to the court itself
Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade and Detective Sergeant Sally Donovan walk briskly out
through the door.
LESTRADE: They just walked out of there!
DONOVAN: Yeah, I know. I was sort of sitting next to you.
LESTRADE: The whole Waters family! They just walked right out of there!
DONOVAN: Again, I was in the room.
LESTRADE (angrily): How do they always manage that?
DONOVAN: They’re good.
LESTRADE: They’re greedy, and they’ll do it again, and next time we’re gonna catch ’em in the
act.
DONOVAN: How?
[Transcriber’s note: some of the newspaper articles name Greg as ‘DCI Lestrade’ but in the end
credits of the programme he is named as ‘DI Lestrade.’ I am far more inclined to believe the
end credits.]

TWELVE MONTHS AGO. A newspaper article is headed, “WHO STOLE OUR TWO MILL?” and
shows police officers standing in a cordoned-off area outside a building, with a police car parked
behind the cordon. In real life, Greg gets into the driver’s seat of his car parked just outside the
cordon and angrily slams the door closed. Sally is sitting in the passenger seat.
DONOVAN: No good?
LESTRADE: They always know we’re coming. (Furiously) How do they always know?
DONOVAN: They’re good. They work at it.
LESTRADE: They’re never gonna stop.
DONOVAN: Well, neither are we.

SIX MONTHS AGO. A new headline reads, “POLICE ARE NO CLOSER TO WATERS GANG
CONVICTION” and the photograph again shows the court. Greg storms out of the building with
Sally behind him. He lets out an angry incoherent noise as he walks away.

THREE MONTHS AGO. This time the headline reads, “Waters gang walk free – again!” and there
is another photo of two men near the court, covering their faces against the photographers. On
the steps outside the court, two uniformed police officers stand and watch while Greg
repeatedly kicks the living daylights out of the back tyre of his car, grunting with fury. Sally
stands beside the driver’s door and helplessly watches him. Finally she has had enough.
DONOVAN (loudly): Greg!
(Greg gestures dramatically at her.)
LESTRADE (loudly): In the act! The only way we’re gonna do this! In. The. Act!
(He kicks the tyre once more and then storms forward and angrily tugs the driver’s door open,
inadvertently shoving Sally out of the way.)

YESTERDAY. A man wearing a gruesome clown’s mask and holding a sawn-off shotgun looks
around a bank vault and then turns to where a second man, wearing a different but equally
horrid-looking mask, straightens up from typing on a laptop. A third masked man is inside a
nearby open strong room and is slowly carrying three heavy gold ingots toward the door. The
laptop screen shows, “ALARMS OFFLINE”. The second man goes into the strong room where
hundreds of gold ingots are stacked up on a couple of pallets. He lifts three ingots on top of
each other, then hauls them up in his hands and makes his way out.

Transcripts by Ariane DeVere (arianedevere@livejournal.com)