Page 434 - SHERLOCK transcripts

433

(Holmes, mostly obscured from the vendor’s view, apparently kicks Watson, who grunts.)
WATSON: No. No, no, not at all. (He tips a finger to his hat.) Ah, good day to you.
CABBIE (to his horse, shaking the reins at it): Walk on.
(The cab sets off again. The news vendor calls after it.)
NEWS VENDOR: Merry Christmas, Mr Holmes!

CLOSE-UP OF THE BAKER STREET. W. sign on the wall of a building. As the camera pans down
to show the street, the cab pulls up outside the front door of 221B. Next door is a canopy over a
shop showing that this is SPEEDWELL’S Restaurant and Tea Rooms. The door to 221B opens
and Mrs Hudson comes out as Holmes and Watson get out of the cab, Holmes holding a pipe.
MRS HUDSON: Mr Holmes, I do wish you’d let me know when you’re planning to come home.
(The houseboy, Billy [who bears a striking resemblance to Archie from “The Sign of Three”]
hurries out of the house towards Watson, who is unloading bags from the cab.)
HOLMES: I hardly knew myself, Mrs Hudson. That’s the trouble with dismembered country
squires – they’re notoriously difficult to schedule.
(He clamps the pipe between his teeth and turns back to pay the cabbie.)
BILLY (to Watson, looking at a bag which he is holding): What’s in there?
WATSON: Never mind.
HOLMES (to the cabbie): Thank you.
(Billy takes some of the other bags and starts to take them inside.)
BILLY (over his shoulder): Did you catch a murderer, Mr Holmes?
HOLMES: Caught the murderer; still looking for the legs. Think we’ll call it a draw.
(He goes inside. Mrs Hudson, on the doorstep, turns to Watson.)
MRS HUDSON: And I notice you’ve published another of your stories, Doctor Watson.
WATSON: Yes. Did you enjoy it?
MRS HUDSON (after only a second’s thought): No.
(She turns and goes inside. Watson follows her.)
WATSON: Oh?
MRS HUDSON: I never enjoy them.
WATSON (pushing the door closed behind him): Why not?
(In the hallway Holmes has taken off his coat and hat and hangs them on a hook near the front
door, then walks further into the hall.)
MRS HUDSON: Well, I never say anything, do I? According to you, I just show people up the
stairs and serve you breakfasts.
WATSON (hanging up his own coat and hat): Well, within the narrative, that is – broadly
speaking – your function.
MRS HUDSON: My what?!
HOLMES: Don’t feel singled out, Mrs Hudson. I’m hardly in the dog one.
WATSON (indignantly): “The dog one”?!
MRS HUDSON: I’m your landlady, not a plot device.
WATSON (to Holmes, who is heading up the stairs): Do you mean ‘The Hound of the
Baskervilles’?!
MRS HUDSON (upset): And you make the room so drab and dingy.
WATSON (tetchily): Oh, blame it on the illustrator. He’s out of control. I’ve had to grow this
moustache just so people’ll recognise me.
(He follows his colleague up the stairs.)

WATSON (voiceover): Over the many years it has been my privilege to record the exploits of
my remarkable friend, Mr Sherlock Holmes, it has sometimes been difficult to choose which of
his many cases to set before my readers.
(While he has been narrating, Holmes has gone up the stairs into the first floor sitting room.
Glancing briefly towards the fire, he walks across the room to the right-hand window and pulls
back the closed curtains, revealing a stag’s head hung on the wall between the two windows.
The mounted head has a full set of antlers, upon which an ear trumpet hangs.)
WATSON (voiceover): Some are still too sensitive to recount ...
(As Holmes walks across the room to the left-hand window, a knife can be seen stabbed into
some letters on the mantelpiece.)
WATSON (voiceover): ... whilst others are too recent in the minds of the public.
(On the wall opposite the fireplace is a framed copy of the painting “All is Vanity” by Charles
Allen Gilbert, painted in 1892. [Click here to see the picture])

Transcripts by Ariane DeVere (arianedevere@livejournal.com)