Page 435 - SHERLOCK transcripts

434

WATSON (voiceover): But in all our many adventures together, no case pushed my friend to
such mental and physical extremes as that of The Abominable Bride.
(During his narration, Watson has brought one of the bags upstairs, taken it to the room behind
the sitting room and put it on the table. Letting the bag go, he flexes the fingers of his left
hand, then turns towards the sitting room where Holmes is pushing open the curtains of the left
window. As more light floods into the room, a figure is revealed standing in front of the fire.
Dressed in black mourning clothes and with a black veil over the face, the figure, apparently a
woman, stands facing the fire with her hands clasped behind her back.)
WATSON (walking into the room): Good Lord!
(The figure turns around to face the room.)
HOLMES (loudly, walking past the figure to the door): Mrs Hudson, there is a woman in my
sitting room! Is it intentional?
MRS HUDSON (from downstairs): She’s a client! Said you were out; insisted on waiting.
(Holmes grimaces. Watson picks up a chair near the table and turns to put it down in front of
the woman.)
WATSON: Would you, er, care to sit down?
(The woman doesn’t move or respond to him.)
HOLMES (calling down the stairs): Didn’t you ask her what she wanted?
MRS HUDSON (from downstairs): You ask her!
HOLMES: Well, why didn’t you ask her?
MRS HUDSON (tetchily): How could I, what with me not talking and everything?
(Holmes rolls his eyes and sighs. He turns and walks back into the sitting room.)
HOLMES: Oh, for God’s sake. (Quietly, to Watson) Give her some lines. She’s perfectly capable
of starving us.
(He walks towards the woman and smiles at her.)
HOLMES: Good afternoon. I’m Sherlock Holmes. This is my friend and colleague, Doctor
Watson. You may speak freely in front of him, as he rarely understands a word.
WATSON: Holmes.
HOLMES (to the woman): However, before you do, allow me to make some trifling
observations.
(He walks closer to her and circles around her while she continues to stand there impassively.)
HOLMES: You have an impish sense of humour which currently you’re deploying to ease a
degree of personal anguish.
(He moves towards Watson and circles around him, still addressing the silent woman.)
HOLMES: You have recently married a man of a seemingly kindly disposition who has now
abandoned you for an unsavoury companion of dubious morals. You have come to this agency
as a last resort in the hope that reconciliation may still be possible.
WATSON: Good Lord, Holmes!
HOLMES: All of this is, of course, perfectly evident from your perfume.
WATSON: Her perfume?
HOLMES: Yes, her perfume, which brings insight to me and disaster to you.
WATSON: How so?
HOLMES (stepping towards the woman): Because I recognised it and you did not.
(He undoes the woman’s veil and pulls it clear of her face. As he walks away from her, Watson
instantly recognises her.)
WATSON: Mary!
MRS WATSON (smiling): John.
WATSON: Why, in God’s name, are you pretending to be a client?
MRS WATSON: Because I could think of no other way to see my husband, Husband.

Not long afterwards, Holmes has taken off his jacket and put on a camel coloured dressing
gown over his clothes. Holding his violin and standing facing the right-hand window, he is
playing a tune which we recognise as his wedding waltz. Mary still stands near the fireplace and
Watson is pacing nearby but now turns back to his wife and speaks angrily to her.
WATSON: It was an affair of international intrigue.
MRS WATSON: It was a murdered country squire.
WATSON: Nevertheless, matters were pressing.
MRS WATSON: I don’t mind you going, my darling. I mind you leaving me behind!
WATSON: But what could you do?!
MRS WATSON: Oh, what do you do except wander round, taking notes, looking surprised ...
(Holmes stops playing and angrily lowers his violin.)

Transcripts by Ariane DeVere (arianedevere@livejournal.com)