Page 437 - SHERLOCK transcripts

436

LESTRADE (picking up the chair and moving it near to Watson’s armchair so that he can sit
facing Holmes): I’m-I’m not afraid, exactly.
HOLMES: Fear is wisdom in the face of danger. It is nothing to be ashamed of.
(Watson brings over the refilled glass and gives it to Lestrade.)
LESTRADE: Thank you.
HOLMES: From the beginning, then.
(He strikes the match, and the image of the igniting match head morphs into the barrel of a
pistol. Standing on the balcony outside an upper storey window of a building elsewhere in
London, a woman is holding a long-barrelled pistol in each hand. She is wearing a wedding
dress and matching head dress with the veil flipped back on her head, and her face is painted
deathly white, except for her lips which are vividly red against the paleness of her face. The
lipstick runs slightly over the edges of her lips. She fires into the street below and one of the
bullets smashes through the window of a nearby baker’s shop. She fires again and people in the
street below cry out in panic and duck or run. As a man runs along the street, the woman turns
and aims her pistols at him.)
BRIDE: You!
(The man – named Giles according to the end credits – turns and stares up at her, holding up
his hands pleadingly.)
GILES: No! Please!
(She turns away from him and stares wide-eyed at the pandemonium below her. Another man
is running for cover. She glares at him but then fires further down the street to her right. He
stops at the baker’s shop and struggles to open the door but it appears to be locked. Breathing
heavily, the woman cries towards him.)
BRIDE: You?!
(The man turns and starts to run down the street as the woman fires in his direction.
In 221B’s sitting room, Holmes raises his hand.)
HOLMES: A moment.
(In the street, as another gunshot rings out, the scene freezes and, a little way down the road,
it’s as if the sitting room has appeared in the street but with only the wall with the fireplace
there. The other three walls have vanished and Holmes and the others are sitting in their chairs
and looking out at the scene. Watson has now sat down in his armchair, and Mary is sitting on
the arm of his chair. Holmes points at the frozen scene.)
HOLMES: When was this?
LESTRADE: Yesterday morning.
HOLMES: The bride’s face. How was it described?
(Lestrade opens his notebook and looks at his notes.)
LESTRADE: White as death ...
(Brief shot of the bride firing into the street.)
LESTRADE: ... mouth like a crimson wound.
(Holmes stands up and walks across the room to look at his imagined version of the street
scene.)
HOLMES: Poetry or truth?
LESTRADE: Many would say they’re the same thing.
HOLMES (briefly closing his eyes in exasperation): Yes, idiots. Poetry or truth?
LESTRADE: I saw her face myself. Afterwards.
(Holmes turns to look at him.)
HOLMES: After what?
(On the balcony, the bride aims her pistols at another man.)
BRIDE: You! (She pauses for a moment.) Or me?
(Lowering the left-hand pistol, she raises the barrel of the other pistol in her right hand and
opens her mouth wide. Aiming the gun up into her mouth, she fires and blood spatters over the
white net curtains behind her. As the watching people cry out in alarm, she falls backwards and
disappears from view.
In the sitting room, Holmes sighs with exasperation.)
HOLMES: Really, Lestrade. (He walks back across the room to sit in his chair.) A woman blows
her own brains out in public and you need help identifying the guilty party. I fear Scotland Yard
has reached a new low.
LESTRADE: That’s not why I’m here.
HOLMES: I surmise.
WATSON (now holding an open notebook on his lap): What was her name, the bride?

Transcripts by Ariane DeVere (arianedevere@livejournal.com)