Page 90 - SHERLOCK transcripts

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JOHN: Yeah, well at least I would ... (he pulls himself free) ... if I can get to my pockets!
(He rummages in his jacket pocket.)
JOHN: I took a photograph.
(He takes out his phone and pulls up a flash photo he has taken of the wall which shows all the
symbols clearly. He gives the phone to Sherlock, who takes it and looks embarrassed as John
sighs and turns away.)
[And would someone like to explain to me why the baddies bothered painting the wall? If they
saw John find the wall, they must have seen him take the photo, so why paint over the
symbols? Anyway, onwards ...]

221B. The photograph has been blown up into small sections and then printed out and all the
pictures are stuck on the mirror. The numerical value of each symbol has been written against
it. Sherlock is standing at the fireplace looking at the pictures closely and has spotted a pattern.
SHERLOCK: Always in pairs, John.
(John is sitting at the dining table with his back to the fireplace and his head propped in his
hands. Sherlock’s voice wakes him up. He blinks and turns his head, squinting round at his
friend.)
JOHN: Hmm?
SHERLOCK: Numbers come with partners.
JOHN (gazing around the flat blankly): God, I need to sleep.
SHERLOCK: Why did he paint it so near the tracks?
JOHN (tiredly): No idea.
SHERLOCK: Thousands of people pass by there every day.
JOHN (propping his head in his hand again): Just twenty minutes.
SHERLOCK (realising something): Of course.
(He’s looking at a photo of the full wall, and now smiles triumphantly.)
SHERLOCK: Of course! He wants information. He’s trying to communicate with his people in the
underworld. Whatever was stolen, he wants it back.
(He runs his finger over the symbols.)
SHERLOCK: Somewhere here in the code.
(He pulls three photographs off the wall and turns towards the door.)
SHERLOCK: We can’t crack this without Soo Lin Yao.
JOHN: Oh, good(!)
(Tiredly, he gets up to follow.)

NATIONAL ANTIQUITIES MUSEUM. The boys are back with Andy in the same display room they
met him in earlier.
SHERLOCK: Two men who travelled back from China were murdered, and their killer left them
messages in the Hangzhou numerals.
JOHN: Soo Lin Yao’s in danger. Now, that cipher – it was just the same pattern as the others.
He means to kill her as well.
ANDY: Look, I’ve tried everywhere: um, friends, colleagues. I-I don’t know where she’s gone. I
mean, she could be a thousand miles away.
(Sherlock has turned his head away in exasperation, but now his gaze focuses on the nearby
glass case displaying the teapots.)
JOHN: What are you looking at?
SHERLOCK (pointing at the case as he walks towards it): Tell me more about those teapots.
ANDY: Th-the pots were her obsession. Um, they need urgent work. If-if they dry out, then the
clay can start to crumble. Apparently you have to just keep making tea in them.
(Sherlock bends down to look more closely at the shelf.)
SHERLOCK: Yesterday, only one of those pots was shining. Now there are two.

Later, elsewhere in the museum, fingers reach through the gaps in a large grating at the
bottom of a wall and carefully push the grating outwards. Moments after that, a shadow moves
across the dimly lit display room, and a hand reaches into the glass case to take out one of the
not-shiny teapots. The shadow moves away again. Not long afterwards, Soo Lin is in an almost-
dark restoration room, pouring tea into the teapot on the desk in front of her. She picks up the
lid and carefully strokes it around the rim as, behind her, a very recognisable curly-headed
silhouette appears on the other side of a window in the door. Unaware of this, she picks up the
teapot and pours some of the liquid into a pair of cups. Pouring more of the tea into the tray on

Transcripts by Ariane DeVere (arianedevere@livejournal.com)