221B. The boys have arrived back and walk along the hallway, breathing heavily. John hangs his jacket on a hook on the wall while Sherlock drapes his coat over the bottom of the bannisters. JOHN: Okay, that was ridiculous. (They lean side by side against the wall, still trying to catch their breath.) JOHN: That was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done. SHERLOCK: And you invaded Afghanistan. (John giggles adorably and after a moment Sherlock also begins to laugh.) JOHN: That wasn’t just me. (Sherlock chuckles.) JOHN: Why aren’t we back at the restaurant? SHERLOCK (becoming more serious and waving his hand dismissively): Oh, they can keep an eye out. It was a long shot anyway. JOHN: So what were we doing there? (Sherlock clears his throat.) SHERLOCK: Oh, just passing the time. (He looks at John.) SHERLOCK: And proving a point. JOHN: What point? SHERLOCK: You. (He turns and calls loudly towards the door to Mrs Hudson’s ground floor flat.) SHERLOCK: Mrs Hudson! Doctor Watson will take the room upstairs. JOHN: Says who? SHERLOCK (looking towards the front door): Says the man at the door. (John turns his head towards the door just as someone knocks on it three times. He turns back to look at Sherlock in surprise. Sherlock smiles. John stares at him for a moment, then walks along the hall to answer the door. Sherlock leans his head against the wall and blows out a breath. John opens the door and finds Angelo standing outside.) ANGELO: Sherlock texted me. (Smiling, he holds up John’s walking cane.) ANGELO: He said you forgot this. (John stares at the cane in surprise, then takes it.) JOHN: Ah. (He turns and looks down the hall to Sherlock, who grins at him.) JOHN (turning back to Angelo): Er, thank you. Thank you. (As he comes back in and closes the door, Mrs Hudson comes out of her flat and hurries over to the boys. She sounds upset and tearful as she speaks.) MRS HUDSON: Sherlock, what have you done? SHERLOCK: Mrs Hudson? MRS HUDSON: Upstairs. (Sherlock turns and hurries up the stairs, John following him. Sherlock opens the living room door and goes inside, where he finds D.I. Lestrade sitting casually in the armchair facing the door. Other police officers are going through Sherlock’s possessions. Sherlock storms over to Lestrade.) SHERLOCK: What are you doing? LESTRADE: Well, I knew you’d find the case. I’m not stupid. SHERLOCK: You can’t just break into my flat. LESTRADE: And you can’t withhold evidence. And I didn’t break into your flat. SHERLOCK: Well, what do you call this then? LESTRADE (looking round at his officers before looking back to Sherlock innocently): It’s a drugs bust. JOHN: Seriously?! This guy, a junkie?! Have you met him?! (Sherlock turns and walks closer to John, biting his lip nervously.) SHERLOCK: John ... JOHN (to Lestrade): I’m pretty sure you could search this flat all day, you wouldn’t find anything you could call recreational. SHERLOCK: John, you probably want to shut up now. JOHN: Yeah, but come on ... (He looks into Sherlock’s eyes. Sherlock holds his gaze for a long moment and John falls deeply and instantly in love realises how serious he’s looking.) JOHN: No. SHERLOCK: What? JOHN: You? SHERLOCK (angrily): Shut up! (He turns back to Lestrade.) SHERLOCK: I’m not your sniffer dog. LESTRADE: No, Anderson‘s my sniffer dog. (He nods towards the kitchen.) SHERLOCK: What, An... (The closed doors to the kitchen slide open and reveal several more officers in there searching through the room. Anderson turns towards the living room and raises his hand in sarcastic greeting.) SHERLOCK (angrily): Anderson, what are you doing here on a drugs bust? ANDERSON (venomously): Oh, I volunteered. (Sherlock turns away, biting his lip angrily.) LESTRADE: They all did. They’re not strictly speaking on the drugs squad, but they’re very keen. (Donovan comes into view from the kitchen, holding a small glass jar with some white round objects in it.) DONOVAN: Are these human eyes? SHERLOCK: Put those back! DONOVAN: They were in the microwave! SHERLOCK: It’s an experiment. LESTRADE: Keep looking, guys. (He stands up and turns to Sherlock.) LESTRADE: Or you could help us properly and I’ll stand them down. SHERLOCK (pacing angrily): This is childish. LESTRADE: Well, I’m dealing with a child. Sherlock, this is our case. I’m letting you in, but you do not go off on your own. Clear? SHERLOCK (stopping and glaring at him): Oh, what, so-so-so you set up a pretend drugs bust to bully me? LESTRADE: It stops being pretend if they find anything. SHERLOCK (loudly): I am clean! LESTRADE: Is your flat? All of it? SHERLOCK: I don’t even smoke. (He unbuttons the cuff of his left shirt and pulls it up to show a nicotine patch on his lower arm. Presumably he removed the other two earlier.) LESTRADE: Neither do I. (He pulls up the right sleeves of his own jacket and shirt to show a similar patch on his arm. Sherlock rolls his eyes and turns away and they both pull their sleeves back down again.) LESTRADE: So let’s work together. We’ve found Rachel. SHERLOCK (turning back to him): Who is she? LESTRADE: Jennifer Wilson’s only daughter. SHERLOCK (frowning): Her daughter? Why would she write her daughter’s name? Why? ANDERSON: Never mind that. We found the case. (He points to the pink suitcase in the living room.) ANDERSON: According to someone, the murderer has the case, and we found it in the hands of our favourite psychopath. SHERLOCK (looking at him disparagingly): I’m not a psychopath, Anderson. I’m a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research. (He turns back to Lestrade.) SHERLOCK: You need to bring Rachel in. You need to question her. I need to question her. LESTRADE: She’s dead. SHERLOCK: Excellent! (John looks startled.) SHERLOCK (to Lestrade): How, when and why? Is there a connection? There has to be. LESTRADE: Well, I doubt it, since she’s been dead for fourteen years. Technically she was never alive. Rachel was Jennifer Wilson’s stillborn daughter, fourteen years ago. (John grimaces sadly and turns away. Sherlock, on the other hand, just looks confused.) SHERLOCK: No, that’s ... that’s not right. How ... Why would she do that? Why? ANDERSON: Why would she think of her daughter in her last moments?(!) Yup – sociopath; I’m seeing it now. SHERLOCK (turning to him with an exasperated look on his face): She didn’t think about her daughter. She scratched her name on the floor with her fingernails. She was dying. It took effort. It would have hurt. (He begins to pace back and forth across the room again.) JOHN: You said that the victims all took the poison themselves, that he makes them take it. Well, maybe he ... I don’t know, talks to them? Maybe he used the death of her daughter somehow. SHERLOCK (stopping and turning to him): Yeah, but that was ages ago. Why would she still be upset? (John stares at him. Sherlock hesitates as he realises that everyone in the flat has stopped what they’re doing and has fallen silent. He glances around the room and then looks awkwardly at John.) SHERLOCK: Not good? JOHN (also glancing around at the others before turning back to Sherlock): Bit not good, yeah. (Sherlock shakes it off and steps closer to John, looking at him intently.) SHERLOCK: Yeah, but if you were dying ... if you’d been murdered: in your very last few seconds what would you say? JOHN: “Please, God, let me live.” SHERLOCK (exasperated): Oh, use your imagination! JOHN: I don’t have to. (Sherlock seems to recognise the look of pain in John’s face. He pauses momentarily and blinks a couple of times, shifting his feet apologetically before continuing.) SHERLOCK: Yeah, but if you were clever, really clever ... Jennifer Wilson running all those lovers: she was clever. (He starts to pace again.) SHERLOCK: She’s trying to tell us something. (Mrs Hudson comes to the door of the living room.) MRS HUDSON: Isn’t the doorbell working? Your taxi’s here, Sherlock. SHERLOCK: I didn’t order a taxi. Go away. (He continues pacing as Mrs Hudson looks around the room.) MRS HUDSON: Oh, dear. They’re making such a mess. What are they looking for? JOHN: It’s a drugs bust, Mrs Hudson. MRS HUDSON (anxiously): But they’re just for my hip. They’re herbal soothers. (With his back to the door, Sherlock stops and shouts out.) SHERLOCK: Shut up, everybody, shut up! Don’t move, don’t speak, don’t breathe. I’m trying to think. Anderson, face the other way. You’re putting me off. ANDERSON: What? My face is?! LESTRADE: Everybody quiet and still. Anderson, turn your back. ANDERSON: Oh, for God’s sake! LESTRADE (sternly): Your back, now, please! SHERLOCK (to himself): Come on, think. Quick! MRS HUDSON: What about your taxi? SHERLOCK (turning to her and shouting furiously): MRS HUDSON! (She turns and hurries away down the stairs. Sherlock stops and looks around as he finally realises something.) SHERLOCK: Oh. (He smiles in delight.) SHERLOCK: Ah! She was clever, clever, yes! (He walks across the room and then turns back to the others.) SHERLOCK: She’s cleverer than you lot and she’s dead. Do you see, do you get it? She didn’t lose her phone, she never lost it. She planted it on him. (He starts pacing again.) SHERLOCK: When she got out of the car, she knew that she was going to her death. She left the phone in order to lead us to her killer. LESTRADE: But how? SHERLOCK (stopping and staring at him): Wha...? What do you mean, how? (Lestrade shrugs.) SHERLOCK: Rachel! (He looks at everyone triumphantly. They all look back at him blankly.) SHERLOCK: Don’t you see? Rachel! (Still everyone looks blank. Sherlock laughs in disbelief.) SHERLOCK: Oh, look at you lot. You’re all so vacant. Is it nice not being me? It must be so relaxing. (More sternly) Rachel is not a name. JOHN (equally sternly): Then what is it? SHERLOCK: John, on the luggage, there’s a label. E-mail address. (John looks at the label on the suitcase and reads out the address.) JOHN: Er, jennie dot pink at mephone dot org dot uk. (Sherlock has sat down at the dining table and is looking at his computer notebook.) SHERLOCK: Oh, I’ve been too slow. She didn’t have a laptop, which means she did her business on her phone, so it’s a smartphone, it’s e-mail enabled. (He has pulled up Mephone’s website and types the email address into the ‘User name’ box.) SHERLOCK: So there was a website for her account. The username is her e-mail address ... (He begins to type into the ‘Password’ box.) SHERLOCK: ... and all together now, the password is? JOHN (walking over to stand behind him): Rachel. ANDERSON: So we can read her e-mails. So what? SHERLOCK: Anderson, don’t talk out loud. You lower the I.Q. of the whole street. We can do much more than just read her e-mails. It’s a smartphone, it’s got GPS, which means if you lose it you can locate it online. She’s leading us directly to the man who killed her. LESTRADE: Unless he got rid of it. JOHN: We know he didn’t. (Sherlock looks at the screen impatiently.) SHERLOCK: Come on, come on. Quickly! (Mrs Hudson trots up the stairs and comes to the door again.) MRS HUDSON: Sherlock, dear. This taxi driver ... (Sherlock gets to his feet and walks over towards her.) SHERLOCK: Mrs Hudson, isn’t it time for your evening soother? (John sits down on the chair which Sherlock vacated and watches a clock spinning round on the website as it claims that the phone will be located in under three minutes. Sherlock turns to Lestrade.) SHERLOCK: We need to get vehicles, get a helicopter. (Mrs Hudson looks around anxiously as a man walks slowly up the stairs behind her.) SHERLOCK (to Lestrade): We’re gonna have to move fast. This phone battery won’t last for ever. LESTRADE: We’ll just have a map reference, not a name. SHERLOCK: It’s a start! (On the computer, a map has appeared and is now zooming in on the location of the phone.) JOHN: Sherlock ... SHERLOCK (to Lestrade): It narrows it down from just anyone in London. It’s the first proper lead that we’ve had. JOHN: Sherlock ... SHERLOCK (hurrying across the room to look over John’s shoulder): What is it? Quickly, where? (The map is now indicating the precise location of the phone.) JOHN: It’s here. It’s in two two one Baker Street. SHERLOCK (straightening up): How can it be here? How? LESTRADE: Well, maybe it was in the case when you brought it back and it fell out somewhere. SHERLOCK: What, and I didn’t notice it? Me? I didn’t notice? JOHN (to Lestrade): Anyway, we texted him and he called back. (Lestrade turns to call out to his colleagues.) LESTRADE: Guys, we’re also looking for a mobile somewhere here, belonged to the victim ... (Sherlock tunes him out as he begins to remember questions he asked to John earlier.) SHERLOCK (voiceover): ‘Who do we trust, even if we don’t know them?’ (Behind Mrs Hudson, the man has reached the top of the stairs. Wearing a cardigan and with a cap on his head obscuring his face, he has a badge in a leather holder on a cord around his neck. The badge is for a licenced London cab driver.) SHERLOCK (voiceover): ‘Who passes unnoticed wherever they go?’ (In a cutaway, a black taxi drives down a rainy street with its sign lit indicating that it’s for hire.) (In flashback, at the railway station Sir Jeffrey Patterson walks to the cab rank and raises his hand to a taxi.) SHERLOCK (voiceover): ‘Who hunts in the middle of a crowd?’ (Sherlock stands lost in thought in the flat.) (In flashback, James Phillimore walks across the road, huddled against the pouring rain as a vacant taxi drives along the road behind him.) (In flashback, Beth Davenport looks around despairingly when she realises that she doesn’t have her car keys. Nearby, a vacant cab pulls up.) (In the flat, Sherlock turns, his mind racing as he puts all the clues together.) (In flashback, Jennifer Wilson arrives at a London train terminus and gets into the back of a taxi.) (Sherlock turns his head, still putting it all together. On the landing, the taxi driver takes a pink smartphone from his pocket and presses the screen to send a text. A moment later, Sherlock’s own phone trills a text alert. Taking his phone from his jacket pocket he looks at the message which simply reads: COME WITH ME. As he turns his head towards the door, the taxi driver turns around and calmly heads off down the stairs.) JOHN: Sherlock, you okay? SHERLOCK (vaguely, watching the man go): What? Yeah, yeah, I-I’m fine. JOHN: So, how can the phone be here? SHERLOCK (still watching the taxi driver): Dunno. JOHN (getting up to get his own phone out of his jeans pocket): I’ll try it again. SHERLOCK: Good idea. (He heads towards the door.) JOHN: Where are you going? SHERLOCK: Fresh air. Just popping outside for a moment. Won’t be long. (John frowns as Sherlock leaves the room, and calls after him.) JOHN: You sure you’re all right? SHERLOCK (hurrying down the stairs): I’m fine.
Downstairs, Sherlock opens the front door and stands on the doorstep for a moment while he shrugs himself into his coat. A taxi is parked at the kerb and the driver, Jeff Hope, is leaning casually against the side of the cab. JEFF: Taxi for Sherlock ’olmes. (Sherlock steps forward, closing the door behind him.) SHERLOCK: I didn’t order a taxi. JEFF: Doesn’t mean you don’t need one. SHERLOCK: You’re the cabbie. The one who stopped outside Northumberland Street. (In flashback, the American man sits in the back of the cab outside the restaurant and turns his head to the front. In the driver’s seat, Jeff looks over his shoulder and through the rear window of the cab before turning around again and starting to drive away.) SHERLOCK: It was you, not your passenger. JEFF: See? No-one ever thinks about the cabbie. It’s like you’re invisible. Just the back of an ’ead. Proper advantage for a serial killer. (Sherlock takes a few more steps forward and looks up towards the windows of his flat.) SHERLOCK: Is this a confession? JEFF: Oh, yeah. An’ I’ll tell you what else: if you call the coppers now, I won’t run. I’ll sit quiet and they can take me down, I promise. SHERLOCK: Why? JEFF: ’Cause you’re not gonna do that. SHERLOCK: Am I not? JEFF: I didn’t kill those four people, Mr ’olmes. I spoke to ’em ... and they killed themselves. An’ if you get the coppers now, I promise you one thing. (He leans forward.) JEFF: I will never tell you what I said. (Sherlock stares at him. After a moment, Jeff straightens up and starts to walk around the front of the cab.) SHERLOCK: No-one else will die, though, and I believe they call that a result. (Jeff stops and turns back towards him.) JEFF: An’ you won’t ever understand how those people died. What kind of result do you care about? (He turns again and continues around to the driver’s door. Getting in, he sits down and closes the door, settling into his seat and ignoring Sherlock. Biting his lip, Sherlock walks closer to the cab, looking up again at the flat windows, then he bends and looks into the open side window of the cab.) SHERLOCK: If I wanted to understand, what would I do? JEFF (turning to look at him): Let me take you for a ride. SHERLOCK: So you can kill me too? JEFF: I don’t wanna kill you, Mr ’olmes. I’m gonna talk to yer ... and then you’re gonna kill yourself. (He turns to face the front again. Sherlock straightens up, his eyes lost in thought as he considers the situation. Jeff calmly sits gazing out of the front window, then smiles in satisfaction when the rear door opens. The cab dips as Sherlock gets in and then the door slams shut. Jeff starts the engine. Upstairs, John has his phone held to his ear and is looking out of the window. The cab can be heard as it pulls away.) JOHN: He just got in a cab. (He turns to Lestrade.) JOHN: It’s Sherlock. He just drove off in a cab. (Donovan, standing beside Lestrade, tuts in irritation.) DONOVAN: I told you, he does that. (She turns to Lestrade.) DONOVAN: He bloody left again. (She walks back into the kitchen, talking loudly.) DONOVAN: We’re wasting our time! JOHN (to Lestrade): I’m calling the phone. It’s ringing out. (In the cab, a phone is ringing. Sherlock watches Jeff as the pink phone – which Jeff has put in the well beside his seat – continues to ring. Back in the flat, Lestrade watches John as he continues to hold his phone to his ear.) LESTRADE: If it’s ringing, it’s not here. (John lowers his phone and reaches for the computer notebook.) JOHN: I’ll try the search again. (Donovan comes back to confront Lestrade.) DONOVAN: Does it matter? Does any of it? You know, he’s just a lunatic, and he’ll always let you down, and you’re wasting your time. All our time. (Lestrade stares at her for a long moment as she holds his gaze, then he sighs.) LESTRADE (loudly): Okay, everybody. Done ’ere. (In the cab, Sherlock is watching the London scenery pass by.) SHERLOCK: How did you find me? JEFF: Oh, I recognised yer, soon as I saw you chasing my cab. Sherlock ’olmes! I was warned about you. I’ve been on your website, too. Brilliant stuff! Loved it! SHERLOCK: Who warned you about me? JEFF: Just someone out there who’s noticed you. SHERLOCK: Who? (He leans forward, looking closely at the side of Jeff’s neck, then noticing a photograph of a young boy and girl attached to the dashboard of the cab.) SHERLOCK: Who would notice me? JEFF (meeting his eyes briefly in the rear view mirror): You’re too modest, Mr ’olmes. SHERLOCK: I’m really not. JEFF: You’ve got yourself a fan. SHERLOCK (nonchalantly, sitting back in his seat): Tell me more. JEFF: That’s all you’re gonna know ... (He pauses dramatically for a moment.) JEFF (quietly): ... in this lifetime. (Back at the flat, as the other police officers leave, Lestrade picks up his coat and turns to John.) LESTRADE: Why did he do that? Why did he have to leave? JOHN (shrugging): You know him better than I do. LESTRADE: I’ve known him for five years and no, I don’t. JOHN: So why do you put up with him? LESTRADE: Because I’m desperate, that’s why. (He walks to the door, then turns back.) LESTRADE: And because Sherlock Holmes is a great man. And I think one day, if we’re very, very lucky, he might even be a good one. (He turns and leaves. Some distance away, the cab drives on and finally stops at the front of two identical buildings side by side. Jeff turns off the engine and gets out, coming to the passenger door and opening it. He looks in at Sherlock.) SHERLOCK: Where are we? JEFF: You know every street in London. You know exactly where we are. SHERLOCK: Roland-Kerr Further Education College. Why here? JEFF: It’s open; cleaners are in. One thing about being a cabbie: you always know a nice quiet spot for a murder. I’m surprised more of us don’t branch out. SHERLOCK: And you just walk your victims in? How? (Jeff raises a pistol and points it at Sherlock. Sherlock rolls his eyes and turns his head away.) SHERLOCK: Oh, dull. JEFF: Don’t worry. It gets better. SHERLOCK: You can’t make people take their own lives at gunpoint. JEFF: I don’t. It’s much better than that. (He lowers the gun.) JEFF: Don’t need this with you, ’cause you’ll follow me. (He confidently walks away. Sherlock sits for a moment, then grimaces in exasperation at himself as he does just what Jeff predicted and gets out of the cab to follow the man.)
Back at 221B, John is alone in the flat. He appears to have decided to go home and walks towards the living room door, then looks down and clenches his right hand as if realising that he doesn’t have his walking cane. He looks round and sees the cane lying on top of a box of papers next to the dining table and goes over to collect it. With its back to him, Sherlock’s notebook is still on Mephone’s website and the clock is spinning on the screen while the site searches for Jennifer Wilson’s phone. As John picks up the cane and heads for the door again, the computer beeps triumphantly and a map appears on the screen and starts to zoom in on the new location of the phone. John turns back as the computer beeps repeatedly. Going back to the table and propping his cane against it, he picks up the notebook and looks at the screen, then he turns and takes the notebook with him as he hurries out of the door and down the stairs, once again forgetting to take his cane.
At Roland-Kerr College, Jeff opens the door of a room and stands aside so that Sherlock can go in. Sherlock looks at him closely but steps inside the room, then Jeff releases the door and lets it swing closed as he walks over to some switches on the wall and turns on the lights. The men are in a large classroom which has long fixed wooden benches and free-standing plastic chairs. Sherlock walks deeper into the room, looking around. JEFF: Well, what do you think? (Sherlock raises his hands and shrugs as if to ask, ‘What do I think about what?’) JEFF: It’s up to you. You’re the one who’s gonna die ’ere. (Sherlock turns back to him.) SHERLOCK: No, I’m not. JEFF: That’s what they all say. (He gestures to one of the benches.) JEFF: Shall we talk? (Without waiting for a reply, he pulls out one of the chairs and sits down. Sherlock takes a chair from the bench in front, flips it around and sits down opposite. He sighs dramatically while he takes off his gloves and puts them into his coat pockets.) SHERLOCK: Bit risky, wasn’t it? Took me away under the eye of about half a dozen policemen. They’re not that stupid. And Mrs Hudson will remember you. JEFF: You call that a risk? Nah. (He reaches into the left pocket of his cardigan.) JEFF: This is a risk. (He takes out a small glass bottle with a screw top and puts it onto the table in front of him. There is a single large capsule inside. Sherlock looks at it but doesn’t react in any way.) JEFF: Ooh, I like this bit. ’Cause you don’t get it yet, do yer? But you’re about to. I just have to do this. (Reaching into his right pocket, he takes out an identical bottle containing an identical capsule and puts it onto the table beside the first bottle.) JEFF: You weren’t expecting that, were yer? (He leans forward.) JEFF: Ooh, you’re going to love this. SHERLOCK: Love what? JEFF (sitting back again): Sherlock ’olmes. Look at you! ’Ere in the flesh. That website of yours: your fan told me about it. SHERLOCK: My fan? JEFF: You are brilliant. You are. A proper genius. “The Science of Deduction.” Now that is proper thinking. Between you and me sitting ’ere, why can’t people think? (He looks down angrily.) JEFF: Don’t it make you mad? Why can’t people just think? (He looks up again into Sherlock’s eyes. Sherlock looks back at him for a long moment, narrowing his eyes, then makes a realisation.) SHERLOCK (his voice dripping with sarcasm): Oh, I see. So you’re a proper genius too. JEFF: Don’t look it, do I? Funny little man drivin’ a cab. But you’ll know better in a minute. Chances are it’ll be the last thing you ever know. (Sherlock holds his gaze for a second or two, then looks down to the table.) SHERLOCK: Okay, two bottles. Explain. JEFF: There’s a good bottle and a bad bottle. You take the pill from the good bottle, you live; take the pill from the bad bottle, you die. SHERLOCK: Both bottles are of course identical. JEFF: In every way. SHERLOCK: And you know which is which. JEFF: Course I know. SHERLOCK: But I don’t. JEFF: Wouldn’t be a game if you knew. You’re the one who chooses. SHERLOCK: Why should I? I’ve got nothing to go on. What’s in it for me? JEFF: I ’aven’t told you the best bit yet. Whatever bottle you choose, I take the pill from the other one – and then, together, we take our medicine. (Sherlock starts to grin. Now he’s interested.) JEFF: I won’t cheat. It’s your choice. I’ll take whatever pill you don’t. (Sherlock looks down at the bottles, concentrating properly now.) JEFF: Didn’t expect that, did you, Mr ’olmes? SHERLOCK: This is what you did to the rest of them: you gave them a choice. JEFF: And now I’m givin’ you one. (Sherlock looks up at him.) JEFF: You take your time. Get yourself together. (He licks his lips in anticipation.) JEFF: I want your best game. SHERLOCK: It’s not a game. It’s chance. JEFF: I’ve played four times. I’m alive. It’s not chance, Mr ’olmes, it’s chess. It’s a game of chess, with one move, and one survivor. And this ... this ... is the move. (With his left hand he slides the left-hand bottle across the table towards Sherlock. He licks his top lip as he pulls his hand back and leaves the bottle where it is.) JEFF: Did I just give you the good bottle or the bad bottle? You can choose either one.
John is in the back of a taxi. He has the computer notebook open on his lap and is holding his phone to his ear. JOHN (into phone): No, Detective Inspector Lestrade. I need to speak to him. It’s important. It’s an emergency! (The map on the laptop shows the location of Jennifer’s phone again.) JOHN (to the cab driver): Er, left here, please. Left here.
ROLAND-KERR COLLEGE. Jeff looks down at the bottles briefly then meets Sherlock’s eyes. JEFF: You ready yet, Mr ’olmes? Ready to play? SHERLOCK: Play what? It’s a fifty-fifty chance. JEFF: You’re not playin’ the numbers, you’re playin’ me. Did I just give you the good pill or the bad pill? Is it a bluff? Or a double-bluff? Or a triple-bluff? SHERLOCK: Still just chance. JEFF: Four people in a row? It’s not just chance. SHERLOCK: Luck. JEFF: It’s genius. I know ’ow people think. (Sherlock rolls his eyes.) JEFF: I know ’ow people think I think. I can see it all, like a map inside my ’ead. (Sherlock looks exasperated.) JEFF: Everyone’s so stupid – even you. (Sherlock’s gaze sharpens.) JEFF: Or maybe God just loves me. (Sherlock straightens up and leans forward, clasping his hands in front of him on the table.) SHERLOCK: Either way, you’re wasted as a cabbie.
