Outside, Sherlock swipes a half-drunk pint of beer from a nearby empty table and walks over towards Fletcher, noticing as he does so that he has a copy of the Racing Post in his trouser pocket. Fletcher has gone over to another of the tables and is just finishing his phone call. FLETCHER: Yeah ... No. All right? Right. Take care. ’Bye. SHERLOCK: Mind if I join you? (Fletcher shrugs and gestures to the table. Sherlock puts his pint down and sits on the bench on the other side of the table.) SHERLOCK: It’s not true, is it? You haven’t actually seen this ... hound thing. (He grins in a friendly way.) FLETCHER (looking at him suspiciously): You from the papers? SHERLOCK: No, nothing like that. Just curious. Have you seen it? FLETCHER: Maybe. SHERLOCK: Got any proof? FLETCHER: Why would I tell you if I did? ’Scuse me. (He stands up to leave just as John comes over with his own drink.) JOHN: I called Henry ... SHERLOCK (talking over him): Bet’s off, John, sorry. JOHN (sitting down): What? FLETCHER: Bet? SHERLOCK (looking at his watch): My plan needs darkness. (He looks up at the sky.) Reckon we’ve got another half an hour of light ... FLETCHER: Wait, wait. What bet? SHERLOCK: Oh, I bet John here fifty quid that you couldn’t prove you’d seen the hound. JOHN (catching on immediately and looking at Fletcher): Yeah, the guys in the pub said you could. (Fletcher smiles and points to Sherlock.) FLETCHER: Well, you’re gonna lose your money, mate. SHERLOCK: Yeah? FLETCHER: Yeah. I’ve seen it. Only about a month ago, up at the Hollow. It was foggy, mind – couldn’t make much out. SHERLOCK: I see. No witnesses, I suppose. FLETCHER: No, but ... SHERLOCK: Never are. FLETCHER: Wait ... (He shows Sherlock a photograph on his smart phone.) FLETCHER: There. (Sherlock looks at the photograph which shows a dark-furred four-legged something in the distance but, with no scale amongst the surrounding vegetation, it’s impossible to tell the size – or even the species – of the animal. He snorts.) SHERLOCK: Is that it? It’s not exactly proof, is it? (Fletcher shows the photo to John.) SHERLOCK: Sorry, John. I win. (He picks up the stolen beer glass and makes as if to drink from it, although he never does.) FLETCHER: Wait, wait. That’s not all. People don’t like going up there, you know – to the Hollow. Gives them a ... bad sort of feeling. SHERLOCK: Ooh! Is it haunted?(!) Is that supposed to convince me? (He puts down the glass again.) FLETCHER: Nah, don’t be stupid, nothing like that, but I reckon there is something out there – something from Baskerville, escaped. SHERLOCK (not really trying to hold back his sceptical snigger): A clone, a super-dog?(!) FLETCHER: Maybe. God knows what they’ve been spraying on us all these years, or putting in the water. I wouldn’t trust ’em as far as I could spit. SHERLOCK (nodding to the phone photograph): Is that the best you’ve got? (Fletcher hesitates for a long moment, uncertain whether to continue, but eventually he speaks reluctantly, lowering his voice.) FLETCHER: I had a mate once who worked for the MOD. One weekend we were meant to go fishin’ but he never showed up – well, not ’til late. When he did, he was white as a sheet. I can see him now. “I’ve seen things today, Fletch,” he said, “that I never wanna see again. Terrible things.” He’d been sent to some secret Army place – Porton Down, maybe; maybe Baskerville, or somewhere else. (He leans closer.) FLETCHER: In the labs there – the really secret labs, he said he’d seen ... terrible things. Rats as big as dogs, he said, and dogs ... (He reaches into his bag and pulls something out, showing it to the boys.) FLETCHER: ... dogs the size of horses. (He is holding a concrete cast of a dog’s paw print – but the print is at least six inches long from the tip of the claws to the back of the pad. Sherlock stares at it in surprise. John immediately pounces.) JOHN: Er, we did say fifty? (As Fletcher smiles triumphantly, Sherlock gets out his wallet and hands John a fifty pound note.) JOHN: Ta. (Sulkily, Sherlock gets up and walks away. John finishes his drink and follows him.)
Later, Sherlock and John take the car to Baskerville, Sherlock still driving. As they approach the complex, he observes that there are very many military personnel guarding the place, walking the perimeter etc. He drives up to the gates and a military security guard holding a rifle raises a hand. As Sherlock stops the jeep, the man walks around to the driver’s window. SECURITY GUARD: Pass, please. (Sherlock reaches into his coat pocket and hands him a pass.) SECURITY GUARD: Thank you. (He walks away with the pass. At the front of the vehicle, another security man encourages a sniffer dog to check the jeep, presumably for explosives.) JOHN (quietly): You’ve got ID for Baskerville. How? SHERLOCK (quietly): It’s not specific to this place. It’s my brother’s. Access all areas. I, um ... (he clears his throat) ... acquired it ages ago, just in case. (The security guard swipes Sherlock’s pass through a reader at the gate room. The screen shows a fairly small photograph of Mycroft and names the card holder as Mycroft Holmes, giving him Unlimited Access and showing his security status as ‘Secure (No Threat)’.) JOHN: Brilliant(!) SHERLOCK: What’s the matter? JOHN: We’ll get caught. SHERLOCK: No we won’t – well, not just yet. JOHN: Caught in five minutes. “Oh, hi, we just thought we’d come and have a wander round your top secret weapons base.” “Really? Great! Come in – kettle’s just boiled.” That’s if we don’t get shot. (The gates begin to slide open as the security guard comes back over to the car.) SECURITY DOG HANDLER: Clear. SECURITY GUARD (handing Sherlock his pass): Thank you very much, sir. SHERLOCK: Thank you. (He puts the car in gear and eases the vehicle forward.) SECURITY GUARD: Straight through, sir. JOHN: Mycroft’s name literally opens doors! SHERLOCK: I’ve told you – he practically is the British government. I reckon we’ve got about twenty minutes before they realise something’s wrong.
Sherlock drives up to the main complex at Baskerville, parks the car and he and John get out. Another soldier leads them through barriers and towards an entrance to the main building. As they walk, Sherlock looks around at all the military men patrolling the area, many of them armed. Even the scientists in lab coats are being escorted. As they approach the entrance, a military jeep pulls up and a young corporal gets out. LYONS: What is it? Are we in trouble? SHERLOCK (sternly): “Are we in trouble, sir?” LYONS: Yes, sir, sorry, sir. (Nevertheless, he steps in front of them and holds out his hands to prevent them getting nearer to the entrance.) SHERLOCK: You were expecting us? LYONS: Your ID showed up straight away, Mr Holmes. Corporal Lyons, security. Is there something wrong, sir? SHERLOCK: Well, I hope not, Corporal, I hope not. LYONS: It’s just we don’t get inspected here, you see, sir. It just doesn’t happen. JOHN: Ever heard of a spot check? (He takes a small wallet from his pocket and shows the ID inside to the corporal.) JOHN: Captain John Watson, Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers. (Even before he finishes speaking, the corporal comes to attention and salutes. John crisply returns the salute. Fangirls faint.) LYONS: Sir. Major Barrymore won’t be pleased, sir. He’ll want to see you both. JOHN: I’m afraid we won’t have time for that. We’ll need the full tour right away. Carry on. (The corporal hesitates.) JOHN (instantly): That’s an order, Corporal. LYONS: Yes, sir. (He spins around and walks towards the entrance. Sherlock glances across to John with a proud smile on his face as they follow. At the entrance, which is marked “AUTOMATIC SECURITY DOOR,” Lyons swipes his pass through a reader, then waits for Sherlock to walk over and do the same with his own pass. The message “ACCESS GRANTED” appears on the reader. Lyons then presses a button and the locks on the door disengage. Sherlock checks his watch. Elsewhere, probably a long way from Baskerville, a message flashes up on a screen:
The security request begins to process. At Baskerville, the door swings open and Lyons leads the other two inside, taking off his beret as he goes. As he leads them towards the next security door, the boys talk quietly.) SHERLOCK: Nice touch. JOHN: Haven’t pulled rank in ages. SHERLOCK: Enjoy it? JOHN: Oh yeah. (Reaching the door, Lyons swipes his pass and then steps aside for Sherlock to do likewise. As he does so and another “ACCESS GRANTED” message appears, the authorisation request is sent out again. The doors slide opens and reveal an elevator on the other side. Lyons leads them inside and Sherlock looks at the wall panel. The lift, now on the ground floor, only goes downwards to five floors marked -1, -2, -3, -4 and B. Lyons presses the -1 button and the doors close, opening shortly afterwards on the next floor down. Lyons leads them out into a brightly lit and white tiled laboratory. As they walk forward, various scientific staff dressed either in white coveralls including full breathing masks, or in lab coats and face masks walk around the lab. There are large cages to the right of the elevator and as Lyons leads the way past them, a monkey screams and hurls itself at the bars towards them. Sherlock spins on his heel as he passes the cage, looking at the monkey and the chain around its neck.) SHERLOCK: How many animals do you keep down here? LYONS: Lots, sir. (At the far end of the lab, a scientist wearing coveralls and a breathing mask comes out of another room and takes off his mask. Another scientist walks across the lab with a beagle on a lead.) SHERLOCK: Any ever escape? LYONS: They’d have to know how to use that lift, sir. We’re not breeding them that clever. SHERLOCK: Unless they have help. (The man who just took off his mask comes over to the group.) FRANKLAND: Ah, and you are? LYONS: Sorry, Doctor Frankland. I’m just showing these gentlemen around. FRANKLAND (smiling at them): Ah, new faces, huh? Nice. Careful you don’t get stuck here, though. I only came to fix a tap! (John chuckles politely as Frankland walks towards the lift. John turns to Lyons.) JOHN: How far down does that lift go? LYONS: Quite a way, sir. JOHN: Mmm-hmm. And what’s down there? LYONS: Well, we have to keep the bins somewhere, sir. This way please, gentlemen. (Sherlock is watching Frankland as he reaches the elevator. Frankland in turn looks around to gaze with interest at the new arrivals. While Lyons leads John away, Sherlock walks backwards for a couple of paces before turning to follow.) JOHN: So what exactly is it that you do here? LYONS: I thought you’d know, sir, this being an inspection. (Sherlock is looking at the various scientists around the room, a couple looking at a rat in a glass cage, another one doing something to the leg of a monkey on a leash which is sitting on a metal table. Nearby, another scientist picks up what looks ominously like a glass container of serum.) JOHN: Well, I’m not an expert, am I? LYONS: Everything from stem cell research to trying to cure the common cold, sir. JOHN: But mostly weaponry? LYONS: Of one sort or another, yes. (He swipes his card through the reader of the door at the end of the lab, then steps aside for Sherlock to do likewise.) JOHN: Biological, chemical ...? LYONS: One war ends, another begins, sir. New enemies to fight. We have to be prepared. (As the door releases, Sherlock checks his watch and the security authorisation message goes out again, the message changing slightly:
Lyons leads them through the doors and into another lab where a monkey stands up on its back legs with one hand high in the air and shrieks before sitting down again on a high metal table. A female scientist looks at it and then turns to her colleague.) STAPLETON: Okay, Michael, let’s try Harlow Three next time. (As she walks away from the table, Lyons approaches her.) LYONS: Doctor Stapleton. SHERLOCK (thoughtfully): Stapleton. STAPLETON: Yes? (She looks at Sherlock and John.) Who’s this? LYONS: Priority Ultra, ma’am. Orders from on high. An inspection. STAPLETON: Really? SHERLOCK: We’re to be accorded every courtesy, Doctor Stapleton. What’s your role at Baskerville? (Stapleton looks at him and snorts with disbelieving laughter.) JOHN: Er, accorded every courtesy, isn’t that the idea? STAPLETON: I’m not free to say. Official secrets. SHERLOCK (smiling at her): Oh, you most certainly are free ... (his smile fades and his voice becomes ominous) ... and I suggest you remain that way. (She looks at him for a moment.) STAPLETON: I have a lot of fingers in a lot of pies. I like to mix things up – genes, mostly; now and again actual fingers. (Sherlock has had a lightbulb moment when she said the words ‘genes’ and is reaching into his pocket before she finishes the sentence.) SHERLOCK: Stapleton. I knew I knew your name. STAPLETON: I doubt it. SHERLOCK: People say there’s no such thing as coincidence. What dull lives they must lead. (He holds up his notebook to her on which he has written a single large word: “BLUEBELL”. She stares at it in amazement while Sherlock watches her face closely.) STAPLETON: Have you been talking to my daughter? SHERLOCK (putting his notebook away): Why did Bluebell have to die, Doctor Stapleton? JOHN (bewildered): The rabbit? SHERLOCK (to Stapleton, as she stares at him blankly): Disappeared from inside a locked hutch, which was always suggestive. JOHN: The rabbit? SHERLOCK: Clearly an inside job. STAPLETON: Oh, you reckon? SHERLOCK: Why? Because it glowed in the dark. (He loudly clicks the ‘k’ on the last word. Your transcriber giggles like an idiot.) STAPLETON: I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Who are you? (Even as she speaks Sherlock has been keeping a mental note of the time and now checks his watch again. Out in the security system somewhere, the authorisation request changes:
Someone looking at the screen picks up a phone and lifts the handset to their ear. At Baskerville, Sherlock lowers his hand and turns to Lyons.) SHERLOCK: Well, I think we’ve seen enough for now, Corporal. Thank you so much. LYONS (surprised): That’s it? SHERLOCK: That’s it. (He turns and heads briskly back towards the door, John following behind and Lyons trailing after them.) It’s this way, isn’t it? STAPLETON (calling after them): Just a minute! (John catches up to his friend and speaks quietly so that Lyons can’t overhear him. His tone suggests that he is not best pleased.) JOHN: Did we just break into a military base to investigate a rabbit? (Sherlock reaches the door and swipes his card, then waits for Lyons to catch up to them and do the same with his own card. In Whitehall or somewhere similar, telephones begin to ring as a chain of calls relays the potential security breach and the message goes out:
Sitting in what can surely only be the Diogenes Club with a cup of coffee on the table beside him, Mycroft takes out his phone when it trills quietly. Looking at the message, he rolls his eyes in exasperation, gazes off into space with a “Good God – what now?!” look on his face for a moment and then begins to text. At Baskerville, Sherlock walks swiftly through the security doors and heads for the lift as his phone trills a text alert. He takes out his phone without stopping and reads the message:
What are you doing? M
He laughs sarcastically.) SHERLOCK: Twenty-three minutes. Mycroft’s getting slow. (Reaching the lift doors, he swipes his card and Lyons does likewise. The doors open revealing Doctor Frankland standing inside as if he has been waiting in there. Trying to look nonchalant, he smiles at them.) FRANKLAND: Hello ... again. (Narrowing his eyes suspiciously, Sherlock walks into the lift with the others. Very shortly afterwards, one floor up, the doors open again and reveal a bearded man in military uniform waiting for them. He does not look happy.) LYONS: Er, um, Major ... BARRYMORE: This is bloody outrageous. Why wasn’t I told? JOHN: Major Barrymore, is it? (He steps out of the lift towards him.) Yes, well, good. Very good. (He offers him his hand to shake.) We’re very impressed, aren’t we, Mr Holmes? (Barrymore refuses to take John’s hand. Sherlock’s phone sounds another text alert and he reaches into his pocket for it again.) SHERLOCK: Deeply; hugely. (He walks past Barrymore as he looks at his text message which reads:
What’s going on Sherlock? M
The major follows along behind the boys while Sherlock hurries towards the exit door.) BARRYMORE: The whole point of Baskerville was to eliminate this kind of bureaucratic nonsense ... SHERLOCK: I’m so sorry, Major. BARRYMORE: Inspections?! SHERLOCK: New policy. Can’t remain unmonitored forever. Goodness knows what you’d get up to. (Urgently and quietly to John) Keep walking. (Lyons has briefly ducked into a side room but now hurries out again.) LYONS: Sir! (He slaps an alarm button on the wall. Alarms start to blare, red lights flash and the automated security door locks itself. The others turn back to him.) LYONS: ID unauthorised, sir. BARRYMORE: What? LYONS: I’ve just had the call. BARRYMORE: Is that right? (He turns to Sherlock and John.) BARRYMORE: Who are you? JOHN: Look, there’s obviously been some kind of mistake. (A little further back, Frankland is slowly walking towards the group, looking thoughtful. Barrymore holds out his hand for Sherlock’s ID card, which he gives to him. He looks at the card and then up at Sherlock.) BARRYMORE: Clearly not Mycroft Holmes. JOHN (getting out a notebook and starting to write): Computer error, Major. It’ll all have to go in the report. BARRYMORE: What the hell’s going on?! FRANKLAND: It’s all right, Major. I know exactly who these gentlemen are. BARRYMORE: You do? FRANKLAND: Yeah. I’m getting a little slow on faces but Mr Holmes here isn’t someone I expected to show up in this place. SHERLOCK: Ah, well ... FRANKLAND (offering him his hand to shake): Good to see you again, Mycroft. (John tries to mask his surprise. Smiling falsely, Sherlock shakes Frankland’s hand.) FRANKLAND: I had the honour of meeting Mr Holmes at the W.H.O. conference in ... (he pretends to think) ... Brussels, was it? SHERLOCK: Vienna. FRANKLAND: Vienna, that’s it. (He looks at Barrymore.) FRANKLAND: This is Mr Mycroft Holmes, Major. There’s obviously been a mistake. (Barrymore turns and nods to Lyons, who goes back to the alarm switch and turns it off. The lights stop flashing and the alarm falls silent. A moment later the entrance door’s lock disengages noisily.) BARRYMORE (turning back to Frankland): On your head be it, Doctor Frankland. FRANKLAND (laughing as he looks at the approaching Corporal Lyons): I’ll show them out, Corporal. LYONS: Very well, sir. (Sherlock spins on his heel and walks towards the now open entrance door. John and Frankland follow him while Barrymore glares after them unhappily. The boys go outside, John grimacing anxiously with an “Oh gods, I really hope we’re going to get away with this!” expression on his face. Frankland trots after them.) SHERLOCK: Thank you. FRANKLAND: This is about Henry Knight, isn’t it? (They don’t answer him but he takes their silence as agreement.) FRANKLAND: I thought so. I knew he wanted help but I didn’t realise he was going to contact Sherlock Holmes! (Sherlock grimaces.) FRANKLAND: Oh, don’t worry. I know who you really are. I’m never off your website. Thought you’d be wearing the hat, though. SHERLOCK: That wasn’t my hat. FRANKLAND (to John): I hardly recognise him without the hat! (John tries unsuccessfully to bite back a smile.) SHERLOCK (tetchily, sounding the ‘t’s loudly): It wasn’t my hat. FRANKLAND: I love the blog too, Doctor Watson. JOHN: Oh, cheers! FRANKLAND: The, er, the Pink thing ... JOHN: Mmm-hmm. FRANKLAND: ... and that one about the aluminium crutch! JOHN: Yes. SHERLOCK (stopping and turning back to Frankland): You know Henry Knight? FRANKLAND: Well, I knew his dad better. He had all sorts of mad theories about this place. Still, he was a good friend. (He looks back the way they came and sees that Major Barrymore is standing some distance away and watching them. He turns back to Sherlock.) FRANKLAND: Listen, I can’t really talk now. (He takes a card from his coat pocket and hands it over.) FRANKLAND: Here’s my, er, cell number. If I could help with Henry, give me a call. SHERLOCK: I never did ask, Doctor Frankland. What exactly is it that you do here? FRANKLAND: Oh, Mr Holmes, I would love to tell you – but then, of course, I’d have to kill you! (He laughs cheerfully.) SHERLOCK (straight faced): That would be tremendously ambitious of you. (Frankland’s smile fades and he shrugs in embarrassment.) SHERLOCK: Tell me about Doctor Stapleton. FRANKLAND: Never speak ill of a colleague. SHERLOCK: Yet you’d speak well of one, which you’re clearly omitting to do. FRANKLAND: I do seem to be, don’t I? (He shrugs.) SHERLOCK (raising the card that Frankland just gave him): I’ll be in touch. FRANKLAND: Any time. (The boys walk away from him and head towards their Land Rover.) JOHN: So? SHERLOCK: So? JOHN: What was all that about the rabbit? (Smiling briefly, Sherlock pulls his coat tighter around him, flipping the collar up just as they reach the car. John rolls his eyes and turns to him.) JOHN: Oh, please, can we not do this, this time? SHERLOCK: Do what? JOHN: You being all mysterious with your cheekbones and turning your coat collar up so you look cool. (As he turns to go to the car door, Sherlock opens his mouth to speak but is apparently so disconcerted that for a moment he can’t find the words.) SHERLOCK: ... I don’t do that. JOHN: Yeah you do. (They get into the car.)
Later, Sherlock is driving them across the moors. JOHN: So, the email from Kirsty – the, er, missing luminous rabbit. SHERLOCK: Kirsty Stapleton, whose mother specialises in genetic manipulation. JOHN: She made her daughter’s rabbit glow in the dark. SHERLOCK: Probably a fluorescent gene removed and spliced into the specimen. Simple enough these days. JOHN: So ... (He looks across to Sherlock and waits for him to continue the sentence.) SHERLOCK: So we know that Doctor Stapleton performs secret genetic experiments on animals. The question is: has she been working on something deadlier than a rabbit? JOHN: To be fair, that is quite a wide field. (Sherlock looks round at John in startled surprise as if realising that that’s true.)
HENRY KNIGHT’S HOUSE. His home is enormous – a four-storey stone building that was probably a very important property in the area in the past. A large old-fashioned glass conservatory is attached to the rear of the building on the ground floor and a modern two-storey glass extension has been built onto the side of the house to join it to another two-storey stone building nearby. Sherlock and John go into the conservatory, which looks very run-down and clearly hasn’t had a paint job in years, and walk across to the door on the opposite side. Sherlock rings the doorbell and Henry opens the door. HENRY: Hi. JOHN: Hi. HENRY: Come in, come in. (Wiping his feet on the doormat, Sherlock walks in and heads down the hallway. John follows more slowly, stopping to look into a large high-ceilinged sitting room before following Henry again.) JOHN: This is, uh ... Are you, um ... (He searches for the right word for a moment before finding it.) JOHN: ... rich? HENRY: Yeah. JOHN: Right. (Henry leads off again. Sherlock throws a dark look at John before following him.)
Not long afterwards, in the kitchen in the glass extension, Sherlock puts two sugar lumps into his mug and stirs them in. He is sitting on a stool at the central island and John is sitting next to him. Henry is standing on the other side of the island gazing down at the work surface. HENRY: It’s-it’s a couple of words. It’s what I keep seeing. “Liberty” ... JOHN (reaching into his pocket for his notebook): Liberty. HENRY (looking up to him): “Liberty” and ... “in.” It’s just that. (He picks up the bottle of milk that’s on the island.) HENRY: Are you finished? JOHN: Mmm. (Henry turns around to put the milk into the fridge. John looks at Sherlock.) JOHN: Mean anything to you? SHERLOCK (softly): “Liberty in death” – isn’t that the expression? The only true freedom. (John nods in agreement as Henry turns back around, sighing. Sherlock takes a drink from his mug.) HENRY: What now, then? JOHN: Sherlock’s got a plan. SHERLOCK: Yes. HENRY: Right. SHERLOCK: We take you back out onto the moor ... HENRY (nervously): Okay ... SHERLOCK: ... and see if anything attacks you. JOHN: What?! SHERLOCK: That should bring things to a head. HENRY: At night? You want me to go out there at night? SHERLOCK: Mmm. JOHN: That’s your plan? (He snorts laughter.) Brilliant(!) SHERLOCK: Got any better ideas? JOHN: That’s not a plan. SHERLOCK: Listen, if there is a monster out there, John, there’s only one thing to do: find out where it lives. (He looks round to Henry and smiles widely at him before taking another drink from his mug. Henry does not look encouraged by this.)
DUSK. THE MOORS. As night begins to fall, Henry leads Sherlock and John across the rocks towards Dewer’s Hollow. All three of them have flashlights to light the uneven ground below their feet. Foxes scream repeatedly in the distance. By the time they reach the woods it is almost full dark and it becomes even darker when they head into the trees. John, bringing up the rear, hears rustling to his right and turns around to look. The other two don’t notice and continue onwards while John walks cautiously towards the sound he heard. He shines his torch into the bushes as an owl shrieks overhead, but he can see nothing. Raising his head he sees a light repeatedly winking on and off at the top of a hillside a fair distance away. He looks around to alert his friend. JOHN: Sher... (It’s only then that he realises that the other two have disappeared out of sight. He shines his flashlight in the direction they went but there’s no sign of them. He looks back to the light on the hillside, which is still intermittently flashing, and gets his notebook out of his pocket because he has recognised that the flashes are Morse code. He starts to write down the letters while speaking them aloud.) JOHN (softly): U ... M ... Q ... R ... A. (The light stops flashing. John looks down at his notebook.) JOHN (in a whisper): U, M, Q, R, A. (He tries it as a word.) Umqra? (Shaking his head, he looks up to the hillside again but no more light comes from it. Shutting the notebook, he heads off in the direction of the other two.) JOHN (whispering): Sherlock ... (Henry and Sherlock are a long way ahead and Henry’s torch shows that they’re at the edge of the minefield with its fencing and warning signs. They make their way along the edge of the fencing while John trails a long way behind them, still whispering his friend’s name repeatedly.) JOHN: Sherlock ... Sherlock ... (Up ahead, Sherlock breaks the silence.) SHERLOCK: Met a friend of yours. HENRY: What? SHERLOCK: Doctor Frankland. HENRY: Oh, right. Bob, yeah. SHERLOCK: Seems pretty concerned about you. HENRY: He’s a worrier, bless him. He’s been very kind to me since I came back. SHERLOCK: He knew your father. HENRY: Yeah. SHERLOCK: But he works at Baskerville. Didn’t your dad have a problem with that? HENRY: Well, mates are mates, aren’t they? I mean, look at you and John. SHERLOCK: What about us? HENRY: Well, I mean, he’s a pretty straightforward bloke, and you ... (Glancing back at Sherlock’s grim expression, he decides not to follow that line.) HENRY: They agreed never to talk about work, Uncle Bob and my dad. (He stops and turns to his left. As Sherlock stops and looks at him, Henry nods in the direction he’s looking.) HENRY (unhappily): Dewer’s Hollow. (Sherlock turns and looks at the steep drop in the land that leads down into a misty dark valley.) (Some distance behind them, John is still following their trail.) JOHN (whispering): Sherlock ... (As he progresses onwards, he hears an eerie metallic thrumming sound. He stops and aims his flashlight in the direction of the sound, then goes to move onwards just as the thrum sounds again. The sound continues to repeat, now interspersed with a short metallic ping. John walks slowly towards the sound, then quietly chuckles when he sees a rusty metal container, possibly an oil drum, which is lying in the undergrowth. Water is dripping from the tree above it and causing the thrums and pings as it strikes the drum. Just as John looks at it and sighs with relief, something massive flashes past behind him. John spins and looks but it’s already gone, but a couple of seconds later an anguished howl sounds in the distance. John turns and begins to hurry to find the others.) (Sherlock is heading down into the Hollow, being careful to keep his balance on the steep slippery ground. Henry follows him down more slowly. Sherlock reaches the bottom and shines his torch around, finding giant paw prints all around the area. Some distance away, John is now running to get to the others. Another long anguished howl rings out. Still halfway down the slope, Henry pauses. Sherlock shines his torch up in the direction of the sound ... and his face begins to fill with horror at the sight which greets him. Unfortunately for the viewers, we can’t see what he is looking at, but whatever it is growls savagely from the top of the Hollow. As the beam from Sherlock’s flashlight flails along the Hollow’s rim, the whatever-it-is has already retreated. Sherlock recoils, his face confused and bewildered as he tries to take in what he just saw. From his position some distance away, Henry hurries down to join him.) HENRY: Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Did you see it? (Sherlock lowers his head, still unable to get his mind to accept the evidence of his eyes. He stares around, shaking his head, then shoves Henry out of his way and hurries back up the hillside. Henry follows him. Very shortly afterwards, John finally meets up with the other two making their way back.) JOHN (referring to the howling): Did you hear that? (Sherlock storms straight past him. John turns and follows.) HENRY: We saw it. We saw it. SHERLOCK: No. I didn’t see anything. HENRY (chasing after him): What? What are you talking about? SHERLOCK: I didn’t. See. Anything. (He hurries onwards with Henry and John trailing along behind him.)
