WATSON: Yes, because of my idiot stories.

WATSON: What is happening? Are you even in a fit state?

HOLMES: For Mary, of course. Never doubt that, Watson. Never that.

WATSON: Holmes! Where is she?

HOLMES: A desanctified church. She thinks she’s found the solution, and for no better reason than that, she’s put herself in the path of considerable danger. What an excellent choice of wife.

WATSON: What the devil?!

MRS WATSON: I’ve found them.

WATSON: What is all this, Mary?

MRS WATSON: This is the heart of it all, John, the heart of the conspiracy.

WATSON: Great God, what is this place? And what the devil are you doing here?

MRS WATSON: But why would she do that – die to prove a point?

HOLMES: Every great cause has martyrs; every war has suicide missions – and make no mistake, this is war. One half of the human race at war with the other. The invisible army hovering at our elbow, attending to our homes, raising our children, ignored, patronised, disregarded, not allowed so much as a vote. ... but an army nonetheless, ready to rise up in the best of causes, to put right an injustice as old as humanity itself. So, you see, Watson, Mycroft was right. This is a war we must lose.

WATSON: She was dying.

HOLMES: Who was?

WATSON: Emelia Ricoletti. There were clear signs of consumption. I doubt she was long for this world.

HOLMES: So she decided to make her death count.

MYCROFT: He’s right, you know.

SHERLOCK: So what if he’s right? He’s always right. It’s boring. Will you help me?

MYCROFT: Cherchez la femme.

HOLMES: Oh, I see. Still not awake, am I?

MORIARTY: Too deep, Sherlock. Way too deep. Congratulations. You’ll be the first man in history to be buried in his own Mind Palace.

HOLMES: The setting’s a shade melodramatic, don’t you think?

MORIARTY: For you and me? Not at all.

HOLMES: What are you?

MORIARTY: You know what I am. I’m Moriarty. The Napoleon of crime.

HOLMES: Moriarty’s dead.

MORIARTY: Not in your mind. I’ll never be dead there. You once called your brain a hard drive. Well, say hello to the virus. This is how we end, you and I. Always here, always together.

HOLMES: You have a magnificent brain, Moriarty. I admire it. I concede it may be even be the equal of my own.

MORIARTY: I’m touched. I’m honoured.

HOLMES: But when it comes to the matter of unarmed combat on the edge of a precipice ... you’re going in the water ... short-arse.

MORIARTY: Oh, you think you’re so big and strong, Sherlock! Not with me! I am your WEAKNESS! I keep you DOWN! Every time you STUMBLE, every time you FAIL, when you’re WEAK ... I ... AM ... THERE! No. Don’t try to fight it. LIE BACK AND LOSE! Shall we go over together? It has to be together, doesn’t it? At the end, it’s always just you ... AND ME!

WATSON: Professor, if you wouldn’t mind stepping away from my friend. I do believe he finds your attention a shade annoying.

MORIARTY: That’s not fair. There’s two of you!

WATSON: There’s always two of us. Don’t you read The Strand? On your knees, Professor. Hands behind your head.

HOLMES: Thank you, John.

WATSON: Since when do you call me John?

HOLMES: You’d be surprised.

WATSON: No I wouldn’t. Time you woke up, Sherlock. I’m a storyteller. I know when I’m in one.

HOLMES: Of course. Of course you do, John.

WATSON: So what’s he like? The other me, in the other place?

HOLMES: Smarter than he looks.

WATSON: Pretty damned smart, then.

HOLMES: Pretty damned smart.

MORIARTY: Urgh. Why don’t you two just elope, for God’s sake?

WATSON: Impertinent!

HOLMES: Offensive.

WATSON: Actually ... would you mind?

HOLMES: Not at all.

WATSON: It was my turn.

HOLMES: Quite so.

WATSON: So, how do you plan to wake up?

HOLMES: Ohhh, I should think like this.

WATSON: Are you sure?

HOLMES: Between you and me, John, I always survive a fall.

WATSON: But how?

HOLMES: Elementary, my dear Watson.

JOHN: Sherlock, hang on. Explain. Moriarty’s alive, then?

SHERLOCK: I never said he was alive. I said he was back.

MARY: So he’s dead.

SHERLOCK: Of course he’s dead. He blew his own brains out. No-one survives that. I just went to the trouble of an overdose to prove it. Moriarty is dead, no question. But more importantly ... I know exactly what he’s going to do next.

WATSON: Flying machines; these, er, telephone contraptions ... What sort of lunatic fantasy is that?

HOLMES: It was simply my conjecture of what a future world might look like, and how you and I might fit inside it. From a drop of water, a logician should be able to infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara.

WATSON: Or a Reichenbach.

HOLMES: Have you written up your account of the case?

WATSON: Yes.

HOLMES: Hmm. Modified to put it down as one of my rare failures, of course?

WATSON: Of course.

HOLMES: “The Adventure of ... the Invisible Army.” “The League of Furies”? “The Monstrous Regiment.”

WATSON: I rather thought ... “The Abominable Bride.”

HOLMES: A trifle lurid.

WATSON: It’ll sell. It’s got proper murders in it, too.

HOLMES: You’re the expert.

WATSON: As for your own tale, are you sure it’s still just a seven percent solution that you take? I think you may have increased the dosage.

HOLMES: Perhaps I was being a little fanciful ... but perhaps such things could come to pass. In any case, I know I would be very much at home in such a world.

WATSON: Don’t think I would be.

HOLMES: I beg to differ. But then I’ve always known I was a man out of his time.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 838