BOY’s VOICE: Five ...
LESTRADE: It’s speeding up!
JOHN (urgently): Sherlock.
(Sherlock’s gaze falls on three tiny dots of paint in the night sky. His mouth falls open as the penny finally drops.)
SHERLOCK: Oh!
BOY’s VOICE: Four ...
SHERLOCK: In the planetarium! You heard it too. Oh, that is brilliant! That is gorgeous!
(Turning and shoving the pink phone into John’s hands, he walks away from the painting, grinning as he pulls out his own phone from his pocket.)
BOY’s VOICE: Three ...
JOHN: What’s brilliant? What is?
(Sherlock rapidly types “Astronomers” and “Supernovas” into his phone, then turns back and walks towards the others, laughing in delight.)
SHERLOCK: This is beautiful. I love this!
BOY’s VOICE: Two ...
LESTRADE (furiously): Sherlock!
(Sherlock grabs the pink phone from John and yells into it.)
SHERLOCK: The Van Buren Supernova!
(There’s a short pause, then the boy’s plaintive voice comes from the speaker.)
BOY’s VOICE: Please. Is somebody there?
(Sherlock sighs out a relieved breath.)
BOY’s VOICE: Somebody help me!
SHERLOCK (turning and handing the phone to Lestrade): There you go. Go find out where he is and pick him up.
(He gives John a long look, promising him a jolly good seeing-to later, then turns and points to one of the dots in the sky of the painting.)
SHERLOCK: The Van Buren Supernova, so-called. (He holds up his phone over his shoulder so that Miss Wenceslas can see the screen.) Exploding star, only appeared in the sky in eighteen fifty-eight.
(He turns and throws her a triumphant look, then walks away. John drags in a relieved breath, then walks closer to look at the painting.)
JOHN: So how could it have been painted in the sixteen forties?
(He grins over his shoulder at Miss Wenceslas, then looks back to the picture again. His phone trills a text alert.)
JOHN: Oh.
(He digs out his phone, still breathing heavily, and looks at the message which reads:
My patience is
wearing thin.
Mycroft Holmes
He growls slightly, then looks up at the painting one last time.)
JOHN: Oh Sherl…
(He switches off the phone and walks away. Miss Wenceslas stares at the painting in shock.)
NEW SCOTLAND YARD. Sherlock and Miss Wenceslas are sitting side by side in front of Lestrade’s desk while the inspector sits in a chair to the side of the desk. Sherlock has his hands in the prayer position under his chin.
SHERLOCK: You know, it’s interesting. Bohemian stationery, an assassin named after a Prague legend, and you, Miss Wenceslas. This whole case has a distinctly Czech feeling about it. Is that where this leads?
(She looks down and doesn’t answer.)
SHERLOCK: What are we looking at, Inspector?
LESTRADE (thoughtfully): Well, um, criminal conspiracy, fraud, accessory after the fact at the very least. The murder of the old woman, all the people in the flats ...
The Great Game - PART 4
Start from the beginning
