Sherlock Transcript

A Study in Pink (Part II)

JOHN: Yeah ... Asphyxiation, probably. Passed out, choked on her own vomit. Can't smell any alcohol on her. It could have been a seizure; possibly drugs.
SHERLOCK: You know what it was. You've read the papers.
JOHN: What, she's one of the suicides? The fourth ...?
LESTRADE: Sherlock – two minutes, I said. I need anything you've got.
SHERLOCK (standing up, while John struggles to get to his feet): Victim is in her late thirties. Professional person, going by her clothes; I'm guessing something in the media, going by the frankly alarming shade of pink. Travelled from Cardiff today, intending to stay in London for one night. It's obvious from the size of her suitcase.
LESTRADE: Suitcase?
(John looks around the room but can't see a suitcase anywhere.)
SHERLOCK: Suitcase, yes. She's been married at least ten years, but not happily. She's had a string of lovers but none of them knew she was married.
LESTRADE: Oh, for God's sake, if you're just making this up ...
SHERLOCK (pointing down to her left hand): Her wedding ring. Ten years old at least. The rest of her jewellery has been regularly cleaned, but not her wedding ring. State of her marriage right there. The inside of the ring is shinier than the outside – that means it's regularly removed. The only polishing it gets is when she works it off her finger. It's not for work; look at her nails. She doesn't work with her hands, so what or rather who does she remove her rings for? Clearly not one lover; she'd never sustain the fiction of being single over that amount of time, so more likely a string of them. Simple.
JOHN (admiringly): That's brilliant.
(Sherlock looks round at him.)
JOHN: Sorry.
LESTRADE: Cardiff?
SHERLOCK: It's obvious, isn't it?
JOHN: It's not obvious to me.
SHERLOCK (pausing as he looks at the other two): Dear God, what is it like in your funny little brains? It must be so boring.
(He turns back to the body.)
SHERLOCK: Her coat: it's slightly damp. She's been in heavy rain in the last few hours. No rain anywhere in London in that time. Under her coat collar is damp, too. She's turned it up against the wind. She's got an umbrella in her left-hand pocket but it's dry and unused: not just wind, strong wind – too strong to use her umbrella. We know from her suitcase that she was intending to stay overnight, so she must have come a decent distance but she can't have travelled more than two or three hours because her coat still hasn't dried. So, where has there been heavy rain and strong wind within the radius of that travel time?
(He gets his phone from his pocket and shows to the other two the webpage he was looking at earlier, displaying today's weather for the southern part of Britain.)
SHERLOCK: Cardiff.
JOHN: That's fantastic!
SHERLOCK (turning to him and speaking in a low voice): D'you know you do that out loud?
JOHN: Sorry. I'll shut up.
SHERLOCK: No, it's ... fine.
LESTRADE: Why d'you keep saying suitcase?
SHERLOCK (spinning around in a circle to look around the room): Yes, where is it? She must have had a phone or an organiser. Find out who Rachel is.
LESTRADE: She was writing 'Rachel'?
SHERLOCK (sarcastically): No, she was leaving an angry note in German(!) Of course she was writing Rachel; no other word it can be. Question is: why did she wait until she was dying to write it?
LESTRADE: How d'you know she had a suitcase?
SHERLOCK (pointing down to the body, where her tights have small black splotches on the lower part of her right leg): Back of the right leg: tiny splash marks on the heel and calf, not present on the left. She was dragging a wheeled suitcase behind her with her right hand. Don't get that splash pattern any other way. Smallish case, going by the spread. Case that size, woman this clothes-conscious: could only be an overnight bag, so we know she was staying one night.
(He squats down by the woman's body and examines the backs of her legs more closely.)
SHERLOCK: Now, where is it? What have you done with it?
LESTRADE: There wasn't a case.
(Slowly Sherlock raises his head and frowns up at Lestrade.)
SHERLOCK: Say that again.
LESTRADE: There wasn't a case. There was never any suitcase.
(Immediately Sherlock straightens up and heads for the door, calling out to all the police officers in the house as he begins to hurry down the stairs.)
SHERLOCK: Suitcase! Did anyone find a suitcase? Was there a suitcase in this house?
(Lestrade and John follow him out and stop on the landing. Lestrade calls down the stairs.)
LESTRADE: Sherlock, there was no case!
SHERLOCK (slowing down, but still making his way down the stairs): But they take the poison themselves; they chew, swallow the pills themselves. There are clear signs. Even you lot couldn't miss them.
LESTRADE: Right, yeah, thanks(!) And ...?
SHERLOCK: It's murder, all of them. I don't know how, but they're not suicides, they're killings – serial killings.
(He holds his hands up in front of his face in delight.)
SHERLOCK: We've got ourselves a serial killer. I love those. There's always something to look forward to.
LESTRADE: Why are you saying that?
SHERLOCK (stopping and calling up to the others): Her case! Come on, where is her case? Did she eat it?(!) Someone else was here, and they took her case. (More quietly, as if talking to himself) So the killer must have driven her here; forgot the case was in the car.
JOHN: She could have checked into a hotel, left her case there.
SHERLOCK (looking up the stairs again): No, she never got to the hotel. Look at her hair. She colour-coordinates her lipstick and her shoes. She'd never have left any hotel with her hair still looking ...
(He stops talking as he makes a realisation.)
SHERLOCK: Oh.
(His eyes widen and his face lights up.)
SHERLOCK: Oh!
(He claps his hands together in delight.)