Sherlock..........Who?

The Six Thatchers Part Two

BAKER STREET. On the first floor landing, DI Hopkins is standing outside the closed door of the living room tapping a finger against a folder she is holding. She turns as Greg trots up the stairs holding a brown paper bag.

LESTRADE: Oh, hi, Stella.

HOPKINS: Greg.

LESTRADE: You, uh ... you, um ... (He makes incoherent noises and points to the closed door.)

HOPKINS: Uh, yeah. He's just got a client, so ...

LESTRADE: R-right, right, right.

(They look around awkwardly for a moment.)

LESTRADE: Uh, so see a lot of each other, do you?

HOPKINS (shrugging): It's nothing. I mean, it's nothing serious.

LESTRADE: No, no.

HOPKINS: I just pop round every now and again for a chat.

LESTRADE: Yeah, 'course.

HOPKINS: I mean, he loves a really tricky case.

LESTRADE (laughing): Yeah, he does! (He pauses for a moment, his laugh fading.) So, what you here for?

HOPKINS: Well, uh, Interpol think the Borgia Pearl trail leads back to London, so ...

LESTRADE: The Borgia Pearl. Are they ... they still after that, are they?

HOPKINS: Yeah. So how did, uh, you two first meet?

LESTRADE: Oh, it was a-a case about, um, ten years ago nobody could figure out. There was an old lady found dead in a sauna.

HOPKINS: Oh yeah? How'd she die?

LESTRADE: Hypothermia.

HOPKINS (frowning): What?

LESTRADE: I know! But then I met Sherlock. (His voice gets louder.) It was so simple, the way ...

(Sherlock hurls the door open and glares at them.)

SHERLOCK: Will you two please keep it down?

(He slams the door shut.)

LESTRADE: Sorry.

HOPKINS: Sorry.

(Inside the living room, Sherlock walks over to his chair, passing a man sitting on the client chair wearing grey trousers and a pale short-sleeved shirt.)

SHERLOCK: Now, you haven't always been in life insurance, have you? You started out in manual labour.

(He sits down in his chair and raises his hands when the man opens his mouth in surprise.)

SHERLOCK: Oh, don't bother being astonished. Your right hand's almost an entire size bigger than your left.

(A close-up of the man's hands clasped on his lap is overlaid with the words "Glove Size:" and superimposed above his hands are the numbers "10½" over the right hand and "9½" over the other.)

SHERLOCK: Hard manual work does that.

KINGSLEY: I was a carpenter, uh, like me dad.

SHERLOCK: And you're trying to give up smoking, unsuccessfully, and you once had a Japanese girlfriend that meant a lot to you but now you feel indifferent about.

KINGSLEY (smiling nervously): How the hell ...?

(He looks down into the pocket on his shirt and the several small cylindrical items in it. He smiles across to Sherlock.)