Comedy Playhouse (1961–2017): Season 13, Episode 3 - Elementary My Dear Watson - full transcript
Read all about it, Holmes
solves new murder mystery.
- Which Holmes is that?
- Sherlock, madam.
Holmes solves new murder mystery.
Read all about it,
Sherlock Holmes does it again.
HOLMES SOLVES BAFFLING MURDER MYSTERY
Mind still as keen as ever.
'Do with him on this new case.
Bound to call him in
on that sooner or later.
ELEMENTARY MY DEAR WATSON
WITH JOHN CLEESE HEREINAFTER
REFERRED TO AS SHERLOCK HOLMES
AND WILLIAM RUSHTON HEREINAFTER
REFERRED TO AS DR. WATSON
THE STRANGE CASE OF THE DEAD SOLLICITORS
Has anything like it happened before?
Not to him.
...its finger on it,
but there's something odd.
There's something not quite
right about the whole setup.
One gets a nose for these things.
Five identical old world solicitors,
lying in identical positions,
across identical desks,
with identical daggers in their backs.
It's not the sort of thing
that would happen by accident.
Mass [???]
That would seem the obvious explanation.
- But why?
- If only Holmes were here!
These devilled kidneys are
uncommonly appetising, Holmes.
The speciality of Mrs. Hudson, Watson,
home-grown by the very good lady herself,
and she is not a little proud of them,
as you will discover for yourself,
when she comes through
that door in precisely...
...two seconds from now, to see
whether we have finished our meal.
I fear it's going to be
one of those days, Holmes.
One of those days, Watson?
To what are you referring?
Why is your plate still on
the table in front of you?
Has Mrs. Hudson not been
in to clear it away?
No, no she has not, Holmes, no.
I must be losing my touch, Watson.
...expected, Holmes, that you retain powers
as exceptional as yours indefinitely?
They are bound to wane
with the passing of the years.
And yet you remain as staunch
a friend and ally as ever.
Well now, the situation
is an excellent one.
It enables me to neglect
my practice almost totally,
in order to go off on these wild
hare brained jaunts with you,
and at the same time still
live extremely comfortably.
It may well be, Watson, that you will
be accompanying me on yet another,
and, in the very immediate future.
Read that.
Unrequited passion,
all in love with the same woman.
Could be, could be.
I'm inclined to think
there's more behind it.
- Holmes.
- Yes. I think...
this is a case where we might ask for some
discreet cooperation from that quarter.
He may not solve it, but at least
he might give us a lead.
The young and beautiful Lady
Cynthia Bellingham-Datchet.
Yes, Watson, and she is
in desperate trouble.
Yes.
"My son Rupert, who in the event
of anything happening to my husband,
will succeed to the entire estate,
comprising some 29 000 acres
on the edge of Dartmoor,
has been given a warning bite in his sleep
by a particularly ferocious rattlesnake...
which he is certain he would recognise
if he were ever to see it again.
Please come quickly,
I am distraught. Lady Cynthia."
So you see, Watson,
why there is not a moment to lose.
Indeed I do, Holmes.
What year is it, Watson?
1973, Holmes.
We may well be too late.
Cab!
- Indestructible.
- Aren't they.
Watson.
Holmes, we seem to be creating
something of a stir.
I suspect we're a figment of these
good people's imagination, Watson.
They've been reading too much Conan Doyle.
I don't like it, Holmes.
It's an odd feeling.
- Nonsense, Watson.
You're becoming far too surrealistic
for your own good.
The important thing is that we should
be in time to get to the train
that will take us to Lady Cynthia
Bellingham-Datchet. Drive on, cabby!
Holmes! Holmes!
They've agreed to come! Thank heaven!
How long will they be, mother?
Barring unforeseen accidents,
shall be with you within the hour.
God grant they may be in time!
And that the dreaded rattlesnake may pay
us another visit while they are still here!
If it does, they will certainly unmask it.
And so end the curse that has hung over
the Bellingham Datchets since 1933.
Confounded Street,
this comes at a deucedly awkward moment.
All the same Mr. Holmes,
I think the rattlesnake can wait.
This can't.
Very well. Where are these
victims of unrequited passion?
Let us take a look at them.
- They are at Cockfoster's.
Holmes! Holmes!
NEW SCOTLAND YARD
Truscott.
Jack the who?
The Ripper?
Yes, what can I do for you, Mr. Ripper?
Go on!
Oh well, it takes all sorts.
Yes, if you're certain you want to
make a statement. Just a moment.
White where?
Chapel.
Yes...
- Perhaps they have been waylaid.
- Waylaid?
Oh, not waylaid perhaps, but side-tracked.
Why should they have been side-tracked?
It's just a premonition.
I have these premonitions.
Nonsense, mother. What could they
have possible been side-tracked by?
Well, who knows!
Some baffling problem involving
a group of solicitors
at Cockfoster's perhaps!
All lying slumped over their desks,
with daggers in their backs.
Is that likely, mother?
A baffling problem, Watson, but not
one I think that need detain us long.
We shall, I fancy, be with the unhappy Lady
Cynthia sooner than we might have feared.
But how did you reach
a conclusion so swiftly, Holmes?
The dagger, Watson.
Note the position of it and then
address yourself to the question...
...of how it could have got there.
Well...
...an heirloom perhaps?
Playing about with it in an
absent minded sort of way...
...and inadvertently...
No, Watson. It's more
difficult than it seems
to stab oneself in the back inadvertently,
while playing about with a
dagger in an absentminded way,
and I think we must look
for the solution elsewhere.
This is not his normal working position?
Oh no.
He hardly ever adopts it.
Except when he's slightly distraught.
But he hasn't been
distraught now for weeks.
And is unlikely to be so again, I fancy.
On the other hand, distraught or not,
supposing he were trying to find
something in one of the drawers here,
which curiously enough are
on the client side of the desk,
Would he not then lean
in some such way as this
across the top of the desk
in order so to do?
My god, Holmes, you've hit on it!
You formed a theory, Watson?
Well, I suppose it's obvious.
Angry client.
Someone with a grudge perhaps.
Turns the desk around in the night,
or has an accomplice to do it for him,
awaits his opportunity, and...
...ha!
An ingenious theory, Watson,
and one with more than
a grain of truth in it.
It would hold water admirably, were there only
one prosperous old world solicitor involved.
But as you will observe,
there are no fewer than...
...four!
One of them was probably
purloined in the night, Holmes?
Oh no, surely not. He was
there as are large as life.
I mean, as large as...
- Don't distress yourself, my dear.
When I locked up last night I was most careful
to count, and there were five of them then.
Perhaps my friend and I
could be permitted to take
one of the remaining four
with us for examination.
Oh yes, please do. I shall be
glad to see the back of them.
They're all going to have
to go to scrap anyway.
Unless suddenly someone
takes a fancy to them,
or wants to use them as mystery object
of the week on "Call my bluff".
Could what that good woman
said possibly be true, Holmes?
Yes Watson, I'm afraid it could.
But who, Holmes, who,
who would sink so low,
as to steal a dead solicitor in the night,
in order to enter him as a mystery
object of the week on "Call my bluff"?
I fear, Watson, the world
is a far, far blacker place
than you and your kindly innocence
are prone to imagine.
But, Holmes, what of the
other four, of this is one?
Done to death for no other reason,
than to divert attention away
from the true purpose
behind this whole fiendish exercise.
Monstrous.
It is indeed monstrous, Watson,
and I very much fear we may
be too late to prevent it.
What sort of mind could heave such a plan?
Holmes!
Are you sure this is
the way to Shepherd's Bush?
My dear Watson, it is not for
Shepherd's Bush that we are making.
That particular program
comes from Manchester,
and it is to Manchester accordingly
that we are going.
Hand me pigeon we have
for special decoy duty.
Fly, little one!
Holmes...
Is it absolutely essential
that we go to Manchester?
It is only by comparing the object
that we have before us, Watson,
with the almost identical object
the team will shortly have before them
in the studio as mystery
object of the week,
that we can be sure that we
are not on a wild goose chase.
What if we are too late?
God grant that we may not be!
And so as we've seen, "able wacket"
does indeed mean a pixie's biblo.
At this point of the program
we come to our small variation,
and instead of a word, we have an object.
It's got a black coat and striped trousers,
and it's slumped across a desk,
and it's got a knife
sticking out of its back.
Dawn Adams, what do you say about this?
I think it is a travelling
showman's hoopla stall.
You see, they would set up this
object in the middle of a field,
and passers-by would throw rings at it,
and hope to get three rings all over
that sort of thing sticking
up in the middle.
It's a travelling fairground
entertainers' hoopla stall.
I should never have thought of that.
Alan Cord?
A dead solicitor.
In imperial China in the 19th century,
these objects were much prised
as conversation pieces,
Objects to have around the place.
People of oriental extraction in England
tended to export them
places like Shanghai.
It probably fell of the back of a lorry
on the way to a pigeon fancier's loft.
but that's what it is, it's an
art object from imperial China.
- Frank.
- You don't see these so much nowadays.
Just after the first world war,
you got a lot of them.
They were a sort of practical garden gnome.
In small townhouses,
they could get a clothesline
on the one tree there,
but they had no way
to fix the other end of the line.
So they had these rather
lovely objects on the grass,
and the other end of the cord was
tied around the projecting part there,
and then the thing was pulled
until the line was tight.
It's a...
...clothesline straightener,
about 1922 perhaps.
Percy, which do you fancy?
I've got a terrible suspicion
that they're all right.
Depends which angle
you look at them, probably.
From here it looks like my uncle Theodore.
It certainly isn't a dead solicitor.
No, it must be Dawn Adams'
itinerant travelling hoopla stall.
Right, Dawn.
True or bluff?
BLUFF
- Oh, no!
I think you may have earned the true
description of the provenance of this object.
VERDAD
It's not the first time
I've played the game, you know!
It may well be the last time.
What's the number?
Whitehall 1212.
- I thought they'd changed it.
- Not as far as I know, sir.
Jack the who?
I see. Another one.
Are you sure you want to make
a statement, Mr. Ripper?
Oh well, just a moment then
while I get a pencil and paper.
Thank you.
Down what Chapel way?
White. Yes.
- Tea?
- Thank you.
Yes, I see.
Excuse me.
Truscott.
Abandoned where?
In open country,
25 miles south of Manchester?
In the middle of a field?
And a dead pigeon on the ground nearby.
Well, you'd better stay where you are
for the moment, I'll sort something out.
Try and find out who is responsible.
Ought we, Holmes, to have left it there?
We had no alternative, Watson.
The carrier pigeon that fell
dead of exhaustion at our feet
was unknown to either
of us carrying a message.
- Not...? - No.
- Not...
Yes! Lady Cynthia Bellingham's
rattlesnake has struck again.
We must get down there
with all possible speed.
Thank heaven it wasn't you.
God knowns who else will be struck
down before they finally get here.
Just have faith, Rupert,
for a little longer.
They're on their way, of that I'm sure.
As soon as we can establish ownership, sir.
We would like it, sir.
As a present, for my sister.
Yes. Well. Once we find
whoever put it there,
if they don't want it, it's yours.
Probably 95 miles away by now,
in the middle of nowhere,
and still going strong.
My guess is worth
the paper it's written on.
Or on their way back,
after making a prize bloomer,
they probably ended up in Inverness!
But it was the 10.15, it left from
platform 9, it had a restaurant car.
You confused Euston
with Paddington, Holmes.
An easy enough thing
to do if you're in a hurry.
Blue murder is likely as not
being done upon the moors
at this very moment,
and we end up in Inverness!
I'm an impetuous fool, Watson,
as you've so often told me,
and should be locked up
for my own good.
You mustn't reproach yourself,
my dear fellow.
All London railway termini
look pretty much alike
at 10.15 in the morning,
and never more so than to a man
who is wearing his deerstalker
pulled down too far over his eyes,
as you are apt to do
to preserve your incognito.
I shall get rid of it, Watson, at the very
first opportunity that presents itself,
lest it land us in an
even worse predicament,
if that were possible, than the
one in which we find ourselves.
What better moment than now, Holmes.
You are right, Watson.
Holmes, he is on to us!
Hurry! Hurry!
But... but... but what was it doing,
Holmes, sewn into the lining.
Well, Watson...
Suffice it to say that it was,
and that without it,
we have no means of knowing Lady
Cynthia Bellingham-Detchet's address.
It is imperative therefore that we go back
to retrieve it, before somebody else does.
Yes, Mr. Ripper, yes.
Well, we've already got several statements
from you, but if you want to make another one...
That's Chapel with one P?
Let us hope and pray nothing
has happened to divert them!
And that they may be yet in time
to exorcise this dreadful curse!
Oh, do stop pacing mother.
It's three days now
since they left Paddington.
They must be here within the hour.
Heaven grant, they may be.
What an extraordinary coincidence, Holmes,
that your deerstalker
should have landed where it did.
Extraordinary indeed, Watson.
And that the gentlemen who so courteously handed
it back to you, should have been a Chinese mandarin.
Bearing un uncanny resemblance
to Dr. Fu Manchu
in a secondary B-film
of the year 1933 or thereabout.
The likeness did not escape me, Watson.
He is indeed a Chinese mandarin,
and one very much of the old school.
He has moreover,
unless I'm very much mistaken,
spent the last 25 years
in hiding in the Chinese jungle,
from which he has but recently emerged,
only to discover that a Marx
Leninist regime has taken over.
But how on earth did you
deduce that, Holmes?
Elementary, my dear Watson.
You no doubt failed to observe
the tell-tale mud stains
on the man's left sleeve,
Stains that could only have come about
as a result of his having
leaned his left elbow
into a fairly large swamp
comparatively recently,
of the type to be found in
southern China and nowhere else.
And now, in order to curry
favour with the new regime,
he has hit upon the plan of returning
there armed with five dead solicitors,
slumped over their desks,
and offering them
as the piece de resistance
in the people's palace in Peking.
Your reasoning does your credit, Watson.
In the meantime, we must
act swiftly. The more so,
as we appear to be travelling in the wrong
direction unless my eyes are deceiving me.
The devil, we are!
Driver!
The 5.15 from Paddington?
Arrived, and gone?
But they must have been on it!
What, neither of them?
They were nei...
Oh, my god...
It's the curse! The curse
of the Bellinghem-Datchets.
Oh, alas! Alas!
Yes, madam, but if it's the curse
of the Bellinghem-Datchets,
there's not very much we can do about it.
Well, I should just try and
keep out of its way, madam.
I see. Well, try and keep it
talking as long as you can,
and we'll be down there
as soon as possible.
Yes?
- That solves our dead solicitors.
And someone calling themselves Fu Manchu.
Fu Manchu...
Well, they've got them down at the...
...they're crated up at the airport, you
know, down, and ready to be loaded.
Until we can find a flaw in their
export order, we're hamstrung.
Do you think I should perhaps...
Yes, yes, get down there, keep an eye.
If only we knew where Holmes was.
Did I ever tell you the story
of my first marriage?
Well, I was a young girl of 17...
Well, 21.
I've got it, Watson!
A travelling optician,
someone with a limp,
who has been in India for a number
of years and is partial to snuff.
Now where would such a fellow
be likely to hang out?
- Well...
- He was once married to a tightrope walker
and is a piano tuner by profession.
Piano tuner! Fool that I am!
Come on John!
There's not a moment to lose!
You've fallen out of the train!
Frank Potter.
One time piano tuner, now going straight.
Is he the culprit, Holmes?
No Watson, I greatly doubt it,
but I have a very strong feeling
he may be able to lead us to him.
I was once able to do
Frank Potter a favour,
and on occasion he's been able
to do one for me. We shall see.
- Yes?
- Good grief, it's Mother Goose!
- Or... a master of disguise.
- Not...
Yes, Watson, this man is no more
Mother Goose than you or I. This...
...is Moriarty, alias Frank Potter...
...reformed piano tuner.
- Is this true?
Yes, I'm afraid Mr. Holmes has penetrated
my little disguise, you'd better come in.
You're in a bit of a disguise
yourself, I see, Mr. Holmes.
For the nonce, and in a manner
of speaking, Potter, yes.
Mr. Holmes has sustained a serious injury,
and should be at home and in bed.
Shouldn't we all, sir, provided
the company is alright then?
Hello dear, are you decent?
We've got visitors.
Do come though, Mr. Holmes.
- Thank you.
Watson...!
You'll be wondering,
why we are paying you
this unexpected visit,
no doubt, Potter?
Anything I can do, Mr. Holmes,
as long as it's legal.
Oh yes, it's legal alright.
Tell me Potter,
how long is it since you've tuned a piano?
Oh, Mr. Holmes.
Not piano tuning! Anything but that!
That's what got me inside for before!
I promised my old mother I wouldn't
tune another piano as long as I live,
and I haven't, Mr. Holmes. Don't ask
me to now, I beg of you, Mr. Holmes.
Would you change your mind
if Mr. Holmes were to tell you
it was a matter of life and death?
- In that order?
Yes, Potter, more is at stake
than you might imagine.
Good afternoon... sir.
Good afternoon... officer.
Here. What's in these?
In the crates? I don't know mate.
I mean, they don't tell us what's in them.
Message on the label.
The label, hey?
"Prosperous Old World Solicitor.
With knife in back. This way up."
Good, I knew I could rely upon you, Potter.
Come, we have no time to lose
if we are not to be too late.
Mr. Holmes, I can't go out in the
street with you dressed like this.
People might start looking at us.
Not if Watson here assumed
some equally outlandish disguise.
We shall than pass simply
as escaped lunatics from the asylum,
which I have already ascertained,
is only a mile and a half from here.
I have reason to believe, Lady Cynthia,
that they'll be with you within the hour.
In that case, Lady Cynthia, the only advice
I can give you, is to keep it talking.
You've been given that
advice already, I see, yes...
Lady Cynthia?
It must have got her.
What are you doing?
- They're on their way.
- Who are?
To the airport, Holmes and Watson.
Stopped on the way
to pick up a piano tuner,
and now they're all three
hot foot in pursuit of Fu Manchu.
Oh yes, sir.
I think I can see them coming now. I'll
ask them to speak to you. One moment sir.
One moment, sir.
God grant that we may
not be too late, Holmes.
- Excuse me, Mr. Moriarty?
- Yes.
- A phone call for you, sir.
- For me?
- Yes sir.
- Oh, do excuse me.
We'll see you later potter. Come on,
Watson. There is no time to lose.
Oh, you dealt with friend Potter
in a masterly manner, Holmes.
Your knowledge of the art of piano tuning
is more extensive then one would
have believed possible in anyone
other than a fulltime
professional piano tuner.
You must sometime practiced yourself?
I have dabbled, Watson, nothing more.
One can only wonder,
what a one-time piano tuner
dressed as Mother Goose, could possibly
be wanted for on the telephone.
Indeed, Watson.
Lew Grade.
Yes sir.
Really? Where are you?
You must have remarkably good eyesight,
to be able to see me from right up there.
Christmas pantomime where?
London Palladium?
Yes, of course.
Yes, Moriarty.
M-o-r...
Come on, Watson!
God, Holmes, as you so shrewdly
suspected, we are too late.
I think not, Watson.
Reverse the film!
Constable?
You've got to hand it to them.
Yes, they may be old-fashioned,
but by golly, they get results.
I imagine we shall get
the prime minister on the box.
Oh, likely enough.
It was a serious situation.
A situation, that was threatening
our whole way of life
in this country of ours today,
from which we have been saved,
at the 11th hour, to coin a phrase,
by the selfless act
of a dedicated film editor
and his technical team,
acting on instruction from...
Holmes! Sherlock Holmes!
Of Sherlock Holmes.
I and my colleagues in the government...
A well-deserved tribute, Holmes.
And a triumphant ending to a day,
that began so inauspiciously.
and been marked by so many
twists and turns of fate.
Marred only by the knowledge
that the rattlesnake is still at large.
Well, you can't win them all, Holmes.
One thing does still puzzle me.
How does Frank Potter fit into the story?
He doesn't, Watson.
He was a red herring, nothing more.
Then why... why...
Why waste so much time following him up?
It was a simple device,
Watson, to fill out the script,
which would otherwise have
been short by fully five minutes.
Your ingenuity, Holmes,
never ceases to amaze me.
Elementary, my dear Watson.
solves new murder mystery.
- Which Holmes is that?
- Sherlock, madam.
Holmes solves new murder mystery.
Read all about it,
Sherlock Holmes does it again.
HOLMES SOLVES BAFFLING MURDER MYSTERY
Mind still as keen as ever.
'Do with him on this new case.
Bound to call him in
on that sooner or later.
ELEMENTARY MY DEAR WATSON
WITH JOHN CLEESE HEREINAFTER
REFERRED TO AS SHERLOCK HOLMES
AND WILLIAM RUSHTON HEREINAFTER
REFERRED TO AS DR. WATSON
THE STRANGE CASE OF THE DEAD SOLLICITORS
Has anything like it happened before?
Not to him.
...its finger on it,
but there's something odd.
There's something not quite
right about the whole setup.
One gets a nose for these things.
Five identical old world solicitors,
lying in identical positions,
across identical desks,
with identical daggers in their backs.
It's not the sort of thing
that would happen by accident.
Mass [???]
That would seem the obvious explanation.
- But why?
- If only Holmes were here!
These devilled kidneys are
uncommonly appetising, Holmes.
The speciality of Mrs. Hudson, Watson,
home-grown by the very good lady herself,
and she is not a little proud of them,
as you will discover for yourself,
when she comes through
that door in precisely...
...two seconds from now, to see
whether we have finished our meal.
I fear it's going to be
one of those days, Holmes.
One of those days, Watson?
To what are you referring?
Why is your plate still on
the table in front of you?
Has Mrs. Hudson not been
in to clear it away?
No, no she has not, Holmes, no.
I must be losing my touch, Watson.
...expected, Holmes, that you retain powers
as exceptional as yours indefinitely?
They are bound to wane
with the passing of the years.
And yet you remain as staunch
a friend and ally as ever.
Well now, the situation
is an excellent one.
It enables me to neglect
my practice almost totally,
in order to go off on these wild
hare brained jaunts with you,
and at the same time still
live extremely comfortably.
It may well be, Watson, that you will
be accompanying me on yet another,
and, in the very immediate future.
Read that.
Unrequited passion,
all in love with the same woman.
Could be, could be.
I'm inclined to think
there's more behind it.
- Holmes.
- Yes. I think...
this is a case where we might ask for some
discreet cooperation from that quarter.
He may not solve it, but at least
he might give us a lead.
The young and beautiful Lady
Cynthia Bellingham-Datchet.
Yes, Watson, and she is
in desperate trouble.
Yes.
"My son Rupert, who in the event
of anything happening to my husband,
will succeed to the entire estate,
comprising some 29 000 acres
on the edge of Dartmoor,
has been given a warning bite in his sleep
by a particularly ferocious rattlesnake...
which he is certain he would recognise
if he were ever to see it again.
Please come quickly,
I am distraught. Lady Cynthia."
So you see, Watson,
why there is not a moment to lose.
Indeed I do, Holmes.
What year is it, Watson?
1973, Holmes.
We may well be too late.
Cab!
- Indestructible.
- Aren't they.
Watson.
Holmes, we seem to be creating
something of a stir.
I suspect we're a figment of these
good people's imagination, Watson.
They've been reading too much Conan Doyle.
I don't like it, Holmes.
It's an odd feeling.
- Nonsense, Watson.
You're becoming far too surrealistic
for your own good.
The important thing is that we should
be in time to get to the train
that will take us to Lady Cynthia
Bellingham-Datchet. Drive on, cabby!
Holmes! Holmes!
They've agreed to come! Thank heaven!
How long will they be, mother?
Barring unforeseen accidents,
shall be with you within the hour.
God grant they may be in time!
And that the dreaded rattlesnake may pay
us another visit while they are still here!
If it does, they will certainly unmask it.
And so end the curse that has hung over
the Bellingham Datchets since 1933.
Confounded Street,
this comes at a deucedly awkward moment.
All the same Mr. Holmes,
I think the rattlesnake can wait.
This can't.
Very well. Where are these
victims of unrequited passion?
Let us take a look at them.
- They are at Cockfoster's.
Holmes! Holmes!
NEW SCOTLAND YARD
Truscott.
Jack the who?
The Ripper?
Yes, what can I do for you, Mr. Ripper?
Go on!
Oh well, it takes all sorts.
Yes, if you're certain you want to
make a statement. Just a moment.
White where?
Chapel.
Yes...
- Perhaps they have been waylaid.
- Waylaid?
Oh, not waylaid perhaps, but side-tracked.
Why should they have been side-tracked?
It's just a premonition.
I have these premonitions.
Nonsense, mother. What could they
have possible been side-tracked by?
Well, who knows!
Some baffling problem involving
a group of solicitors
at Cockfoster's perhaps!
All lying slumped over their desks,
with daggers in their backs.
Is that likely, mother?
A baffling problem, Watson, but not
one I think that need detain us long.
We shall, I fancy, be with the unhappy Lady
Cynthia sooner than we might have feared.
But how did you reach
a conclusion so swiftly, Holmes?
The dagger, Watson.
Note the position of it and then
address yourself to the question...
...of how it could have got there.
Well...
...an heirloom perhaps?
Playing about with it in an
absent minded sort of way...
...and inadvertently...
No, Watson. It's more
difficult than it seems
to stab oneself in the back inadvertently,
while playing about with a
dagger in an absentminded way,
and I think we must look
for the solution elsewhere.
This is not his normal working position?
Oh no.
He hardly ever adopts it.
Except when he's slightly distraught.
But he hasn't been
distraught now for weeks.
And is unlikely to be so again, I fancy.
On the other hand, distraught or not,
supposing he were trying to find
something in one of the drawers here,
which curiously enough are
on the client side of the desk,
Would he not then lean
in some such way as this
across the top of the desk
in order so to do?
My god, Holmes, you've hit on it!
You formed a theory, Watson?
Well, I suppose it's obvious.
Angry client.
Someone with a grudge perhaps.
Turns the desk around in the night,
or has an accomplice to do it for him,
awaits his opportunity, and...
...ha!
An ingenious theory, Watson,
and one with more than
a grain of truth in it.
It would hold water admirably, were there only
one prosperous old world solicitor involved.
But as you will observe,
there are no fewer than...
...four!
One of them was probably
purloined in the night, Holmes?
Oh no, surely not. He was
there as are large as life.
I mean, as large as...
- Don't distress yourself, my dear.
When I locked up last night I was most careful
to count, and there were five of them then.
Perhaps my friend and I
could be permitted to take
one of the remaining four
with us for examination.
Oh yes, please do. I shall be
glad to see the back of them.
They're all going to have
to go to scrap anyway.
Unless suddenly someone
takes a fancy to them,
or wants to use them as mystery object
of the week on "Call my bluff".
Could what that good woman
said possibly be true, Holmes?
Yes Watson, I'm afraid it could.
But who, Holmes, who,
who would sink so low,
as to steal a dead solicitor in the night,
in order to enter him as a mystery
object of the week on "Call my bluff"?
I fear, Watson, the world
is a far, far blacker place
than you and your kindly innocence
are prone to imagine.
But, Holmes, what of the
other four, of this is one?
Done to death for no other reason,
than to divert attention away
from the true purpose
behind this whole fiendish exercise.
Monstrous.
It is indeed monstrous, Watson,
and I very much fear we may
be too late to prevent it.
What sort of mind could heave such a plan?
Holmes!
Are you sure this is
the way to Shepherd's Bush?
My dear Watson, it is not for
Shepherd's Bush that we are making.
That particular program
comes from Manchester,
and it is to Manchester accordingly
that we are going.
Hand me pigeon we have
for special decoy duty.
Fly, little one!
Holmes...
Is it absolutely essential
that we go to Manchester?
It is only by comparing the object
that we have before us, Watson,
with the almost identical object
the team will shortly have before them
in the studio as mystery
object of the week,
that we can be sure that we
are not on a wild goose chase.
What if we are too late?
God grant that we may not be!
And so as we've seen, "able wacket"
does indeed mean a pixie's biblo.
At this point of the program
we come to our small variation,
and instead of a word, we have an object.
It's got a black coat and striped trousers,
and it's slumped across a desk,
and it's got a knife
sticking out of its back.
Dawn Adams, what do you say about this?
I think it is a travelling
showman's hoopla stall.
You see, they would set up this
object in the middle of a field,
and passers-by would throw rings at it,
and hope to get three rings all over
that sort of thing sticking
up in the middle.
It's a travelling fairground
entertainers' hoopla stall.
I should never have thought of that.
Alan Cord?
A dead solicitor.
In imperial China in the 19th century,
these objects were much prised
as conversation pieces,
Objects to have around the place.
People of oriental extraction in England
tended to export them
places like Shanghai.
It probably fell of the back of a lorry
on the way to a pigeon fancier's loft.
but that's what it is, it's an
art object from imperial China.
- Frank.
- You don't see these so much nowadays.
Just after the first world war,
you got a lot of them.
They were a sort of practical garden gnome.
In small townhouses,
they could get a clothesline
on the one tree there,
but they had no way
to fix the other end of the line.
So they had these rather
lovely objects on the grass,
and the other end of the cord was
tied around the projecting part there,
and then the thing was pulled
until the line was tight.
It's a...
...clothesline straightener,
about 1922 perhaps.
Percy, which do you fancy?
I've got a terrible suspicion
that they're all right.
Depends which angle
you look at them, probably.
From here it looks like my uncle Theodore.
It certainly isn't a dead solicitor.
No, it must be Dawn Adams'
itinerant travelling hoopla stall.
Right, Dawn.
True or bluff?
BLUFF
- Oh, no!
I think you may have earned the true
description of the provenance of this object.
VERDAD
It's not the first time
I've played the game, you know!
It may well be the last time.
What's the number?
Whitehall 1212.
- I thought they'd changed it.
- Not as far as I know, sir.
Jack the who?
I see. Another one.
Are you sure you want to make
a statement, Mr. Ripper?
Oh well, just a moment then
while I get a pencil and paper.
Thank you.
Down what Chapel way?
White. Yes.
- Tea?
- Thank you.
Yes, I see.
Excuse me.
Truscott.
Abandoned where?
In open country,
25 miles south of Manchester?
In the middle of a field?
And a dead pigeon on the ground nearby.
Well, you'd better stay where you are
for the moment, I'll sort something out.
Try and find out who is responsible.
Ought we, Holmes, to have left it there?
We had no alternative, Watson.
The carrier pigeon that fell
dead of exhaustion at our feet
was unknown to either
of us carrying a message.
- Not...? - No.
- Not...
Yes! Lady Cynthia Bellingham's
rattlesnake has struck again.
We must get down there
with all possible speed.
Thank heaven it wasn't you.
God knowns who else will be struck
down before they finally get here.
Just have faith, Rupert,
for a little longer.
They're on their way, of that I'm sure.
As soon as we can establish ownership, sir.
We would like it, sir.
As a present, for my sister.
Yes. Well. Once we find
whoever put it there,
if they don't want it, it's yours.
Probably 95 miles away by now,
in the middle of nowhere,
and still going strong.
My guess is worth
the paper it's written on.
Or on their way back,
after making a prize bloomer,
they probably ended up in Inverness!
But it was the 10.15, it left from
platform 9, it had a restaurant car.
You confused Euston
with Paddington, Holmes.
An easy enough thing
to do if you're in a hurry.
Blue murder is likely as not
being done upon the moors
at this very moment,
and we end up in Inverness!
I'm an impetuous fool, Watson,
as you've so often told me,
and should be locked up
for my own good.
You mustn't reproach yourself,
my dear fellow.
All London railway termini
look pretty much alike
at 10.15 in the morning,
and never more so than to a man
who is wearing his deerstalker
pulled down too far over his eyes,
as you are apt to do
to preserve your incognito.
I shall get rid of it, Watson, at the very
first opportunity that presents itself,
lest it land us in an
even worse predicament,
if that were possible, than the
one in which we find ourselves.
What better moment than now, Holmes.
You are right, Watson.
Holmes, he is on to us!
Hurry! Hurry!
But... but... but what was it doing,
Holmes, sewn into the lining.
Well, Watson...
Suffice it to say that it was,
and that without it,
we have no means of knowing Lady
Cynthia Bellingham-Detchet's address.
It is imperative therefore that we go back
to retrieve it, before somebody else does.
Yes, Mr. Ripper, yes.
Well, we've already got several statements
from you, but if you want to make another one...
That's Chapel with one P?
Let us hope and pray nothing
has happened to divert them!
And that they may be yet in time
to exorcise this dreadful curse!
Oh, do stop pacing mother.
It's three days now
since they left Paddington.
They must be here within the hour.
Heaven grant, they may be.
What an extraordinary coincidence, Holmes,
that your deerstalker
should have landed where it did.
Extraordinary indeed, Watson.
And that the gentlemen who so courteously handed
it back to you, should have been a Chinese mandarin.
Bearing un uncanny resemblance
to Dr. Fu Manchu
in a secondary B-film
of the year 1933 or thereabout.
The likeness did not escape me, Watson.
He is indeed a Chinese mandarin,
and one very much of the old school.
He has moreover,
unless I'm very much mistaken,
spent the last 25 years
in hiding in the Chinese jungle,
from which he has but recently emerged,
only to discover that a Marx
Leninist regime has taken over.
But how on earth did you
deduce that, Holmes?
Elementary, my dear Watson.
You no doubt failed to observe
the tell-tale mud stains
on the man's left sleeve,
Stains that could only have come about
as a result of his having
leaned his left elbow
into a fairly large swamp
comparatively recently,
of the type to be found in
southern China and nowhere else.
And now, in order to curry
favour with the new regime,
he has hit upon the plan of returning
there armed with five dead solicitors,
slumped over their desks,
and offering them
as the piece de resistance
in the people's palace in Peking.
Your reasoning does your credit, Watson.
In the meantime, we must
act swiftly. The more so,
as we appear to be travelling in the wrong
direction unless my eyes are deceiving me.
The devil, we are!
Driver!
The 5.15 from Paddington?
Arrived, and gone?
But they must have been on it!
What, neither of them?
They were nei...
Oh, my god...
It's the curse! The curse
of the Bellinghem-Datchets.
Oh, alas! Alas!
Yes, madam, but if it's the curse
of the Bellinghem-Datchets,
there's not very much we can do about it.
Well, I should just try and
keep out of its way, madam.
I see. Well, try and keep it
talking as long as you can,
and we'll be down there
as soon as possible.
Yes?
- That solves our dead solicitors.
And someone calling themselves Fu Manchu.
Fu Manchu...
Well, they've got them down at the...
...they're crated up at the airport, you
know, down, and ready to be loaded.
Until we can find a flaw in their
export order, we're hamstrung.
Do you think I should perhaps...
Yes, yes, get down there, keep an eye.
If only we knew where Holmes was.
Did I ever tell you the story
of my first marriage?
Well, I was a young girl of 17...
Well, 21.
I've got it, Watson!
A travelling optician,
someone with a limp,
who has been in India for a number
of years and is partial to snuff.
Now where would such a fellow
be likely to hang out?
- Well...
- He was once married to a tightrope walker
and is a piano tuner by profession.
Piano tuner! Fool that I am!
Come on John!
There's not a moment to lose!
You've fallen out of the train!
Frank Potter.
One time piano tuner, now going straight.
Is he the culprit, Holmes?
No Watson, I greatly doubt it,
but I have a very strong feeling
he may be able to lead us to him.
I was once able to do
Frank Potter a favour,
and on occasion he's been able
to do one for me. We shall see.
- Yes?
- Good grief, it's Mother Goose!
- Or... a master of disguise.
- Not...
Yes, Watson, this man is no more
Mother Goose than you or I. This...
...is Moriarty, alias Frank Potter...
...reformed piano tuner.
- Is this true?
Yes, I'm afraid Mr. Holmes has penetrated
my little disguise, you'd better come in.
You're in a bit of a disguise
yourself, I see, Mr. Holmes.
For the nonce, and in a manner
of speaking, Potter, yes.
Mr. Holmes has sustained a serious injury,
and should be at home and in bed.
Shouldn't we all, sir, provided
the company is alright then?
Hello dear, are you decent?
We've got visitors.
Do come though, Mr. Holmes.
- Thank you.
Watson...!
You'll be wondering,
why we are paying you
this unexpected visit,
no doubt, Potter?
Anything I can do, Mr. Holmes,
as long as it's legal.
Oh yes, it's legal alright.
Tell me Potter,
how long is it since you've tuned a piano?
Oh, Mr. Holmes.
Not piano tuning! Anything but that!
That's what got me inside for before!
I promised my old mother I wouldn't
tune another piano as long as I live,
and I haven't, Mr. Holmes. Don't ask
me to now, I beg of you, Mr. Holmes.
Would you change your mind
if Mr. Holmes were to tell you
it was a matter of life and death?
- In that order?
Yes, Potter, more is at stake
than you might imagine.
Good afternoon... sir.
Good afternoon... officer.
Here. What's in these?
In the crates? I don't know mate.
I mean, they don't tell us what's in them.
Message on the label.
The label, hey?
"Prosperous Old World Solicitor.
With knife in back. This way up."
Good, I knew I could rely upon you, Potter.
Come, we have no time to lose
if we are not to be too late.
Mr. Holmes, I can't go out in the
street with you dressed like this.
People might start looking at us.
Not if Watson here assumed
some equally outlandish disguise.
We shall than pass simply
as escaped lunatics from the asylum,
which I have already ascertained,
is only a mile and a half from here.
I have reason to believe, Lady Cynthia,
that they'll be with you within the hour.
In that case, Lady Cynthia, the only advice
I can give you, is to keep it talking.
You've been given that
advice already, I see, yes...
Lady Cynthia?
It must have got her.
What are you doing?
- They're on their way.
- Who are?
To the airport, Holmes and Watson.
Stopped on the way
to pick up a piano tuner,
and now they're all three
hot foot in pursuit of Fu Manchu.
Oh yes, sir.
I think I can see them coming now. I'll
ask them to speak to you. One moment sir.
One moment, sir.
God grant that we may
not be too late, Holmes.
- Excuse me, Mr. Moriarty?
- Yes.
- A phone call for you, sir.
- For me?
- Yes sir.
- Oh, do excuse me.
We'll see you later potter. Come on,
Watson. There is no time to lose.
Oh, you dealt with friend Potter
in a masterly manner, Holmes.
Your knowledge of the art of piano tuning
is more extensive then one would
have believed possible in anyone
other than a fulltime
professional piano tuner.
You must sometime practiced yourself?
I have dabbled, Watson, nothing more.
One can only wonder,
what a one-time piano tuner
dressed as Mother Goose, could possibly
be wanted for on the telephone.
Indeed, Watson.
Lew Grade.
Yes sir.
Really? Where are you?
You must have remarkably good eyesight,
to be able to see me from right up there.
Christmas pantomime where?
London Palladium?
Yes, of course.
Yes, Moriarty.
M-o-r...
Come on, Watson!
God, Holmes, as you so shrewdly
suspected, we are too late.
I think not, Watson.
Reverse the film!
Constable?
You've got to hand it to them.
Yes, they may be old-fashioned,
but by golly, they get results.
I imagine we shall get
the prime minister on the box.
Oh, likely enough.
It was a serious situation.
A situation, that was threatening
our whole way of life
in this country of ours today,
from which we have been saved,
at the 11th hour, to coin a phrase,
by the selfless act
of a dedicated film editor
and his technical team,
acting on instruction from...
Holmes! Sherlock Holmes!
Of Sherlock Holmes.
I and my colleagues in the government...
A well-deserved tribute, Holmes.
And a triumphant ending to a day,
that began so inauspiciously.
and been marked by so many
twists and turns of fate.
Marred only by the knowledge
that the rattlesnake is still at large.
Well, you can't win them all, Holmes.
One thing does still puzzle me.
How does Frank Potter fit into the story?
He doesn't, Watson.
He was a red herring, nothing more.
Then why... why...
Why waste so much time following him up?
It was a simple device,
Watson, to fill out the script,
which would otherwise have
been short by fully five minutes.
Your ingenuity, Holmes,
never ceases to amaze me.
Elementary, my dear Watson.