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cimoreneSo, continuing to watch and screencap my Granada Holmes episodes today! Because the box sets are packaged differently in North America and in northern Europe, I thought I had seen all the episodes in the Granada Sherlock Holmes "Movie Box", but I had not.
"The Master Blackmailer" is an extended 100ish-minute version of the Return short story "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton". There are a lot of Holmes/Watson stories out there which deal with blackmail, because the blackmailer, that vile creature, is particularly dangerous in the context of Victorian homosexuality - since it was still illegal.
This episode, however, is remarkable. To think it should have been one of my favorites all along, but I didn't even know it! This is not as adorable as "The Six Napoleons", nor as romantic as "The Devil's Foot", but it is one of the most intensely established-relationshippy episodes, I think, and has lots of really funny parts - besides which it adds context to the whole thing where Holmes flirts with Milverton's housemaid for information, and that was badly needed. Brett's Holmes feels badly about it, but it's also quite clear that his rival for her affections is ready and more than willing to step in. Besides which, the maid is saucy and rather charming, and Holmes's scenes with her are hilarious. It also adds homosexuality explicitly, which I think is good on the whole, even though the gay couple turns out Evil and Dead (respectively). But yay for the drag show!
Aggie, housemaid to Mr. Charles Augustus Milverton, is played by Sophie Thompson (Miss Bates in the 1996 Emma starring Gwyneth Paltrow). She and her pal, the mastiff, approach Mr. Milverton's study from the terrace and overhear part of an argument with a blackmailee. Then she turns and flees again. (The friendly mastiff is quite a nice touch, as is taking the chance to humanize Aggie a bit as the dramatization does. In "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" she gets used for information without even appearing in person on the page.)
The scene shifts. We see Watson lurking in an attitude of boredom at a dried-up stone fountain, very much like the clusters of young men you always see outside clothing stores at the mall.
Holmes is revealed to be talking to a rich little old lady and her companion. The little old lady is mumbling something about evil blackmailers and how Holmes should stop them, I think. As he listens to her and flips through the book she gave him, Watson continues to whistle, shuffle his feet, stare around him, and all but tap his pocket watch, until finally Holmes finishes his errand and consents to return to the waiting hack with him. At home once more, they reflect that there's not much they can do since they don't even know the name of the dastardly blackmailer they're supposed to catch.
A typical victim scene is next, of an idyllic Victorian picnic, where a young lady is showing off her fiancée, a Col. in a very nice army outfit, to her friends.
Unfortunately, the next time we see her fiancée is at a drag show mouthing "I love you!" to the queen dressed as a Klimt painting. While watching the show he gets a note on a silver tray; it's from Charles Augustus Milverton, sitting in the back of the club. He demands money; the young man gets angry, screams at him, and tries to attack him. Later he stops by his paramour's dressing room. "How could you?" he demands. The drag queen - we'll call him Queen Evil Gay - is half out of costume and removing a stocking with evil deliberation at a dressing table; he laughs at the unfortunate Col. and has him thrown out into the street, where he is roughed up by Milverton's men before being tossed in an alley. He doesn't pay, and a few scenes later his gay love letters are delivered to his fiancée right in the middle of a party.
She breaks up with him on the spot.
Meanwhile, we have a glimpse of Holmes and Watson at home. (The scene was ill-lit, and is therefore not represented with any screencaps.) Holmes stands at the window, apparently paying no attention, as Watson, cross-legged before the hearth and surrounded with folded up newspapers, reads aloud a few stories.
Next, Col. Evil But Not Gay kills himself, after writing a handful of letters. When the police arrive, his bâtman sneaks the letter addressed to Mr. Sherlock Holmes out of the stack and delivers it by hand before they can take it away. (Good man!)
"Hey, Col. Evil But Not Gay killed himself!" says Watson, reading the newspaper, while Holmes scans the letter and tucks an enclosure into his waistcoat pocket. "Who was engaged to Miss Charlotte Somethingorother - see, I was listening to you," says Holmes.
Lestrade bursts in. (I love Lestrade! Especially his squirrelly little rodent face! ♥) It goes something like this:
Holmes and Watson visit the address on the card in order to case the joint. It turns out to be fairly uncaseable, being encircled in gigantic spike-topped brick walls all the way around.
Watson is dressing for dinner in a tuxedo in front of the mirror. "If I'm not invited, how am I supposed to get into the party to find out information about Milverton for you, Holmes? Holmes?" No answer. He walks out into the sitting room and finds it deserted - but an invitation (of who-knows-what provenance) is on the mantel.
He accordingly attends a party for the unveiling of a painting of Lady Diana Swinstead, a wealthy society matron whose husband has just died of a stroke. Coincidentally, her god-daughter, Lady Eva Blackwell, is the client from the original short-story and thus obviously C.A.M.'s next victim.
Meanwhile Holmes puts on his laborer's costume and hits up a local pub next to Milverton's house in order to meet the servants.
In the guise of a plumber, he meets the housemaid Aggie, and because she is in need of a plumber and thinks he is cute, she invites him to come over.
The footman, Robert, is in love with Aggie, so when the butler (C.A.M.'s sinister right-hand man - you know he's evil by his facial scar) comes in, he says he called for a plumber to protect her; and the butler maintains that he had no right, but meanwhile Holmes is banging on the bottom of the kitchen sink, and unleashes a flood of disgusting, slimy green stuff all over the top of his head. The butler shuts up.
Aggie jumps up on a table and swings her feet to show Holmes her ankles. (And her shoes!)
The next time we see Holmes he's in the bath, but since daylight is coming through the curtains in the same scene, I must conclude it is sometime in the next few days, and the scummy water has continued. Since he manages to keep plumbing for probably a week or so, it's probably safe to guess that he needed several baths.
The door between the bathroom and dressing room is open and while Holmes bathes, Watson is getting dressed. Since it appears to be the middle of the day, I can only conclude that they have been having sex, since Watson is not one to lie around in his pyjamas all day while Holmes is out doing plumbing. They exchange information; then Watson pours hot water from a Samovar into a glass for Holmes - tea? coffee? - who comes out in a cloud of steam, wrapped in an actual bathsheet head to toe, and they settle in front of the fire, exchanging smiles and probably some kind of quip but I don't remember, cause I was like this ♥_♥. This is a really est-rel episode. (Well, obviously, because it's set during The Return.)
Now we see Holmes as the plumber getting information from Aggie as they stroll off the terrace and back into the grounds.
Then she flings herself on him. Holmes's stiffness and confusion when confronted with girlflesh, especially touching him, is always hilarious. It's kind of like this:
Some stuff happens. Lady Eva Blackwell gets her first blackmail note and starts to get depressed about it. We see her worrying about it on several occasions. Holmes still doesn't know she is the next victim. He takes Watson to visit a skeezy guy who owns a French nightclub and used to work with Milverton.
Holmes convinces him that Watson has confidential information he wants to sell to Milverton, and eventually gets the name of Lady Eva out of him.
Meanwhile, Watson, lurking uncomfortably by the bar, is getting molested by a strange woman. He looks about as distressed by these attentions as Holmes does by Aggie's, actually.
Riding in a carriage, looking like BAMFs.
Holmes takes Watson to stake out Hyde Park because Lady Eva is known to ride there and they hope to contact her.
In fact, she is riding with her fiancée the Earl, when she spots C.A.M. stalking her from his nasty Carriage of Evil.
She faints.
Watson rushes to help and Holmes grabs her and her fiancée's horses. They walk to Lady Diana Swinstead's house to let her recover.
Holmes expresses his condolences for the death of Lady Diana's husband.
Now he's really determined to get this asshole.
Holmes & Watson stop by the Symbolic Reptile House on their way home to talk about how evil Milverton is while staring at a big snake.
Holmes in his plumber guise is casing the joint some more from behind the foliage when Aggie tackles him to the ground, straddles his groin, sticks her face into his, and acts alarmingly close to kissing him. (You can see he is alarmed.)
He takes Holmes by surprise and gains the upper hand for a few seconds, but then Aggie throws herself at his lower legs and Holmes downs him with a karate chop to the neck. The dog is barking like crazy and the Evil Butler comes to investigate, but when Aggie turns to Holmes to explain he has vanished.
Back at Baker Street, Holmes gazes out the window at the rain while Watson reads the paper.
HOLMES: Watson, you will be interested to hear that I am engaged to be married.
WATSON [not paying attention]: Oh, yes?
HOLMES: To Milverton's house-maid.
WATSON: Good heavens!
HOLMES: I needed information.
WATSON: Surely you've gone too far!
HOLMES, glumly: It was a most necessary step. I've walked with her... talked with her... heavens, those talks!
WATSON: But the girl!
HOLMES: It can't be helped, Watson. One must play one's cards as best one can when such a stake is on the table. However! I rejoice to tell you I have a hated rival, who will cut me out the moment my back is turned!
This allays the worst of WATSON's misgivings and he turns back to his paper.
Then Lady Eva arrives to ask for Holmes's help. Finally.
Lady Eva's letters were to a former suitor back in the country who wasn't rich enough. He sent them back to her and she had hidden them in a trunk, but her maid found them and sold them to Milverton. She can't afford his ransom, not being at all rich, and the wedding is next week, and the bridegroom thinks she's an angel and she can't bear to disappoint him - etc, etc.
Holmes asks to be engaged on her behalf to negotiate with Milverton, and she agrees.
Holmes writes a note to Milverton, asking him to pay them a visit at Baker Street to negotiate.
Milverton does. Wearing a pimp coat.
Holmes tries to bargain him down to a lower price and fails. Then they hold a gun on him and go through his pockets, but he doesn't have the letter. They let him go. In the meantime, some random dude has gone at his carriage with an axe.
The Honourable Charlotte Somethingorother is back from the Continent. It didn't help her forget her fiancée's suicide after all, but she's got her shit together. She and Lady Eva are in the gallery. Watson tries to offer condolences, but she's all, "I've got this."
Then Holmes takes Lady Eva aside and says he can handle everything if she is willing to invite him, Watson, and Milverton to the giant ball her fiancée is throwing two days before the wedding - the day the money was due. She says go for it.
Milverton is in an evil conservatory full of giant leafy plants and bits of priceless Roman sculpture, enthroned in a wicker chair. Holmes comes in and says that his client can pay the full sum of £7000 if the deadline is pushed back one day. Milverton shows up at the ball, and Holmes will meet him the next morning with the cash. Milverton agrees.
It's a tense few days.
Watson, looking very fetching in his tux again, waits for Holmes to get ready while he pores over their housebreaking implements laid out on the table. He adds strips of black silk to the implements already there - a bowl, a lump of clay, a sharp knife, a vast number of lock picks, a spy glass, a sharp grappling hook and length of rope. He begins to load all these into his medical bag.
Holmes's line "I can see you have a strong natural turn for this sort of thing!" is from the short story.
Weirdly, when Milverton leaves for the ball, and stops to tell his butler to take the usual precautions... the butler covers Milverton's hand on the carriage door. What the hell? Is this trying to hint at yet another Evil Gay thing? I mean, that's hardly a normal gesture for a butler. We are given to understand that the dude got his post because he was the footman of a victim and threw himself between Milverton and a bullet. Hmmmm. Well, whatever.
At the ball, Lady Diana Swinstead is extremely surprised to see Milverton there.
Holmes makes sure Milverton notices their presence by striking up a conversation.
Then he and Watson leave, making for Milverton's place for a spot of breaking and entering! But unbenknownst to them, Milverton has received a note at the party, and he leaves early too.
In the carriage, Holmes sings something nonsensical to himself.
Milverton beats them to his house and tells the butler he's expecting guests in half an hour. He then goes up to his office, but leaves it again at once to play billiards, locking it behind him.
Housebreaking Holmes!
After climbing up to the window, he traces round the bowl with the knife and pulls the circle of glass out soundlessly with the lump of sticky clay. He reaches through the hole to unlatch the window.
Holmes goes to work on the safe with the lockpicks, but time is running short.
Milverton, in his monogrammed slippers and accompanied by one of the Fluffy Cats of Evil, begins making his way toward the office for his appointment.
Holmes and Watson watch from a curtained alcove inside the room while Milverton paces back and forth in front of the safe, not even noticing that a lock pick is still sticking out of it.
Milverton's guest is in black, wearing a floor-length black spangled veil. He thinks she is a maid wanting to sell some papers belonging to a Countess. But in fact she is... LADY DIANA SWINSTEAD!
She is one of his past victims. She harangues him for destroying her life and her husband's happiness many years ago.
Then she shoots him. Five times. She stands there, watching him slump to the floor, gurgling, then shoots him again for good measure and grinds her foot into his face.
Watson shuts his eyes. Holmes watches. Then she leaves the same way she came in.
HOLMES: Quick! The safe!
Our heroes spring into action, stuffing the contents of the safe into the fire, even though the shots have roused the house and the servants are streaming upstairs. They keep at it while the first blows of the axe split the door.
Holmes picks up one of Lady Diana's ornaments as he goes, leaving no evidence.
They cross the terrace and take the same path into the grounds Holmes took with Aggie, with Holmes in the lead. This is why he makes it over the fence first, while the butler nearly catches Watson and Watson has to kick him in the face to get him to fall back to the ground.
Holmes strides proudly away. Watson stumbles after, a little the worse for wear after his struggle at the fence.
They attend the auction of Milverton's stuff.
The asshole from the French nightclub bids on a bust of Athene, so Holmes outbids him and buys it. For £100. He takes it home and smashes it with a sledge-hammer.
Holmes appears to go to sleep. Watson sharpens a pen.
HOLMES: No! There was some really embarrassing shit this time. Don't write it.
Holmes makes a lot of faces and Watson stares at him. He obviously wrote it, but perhaps this expains why he left some stuff out.
"The Master Blackmailer" is an extended 100ish-minute version of the Return short story "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton". There are a lot of Holmes/Watson stories out there which deal with blackmail, because the blackmailer, that vile creature, is particularly dangerous in the context of Victorian homosexuality - since it was still illegal.
This episode, however, is remarkable. To think it should have been one of my favorites all along, but I didn't even know it! This is not as adorable as "The Six Napoleons", nor as romantic as "The Devil's Foot", but it is one of the most intensely established-relationshippy episodes, I think, and has lots of really funny parts - besides which it adds context to the whole thing where Holmes flirts with Milverton's housemaid for information, and that was badly needed. Brett's Holmes feels badly about it, but it's also quite clear that his rival for her affections is ready and more than willing to step in. Besides which, the maid is saucy and rather charming, and Holmes's scenes with her are hilarious. It also adds homosexuality explicitly, which I think is good on the whole, even though the gay couple turns out Evil and Dead (respectively). But yay for the drag show!
Aggie, housemaid to Mr. Charles Augustus Milverton, is played by Sophie Thompson (Miss Bates in the 1996 Emma starring Gwyneth Paltrow). She and her pal, the mastiff, approach Mr. Milverton's study from the terrace and overhear part of an argument with a blackmailee. Then she turns and flees again. (The friendly mastiff is quite a nice touch, as is taking the chance to humanize Aggie a bit as the dramatization does. In "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" she gets used for information without even appearing in person on the page.)
The scene shifts. We see Watson lurking in an attitude of boredom at a dried-up stone fountain, very much like the clusters of young men you always see outside clothing stores at the mall.
Holmes is revealed to be talking to a rich little old lady and her companion. The little old lady is mumbling something about evil blackmailers and how Holmes should stop them, I think. As he listens to her and flips through the book she gave him, Watson continues to whistle, shuffle his feet, stare around him, and all but tap his pocket watch, until finally Holmes finishes his errand and consents to return to the waiting hack with him. At home once more, they reflect that there's not much they can do since they don't even know the name of the dastardly blackmailer they're supposed to catch.
A typical victim scene is next, of an idyllic Victorian picnic, where a young lady is showing off her fiancée, a Col. in a very nice army outfit, to her friends.
Unfortunately, the next time we see her fiancée is at a drag show mouthing "I love you!" to the queen dressed as a Klimt painting. While watching the show he gets a note on a silver tray; it's from Charles Augustus Milverton, sitting in the back of the club. He demands money; the young man gets angry, screams at him, and tries to attack him. Later he stops by his paramour's dressing room. "How could you?" he demands. The drag queen - we'll call him Queen Evil Gay - is half out of costume and removing a stocking with evil deliberation at a dressing table; he laughs at the unfortunate Col. and has him thrown out into the street, where he is roughed up by Milverton's men before being tossed in an alley. He doesn't pay, and a few scenes later his gay love letters are delivered to his fiancée right in the middle of a party.
She breaks up with him on the spot.
Meanwhile, we have a glimpse of Holmes and Watson at home. (The scene was ill-lit, and is therefore not represented with any screencaps.) Holmes stands at the window, apparently paying no attention, as Watson, cross-legged before the hearth and surrounded with folded up newspapers, reads aloud a few stories.
WATSON: Seriously, are you even listening? I've been reading news out loud since eight this morning and you haven't even reacted once!
HOLMES: Yeah, and as soon as you find something remotely interesting, I will react!
WATSON: Oh look, a Col. Gay But Not Evil was engaged to be married in a couple of days to the Honourable Charlotte Somethingorother, but she's broken the engagement.
HOLMES: [ignores]
Next, Col. Evil But Not Gay kills himself, after writing a handful of letters. When the police arrive, his bâtman sneaks the letter addressed to Mr. Sherlock Holmes out of the stack and delivers it by hand before they can take it away. (Good man!)
"Hey, Col. Evil But Not Gay killed himself!" says Watson, reading the newspaper, while Holmes scans the letter and tucks an enclosure into his waistcoat pocket. "Who was engaged to Miss Charlotte Somethingorother - see, I was listening to you," says Holmes.
Lestrade bursts in. (I love Lestrade! Especially his squirrelly little rodent face! ♥) It goes something like this:
LESTRADE: OKAY, WHERE THE FUCK IS IT? You know what I'm talking about!
HOLMES: Not really. Have a seat?
LESTRADE: The letter written by Col. Evil But Not Gay before he died which was stolen from the scene and delivered to you not twenty minutes ago!
HOLMES: Oh, that.
LESTRADE: Hand it over!
HOLMES: Why?
LESTRADE: Why? It's evidence in an ongoing investigation!
HOLMES: What, you have no reason to suspect foul play surely?
LESTRADE: [beady eyes] HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT?
HOLMES: From the letter.
LESTRADE: [begins to look a little purple] GIVE. ME. THE. LETTER.
HOLMES: Well, it's not like I wanted it anyway. Besides, you won't learn anything from it. [He hands it over]
LESTRADE scans it eagerly, and WATSON looks over his shoulder.
LESTRADE: Hum. Being blackmailed!
HOLMES: Mm-hm.
LESTRADE: How do you know him?
HOLMES: Never heard of him, before the letter.
LESTRADE and HOLMES get in an EPIC STARE-DOWN. Finally LESTRADE gives up and leaves.
WATSON: It was funny, that, how he didn't name his blackmailer in the letter.
HOLMES: He did. This was enclosed in it. [whips business card out of his waistcoat pocket]
WATSON: [Reading] Charles Augustus Milverton... Art Dealer.
Holmes and Watson visit the address on the card in order to case the joint. It turns out to be fairly uncaseable, being encircled in gigantic spike-topped brick walls all the way around.
HOLMES: He's built himself his own prison!
WATSON: Well, he's a man who loathes the human race!
HOLMES: Why does he do that?
WATSON: Because, my dear Holmes, he was probably brought up all lonely... starved of affection... smart kid, of course... probably in one of London's outer suburbs... Holmes, are you okay? Why the sudden furtive look?
HOLMES: Me? Nothing. Certainly not that you struck a very personal nerve or anything. Hey, outer suburbs - why not Soho?
WATSON: Oh, no way. People in Soho are warm and loving!
HOLMES: Right, right.
Watson is dressing for dinner in a tuxedo in front of the mirror. "If I'm not invited, how am I supposed to get into the party to find out information about Milverton for you, Holmes? Holmes?" No answer. He walks out into the sitting room and finds it deserted - but an invitation (of who-knows-what provenance) is on the mantel.
He accordingly attends a party for the unveiling of a painting of Lady Diana Swinstead, a wealthy society matron whose husband has just died of a stroke. Coincidentally, her god-daughter, Lady Eva Blackwell, is the client from the original short-story and thus obviously C.A.M.'s next victim.
Meanwhile Holmes puts on his laborer's costume and hits up a local pub next to Milverton's house in order to meet the servants.
In the guise of a plumber, he meets the housemaid Aggie, and because she is in need of a plumber and thinks he is cute, she invites him to come over.
The footman, Robert, is in love with Aggie, so when the butler (C.A.M.'s sinister right-hand man - you know he's evil by his facial scar) comes in, he says he called for a plumber to protect her; and the butler maintains that he had no right, but meanwhile Holmes is banging on the bottom of the kitchen sink, and unleashes a flood of disgusting, slimy green stuff all over the top of his head. The butler shuts up.
Aggie jumps up on a table and swings her feet to show Holmes her ankles. (And her shoes!)
The next time we see Holmes he's in the bath, but since daylight is coming through the curtains in the same scene, I must conclude it is sometime in the next few days, and the scummy water has continued. Since he manages to keep plumbing for probably a week or so, it's probably safe to guess that he needed several baths.
The door between the bathroom and dressing room is open and while Holmes bathes, Watson is getting dressed. Since it appears to be the middle of the day, I can only conclude that they have been having sex, since Watson is not one to lie around in his pyjamas all day while Holmes is out doing plumbing. They exchange information; then Watson pours hot water from a Samovar into a glass for Holmes - tea? coffee? - who comes out in a cloud of steam, wrapped in an actual bathsheet head to toe, and they settle in front of the fire, exchanging smiles and probably some kind of quip but I don't remember, cause I was like this ♥_♥. This is a really est-rel episode. (Well, obviously, because it's set during The Return.)
Now we see Holmes as the plumber getting information from Aggie as they stroll off the terrace and back into the grounds.
Then she flings herself on him. Holmes's stiffness and confusion when confronted with girlflesh, especially touching him, is always hilarious. It's kind of like this:
AGGIE: Make out with me!
HOLMES: I don't know how. [This is an actual quote.]
Some stuff happens. Lady Eva Blackwell gets her first blackmail note and starts to get depressed about it. We see her worrying about it on several occasions. Holmes still doesn't know she is the next victim. He takes Watson to visit a skeezy guy who owns a French nightclub and used to work with Milverton.
Holmes convinces him that Watson has confidential information he wants to sell to Milverton, and eventually gets the name of Lady Eva out of him.
Meanwhile, Watson, lurking uncomfortably by the bar, is getting molested by a strange woman. He looks about as distressed by these attentions as Holmes does by Aggie's, actually.
Riding in a carriage, looking like BAMFs.
Holmes takes Watson to stake out Hyde Park because Lady Eva is known to ride there and they hope to contact her.
In fact, she is riding with her fiancée the Earl, when she spots C.A.M. stalking her from his nasty Carriage of Evil.
She faints.
Watson rushes to help and Holmes grabs her and her fiancée's horses. They walk to Lady Diana Swinstead's house to let her recover.
Holmes expresses his condolences for the death of Lady Diana's husband.
Now he's really determined to get this asshole.
Holmes & Watson stop by the Symbolic Reptile House on their way home to talk about how evil Milverton is while staring at a big snake.
Holmes in his plumber guise is casing the joint some more from behind the foliage when Aggie tackles him to the ground, straddles his groin, sticks her face into his, and acts alarmingly close to kissing him. (You can see he is alarmed.)
AGGIE: Hey, are you gonna marry me?
HOLMES: Um - hey, what time does everyone in the house go to bed?
AGGIE: What? Why do you want to know that?
HOLMES: So I can visit you, of course.
AGGIE: Oh, you want to climb in my window! Well, the top window is mine - and the one under it is Mr Milverton's, and the one under that is the butler's. He sleeps like a log! It's a joke in the servants' hall! [Moves in for the kiss]
HOLMES [hurriedly]: Oh really, why doesn't he sleep upstairs with the other servants?
AGGIE: To guard Mr Milverton's valuables! Which are all kept in THE STUDY! [Moves in for the kiss]
HOLMES: [suddenly starts crying]
AGGIE: What is it?
HOLMES: Oh, Aggie! You... touch - my heart!
AGGIE's would-be suitor ROBERT has been lurking and watching this, and chooses now to let the mastiff out. The mastiff runs straight to AGGIE.
AGGIE: What are you doing here, silly dog? [She jumps off HOLMES and ties it up.]
HOLMES takes this opportunity to roll over on his face and cover his head. AGGIE, who can't take a gentle hint, comes back and jumps on his ass, only to be dragged off by ROBERT in a jealous rage.
He takes Holmes by surprise and gains the upper hand for a few seconds, but then Aggie throws herself at his lower legs and Holmes downs him with a karate chop to the neck. The dog is barking like crazy and the Evil Butler comes to investigate, but when Aggie turns to Holmes to explain he has vanished.
Back at Baker Street, Holmes gazes out the window at the rain while Watson reads the paper.
HOLMES: Watson, you will be interested to hear that I am engaged to be married.
WATSON [not paying attention]: Oh, yes?
HOLMES: To Milverton's house-maid.
WATSON: Good heavens!
HOLMES: I needed information.
WATSON: Surely you've gone too far!
HOLMES, glumly: It was a most necessary step. I've walked with her... talked with her... heavens, those talks!
WATSON: But the girl!
HOLMES: It can't be helped, Watson. One must play one's cards as best one can when such a stake is on the table. However! I rejoice to tell you I have a hated rival, who will cut me out the moment my back is turned!
This allays the worst of WATSON's misgivings and he turns back to his paper.
Then Lady Eva arrives to ask for Holmes's help. Finally.
HOLMES: MRS HUDSON, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?
MRS HUDSON: Giving her some broth! It's pouring out there and not everyone enjoys going days without food!
WATSON: Broth is very good, Mrs Hudson.
HOLMES: GET OUT, MRS HUDSON.
WATSON: [eyeroll]
Lady Eva's letters were to a former suitor back in the country who wasn't rich enough. He sent them back to her and she had hidden them in a trunk, but her maid found them and sold them to Milverton. She can't afford his ransom, not being at all rich, and the wedding is next week, and the bridegroom thinks she's an angel and she can't bear to disappoint him - etc, etc.
Holmes asks to be engaged on her behalf to negotiate with Milverton, and she agrees.
WATSON: Don't mind my friend. He has no manners, but he's good at his job.
WATSON: You've got to stop being a dick to everybody when you get excited.
Holmes writes a note to Milverton, asking him to pay them a visit at Baker Street to negotiate.
Milverton does. Wearing a pimp coat.
Holmes tries to bargain him down to a lower price and fails. Then they hold a gun on him and go through his pockets, but he doesn't have the letter. They let him go. In the meantime, some random dude has gone at his carriage with an axe.
WATSON: Holmes, why are we in an art gallery when we have so much to do, and the wedding is in a couple of days?
HOLMES: Watson, art is good for you! It helps me think!
The Honourable Charlotte Somethingorother is back from the Continent. It didn't help her forget her fiancée's suicide after all, but she's got her shit together. She and Lady Eva are in the gallery. Watson tries to offer condolences, but she's all, "I've got this."
Then Holmes takes Lady Eva aside and says he can handle everything if she is willing to invite him, Watson, and Milverton to the giant ball her fiancée is throwing two days before the wedding - the day the money was due. She says go for it.
Milverton is in an evil conservatory full of giant leafy plants and bits of priceless Roman sculpture, enthroned in a wicker chair. Holmes comes in and says that his client can pay the full sum of £7000 if the deadline is pushed back one day. Milverton shows up at the ball, and Holmes will meet him the next morning with the cash. Milverton agrees.
It's a tense few days.
Watson, looking very fetching in his tux again, waits for Holmes to get ready while he pores over their housebreaking implements laid out on the table. He adds strips of black silk to the implements already there - a bowl, a lump of clay, a sharp knife, a vast number of lock picks, a spy glass, a sharp grappling hook and length of rope. He begins to load all these into his medical bag.
Holmes's line "I can see you have a strong natural turn for this sort of thing!" is from the short story.
Weirdly, when Milverton leaves for the ball, and stops to tell his butler to take the usual precautions... the butler covers Milverton's hand on the carriage door. What the hell? Is this trying to hint at yet another Evil Gay thing? I mean, that's hardly a normal gesture for a butler. We are given to understand that the dude got his post because he was the footman of a victim and threw himself between Milverton and a bullet. Hmmmm. Well, whatever.
At the ball, Lady Diana Swinstead is extremely surprised to see Milverton there.
Holmes makes sure Milverton notices their presence by striking up a conversation.
Then he and Watson leave, making for Milverton's place for a spot of breaking and entering! But unbenknownst to them, Milverton has received a note at the party, and he leaves early too.
In the carriage, Holmes sings something nonsensical to himself.
Milverton beats them to his house and tells the butler he's expecting guests in half an hour. He then goes up to his office, but leaves it again at once to play billiards, locking it behind him.
Housebreaking Holmes!
After climbing up to the window, he traces round the bowl with the knife and pulls the circle of glass out soundlessly with the lump of sticky clay. He reaches through the hole to unlatch the window.
Holmes goes to work on the safe with the lockpicks, but time is running short.
Milverton, in his monogrammed slippers and accompanied by one of the Fluffy Cats of Evil, begins making his way toward the office for his appointment.
Holmes and Watson watch from a curtained alcove inside the room while Milverton paces back and forth in front of the safe, not even noticing that a lock pick is still sticking out of it.
Milverton's guest is in black, wearing a floor-length black spangled veil. He thinks she is a maid wanting to sell some papers belonging to a Countess. But in fact she is... LADY DIANA SWINSTEAD!
She is one of his past victims. She harangues him for destroying her life and her husband's happiness many years ago.
Then she shoots him. Five times. She stands there, watching him slump to the floor, gurgling, then shoots him again for good measure and grinds her foot into his face.
Watson shuts his eyes. Holmes watches. Then she leaves the same way she came in.
HOLMES: Quick! The safe!
Our heroes spring into action, stuffing the contents of the safe into the fire, even though the shots have roused the house and the servants are streaming upstairs. They keep at it while the first blows of the axe split the door.
Holmes picks up one of Lady Diana's ornaments as he goes, leaving no evidence.
They cross the terrace and take the same path into the grounds Holmes took with Aggie, with Holmes in the lead. This is why he makes it over the fence first, while the butler nearly catches Watson and Watson has to kick him in the face to get him to fall back to the ground.
Holmes strides proudly away. Watson stumbles after, a little the worse for wear after his struggle at the fence.
They attend the auction of Milverton's stuff.
The asshole from the French nightclub bids on a bust of Athene, so Holmes outbids him and buys it. For £100. He takes it home and smashes it with a sledge-hammer.
WATSON: He paid £100 for that. Brought it right home and started smashing it.
MRS HUDSON: WHY???
WATSON: Because he crazy.
HOLMES: So, apparently there was nothing hidden in it... oh well, here you go, Mrs Hudson. [Thrusts blanket full of statue bits at her]
Holmes appears to go to sleep. Watson sharpens a pen.
HOLMES: No! There was some really embarrassing shit this time. Don't write it.
Holmes makes a lot of faces and Watson stares at him. He obviously wrote it, but perhaps this expains why he left some stuff out.
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Date: 13 Jan 2010 10:30 pm (UTC)There's really no other explanation for the bath scene, is there.
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Date: 13 Jan 2010 10:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 13 Jan 2010 11:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 14 Jan 2010 02:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 14 Jan 2010 01:26 am (UTC)Holmes!! and Watson!!
I'd forgotten how awesome these were.
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Date: 14 Jan 2010 02:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 14 Jan 2010 02:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 14 Jan 2010 02:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 14 Jan 2010 06:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 14 Jan 2010 02:30 pm (UTC)