Jonny Lee Miller credited as playing...
Sherlock Holmes
- Detective Marcus Bell: I got a visit yesterday from a U.S. Marshal. Deputy by the name of Strider Lincoln.
- Sherlock Holmes: Strider?
- Detective Marcus Bell: It's only the second-dumbest name I've ever heard. He basically offered me a job. Said I came highly recommended, but didn't mention who did the recommending. I did a little digging. Guess whose name came back. Yours.
- [wry snicker]
- Detective Marcus Bell: I don't get it, man. You trying to get rid of me?
- Sherlock Holmes: Yeah, I am. After a fashion. You remember I fully supported your interest in becoming a sergeant two years ago? Hmm? Right up until the moment that you told me is was more about a pay increase than about the work. Hmm? Still, I thought a fire had been lit. I thought it was only a matter of time before you identified a new challenge. And then, two years later... when I was at Scotland Yard, I was only too happy to watch the moss gather under the policemen I worked with. Only to me, they were just a means of gaining access to people and places that I otherwise couldn't. And they were just happy to stay and take credit for my work. But it's never been like that with us, has it? No. You're too good a detective. So I want something better for you. Something... something more.
- Detective Marcus Bell: Why the Marshals?
- Sherlock Holmes: Well, I considered and dismissed the DEA and ICE because their missions often don't align with your values. The ATF, the Secret Service, they're too narrow in focus. And like many in the department, you dislike the FBI because of their rigidity and high-handedness, so that left the U.S. Marshals Service, an elite agency, renowned for their professionalism.
- Detective Marcus Bell: I appreciate you looking out for me, but... I'm happy here. And if it ain't broke...
- Sherlock Holmes: Yes, but it will break. The captain, he will retire. And then Watson and I, we'll be forced to seek greener pastures without our sponsor. And you'll be left working with policemen who may view you, quite unfairly, as a lesser satellite no longer tethered to the luminaries you once orbited. You'll also have to deal with a new superior who might come with their own protégés. Your access to the best, most challenging cases will be curtailed, perhaps eliminated. You will be diminished. Look, there are worse fates, yes, but there are better ones. The trick is knowing the right one when you see it.
- Dr. Joan Watson: What is that? A catapult?
- Sherlock Holmes: Uh, technically, it's a trebuchet. It's a scale model of a... much larger device.
- [he fires it and hits a small figurine across the room]
- Sherlock Holmes: Just as I thought. You recall the hiker who was killed by a blow to the head not far from Fort Covington?
- Dr. Joan Watson: Yeah, I read that link you sent me.
- Sherlock Holmes: I now believe she was struck by a bale of marijuana launched via trebuchet from Canada to the U.S. As far as your missing Maria goes, I too would much rather solve a case via a single quick deduction than by hundreds of hours of hard labor. You know, when it comes to that, I can be the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather.
- Sherlock Holmes: So, this Maria Rodriguez, she's a resident of New York, is she?
- Dr. Joan Watson: As far as the client knows. The problem is it's a pretty common name.
- Sherlock Holmes: Yeah.
- Dr. Joan Watson: She's one of 200 in a thirty-mile radius.
- Sherlock Holmes: But your Maria is late 20s, early 30s, isn't she? That should narrow the field a bit, surely.
- Dr. Joan Watson: Oh, to about three dozen candidates. That's still a lot of people.
- Sherlock Holmes: Hmm.
- Dr. Joan Watson: Any advice?
- Sherlock Holmes: Well, I needn't remind you that the vast majority of detective work is work. The uh, dogged drudgery of chasing down every lead, upending every chestnut shell to find that metaphorical pea.
- Dr. Joan Watson: I was hoping for a more elegant solution than knocking on the door of every Maria Rodriguez in New York.
- Art Schultz: Who are they?
- Sherlock Holmes: That's Homeland Security.
- Art Schultz: But... You promised you wouldn't tell them about me if I talked to you.
- Sherlock Holmes: Yes but you play den mother to a pack of would-be rapists and mass shooters so you can see how lying to you would be the highlight of my day.
- Dr. Joan Watson: I hate to think of him leaving us, but I get it.
- Sherlock Holmes: Of course you do. You change careers the way that most people change clothes.
- Dr. Joan Watson: Hey!
- Sherlock Holmes: The point being that you have to take risks in order to be the best version of yourself, as you obviously have.