Scene: Interior of 221B Baker Street. Holmes and Watson arrive through the front door and rush into the living room, where they sit down at a table. There is a computer on the table. It is switched off (the computer, not the table.)
Holmes: Dr Watson, the jigsaw has at last fitted together. It is no longer a random arrangement of diversely embellished, interlocking pieces of wood each bearing a fragment of some mysterious whole, but a picture. I believe we are a matter of minutes from solving this crime at last.
Holmes switches the computer on.
Watson: I can see no picture, only a pile of unrelated pieces, no two of which can be fitted together. You must have noticed some features of the scene of the murder and kept them to yourself until this moment.
Holmes: You know my methods.
Watson: I am accustomed to your eccentricities, if that is your meaning.
Holmes: The key to the whole matter is held in the records held by the Police National Computer.
The computer becomes ready. Holmes types on the keyboard.
Holmes (calls): Mrs Hudson! Mrs Hudson, come here, I need you.
Mrs Hudson enters the room wearing a silk corset, leather shorts, high heels, and a governess's cap and collar. She is wearing long silk gloves and carrying a rattan cane.
Mrs Hudson: What may I do for you gentlemen?
Holmes: What is wrong with the broadband connection to this house, Mrs Hudson? Why am I getting only fifty kilobaud?
Watson: I say, Mrs Hudson, you look wonderful.
Mrs Hudson: I cannot say why the available bandwidth is insufficient for your needs, Mr Holmes. Mr Branson's broadband service agrees to deliver one hundred kilobaud.
Holmes: Do you know how many criminals may be at liberty because such a slow computer cannot adequately communicate?
Mrs Hudson: I shall ask my nephew Alyson to assist you. She happens to be visiting, and at her primary school she is widely recognised among her classmates as an authority on computer systems. (Calls) Alyson!
Alyson enters. Alyson is a boy dressed in a tight, very short girl's school uniform. She has thick blonde hair.
Alyson: Aunt Hudson! How may I serve you?
Mrs Hudson: My darling nephew, can you explain to Mr Holmes why he is getting only fifty kilobaud from Mr Branson's fibre optic cable?
Alyson: Indeed, Aunt Hudson. Mr Branson's cable runs only as far as Number 221A. This house is connected to Number 221A through an Ethernet router.
Holmes: How did you gain this preternatural grasp of network troubleshooting?
Alyson: Why, sir, by playing Grand Theft Auto.
Watson: Miss Alyson, we would be most grateful for your assistance in establishing contact with the Police National Computer.
Alyson: I shall of course be pleased to help you to solve the crime, however ruthless and abominable it may be, in exchange for a threepenny bar of Mr Fry's Chocolate Cream.
Holmes: You shall have it, madam.
Computer: Evenin', all.
Watson: I believe I have contacted the home page of the Police National Computer.
Mrs Hudson: Are my services still required?
Holmes: Mrs Hudson, upon whom else can I possibly rely? Later this evening I shall most definitely have need of your services.
Mrs Hudson: I am most grateful for your reassurance, sir. Alyson, kindly assist these gentlemen.
Mrs Hudson leaves the room. Alyson looks at the screen of the computer.
Alyson: You must first log on to the site, Mr Holmes, by typing your name and password into the text boxes provided.
Holmes types a few characters and then clicks on the Log In button.
Computer: What's all this?
Holmes: I have astonished myself. I can recall my own login details without assistance.
Computer: 'Allo, 'allo.
Alyson: The massive resources of the illustrious Police National Computer are now at our disposal.
Watson: Great Scott!
Holmes: From our conversation with the occupants of Redhall Manor, we know that Frederick Tulip attacked Colonel Redhall with a candlestick in the library. Yet d'Artagnan Doormat observed the Colonel in the kitchen half an hour later, and most definitely alive.
Watson: But not before Marilyn Teacup had menaced Cecilia Ironingboard with a pistol in the bedroom.
Holmes: Precisely. So either Dorothea Oatcake knew about the compromising daguerreotypes of Graham Pancake and his housemaid Invidia Armchair.
Computer: A likely story.
Holmes: Or there is another possibility.
Pause. Holmes lights pipe in silence.
Watson: (coughs) What other possibility can there be?
Holmes: Once you have eliminated the impossible, only the truth remains. If Dorothea Oatcake had known about the daguerrotypes, Margaret Songbird would never have arranged for her husband Sir Moneybags Ballpoint to share a packet of blackcurrant flavoured laxatives with Lady Isobel Bampot.
Watson: I see where this is leading, Holmes.
Computer: I'm damned if I do.
Watson (continues): You are about to suggest, are you not, that the Duke of Tesco knew about the fortune owned by Sir Nicholas Tuba.
Holmes: You are correct! I believe the Police National Computer will now reveal conclusive proof of your hypothesis.
Holmes types on the keyboard.
Holmes: Sir Nicholas Tuba.(Clicks on button. Mutters.) What have you not told us, I wonder.
Computer: The page cannot be displayed.
Alyson: It always does that. (Points at the screen.) Click "Read Messages."
Computer: Chinese herbal medicine can enlarge your penis by up to eight feet.
Alyson: Now click "Check Spelling" and then "Profile."
Computer: Here is a portrait of the young Sir Nicholas Tuba and the then Viscount Tesco making toast in front of the fire in the Junior Common Room at Eton in 1864.
Holmes: It is as I thought. Sir Nicholas did not meet the Duke of Tesco for the first time two weeks ago in Monaco. The two of them were at Eton together.
Watson: Good Lord!
Holmes: I realised it as soon as I examined their footwear. The shoes of both men carry traces of a kind of mud found only on the famous playing field.
Computer: He's a wrong 'un, I'll be bound. (In pop-up) Click here for further details.
Holmes clicks the pop-up.
Computer: Access denied. Your privilege level is insufficient.
Holmes: Have you seen the like of this notice before, Miss Alyson?
Alyson: All the time. Try clicking "Change User ID" and logging in with the default super-user name System and the password Manager.
Holmes: Very well.
Holmes types a few characters.
Computer: Welcome to the Police National Computer, guvnor.
Alyson: Try asking it who murdered Colonel Redhall.
Holmes types the question.
Computer: 'Who' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
Alyson: Go to "Iconic Representations."
Holmes clicks on something.
Alyson: Now drag the picture of Sir Moneybags into the interrogation simulator.
Computer: You'll have to come along with me. I need you to answer a few questions.
Alyson: Right click on Sir Moneybags and select Cause of Death.
Computer: The wounds are consistent with injuries from a dagger.
Holmes (in time with the computer's voice): ...from a dagger.
Alyson: Now right click on the dagger and select Identify Criminal.
Computer: Egbert Hardshoulder murdered Sir Moneybags with the dagger in the conservatory.
Holmes: Quickly, Watson, there is not a moment to lose. (Gasps, anxiously) We must alert the Constabulary. No wonder Edwina Teacake suddenly said that Marcus Blackbird had mislaid the briefcase belonging to Antonio Lasagna. The Redhall Manuscript was already in it when the West Calder Express left Culross for Auchtermuchty!
Watson: Can the Police National Computer not alert the Constabulary without human assistance?
Holmes: Probably not. The Police National Computer uses M Q Series whereas the Constabulary uses Web Methods. An army of eight year old boys is toiling in the dark factories and squalid workhouses of Bombay to fashion an adapter, but it will not be ready until some six months hence.
Watson: One thing troubles me. If Egbert Hardshoulder murdered Sir Moneybags in the conservatory, how could Linda Flowerbed have seen him fifty miles away at the Lambeth Exhibition of Criminals?
Holmes: Gadzooks! I never thought of that. What a damned fool I have been. We are back at the beginning.
Computer: That's how it is with police work, sir. Just when you've got a result, along come some facts.
Alyson: Not quite, Mr Holmes. Why do you think Mrs Bogpaper refused to sell the valuable painting to Aloysius Fruitcake?
Holmes: Good Lord, I never even suspected? (to Alyson) Then it was you! You must have...
Alyson: Quite right. At last you have seen the obvious, Holmes. I am not just a pretty brassiere. I myself added a false detail record linking Criminal Number 3661, Sir Moneybags Ballpoint, to Crime Number 45177, the brutal slaying of Colonel Redhall.
Holmes: You intrigue me, young lady.
Holmes logs out.
Alyson: It was a simple matter of looking up the default system password and then adding two entries to the underlying relational data base.
Computer: Mind how you go now. (Shuts down.)
Holmes: How did you learn to amend files on the Police National Computer without authority?
Alyson: Playing Grand Theft Auto.
Watson: Why did you do that?
Alyson: I like selling drugs, being chased by police cars and shooting people with a machine gun.
Watson: I mean, what drove you to inform the Police National Computer that Sir Moneybags Ballpoint had committed a horrific murder?
Alyson: Because Sir Moneybags promised me a threepenny bar of Mr Fry's Chocolate Cream but didn't give me one.
Watson: Alyson, do you have a sister?
