SCENE 1: INT. WHITEHALL BASEMENT ARCHIVE - NIGHT

[FX: Echoing footsteps on damp stone tiles. Echoing drip of water into a zinc bucket. A heavy brass key turning in a rusty lock.]

PETER: Miss Higgins… why are there four hundred wooden filing cabinets down here? And why are they all labeled “WHISTLES - UNACCOUNTED”?

MISS HIGGINS: (crisp, elderly voice) Because, Mr. Vance, when a constable in 1894 dropped his pea-whistle down a grating in Holborn, someone had to log it. That someone was this department.

PETER: (disbelieving) We spend thirty thousand pounds a year archiving missing whistles?

[FX: High-pitched metal drawer screeching open.]

MISS HIGGINS: Thirty-two thousand. The extra two thousand is for the mothballs.

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SCENE 2: INT. ARCHIVE OFFICE - CONTINUOUS

[FX: Heavy wooden door opens. Polished leather shoes walking slowly across floorboards.]

DIRECTOR BARNABY: Ah, Vance! Settling in? Found the 1902 Metropolitan Police Whistle Incident ledger yet?

PETER: Director Barnaby, with all due respect, shouldn’t we be archiving something… more urgent? National security? Trade agreements?

DIRECTOR BARNABY: (chuckles darkly) My dear boy. Empires fall, trade agreements dissolve, but a lost whistle in 1894? That is permanent record. Now, fetch drawer 4B. I suspect someone blew a trill near Pimlico in 1911 without filing Form 802.

[FX: A single sharp whistle echo distant in the stone corridor, followed by dead silence.]

PETER: (whispering) Did you hear that?

MISS HIGGINS: Hear what? File 4B, Mr. Vance. We don’t have all night.

[FX: FADE OUT]