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The timeline of events in the BBC's Sherlock television show is muddled and contradictory in many places. This article lists the canon and semi-canon dates we are given, and documents the sources and reasoning for putting together this timeline.
Canon dates come from the show itself, semi-canon dates come from the blogs. Where contradictions and inconsistencies occur between the two sources the show is considered to be right.
Before the show[]
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| ~1973 | Mycroft Holmes' birth (7 years older than Sherlock) | TFP |
| 6 January 1980 | Sherlock Holmes' birth (Sherlock about Carl Powers incident: "I was nine at the time") | TLD |
| ~1981 | Eurus' birth | TFP |
| ~1989 | Sherlock tells the story of Carl Powers: "1989, young kid, champion swimmer, came up from Brighton for a school sports tournament, drowned in the pool, tragic accident." His missing trainers, found in 2010, were "limited edition, two blue stripes, 1989." | TGG |
| ~2002 | Sherlock and Sebastian Wilkes attended the same university (Sebastian says, "How long has it been, eight years since I last clapped eyes on you?" and "We were at uni together...") | TBB |
2009[]
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 12 October | First victim of serial killer (Sir Jeffrey Patterson) attacked | ASiP screen caption |
| 26 November | Second victim (James Phillimore) attacked | ASiP screen caption |
| 14 December | John blog entry
Nothing
Nothing
|
John's blog |
| 15 December | John blog entry | John's blog |
2010[]
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Photo of "Richard Brook" taken by Arwel Jones for "Spotlight" actor's directory, or so the documents given to Kitty Riley indicate | TRF screencap |
| 17 January | possibly John's last appointment with therapist Ella Thompson (assuming weekly appointments) | deduction by lyrical sky |
| 20 January | John blog entry
How?
How do I delete this?
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John's blog |
| 21 January | John blog entry | John's blog |
| 24 January | John misses appointment with Ella; goes out drinking with rugby friends. | John's blog |
| 25 January | John blog entry
Met up with some of the rugby lads from Blackheath last night. They haven't changed. Still downing pints like they're in the twenties. Still all taking the mick out of each other. None of them mentioned my leg.
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John's blog |
| 27 January | Molly blog entry – introduction
Hi. My name is Molly Hooper. I work at Barts Hospital. I'm 31. Sorry. This is sounding like a list. I'm not sure why I'm doing this. It's just nice to have someone to talk to.
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Molly's blog |
| 27 January | Third victim (Beth Davenport) attacked | "A Study in Pink" screen caption |
| 28 January | Police press conference about 'suicides', led by DI Greg Lestrade and Sergeant Sally Donovan | ASiP |
| 28 January | John blog entry about suicides, Bill
There's been another of those 'serial suicides'. It's weird. There doesn't seem to be any connection between the deceased. It doesn't make sense.
Met up with Bill Murray. Not the film star. He was the nurse who saved my life when I was shot. He's got married. Stuff's happening to other people.
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John's blog |
| 28 January | Molly blog entry about Sherlock
Do you believe in love at first sight? There's this man and I love him. At least, I think I do. I can't stop thinking about him. He's so intelligent it's like he's burning. And he's so cool but not really. And he's fit. Oh, he is really fit. And I can't stop thinking about him. I'm a sensible girl, I always have been. I've worked hard to get the job I have and I've got plans but he just rides all over everything. It's like I'm Molly Hooper, in control. 'Little Miss Perfect' as my mates call me. Until he walks into the room and then suddenly I'm this little mouse. He turns me into a mouse.
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Molly's blog |
| 29 January | The events of A Study in Pink begin. After a nightmare, a despondent John considers his gun but leaves it in his small bedsit; meets Mike Stamford in park, then Sherlock Holmes in his lab at Barts | ASiP |
| 29 January | John blog entry
I don't know how I'm meant to be writing this. I'm not a writer. Ella thought keeping a blog would help but it hasn't because nothing ever happens to me. But today, something did. Something happened.
I was walking in the park and I bumped into Mike Stamford. We were sort of mates when we were students. We got coffee and I mentioned that I wanted to move. He said he knew of someone in a similar situation. So we went to Barts and he introduced us. Except, he didn't. He didn't introduce us. The man knew who I was. Somehow he knew everything about me. He knew I'd served in Afghanistan and he knew I'd been invalided. He said my wound was psychosomatic so he didn't get everything right but he even knew why I was there, despite the fact that Mike hadn't told him. I googled him when I got back to the flat and found a link to his website The Science of Deduction. It's mad. I think he might be mad. He was certainly arrogant and really quite rude and he looks about 12 and he's clearly a bit public school and, yes, I definitely think he might be mad but he was also strangely likeable. He was charming. It really was all just a bit strange. So tomorrow, we're off to look at a flat. Me and the madman. Me and Sherlock Holmes.
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John's blog |
| 29 January | Molly blog entry
He was in again today and I still don't understand him. One minute he's noticing the tiniest thing about me and the next it's like I'm not here. He said I was wearing too much lipstick and then said I wasn't wearing enough. I just don't know. Connie Prince will know. She's fab.
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Molly's blog |
| 30 January | Sherlock and John become embroiled in the serial suicides case; the evening's events cross over at some point into the morning of the 31st:
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ASiP |
| 31 January | John blog entry
So, last night I went to look at the flat. It's pretty decent actually. Sherlock had already moved in so it was a bit of a mess but that's actually a nice change from where I was before.
And the madman himself? He's fascinating. Arrogant, imperious, pompous. He's not safe, I know that much. I'm not going to be bored and I doubt we're going to be arguing about whose turn it is to pay the gas bill or what we're going to watch on the telly. And yeah, he is probably most likely definitely mad. But, he knows a couple of nice restaurants so he's not all bad. So yes, we had a quick look at the flat and chatted to the landlady. Then the police came and asked Sherlock to look at a body so we went along to a crime scene, then we chased through the streets of London after a killer and Sherlock solved the serial suicides/murder thing. And then we went to this great Chinese restaurant where my fortune cookie said 'There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before. ' After the night I'd had, I beg to differ.
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John's blog |
| 1 February | John blog entry
Secret Code
Sorry, I'm still typing up what happened last night but in the meantime, Sherlock's been sent some secret coded message or something. He's looking for people to help with it.
If you fancy giving it a go, then go to his site, The Science of Deduction Update added 1 February: Could the Roman Emperor be Caesar?
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John's blog |
| 2 February | Molly blog entry about buying a cat
I am dying. Well, I'm getting old. I bought something today.
A cat. Yes. I am officially going to be a mad old cat woman. I'm 31 and I'm single and I've bought a cat. But he's great. He's called Toby. And here he is! http://www.mollyhooper.co.uk/img/cat.jpg Meena said that every single girl our age needs either a cat or a gay best friend. I figured a cat would be less fuss. Caroline was taking the mick but she still came round with a can of tuna to try and make friends with him. Then she started going on about that stupid hedge. I was tempted to name him after you-know-who but Toby's cute and fluffy so you-know-who's name wouldn't really fit.
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Molly's blog |
| 7 February | John blog entry about "A Study in Pink"
I've blacked out a few names and places because of legal matters but, other than that, this is what happened on the night I moved in with Sherlock Holmes.
When I first met Sherlock, he told me my life story. He could tell so much about me from my limp, my tan and my mobile phone. And that's the thing with him. It's no use trying to hide what you are because Sherlock sees right through everyone and everything in seconds. What's incredible, though, is how spectacularly ignorant he is about some things. This morning, for example, he asked me who the Prime Minister was. Last week he seemed to genuinely not know the Earth goes round the Sun. Seriously. He didn't know. He didn't think the Sun went round the Earth or anything. He just didn't care. I still can't quite believe it. In so many ways, he's the cleverest person I've ever met but there are these blank spots that are almost terrifying. At least I've got used to him now. Well, I say that, I suspect I'll never really get used to him. It's just, on that first night, I literally had no idea of what was to come. I mean, how could I? I was looking at the flat, surprised at the state it was already in, when DI ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ from Scotland Yard burst in. Sherlock, of course, already knew why he was there. There'd been another death – this time, in ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓. Sherlock asked me to join him and I went along, intrigued. In the taxi, he explained how he'd deduced everything about me the previous day – how he'd picked up on every word I said, every action, tiny little things about my phone. It was extraordinary. I'd try to explain it here but I don't think I'd be able to do him justice. Go to his site, The Science of Deduction, and see for yourself how his mind works. I was still surprised that, even being the genius he clearly is, the police would come to him for help. He said he was a 'consulting detective'. Naturally, being the arrogant so-and-so he is, he'd had to give himself his own unique job title. We arrived in ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ where, to my surprise, he introduced me as his colleague. The police seemed surprised by this as well I get the impression he'd not had 'colleagues' before. It was a body of a woman, dressed in pink. And she'd been poisoned. Again, Sherlock just looked at her and he knew everything about her. The way she was dressed. Splatters of mud on her leg. What was there and, more importantly, what was missing. Her suitcase. And it was that which excited him. The missing pink suitcase. He left the body and ran outside to searched for it, naturally leaving me behind. I spoke to a policewoman and she summed Sherlock up. She said 'he gets off on it.' And he does. He didn't care about the dead woman or any of the other victims I suspect if he came back and found me and our landlady lying here with our throats cut, he'd just see it as an intellectual exercise. 'Fantastic' he'd exclaim, rubbing his hands together. 'But the door was locked so how did they kill each other?' The policewoman, she called him a psychopath. That seems harsh and it was hardly a professional diagnosis but I look back at what I wrote about him when I first met him. I called him the madman. So I went back to Baker Street and Sherlock asked me to send a text message. He'd found her suitcase and discovered that the victim's phone was missing. He knew the killer would have it, so there I was, texting a serial killer. He'd found the woman's missing suitcase because he'd known it would be pink, like the woman's clothes. It hadn't even crossed my mind and when I said this, he told me I was an idiot. He didn't mean to be offensive, he just said what he thought. I've been called worse things but his bluntness was still a bit of a surprise. He just didn't care about being polite or anything like that. I was starting to understand why he didn't seem to have many 'colleagues'. After that, we went on a stakeout. We waited in a restaurant to see if the killer would visit the address I'd texted him. Across the road, we saw a taxi pull up. We ran out, but it drove off. Sherlock insisted on chasing it and luckily he seemed to have an intimate knowledge of London's backstreets. Of course, as I realised afterwards, he's probably memorised the London A-Z. We ran down street after street and we managed to catch up with the taxi – only to discover that the passenger wasn't our killer. He'd only just arrived in the UK. It was the most ridiculous night of my life – I mean, an actual chase through London. People don't do that, not really. But we did. And, of course, by doing this, Sherlock proved my limp was psychosomatic. Did I mention he's clever? We returned to the flat to discover that ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ and the police were there, examining the suitcase. It was actually pretty funny seeing how offended Sherlock was by this. I genuinely think he believes himself to be above the law. And he couldn't stand the fact that ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ had got one over him. ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ described Sherlock as a child and, in many ways, that's what he is. I said that he doesn't care about what others think and that he's arrogant because of this but it's not really that. It's not that he doesn't care, it's that he genuinely doesn't understand that it's normal to care. It's normal to worry about what other people think. Like a child, he just doesn't understand the rules of society – which, of course, is probably why he's so good at working the rest of us out. Sherlock thinks everyone else is stupid so he's like a kid at Christmas when it turns out that one of us have done something clever. I'm not talking about me but our murder victim. She hadn't lost her phone. She hadn't left it behind. She knew she was going to die so she'd left her phone in the taxi – And, like all modern phones, it had a GPS system so you could locate it. That brilliant woman had led us to her killer. And he was outside. He was outside our flat – in his taxi! We'd chased him halfway across London, thinking he'd been driving the killer – but he was the killer himself. That was how he'd manage to get to his victims – just by picking them up in his cab. Of course, Sherlock being completely and utterly mad, got into the taxi so he could talk to him. Again, he wasn't interested in the 'rules'. He wasn't interested in how the driver had done all this. I don't think he was particularly interested in stopping him and it didn't even cross his mind to let the police know that the man they were looking for was outside. All Sherlock Holmes was interested in was discovering why the killer had done it. He wanted to be alone with the killer so he could question him. That was more important than anything else – despite the obvious threat to his own life. The taxi driver drove him to a college of further education so they could both educate each other on – well, on how their minds worked, I guess. It's not something I'll ever really understand and, to be honest, I'm not sure I ever want to understand it. To be that much of a psychopath. To be that above the rest of us. To be that dangerous. It's pretty terrifying. Afterwards, Sherlock told me what happened. The taxi driver had a brain aneurism. He was dying. He'd pick up his victims and take them somewhere. Then he'd give them a choice. Take one of two pills – one of which was harmless and one of which would kill them. Their only other choice was that he would shoot them. It makes me furious to think about those poor people who got into his taxi – one of them was just a kid! They must have gone through hell. But Sherlock, mad old Sherlock, he understood him. As far the taxi driver was concerned, he was outliving people. He was giving himself the power of life and death. And I do, I genuinely think Sherlock understood this. Myself and the police had managed to work out where they'd gone so we'd driven after them. But it was too late. By the time we got there, I could see that Sherlock was going to take one of the pills. It wasn't because he had to but because it was a game of wits. He wasn't going to let this other arrogant, pompous psychopath win. Which is when someone shot the taxi driver. Someone like that's bound to have enemies so it shouldn't have been a surprise but I hadn't seen anyone shot since Afghanistan. It's something you never really get used to. That someone could have the power of life and death over someone else – but I'm glad whoever it was did it, because they undoubtedly saved Sherlock's life. And, frankly, after everything that man had done to those innocent people who got into his car, a quick death like that was better than he deserved. And after all that? Well, me and my flatmate went for a Chinese. Like I say, he really does know some great restaurants. There was one other thing though. Before the taxi driver died, he said a name. A name of someone or something that had helped him. Moriarty. I've never heard of it and neither has Sherlock. Of course, he loves it. He thinks he's found himself an arch-enemy. He's a strange child. And since that night? It hasn't stopped. Oh, there's so much more I've got to tell you.
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John's blog |
| ? | Sherlock offered a case about "the Jaria diamond" | TBB |
| Mar 22 11:34pm | Shad Sanderson bank/investment firm suffers break-in/vandalism | TBB |
| March 23, morning | The events of "The Blind Banker" begin
Source: Sherlock observes that the watch that Sebastian Wilkes wears (which says "21") is wrong, reading "two days ago".
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TBB |
| March 23, ~noon | Sherlock and John visit Shad Sanderson; talk to Wilkes and investigate office | TBB screencap |
| 25 March | Molly blog entry about cat and Sherlock
Sorry, I've been really busy recently. Work is the same old. Caroline's left. Which we're all quite happy about because we were sick of hearing about that flipping hedge.
Toby's still brilliant. He sleeps on my bed now which is really nice. Toasty! Oh, and Sherlock came in again tonight. And he was his usual arrogant self! And he was blatantly flirting with me and I know he's doing it and I should tell him to stop but I don't! And, of course, he was only doing it so I'd help him with something. As soon as he got what he wanted, he was off. OMG! I nearly just wrote 'At least Toby will never leave me'. I am becoming a Mad Spinster!
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Molly's blog |
| 26 March | "Jim from IT" approaches Molly via a comment in her blog; they arrange to meet in the hospital canteen | Molly's blog |
| 26 March | Date night at the Chinese circus | TBB |
| 27 March | Wrap-up of "The Blind Banker" case | TBB |
| 27 March | John blog entry
Well, it's been an interesting few days. I've got myself a job. And I also helped break up an international smuggling ring. More details to follow.
Oh, but before I write it up. Important information!! This is me  This is Sherlock  Okay? Criminals of London, please note which is which! It'll save us all a lot of time and hassle. I've changed my profile picture back to avoid any further confusion. In other news, Sherlock's had another of those coded messages, if you fancied proving yourself. Go to The Science of Deduction.
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John's blog |
| 28 March | John blog entry about "The Blind Banker"
It all began with Sherlock and I visiting the bank. We'd been called in by an old school friend of his. The man was a banker and pretty much what you'd expect. Someone had broken into their offices and sprayed graffiti across a painting. Nothing too interesting about that, you might think. Except that whoever did it, they didn't show up on any CCTV. The bank's offices were like Fort Knox but there was nothing. No sign of who'd done it.
Sherlock worked out that we needed to speak to one of the bankers, ▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓. So we went to his flat but he was already dead. It looked like suicide but of course it wasn't. The graffiti at the bank had been a warning. A death threat. The police still thought it was suicide and I have to admit... well, it was a locked room. A dead man. Gun in his hand. It did look like suicide. But Sherlock, of course, had noticed from every little thing in the flat that ▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓ was left-handed and that the gun was in his right hand. He said he was 'amazed' that we hadn't noticed. Sad thing is, he genuinely was. That sort of thing comes so easy for him. Then, almost as if to confirm that what Sherlock was saying was true, there was another murder. A journalist. He was also in a locked room. He'd also presumably thought he was safe from whoever it was that killed him. We needed to find out whatever it was that connected the two men. Sherlock worked out that the graffiti was like an ancient secret code. So we went to meet a 'friend' of his. I think the correct term is 'delinquent'. I called him much worse. To cut a long story short, I found myself at the police station, reading ▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓▓'s diary. And that led me and Sherlock to a Chinese emporium on Shaftesbury Ave. It was a shop full of tat basically but we got what we wanted...the graffiti tags were numbers. Old Chinese numbers. Sherlock then noticed that nobody had been in the flat above the shop for a few days... but that the window was open. So, of course, he had to break in and leave me standing outside while he explored. It turned out the flat belonged to a woman who worked in a museum. By now, I have to admit, I was pretty confused. All these people and places that seemed to be linked randomly. Our visit to the bank seemed like a lifetime away. The woman at the museum, Soo Lin, was really quite brilliant. She was hiding in the museum, fearing for her life. She was hiding there, though, so she could continue looking after some old Chinese teapots. It was both absurd but also strangely beautiful. I think even Sherlock was impressed by her. She told us about a huge smuggling operation and of an assassin sent to kill those who betrayed the organisation. Which is what had happened to the banker and the journalist. And which is then what happened to her. So we worked out that the smuggling ring was trading in Chinese antiquities. Both the banker and the journalist were able to bring them to the UK because they travelled a lot and the gang had contacted the woman because she was an expert in such things. We found out where they were selling what they'd stolen but we still needed to work out what the code meant. We realised that the numbers were references to books. Each bit of the code indicated a certain page in a certain book. The problem was working out which book. It needed to be something that anyone would have. And, meanwhile, I went on a date. I'd met someone. She's called Sarah and she's great. Sherlock gave me tickets for the circus so I could take her. Only, of course, he invited himself along as well. Mine and Sarah's first date and I've got the madman detective there. I kind of figured that it wasn't going to go well. And sure enough, one minute Sherlock was standing next to us, the next he was on the stage fighting with a mad warlord assassin. Luckily, Sarah didn't seem to mind helping me to help him. We saved his life and then returned to the flat. And Sherlock was, of course, his usual rude and arrogant self, ignoring Sarah. Until she pointed out that Soo Lin had already translated part of the code. Sherlock rushed out to do God knows what, leaving me and Sarah to be kidnapped. The date really hadn't gone well. We found ourselves being held at gunpoint by an opera singer and her assassins. My main concern was Sarah, of course. She hadn't agreed to this. She hadn't agreed to any of this. And, of course, the biggest irony was that they didn't even want me. They'd mistaken me for Sherlock. They were going to kill Sarah because they thought I was Sherlock Holmes! Sherlock found us and we managed to escape and shut down the operation. It turned out that they'd been looking for a hairpin. All this madness and death was because of a hairpin! An Empress' hairpin apparently but still, a hairpin. Sherlock even knew where it was...he'd seen it before. And that was it. Case closed. Over a couple days we'd encountered Chinese assassins, killer opera singers, secret codes, secret messages in the A-Z, smugglers and god knows what else. I'd even met a beautiful lady. It was all very James Bond. I can't deny that I prefer this kind of life. Being a civilian doesn't suit me. But the thing is, this life we've chosen isn't safe. Sherlock chooses to be this crusading consulting detective and I choose to be his colleague. But he's becoming known. People know of him. It's like that taxi driver said about how this Moriarty knew about him. Then the opera singer, she knew all about him. How long before someone else comes after him? And what happens to the people like Sarah or Mrs Hudson when that happens? All these people he involves in his adventures... They're not safe. We're not safe. There are forces out there and they're coming for Sherlock Holmes.
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John's blog |
| 28 March, 1:25pm | Molly mentions Jim in comments on John's blog: "John, my new friend Jim says that we all make our own choices in life. I don't think you should worry about others so much. Did I tell you about my new friend Jim?" | John's blog |
| 28 March, early | Sherlock leaves for Minsk to meet with Barry Berwick | TGG |
| 28 March, late | Sherlock returns from Minsk, shoots wall of 221b; he and John argue and John spends the night at Sarah Sawyer's place. | TGG |
| 29 March | Molly blog entry about coded messages
Arrgh!! I'm having no luck with my friend's hidden message thing! Anyone?
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Molly's blog |
| 28 March | An explosion across the street blows out the windows of 221b and knocks Sherlock down. | TGG |
| 29 March | Civil servant Andrew West found dead on the tracks at Battersea Station | TGG |
| 29 March |
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TGG |
| 30 March | Molly blog entry – chat with Jim
I'm not writing anything because I know you're reading this!!
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Molly's blog |
| 30 March |
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TGG |
| 31 March |
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TGG |
| 1 April | Molly blog entry looking for Jim
Jim, are you reading this? I'm sorry we argued and I don't mind if you're gay or not but where are you? Please, I miss you and I'm worried about you! Why aren't you answering your phone? And why aren't you at work? Your manager's going mental! Please!! Just get in touch!! Let me know you're okay!!
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Molly's blog |
| 1 April, morning |
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TGG |
| 1 April | John blog entry about The Great Game
Sorry for the delay in posting. I needed a few days to get my head around what just happened.
It began, as everything did, with a big bang. There was apparently a gas leak in the house across the street. Of course, my time living with Sherlock means I know how meaningless the word 'apparently' can be. The police investigated and discovered that the house had been wired with explosives. The only other thing they found inside the house was a box. And inside the box was an envelope. And inside the envelope was, of all things, a bright pink phone. Regular readers of my blog might remember the case I called 'A Study In Pink'. Needless to say, it was a bit of a surprise. As is my sudden use of phrases like "regular readers of my blog". It seems I'm starting to enjoy writing up my life. It helps, though, when I discover that half of Scotland Yard are reading it. More on that later! So, we switched on the phone and there was a message. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Five beeps or pips. Sherlock knew immediately that it was a warning. There were these secret societies who used to send five orange pips to people as a threat. There was also a picture of an empty flat which Sherlock recognised. It was downstairs. 221C Baker Street! We rushed over there and discovered a pair of trainers. And then the pink phone rang. It was a woman. She was crying. It turns out that whoever was organising all this had arranged for this woman to be kidnapped and wrapped in explosives. If she didn't say exactly what she was told to say... Sherlock, naturally, was immediately caught up in the adventure. Didn't even register that some innocent person somewhere was going through Hell. The crying woman told us we had twelve hours to solve the first problem. We went to Barts so that Sherlock could examine the trainers. I, as usual, didn't have a clue what the question was never mind the answer. We met up with Molly Hooper who introduced us to her boyfriend, Jim. Apparently, he worked in IT. There's that word 'apparently' again. Oh, and I've just seen how they first met. Anyway, Jim left and Sherlock revealed to Molly that the bloke was clearly gay. As usual, he didn't care that this might, you know, not exactly be what she wanted to hear! So, back to the trainers. Sherlock naturally got me to humiliate myself by examining them myself and getting everything wrong. He told me that they were twenty years old and that the pollen on them revealed they were from Sussex. Then he remembered a name – Carl Powers, a boy who had died when Sherlock was a kid. Everyone had assumed it was a tragic swimming accident but Sherlock was always confused by the boy's missing trainers. Now they'd turned up twenty years later and addressed to him. Sherlock discovered traces of Clostridium botulinim on Carl's trainers and concluded that he'd been murdered – the poison having been introduced to Carl's eczema medicine. Sherlock needed to let the killer know he'd worked it out so he typed a message on his website. I know some of you were confused by his bizarre posts the other day. The crying woman then phoned again and was allowed to tell us where she was. The police found her and she was ok. Sherlock pissed me off though. He described the whole set-up as elegant. I asked him what he meant and he said that "I can't be the only person to get bored". Clearly, the killer was targeting him directly and he loved it. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Another message. Another photo. This time it was of an abandoned sports car. The phone rang. It was a man, as terrified as the woman had been earlier. He told us we had eight hours. ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ from Scotland Yard located the car and Sherlock examined it. It had been hired from a company called Janus Cars by a man called ▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ – a man who had disappeared. This one was pretty straightforward for Sherlock. Just one chat with the missing man's wife and a visit to Janus Cars and he had it all wrapped up. It was a simple insurance scam. Again, he posted the answer on his blog. The man wrapped in explosives was found and released. Turns out he'd been in central London. God, if Sherlock had got it wrong... The other thing is, like I say, he was enjoying it. Him and this mysterious killer were playing a game. Me, Mrs H, the people with the bombs, everyone else, we were just pawns. I thought back to a name we'd heard a couple of times – Moriarty. Could this be him? When I mentioned this, Sherlock's eyes lit up. Beep. Beep. Beep. Another message. A third photo. This time it was someone I recognised but Sherlock didn't have a clue who she was. It's nice to occasionally be the clever one. The picture was of the recently deceased Connie Prince. Apparently, she'd died as a result of a tetanus infection but clearly our killer was suggesting otherwise. Again, we received a phone call. This time it was an old woman – and she was blind. I mean, who would do that? How could anyone do that? I went along to visit Connie's brother, Kenny. Sherlock went onto some internet forums and, with his usual tact and diplomacy, got answers that way. Between us, we worked out that while Connie's death had been made to look like the result of a tetanus infection, it had actually been caused by poison – their houseboy, ▓▓▓▓▓, had overdosed her on Botox! It would have almost been funny were it not for what happened next. Sherlock posted a message to his blog and, like before, the old woman called us. But this one made a mistake. She started to tell us about the man who'd tied her up and... He blew her up. She lived in a block of flats. In Glasgow. Twelve people died. I still can't quite get my head around it. This game between Sherlock and his... nemesis? Is that the right word? Twelve totally random innocent people had died because of it. I got so angry with Sherlock that morning. He didn't care. He admitted it. He just didn't care. As he pointed out, caring wouldn't save lives. I asked him if he found it easy not to care and he said yes. It was that simple. Maybe Sally Donovan is right. Maybe he is a freak. Beep. Beep. Another photo. This time of the Thames. Sherlock called Scotland Yard and they told him about a body that had been pulled out of the river. We went along and within minutes, Sherlock had worked out he was a security guard and that he was probably linked to a lost painting that had recently been rediscovered and put on display at the Hickman Gallery. Oh, and he revealed that the painting was a fake. I could explain how he did it but I think it's one of those 'you had to be there' moments. He also worked out what had killed the security guard. I say 'what' although technically it was 'who'. But, having seen the man, 'what' is probably a better definition. He was an assassin known as the Golem. He killed people by squeezing the air out of their body with his bare hands! Why he would have done this to some poor security guard was still a mystery so I went to the guy's flat and discovered a voicemail message from a Professor ▓▓▓▓▓▓. She had called him in response to him having discovered that something somewhere was wrong. The only other clue was that he was into astronomy. Sherlock worked out that the Golem had killed the security guard because he'd worked out that the painting was a fake. We concluded that Professor ▓▓▓▓▓▓ worked at a planetarium and rushed over there. But we were too late. The Golem was there and it killed her. Then, it attacked Sherlock. I don't think I've actually seen him scared before. Me, I was bricking it! I'd seen horror in Afghanistan. But this man was barely human. He really was a monster! I managed to rescue Sherlock (by whacking the Golem with my gun – I never said I was subtle) but the creature got away. We returned to the gallery and Sherlock confronted the curator. She denied everything – insisting that the painting was real – and there didn't seem to be much we could do. Then the phone rang once more. It was a child. The child started to count down from ten. Sherlock was screaming into the phone that the painting was a fake but the killer clearly wanted proof. Sherlock stared at the painting as the child continued to count down to his own death. And then Sherlock, at the last minute, worked it out. It was how the security guard had guessed it was a fake and why he'd phoned a professor at a planetarium. There was a supernova in the painting that didn't appear in our skies until 1858. Therefore, the painting couldn't have been painted by an artist living in the 1640s. The child stopped counting. The curator admitted that she'd arranged for the painting to be created. She'd been put in touch with various people and they'd all seemed to be working for one man. You've guessed it. Moriarty. Back at the flat, and we waited for another call. Nothing seemed to be happening though so I decided to visit my girlfriend, Sarah. I had just left the flat when a taxi pulled up alongside me. The taxi driver asked if I wanted a lift but I told him I was getting the Tube. He then said that he hadn't been asking me, he'd been telling me. I looked at him and I saw the gun pointing at me and so I got into the taxi. They must have knocked me out because the next thing I can remember is waking up to the smell of chlorine. I was in a sports centre, near the swimming pool. And I was wearing a bomb. I could feel it under the jacket they'd put me in. Then a voice sounded in my ear and I realised I was wearing some kind of earpiece. It said that I knew the drill and I was to repeat word-for-word what he said otherwise I'd never be writing my blog again. I was made to walk out into the swimming pool area where, I discovered, Sherlock was waiting. The voice in my ear, which I vaguely recognised, told me to say some stuff – which, I realised, gave the impression that I was behind it all. That I, John Watson, was Moriarty. I could see the look in Sherlock's eyes – a flash of, not anger, but hurt. For a second, he looked like a little, lost child. I should have been horrified that he'd even doubt me for a second but, to be honest, it was so refreshingly human of him. He actually did value our friendship. He did, despite himself, care. Then he saw the explosives on me and he realised what was happening. And at that moment, out stepped Moriarty. It was Jim. Molly Hooper's boyfriend from the IT department at Barts! Even that little meeting had been part of the game. The two men talked, both clearly pleased to, at last, be face to face. Again, I felt like a pawn in their game. Especially when a laser sight appeared on my chest. One wrong move and some stranger in the dark would shoot the explosives. I watched as they talked. Jim Moriarty was the total opposite to Sherlock but they were also so very alike. He was a consulting criminal. People came to him and he arranged whatever they wanted. And while they talked, I stood there wearing enough explosives to kill all of us. I was the only one who seemed even aware of this. Suddenly, I grabbed Moriarty. I knew that his assistant (his John Watson?) wouldn't kill him. But the laser sight simply moved to Sherlock's head and I was forced to let go. For a second, I wondered if Sherlock would have done the same for me but then all I knew for certain was, at that moment, I knew I was going to die. Except I didn't because Moriarty changed his mind. He said that he'd kill Sherlock one day but that, for now, he was letting us go. It really was just a game to him. He left and Sherlock ripped the explosives off of me. We were getting our breath back when suddenly so many laser sights appeared. Moriarty returned and said he had changed his mind again!! We were going to die, after all. Sherlock simply pointed his gun at the discarded explosives. If we were going to die, so was Moriarty. I held my breath for what seemed like months. I had no idea what either of them would do. Moriarty clearly had no discernible human feelings and Sherlock had claimed not to care. Could this be it? Was I really going to die? In a sports centre? Which is when Moriarty's phone rang. He took the call and called off his gunman. He was letting us live. And, as I finally breathed out, he left. And that's how Sherlock Holmes and I lived to see another day.
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John's blog |
| 1 April, midnight | The Pool | TGG |
| 2 Apr | Molly blog entry – final
I won't be keeping this diary anymore. It was all a lie. Everything he said.
But, got to stay positive. Nobody wants an unhappy person working in a morgue. Not that they want a particularly happy one either. Stay happy everyone xx
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Molly's blog |
| April | John and Sarah travel to New Zealand, but break up afterwards | |
| 1 May | John blog entry
Sorry I haven't posted much recently. We've had a few cases which I'll write up when I get chance. Think I needed a break from it all really. That whole business in the swimming pool... I just needed to get away from guns and bombs and maniacs. Went to see an old mate in New Zealand for a couple of weeks. Sarah came too but we broke up shortly afterwards. Not sure my life with Sherlock is compatible with long-term relationships. More news soon.
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John's blog |
| 30 May | John blog entry
Time to write up a few notes. I'm going to tell you about a couple of the smaller cases we've been involved in. What really happened on the Tilly Briggs pleasure cruise. Then there was that really odd case with the melting laptop and the time Sherlock stole a bus. Just another typical week at 221B Baker Street!
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John's blog |
| 30 May | John blog entry
I've had to take this post down for a while as the ship's owners are launching an appeal. More news soon.
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John's blog |
| 16 June | John blog entry
Three young men came to Baker St claiming that events in recent issues of a comic had started happening in real life. I know. We'd turned away mysterious deaths and worldwide conspiracies, but this was the one that Sherlock was interested in.
Chris Melas told us how he had this website. It was about a series of comic books based on the adventures of some superhero terrorist-fighting organisation called KRATIDES. They were your average karate-kicking, moral-spouting group of spandex-wearers. But, according to Chris and his mates, there were all these hidden messages in the stories – instead of being some left-wing freedom-fighting force, KRATIDES actually promoted right-wing values. Or something. It was all a bit beyond me, to be honest, and, well, it all just seemed a bit silly. One thing I learnt very quickly though was that comic books aren't comics. They're graphic novels. Chris was really quite vocal on that. So it turned out that he'd started to see members of KRATIDES in the real world. He'd seen Sophy, the Wolflady, disposing of some unattended luggage in New Cross Station. He'd spotted The Flying Bludgeon tackling a mugger on Wandsworth Common. He'd even photographed Professor Davenport, the leader of KRATIDES, in Beckenham. If it wasn't for the photo, I'd have said it was all in his head but there he was – the blue-skinned Professor Davenport. Standing outside Greggs. And as if that wasn't bizarre enough, all these events had already happened in the comics. Graphic novels. Comic books. Whatever. Sherlock said that there were three possibilities – one was that KRATIDES actually existed. A possibility I actually think he was taking seriously. The second was that Chris was suffering from some kind of psychological delusions. The third possibility was that this was all being done for his benefit. But why? Chris was staring to lose it. He'd scared away most of his friends and family and, other than his two assistants, the only person he had left was someone who'd contacted him on his website – someone called Kemp. He didn't know what they looked like as their profile picture was just a smiley face. Kemp had been telling Chris to spread the word even more about the reality behind KRATIDES – that they existed and that they were real. Other than Sherlock, this Kemp was the only person taking him seriously. Have to admit, I certainly wasn't. Encouraged by him, Chris had been spreading the word on Twitter, Facebook and Google+ as well as on his own website. And, obviously, he was having to deal with an increasing amount of ridicule. As the days passed we watched his hold on reality get weaker and weaker. Sherlock got me to do some research (which involved me going into a comic shop... oh, the things I saw...) and it turned out that, as expected, sales of KRATIDES had shot through the roof. Despite their mocking of Chris, people were rushing out to buy the comic so they could be there if and when the events came true. Sherlock contacted one of his friends who lived on the streets. She'd used to work in computers and through some technobabble tracing thing was able to locate the real Kemp – who, it turned out, worked for the publishers of KRATIDES. They'd been using Chris as a form of advertising. It would have been almost funny had it not been for the effect it had had on his mind. To make money, they'd risked sending this kid insane. They hadn't technically done anything illegal so there wasn't much we could do. So we looked at the most recent issue of KRATIDES and saw there was a storyline about Latimer, one of the superheroes, defeating two masked terrorists on Shaftesbury Avenue... Which is why Sherlock and I ended up, dressed as ninjas, fighting a comic book geek in Soho. At the end of which, me and Sherlock ran off and Chris pulled off his mask and told his audience exactly what Kemp and the publishers had done to him. You may have read about the comic's demise on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.
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John's blog |
| Summer | Mrs Hudson begins hanging around Speedy's sandwich shop more often (getting to know Mr Chatterjee?) | John's blog comments |
| 13 July | John blog entry
Early thirties, dyed blonde hair, strange red speckles all over her body. The woman, Julia Stoner, had been found in her bed. There seemed to be no obvious cause of death.
Her sister, Helen, said that Julia had been feeling a bit rundown for the last few weeks but had figured she was stressed because she was getting married soon. It was only after performing the autopsy, that I discovered two tiny puncture marks in her right ankle and traces of an unidentified poison in her bloodstream. The obvious answer was that she had been bitten by something, presumably some kind of snake. As I started to phone the local zoos to see if any had recently escaped, Sherlock looked into Julia's family. She lived with her sister and their stepfather, Doctor Roylott. He was apparently a big name in cosmetics and had even guest starred on Connie Prince's show a few times. Both seemed genuinely devastated by Julia's death. We then met her fiance, Percy Armitage. He was a strange bloke. Very beardy. He also, we discovered, kept snakes. None of the zoos were missing any reptiles so it appeared to be that one of Percy's had bitten Julia. He denied it, saying that Julia hated the snakes so wouldn't go near them. The case went on for a few days but we didn't seem to be getting anywhere. Sherlock was convinced that Julia had been murdered in some way. He didn't believe that a snake could get into someone's bedroom, kill them in their sleep and then leave without being spotted by anyone else. Percy had an alibi for the night Julia was killed and he kept his snakes at his own flat. It seemed obvious that he was involved but wherever we turned, we hit a brick wall. And to make matters worse, Helen was starting to complain that she too was feeling tired and run down. Was it just grief over her sister's death? Or was something else happening? Sherlock, then, had an idea. He decided to relive Julia's last night. He wanted to spend a night in her bedroom and he wanted me to join him. Yes. You can all stop sniggering. I was going to sleep on the floor. We went into the bedroom and Sherlock started to relive Julia's last moments – with guidance from Helen. Julia had been out with some mates but hadn't got too drunk. She'd come home and had had a bath. Sherlock looked at the bottle of expensive-looking bubble bath by Julia's bed. The brand was Roylotts – developed by her stepfather's company. Sherlock asked Helen if she used the same brand. She said that it wasn't yet available in the shops. Their stepfather had given it to her sister to try and then, more recently, to her. Sherlock took the bottle to Barts and analysed the contents. It contained a slow-acting poison. Every time the girls had been using it, they'd been slowly killing themselves. Helen told us that her stepfather had promised it had already been tested. It was safe! Sherlock pointed out that this hadn't been an accident (he didn't exactly break this gently to Helen). Her stepfather had killed her sister in cold blood and was now doing the same to her. He'd put the puncture marks in Julia's ankle to deflect attention onto one of Percy's snakes. We rushed back to the house to confront the old man but it was too late – he was already dead. He'd hung himself from the kitchen light-fitting. He hadn't left a note so we don't know why he wanted to kill his step-daughters. Did he remind them of his late wife? Was it about money? Was he just mad? We, and more tragically Helen, will never know.
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John's blog |
| 1 August | John blog entry
The body of a 45 year old man was found in a car on wasteland in Surrey.
I genuinely never thought I'd see the day. Sherlock is BAFFLED! He hasn't got a clue! He's flummoxed! He's bamboozled! He's stuck. As you know, there was a plane crash the other day, just outside Düsseldorf. Everyone died. Obviously, it's a real tragedy but there's something very strange about one of the passengers. He was found in a car boot in Surrey! According to the flight details, he was checked on board. They found the stub of his boarding pass and napkins etc. on his body. His passport has been stamped in Berlin Airport. He should have died in the plane crash. But he didn't. He was in a car boot. In Surrey. Obviously, I haven't got a clue but neither does Sherlock. He just can't work it out. It's actually and literally impossible. Any suggestions, feel free to leave them below. I'll be sure to pass them ALL on :)
The number of comments on this post caused my blog to crash so I've had to delete them. If you want to know what people had to say, then visit Scotland Yard where apparently a print-out is framed in the canteen. John Watson 3 August 09:46
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John's blog |
| 12 August | John blog entry
We've been so busy over the last few months that I haven't had time to write up most of our cases but this hasn't stopped us becoming an Internet phenomenon. We've even made the papers!
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John's blog |
| 2 September | John blog entry
This one you'll have read about in the papers. The murder of actor Matthew Michael live on stage. I wasn't actually there as I was on a date (went well, thanks for asking) but Sherlock was and he left a number of messages on my voicemail, telling me what happened. A couple of people have asked me what he's really like so I've transcribed them.
"John, I've just been to see Terror By Night at some terrible little theatre on the Strand. The play itself was mediocre but there was a murder! Live on stage! I haven't got time to tell the police what happened so when you've finished having dinner or whatever it is you're doing with... Sarah? I need you to take this message to ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓. Don't worry, it's all quite simple. Detective Sidney Paget, played by the actor Matthew Michael, summoned the other characters to the drawing room so he could reveal whodunnit. As I'd worked out from Scene One, Lady Margaret Chaplette, had been killed by her son Albert, played by the actor William Howells. William, playing Albert, then had to, in a fit of rage, hit Sidney, played by Matthew, with his aluminium crutch. The aluminium crutch was meant to be made of rubber so that Matthew wouldn't be injured but during the interval, someone had replaced the rubber aluminium crutch with a real aluminium crutch. William playing Albert struck Matthew playing Sidney across the head with the real aluminium crutch and killed him. Now, the only person who could have replaced the rubber aluminium crutch with the real aluminium crutch was someone who'd had access to William's dressing room during the interval. William revealed who had been in there during the interval – the director Deborah Challis, Matthew Michael who played Detective Sidney Paget, Sarah Groenewegen who played Sissy Hastings, Jonathan Morris who played Cedric Hastings and Karen Baldwin who played the maid, Jade. As could be seen in his performance, William clearly liked a drink. At one point, during a tennis court scene that I actually thought would never end, he referred to Sarah instead of Sissy, the character she played and there were bruises on Matthew's arms where, as Sidney, he'd been struck by the character Albert Chaplette in earlier performances, but where the actor William had missed the padding stitched into the coat. I hope you're getting all this down? So the killer could have been Deborah Challis, the director or one of those four actors, five including William himself. It had to be someone who could smuggle a real crutch in and replace it without William noticing although, obviously, the bottle of gin he was knocking back would have helped. Deborah Challis, the director, was wearing tight jeans and a top that was far too pink and far too small so she wouldn't have been able to smuggle in anything larger than a peanut. Which would have been fine if she wanted to kill someone with a nut allergy but she didn't. After some gentle questioning from me, she broke down and admitted that she was in love with William but that he wasn't interested. At last, an explanation for why the old drunk had been cast in the play! Sarah Groenwegen who played Sissy Hastings was clearly having an affair with William (in real life, I mean, not in the play) so had he broke things off with her? Was she pregnant and he didn't want to know? And if so, was she trying to get revenge by getting William arrested for the murder of Matthew? It seemed... improbable but not impossible. Jonathan who played Cedric admitted that he didn't like William and that they'd had a fight during the interval. It turned out that Jonathan was in love with Sarah (who played his sister Sissy) and he hadn't liked the way William treated her. But again, why go to the trouble of having him arrested? Why not just kill William himself? Karen who played the maid Jade admitted that she'd been having an affair with the victim Matthew who played the detective Sidney but there was no way she could have hidden a crutch in her maid's costume. So we had two suspects, Deborah the director and Karen who played Jade, who couldn't have smuggled the crutch in. Two suspects, Sarah who played Sissy and Jonathan who played Cedric, who could have smuggled the crutch in but who didn't appear to have a motive. And then William and Matthew themselves. If William had wanted to kill Matthew then there were easier ways to have gone about it. Which leaves the victim Matthew himself. As Sidney, Matthew wore a long overcoat (not dissimilar to mine) so he could have done it but there are easier ways of committing suicide – even if you do want to do so dramatically live on stage. The thing is aluminium is actually quite light. There's no guarantee that a strike from an aluminium crutch would actually kill someone. But think about it, John. The bruises on Matthew's arm. William's unprofessional behaviour, the drinking, the affairs. Matthew had already complained to Deborah, the director, about William, but, because she was in love with William, she hadn't done anything about it. And that was it. Matthew had decided to get William sacked himself. He'd gone into William's dressing room with the real aluminium crutch hidden under his overcoat. The drunk William, busy either fooling around with Sarah or fighting with Jonathan, wouldn't have noticed Matthew swapping the crutch. Matthew's plan was for William, as usual, to hit him with the crutch, not knowing that the rubber aluminium crutch was now a real aluminium crutch. He presumably hoped it would break his arm or cause enough damage that he could sue the theatre or Deborah and ensure that William was sacked. But William, perhaps because of the fight with Jonathan, was even more drunk than usual and swung the crutch too high, striking Matthew across the head and accidentally killing him. So, just to make sure you've got it: The murder victim Sidney Paget (who played the detective Matthew Michael) was also the killer as he himself swapped the fake murder weapon, the rubber aluminium crutch, for the real murder weapon, a real aluminium crutch, in an attempt to get William Howells (who played the killer Albert Chaplette) fired. The plan itself backfired and he caused his own death."
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John's blog |
| 15 September | John blog entry about "A Scandal in Belgravia"
So there I am, dealing with a mysterious death in the middle of the countryside when suddenly I'm whisked away in a helicopter and taken to Buckingham Palace.
Sherlock was already there. Naked except for a sheet wrapped around him. Due to the clients involved, thanks Mycroft, I've had to delete the rest of this post. Needless to say, it was quite the adventure. And I'm sure it won't be the last time we hear the name Irene Adler. In fact, I'm pretty certain he's getting texts from her. It's funny, in the time I've known him, I've never seen him take the slightest interest in a woman but this one... She's got to him.
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John's blog |
| 19 December | John blog entry
I'd taken Sherlock out Christmas shopping which, looking back, wasn't the best of ideas. He'd shouted at a Father Christmas that he was bored and wanted a nice juicy murder for Christmas – in front of a bunch of kids and their parents. Escorted back to the flat by the police, we found a student, Sally Barnicot, waiting for us.
After Sherlock had managed to insult her about her looks and the way she was dressed, she told us about a murder that had taken place at her university. Pietro Venucci, an art student, and Sally's best friend had been found stabbed in the pottery room. His boyfriend, Beppo Rovito, was discovered next to the body and told the police that he'd just discovered him. A smashed window seemed to confirm that someone had broken in and as there was no knife on Beppo or in the room, he'd been released from custody. Sally was convinced that Beppo did it as he and Pietro had had a fiery relationship. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to work out that she'd also been in love with Pietro. Sherlock was instantly on the internet and was thrilled to discover that there had been a number of burglaries at houses belonging to a couple of students, a lecturer and a friend of the victim. He had, of course, already worked it all out. Sherlock requested, or rather ordered, me to go to the university, pretending to be a curator from the Hickman Gallery. I told the art lecturer, Horace Harker, that I was interested in displaying some students' work – especially pieces of sculpture. Naturally, the murder came up in conversation and I asked if the victim had been working on anything in particular as we could display it as a nice tribute to him. Harker said that Pietro had made six pottery figures of Maggie Thatcher before he died. They were like those ones you see of Princess Diana advertised in magazines only they had devil horns. This was satire, apparently. The figures, Harker told me sadly, had already been taken. We went to visit the people who'd been burgled and it turns out that they'd all bought one of the Thatcher figures. Nothing else had been taken during the break-ins which, again, was what Sherlock had expected to hear. We found the addresses of the people who owned the remaining two figures and contacted them. That night, I took one address and Sherlock the other. I sat there, in the dark and waited. Then, hearing the sound of a window breaking, I hid. I watched as Beppo broke in and found the figure on the mantlepiece. I followed him outside and called Sherlock who joined me. We followed him to a bridge and watched as he smashed the figure to the ground. Something was inside it which he picked up, ready to throw in the river. Before he could, we stopped him and found that he was holding a penknife with his initials on it. Knowing that it was all over, he confessed immediately. He and Pietro had had an argument and, in a struggle, Beppo had stabbed him. He'd seen the figures were about to go into the oven and had pushed the knife into the clay. He'd then smashed a window to make it look like there'd been a break-in. I thought that what he'd done was pretty clever but Sherlock described as disappointingly simple. The next day he spent so much time going on about how he'd have got away with it that I went to the pub and left him talking to a frozen turkey. Oh, and he's still getting those texts.
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John's blog |
| ? December | A Christmas gift box containing Irene's phone is placed on the mantelpiece in 221b (by Irene or persons unknown) | ASiB |
| 25 December | Mrs Hudson receives a laptop as a gift from Sherlock and John | John's blog |
| 25 December | Sherlock and John host a Christmas party at 221B, with Mrs Hudson, Lestrade, Molly, and John's current girlfriend, Jeannette, in attendance. | ASiB |
| 25 December | Sherlock finds Irene's phone and concludes that she is dead; a disfigured body matching her colouring and measurements is located and brought to the mortuary at St Barts, where Sherlock identifies her for Molly Hooper.
Mycroft speaks to Sherlock at the hospital and offers him a cigarette; because he accepts, Mycroft warns John by phone that it is a definitely a "danger night" and that he needs to watch Sherlock closely for relapse into drug use. Jeannette breaks up with John. |
ASiB |
| 25 December | John blog entry about Irene's death
I should be out tonight with Jeanette but things, as ever, haven't gone to plan.
What Christmas isn't complete without your guests being humiliated, your girlfriend dumping you and a woman being murdered. Sherlock was his usual tetchy self, managing to make Christmas all about him but I can't bring myself to complain about him too much. Not after the death. Irene Adler. She's gone and he won't dare admit it but he's devastated. He can't show it and I don't think he understands what he's feeling. Sometimes he's so cut off from everything, so cold, so lacking in emotion that when he does feel something... well I think it's the one thing on this planet he'll never quite get.
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John's blog |
| 31 December | John blog entry
Just a quick update before we go into 20121. It's been a bit of a day. I was taken to Battersea Power Station where I met Irene Adler. She's still alive. Dead or alive, it's all just a game to her. At first, she refused to let Sherlock know she hadn't died but I insisted. I think that was the right thing to do. Either way, she's messing with his head. It didn't really matter though as, of course, he'd followed me.
When I got back to Baker Street... Mrs H. She'd been attacked. I've never seen her like that and it struck me again just how close to home this all this. People know where we live. People know who our friends are. But, oh Mrs H, she's so brave. They'd done horrible things to her but she had what they were looking for. She'd not given it up. The things we do for Sherlock Holmes, eh? He won't talk about her, obviously. And my plans for New Years have had to be cancelled of course. So it's going to be a glass of scotch and a silent flatmate. Happy New Year.
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John's blog |
2011[]
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1 January | Sherlock takes Irene's phone to Barts to use Molly's X-ray equipment to examine its interior and safeguards. | |
| 1 January | John blog entry
It's all been a bit doom and gloom over the last few days so I wanted something to cheer us up. Sherlock's off at Barts x-raying a phone, leaving me to do the shopping. Before I go, though, look what I found on the Internet. It's mad but lovely. Thanks Jacob, you've cheered me up!
 The video from John's blog 1st Jan. by Jacob Jacob Sowersby fan video
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John's blog |
| January | Irene shows up in Baker Street to seduce Sherlock. Later that day, Sherlock, Mycroft and Irene have confrontation at Heathrow Airport and negotiate at Mycroft's. | "A Scandal in Belgravia". Irene says "I let Sherlock Holmes try it (get into the camera phone) for six months". This might refer to six months after the day of royal appointment. |
| January | Irene sends her last text message. Sherlock rescues her. | "A Scandal in Belgravia". Mycroft tells John that Irene was captured two months ago before he brings the news to Baker street (and the blog post on 12 March) |
| ? March | Baskerville Day 1: | |
| Sherlock solves a case early in the morning, "by harpooning a dead pig, apparently" and returns to 221b already jonesing for something new to do. | THoB | |
| Henry Knight arrives to ask for help at about 9 AM (after showing his Baskerville documentary, he is deduced by Sherlock, who ends with "No chance to smoke one on the train; no time to roll one before you got a cab here. It’s just after nine fifteen. You’re desperate." | THoB | |
| Sherlock and John leave (with luggage) for Dartmoor, travelling by cab to Paddington Station, by train, and then by Land Rover to the village of Grimpen.
Note: They presumably take the First Great Western train to Exeter, the station from which Sherlock deduced Henry departed (the rail portion takes 2.5 to 3 hours), then rent the Land Rover and drive an unknown distance to the village. |
THoB | |
| Sherlock and John arrive at the Cross Keys Inn, talk to Fletcher, drive to Baskerville and tour the facility, and then drive to Henry's house.:notes: the clock on the wall behind the bar says 6:30 when John is checking in, but it's apparently wrong, because when Sherlock checks his (presumably always accurate) watch on entering the Baskerville facility, it is not quite 3:40 PM. He estimates they have 20 minutes before Mycroft catches up with the unauthorized entry; it takes him 23. Although Sherlock said "we've got another half an hour of light..." while talking to Fletcher, it's still not dark (or even dimming) when they arrive at Henry's, so perhaps he was mis-estimating the time to sell the 'disdainful blithering tourist' act to motivate Fletcher to provide more information and cause him to lose his bet. | THoB | |
| Sherlock and John interview Henry, walk out to the moors in twilight, and it's full dark by the time they get to the woods and encounter the Hound. John escorts Henry home, then joins Sherlock at the inn; gets offended and leaves again, investigates Morse code on hilltop, returns to inn to interview Dr Mortimer, is interrupted by Frankland, | THoB | |
| ? March | Baskerville Day 2: | |
| Sherlock is up early, surveying the countryside before going to Henry's to steal some sugar. He meets John in the churchyard and they walk back to the inn where they encounter Lestrade (it looks like about 11 AM except...after Sherlock feeds John sugar-drugged coffee and the three of them briefly interview the innkeepers, the same bar clock has gone back to 6:30. Oh well.) | ||
| With Mycroft's help, Sherlock and John get back in to Baskerville during the afternoon; John gets dosed and hallucinates the Hound in the lab until Sherlock "rescues" him. While John recovers, Sherlock borrows Dr Stapleton's microscope to examine the sugar, but can find no sign of the drug. | THoB | |
| 12 March | John blog entry
I can't say much about the actual case because of the Official Secrets Act but the country was nearly brought to its knees by one person – Irene Adler. She's now under a witness protection scheme so we'll not be seeing her again. And Sherlock seems fine with that. Of course, he isn't fine with it, not really. But he'll get there.
|
John's blog |
| 16 March | John blog entry
I've never been happier to see anyone than I was to see Henry Knight. Sherlock had been bored. And trust me, you don't want to be around him when he's bored. He's hyperactive, rude, arrogant and a real pain in the behind.
Yeah I know, same old Sherlock. Henry, a normal-looking bloke in his late 20s, was clearly very anxious when he arrived at Baker Street. He told us about how, twenty years before, his dad had died. He told us how his Dad had been ripped apart by the Devil. They'd been out for a walk on Dartmoor when they'd been attacked. Some kind of monster – big, black with red glowing eyes – had killed his father in front of him. Apparently it had taken place near the Government's Baskerville research facility. Sherlock worked out that something must have happened the previous night to make Henry suddenly ask for help that morning. Henry said that his therapist, Doctor Louise Mortimer, had suggested he revisit the location of the attack in order to put old ghosts to rest. Henry had done this and, to his horror, had discovered some footprints. Footprints that appeared to have been made by, what he called, a 'gigantic hound'. There'd been rumours that experiments on animals had been taking place at the Baskerville facility since WWII. And so, Sherlock took the case and off we went into deepest, darkest Devon. Our first port of call was the local pub. There we found a guy who ran walks on the moors etc. He claimed to know a man from the MOD who'd once said he'd seen giant animals at a government research facility – rats as big as dogs and dogs as big as horses. It wasn't exactly irrefutable evidence but all signs did seem to be pointing at the Baskerville facility. Sherlock had some ID he'd appropriated so we were able to bluff our way in. Again, because of the Official Secrets Act, I can't talk too much about what I saw in there but, as well as seeing some of what they go up to, we met Doctor Jacqui Stapleton and the annoyingly-cheerful Doctor Bob Frankland. Stapleton, Sherlock realised, was the mother of a little girl who'd written to him recently. We then went to see Henry at his home where he told us that something else had come back to him about the night his father died – two words: Liberty and In. Sherlock then announced his next move – we'd take Henry up to the moors that night and see if anything else attacked him. I'm not sure who was more worried about this, me or Henry. Turns out we were both right to be worried. That night, I heard the hound. Well, I heard something. The place was so bleak and desolate but I was sure it wasn't my mind playing tricks on me. But it got worse – Sherlock and Henry saw it. Sherlock denied it at first, but back at the pub he finally admitted to me that he'd seen it. I've never seen him so shaken, so scared. He was actually terrified. We parted company and I went to interview Louise Mortimer, Henry's therapist. She was starting to open up to me when Frankland arrived, interrupting us. Things weren't going well. The next morning, I met up with Sherlock and we discussed the previous evening. He admitted that as well as fear, the worst thing he'd felt was doubt. He'd never doubted himself before and he simply couldn't understand how he'd seen what he'd seen. Luckily, I'd already spotted a clue. A receipt for meat at the vegetarian hotel and restaurant we were staying at. When confronted, the owners admitted that they'd bought a dog to help cash in on the rising tourist trade but that they'd had it put down some time before. It certainly hadn't been what Sherlock had seen the previous night. And therefore it certainly wasn't what I was about to see. We returned to the base to talk to Doctor Stapleton. Before meeting up with her, though, Sherlock sent me off to look for any sign of this 'monster', so i started in the main lab. And I was trapped when it came for me it. I could hear it... And then I saw it... I've been through some terrifying experiences in my life but that was one of the worst. Something that just seemed so unbelievable and so unstoppable... Those eyes... And then Sherlock rescued me and revealed that I'd been drugged. I saw the hound because that's what I'd expected to see. Obviously, as a doctor, I've seen the effects of a number of different drugs but this... I hadn't just seen the hound. I'd heard it. I'd felt it getting closer. I'd felt the fear inside me... We met up with Stapleton again and, in her lab, Sherlock examined some sugar from Henry's house. He'd noticed that both and he and Henry took sugar in their coffee which would explain why they'd seen the hound the previous night and I hadn't. It also explained why Sherlock had made me coffee that morning and put sugar in it. He'd used me as an experiment. One day, I will kill him. There was one thing that had bothered Sherlock from the start and that was Henry's use of the word 'hound'. It was an odd word, old-fashioned. He wondered whether it was another piece of his memory trying to break through and whether it was actually an acronym he'd seen. Using the facility's computers, we managed to discover the existence of an old scientific project, indeed known as H.O.U.N.D. The project had been to design and develop a weapon that could create fear in the enemy. It had been closed down when they'd realised that prolonged exposure had caused people to lose their sanity. And where had the project been developed? Liberty, Indiana. Liberty. In. Henry had been remembering things! Then his therapist, Louise, called. Henry had lost it. He'd turned a gun on her and fled. She was all right but she was scared about what he might do to himself. We returned to the moors, to the place where Henry's dad had been killed and there he was. He was close to killing himself. His mind just couldn't cope with all the conflicting information – what he remembered, what he thought he remembered, everything. Sherlock knew that he'd started to remember that it had actually been a man who had killed his father and not a monster. Witnessing this as a kid, he'd tried to rationalise it into something different. He'd created the hound out of the various images he'd seen – the crazed man and the acronym which his father's murderer had been wearing on a sweatshirt. H.O.U.N.D. And then we all saw the hound again. It was coming for us. I knew, I rationalised that it wasn't real, that I was just seeing things but it was there... Coming for us... And so was the man behind it all. Doctor Frankland. He was wearing a gasmask which told Sherlock what he needed to know – the poison, the weapon that H.O.U.N.D. had created hadn't been in the sugar. It was in the fog! We were in a chemical minefield. As the hound prepared to attack, we shot it and we saw that it was just a dog. And then Sherlock did one of the most human things I think I've ever seen him do – he made Henry look at the dog's body. He didn't need to, he'd solved the case but it was as if he knew that the truly important thing was showing Henry what was real and what wasn't. Maybe the fear and doubt he'd felt, and maybe his experiences with Irene Adler, had humanised him? Of course, he immediately started raving on in front of Henry about what a fantastic case it had been and I realised he hadn't changed that much. And later, I realised something else. Sherlock had thought that the poison was in the sugar at first. He'd been convinced. Sherlock had made a mistake. He is only human, after all.
|
John's blog |
| 16 March | Moriarty posts an entry to John's blog; he claims to have hacked the website, but he may have gained direct access to John's computer or passwords when he broke into 221b, as demonstrated in the threatening video that he posts: | John's blog |
| The Reichenbach Falls exhibition opens | "The Reichenbach Falls". Three months before John's therapy appointment. | |
| Moriarty breaks into Tower of London, the Bank of England, and Pentonville Prison. | ||
| 9 May | Sherlock testifies at Moriarty's trial, "Trial of the Century". | Newspaper in "the Reichenbach Falls", which is inconsistent with the three-month interval |
| 20 September | Moriarty walks free on verdict and visits Baker street | Newspaper in "the Reichenbach Falls", which is inconsistent with the three-month interval |
| 10 October | Moriarty vanishes | Newspaper in "the Reichenbach Falls", which is inconsistent with the three-month interval |
| 19 November
(11 June) |
John talks to Mycroft. Richard Brooks's interview on newspaper. Sherlock and John investigate the Ambassador's children case. Kids were kidnapped yesterday night, which was the end of term day. Later that night, they flee from police. The news is only on for 24 hours. | "The Reichenbach Falls". Mycroft mentions the news comes out on Saturday.
The news video at John's blog is around two months after the verdict. |
| 20 November
(12 June) |
Next day, John watches Sherlock leap to his apparent death from the roof of St Barts | "The Reichenbach Falls".
The news video at John's blog is around two months after the verdict |
| (16 June) | John blog entry | John's blog; blog date inconsistent with "the Reichenbach Falls" |
| John visits his therapist, Ella | "The Reichenbach Falls"; Eighteen months after John's last appointment; Three months after the Reichenbach Falls exhibition, which is inconsistent with the newspaper in the same episode. |
2012[]
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| leaving this blog entry template here, in the hope that we'll need it again in the near future! | ||
| DATE | John blog entry
[URL TITLE]
BLOGCONTENT
|
[URL John's blog] |
2013[]
| Date |
Event |
Source |
|---|---|---|
| 20 April | John's blog entry on life after Sherlock
Mary first comments on John's blog post without leaving her last name. |
John's blog |
| 26 April | "A Few Pictures" blog post. John posts pictures about their cases. He found them in his phone. | John's blog |
| 12 May | "The Deadly Tealights" blog post, a case before the tragedy | John's blog |
| 23 May | "The Death by Twitter" blog post, a case before the tragedy | John's blog |
| 17 June | "Murder at 'The Orient Express'" blog post, a case before the tragedy | |
| 5 October | "Many Happy Returns" blog post. John mentions Lestrade gave him a DVD. It includes an uncut video message from Sherlock for John's birthday dinner. The video was possibly recorded for John's 2011 birthday. Sherlock mentions he "has a thing" in the video, which might refer to the coming death.
In the post, John also claims he found someone (,apparently Mary), and this is his last blog post. |
The mini-episode "Many Happy Returns" |
| Sherlock returns | ||
| 4 November | Mary receives a threatening message from CAM. Sherlock saves John from a lit bonfire. | The Empty Hearse |
| 5 November | Guy Fawkes Night. Sherlock defuses the bomb under the Houses of Parliament | The Empty Hearse |
| 7 November | "The Empty Hearse" blog post. Sherlock lives. | John's blog |
2014[]
| Date | Event |
Source |
|---|---|---|
| 18 May | John and Mary Watson's wedding day, which conflicts with the blog dates | A wedding invitation seen in "The Sign of Three" gives this date. |
| 27 May | "The Poison Giant" blog post | John's blogThis is inconsistent when compared to "The Sign of Three" which gives May 18th as the date of the wedding. |
| 3 June | "Happily Ever After" blog post. John mentions his wedding is forthcoming. | John's blogInconsistent when compared to "The Sign of Three" May 18th wedding date. |
| 10 June | "The Elephant in the Room" blog post | John's blogInconsistent when compared to "The Sign of Three" May 18th wedding date. |
| 29 June | "The Bloody Guardsman" blog post | John's blogInconsistent when compared to "The Sign of Three" May 18th wedding date. |
| 2 July | "The Hollow Client" blog post | John's blogInconsistent when compared to "The Sign of Three" May 18th wedding date. |
| 21 July | "The Mayfly Man" blog post. | John's blogInconsistent when compared to "The Sign of Three" May 18th wedding date. |
| 11 August | "The Sign of Three" post. Sherlock posts on John's blog about the wedding. John and Mary are on their honeymoon. Sherlock's wedding video - Sherlock- Series 3 - BBC One |
John's blogInconsistent when compared to "The Sign of Three" May 18th wedding date. |
| 25 December |
Christmas at the Holmes'; Charles Magnussen killed at his estate. |
2015[]
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
|
? January |
A week after shooting Charles Magnussen, Sherlock says his final farewells to John on the tarmac before boarding the plane to go on an estimated six month undercover assignment in Eastern Europe. Due to James Moriarty's 'return' through hacking 'every TV screen' in the nation, however, this trip lasts roughly five minutes. |
"His Last Vow". Although Mycroft says that Sherlock has spent at least a week in a prison cell prior to his boarding the plane, this is inconsistent with the "Alternatively 2014" screen we see at the end of "The Abominable Bride ". |
Notes[]
Many thanks to lyrical sky at AO3 for the incredible Meta: BBC Sherlock Timeline of Series 1 and 2, which provided the initial inspiration, and the BBC Sherlock Fan Forum, which provided many more details.