Episode 3.1, "The Empty Hearse"

[Van Buren Supernova]

I've been thinking about this, how could Sherlock possibly deduce all those things he said about his torturer?

I tried to look at the scene but nothing much to be found there.

(I know! I know! One and a half months to go!)

 

From Ariane DeVere

TORTURER (in Serbian): He said that I used to work in the navy, where I had an unhappy love affair.

SOLDIER (in Serbian): What?

(The prisoner continues to whisper and the torturer relays his words to the other man.)

TORTURER (in Serbian): ... that the electricity isn’t working in my bathroom; and that my wife is sleeping with our next door neighbour!

(He reaches down and pulls up the prisoner’s head by the hair again.)

TORTURER (in Serbian): And?

(The prisoner replies briefly and the man releases his head.)

TORTURER (in Serbian): The coffin maker!

(Once again he bends to the prisoner, lifting his head with a fist in his hair.)

TORTURER (in Serbian): And? And?

(The prisoner continues whispering, then the torturer drops his head and relays the words to the soldier.)

TORTURER (in Serbian): If I go home now, I’ll catch them at it! I knew it! I knew there was something going on!

 

Navy.

Maybe from his body language, military style, some sort of uniform/clothing styles or certain way of him doing things. Type of interrogation and torture?

 

Unhappy love affair in navy.

I have no idea. Scars, scratches, loose threads, tattoo traces from the past?

 

Electricity isn't working in the bathroom, unfaithful wife.

Could be from uneven shaving, leftover shaving cream or some stains that the wife also didn't bother to tell him because she doesn't care anymore?

Or Sherlock detects two different kind of aftershaves and woman's perfume that leads him to deduce that this man is married but his wife is kissing another man too? :p

Wrinkled or worn clothes, bad hygiene, unkept appearance. Married, not girlfriend. He probably smells like burnt bacon as well, cigarette and indoor spray to mask cigarette smell, which is probably the source of everyday quarrel and unhappy marriage? XD

 

Coffin maker: sprinkle of timber or saw dusts, some stain of wood varnish commonly used for coffin wood. Smell of wooden chemical treatment of said wood mixed with said aftershave and type of soil from the glance to his shoes, which Sherlock differentiates from the type of soil around the site, and there were precisely only two types of soils detected from that man?

 

And from that he also deduces the possible location of the man's home, how long it takes him to travel to 'work' and most probable 'safe hour' his wife would use for the affair. And based on the number of average death on that time of the year, how often a coffin maker restocks his product and the availability of raw material that determines which month the coffin maker is most likely to have more free time?

 

It all makes sense now! Is it?

Is it? :p

Any other theories?

[Carol the Dabbler]

Wow, you got a heck of a lot further than I ever did! The electricity part was pretty easy, nearly straight out of Conan Doyle (uneven shaving, as you said).

 

I did figure out one thing you didn't mention, namely why the prisoner was speaking too softly for us to hear -- that was so Benedict Cumberbatch didn't have to learn Serbian. (But you knew that, didn't you?)

[J.P.]

Also they wanted us not to be sure who the prisoner was. As well as they were hiding Mycroft.

 

Maybe the other clues are also from the canon?

 

About the Navy thing: a tattoo would be a good idicator, a girl's name over-tattoed -> unhappy love affair.

Light - state of the guy's face.

No idea about the coffin makers - maybe they just exaggerate  Sherlock's abilities to make it a bit funny. Like that fight with the masked Beduin in his flat.

[Pseudonym]

I did figure out one thing you didn't mention, namely why the prisoner was speaking too softly for us to hear -- that was so Benedict Cumberbatch didn't have to learn Serbian. (But you knew that, didn't you?)

 

I don't know, he learned black speech backwards for the Necromancer in The Hobbit, a few lines of Serbian wouldn't be that hard surely? But then I suppose it's likely that the BBC doesn't have the same amount of time to spend on something that can be done faster and cheaper by having him whisper. Besides, it's unlikely he's had much to eat or drink in a long while, maybe he can't speak that much louder. Does he talk to Mycroft in the cell after he reveals himself? I can't remember. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

No, I believe he just smiles beatifically.

[Arcadia]

I've always assumed he made up the stuff about the wife having an affair just to get the guy out of the room. Threw in a few facts to make the lie seem real. Poor innocent wife. Poor innocent coffin maker....!

[J.P.]

Yeah. Good one, Arcadia!

[Carol the Dabbler]

But then how did he know there was a coffin maker? I doubt that the torturer had been chit-chatting with Sherlock.

[Pseudonym]

What happened is that the day before the torturer was having a bad day, and instead of going in and interrogating Sherlock as per usual he took advantage of a quiet place in the cell and instead sat at the table drinking vodka. As he got more and more drunk he began to rant about how crappy his life is, how the electric in his house doesn't work properly, how he suspects his wife is sneaking about with the neighbour behind his back. In one of the rants he mentions the neighbour is a coffin maker. He finally stumbles from the room absolutely plastered... and blacks out, forgetting everything he said. Next day he goes in and Sherlock reels it all back to him to get him to leave. :D

[sfmpco]

We don't give Anderson enough credit, and he provides a very obscure clue that is largely overlooked simply because Anderson is overlooked.  When he says,

 

"No she's lying.  It was Jim Moriarty's body with a mask on."

 

Anderson KNOWS there was a Moriarty body, and Lestrade doesn't contradict him.  So Lestrade clearly knows too. 

 

So regardless of whether we get a bigger confirmation of Moriarty's death, it is really unnecessary.  The body is confirmed.

 

 

[J.P.]

Yes it is. But it also means there was an investigation. And probably some news coverage as Sherlock was quite a celebrity. I miss any info about it. They even didn't say he was also dead in the news at the beginning of TEH, did they? Did Mycroft cleaned this mess too? It was his plan after all.

[Pseudonym]

What confuses me a bit about Moriarty is why he was after Sherlock at all. Mycroft is more intelligent and more powerful, surely he'd be more of a challenge? Maybe Sherlock is just more fun to play with. ;)

[sfmpco]

Sherlock dead or Moriarty dead?  Sherlocks "suicide" was the headlines of the paper that Mycroft was reading at the Diogenes in TRF.

[J.P.]

Moriarty dead. I suppose Mycroft covered it because he needed the status quo with Jim who was able to convince everyone he was R Brook. Otherwise Moriarty's network would be warned.

 

It's a bit of a plot… valley though IMO. :P

[Arcadia]

What confuses me a bit about Moriarty is why he was after Sherlock at all. Mycroft is more intelligent and more powerful, surely he'd be more of a challenge? Maybe Sherlock is just more fun to play with. ;)

 

Two possibilities occur to me:

1. Like CAM, he was playing with Sherlock as a way to get to Mycroft

2. Mycroft refused to play. Mycroft said something about Jim being "desperate" to get his attention, which implied to me that Mycroft was denying him the attention he wanted.

 

As to why he was after anyone, period, he said it himself ... boredom. Sherlock was just the latest in a long series of games played to relieve the boredom of being alive.

[bedelia1984]

I always thought that Moriarty let his nemesis pick him- the Carl Powers case. Sherlock identified him- Sherlock cared about that case, and so he somehow brought himself to Moriarty's attention, through his interest.

 

Though I agree there may also be some interest in wounding Mycroft through Sherlock.

 

 

[Pamela]

I've never been able to understand why no one has ever asked Moftiss what happened to Moriarty's body on the roof of Bart's.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Maybe fans *have* asked, and Moftiss just grinned like the Cheshire Cat.

[Alexako4]

I think this might be my favorite epi

 

Sent from my Z981 using Tapatalk

[Pseudonym]

I love the fact that they are so used to their son's oddities that they completely ignore this and just carry on talking. 

 

 

Btw is it possible to resize a photo to be smaller when I've pasted it in here?

 

[Boton]

That's one of my favorite things too, Pseud.  

[Carol the Dabbler]

... is it possible to resize a photo to be smaller when I've pasted it in here?

Yes, it is, but I've only managed it a few times, when there's clearly a size parameter already within the jpg address.  There isn't one this time, and I don't know where/how to insert it.  Anyone else know?

[Shadow Dweller]

[ img ={width}x{height}]{url} [/ img] without the spacing.

[Artemis]

Does Sherlock really have lots of those coats?

 

That's what he told Anderson in TEH, when he said he supplied a look-alike coat for the look-alike body.  But when he was with Mycroft at the beginning of the episode, he said, "Where is it?" and Anthea brought it out for him.  That sounds more like someone who only has one coat, which he likes so much that he had Mycroft hang on to it for safekeeping.

 

 

[Van Buren Supernova]

Maybe the one he supplied for the body is knock-off version? Or he has exactly two? Or he got back the one he lent to the body?

 

Anyway, if Anderson's vision was right, he was shown wearing his coat during his time away. I think he has at least two.

 

Maybe in that scene you mentioned he was just making sure that he got his coat. Mycroft sent it for laundry and patched up all the holes he got during his time in Serbia. The instructions was specific, anytime Sherlock had to get into forest etc he had to wear other coats or topless. Sherlock was just making sure that Mycroft had it on express service and he got it on time for dinner.

 

 

Anyway, AH! Coincidence, I think this is the thread.

Remember discussion about Cath remark from Mary? Never really joined in for that one, because I'm sure whatever/whoever that is, there is nothing more to that.

 

I recall you guys were talking about the possible meaning and whether it stands for a person that might have something to do with Mary's past.

As far as I remember, it was not concluded, so apologies if it had been solved. :p

 

So yesterday I was at intersection and an ambulance rushed by and I saw the word 'CATHLAB'. So I went to google it, that stands for a catheterization laboratory, and Mycroft, eh, wiki says cath lab is an examination room in hospital or clinic with diagnostic imaging equipment used to visualize the arteries of the heart and the chambers of the heart and treat any stenois or abnormality found., so I suppose that is merely part and parcel of their medical practice.