| "The Blind Banker" |
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The Blind Banker is the second episode of the television series Sherlock and was first broadcast on BBC One and BBC HD on 1 August 2010.
At the National Antiquities Museum Chinese pottery expert Soo Lin Yao (Gemma Chan) sees something that frightens her, and disappears. Meanwhile, Watson is having financial problems, and needs to find a paying job. Holmes takes him to "the bank", which turns out to be an high-powered international finance house. There Seb Wilkes (Bertie Carvel), an old university acquaintance of Holmes', asks for help, in return for a large fee. A break-in occurred in which nothing was taken, but an apparently meaningless pair of symbols were spray-painted onto an office wall. Holmes realises that was a message meant for one man - Eddie Van Coon of the Hong Kong desk - who hasn't come to work. Holmes breaks into Van Coon's locked apartment and finds him dead. The police, under Detective Inspector Dimmock (Paul Chequer), are prepared to regard it as a suicide, though Holmes sees it as murder. Soon, journalist Brian Lukis (Howard Coggins) is also killed inside his locked apartment. Holmes and Watson investigate, and in a library were Lukis had been they find the same mysterious symbols painted on a shelf.
Meanwhile, Watson obtains a job as locum at a local surgery with Sarah (Zoe Telford). Holmes and Watson discover a link between the two men; both had just returned from China, and both went to an oriental curio shop "The Lucky Cat". There Watson discovers that the symbols are an ancient Chinese system of numbers. Holmes breaks into Soo Lin Yao's flat, obviously empty for several days. At the museum they discover the same symbols on a statue. Then, with the help of graffiti artist "Raz" (Jack Bence), Holmes and Watson find more symbols painted on railway yard wall, and struggle to decode the message.
Back at Antiquities Museum, Holmes discovers Soo Lin in hiding, who explains that the code is the work of the criminal "Black Lotus Tong", of which she was once a member. Unfortunately before she can decode the message the assassin strikes again. Holmes realises that Van Coon and Lukis were members of the Tong, involved in smuggling valuable antiquities from China to sell in London, and that they were killed for stealing something.
Holmes knows that the message is in the form of a book cipher, and he and Watson spend the night going through the first two victims books trying to find the solution. Watson's first day at work does not go well, as having stayed up all night, he falls asleep in his consulting room. Sarah covers for him, and Sherlock arranges a date at the Chinese Circus, for the three of them. While Watson and Sarah enjoy the escapology and acrobatics, Holmes snoops around backstage and is attacked, but with Sarah and Watson's help, they escape. While Holmes continues to search for the solution to the book cipher, Watson and Sarah are kidnapped. The villains believe that Watson is Holmes, and that he knows the location of the missing "treasure". Fortunately Holmes finds the solution to the code, reads the message, tracks down the villains to their hideout and effects the rescue of Watson and Sarah. He also realises that the elusive "treasure" has been in plain sight all the time.
This episode takes the concept of coded messages from The Dancing Men.[1][2]
