- Mysterious symbols and murders are showing up all over London, leading Sherlock and John to a secret Chinese crime syndicate called Black Lotus.
- Banker Eddie Van Coon and reporter Brian Lukis are both shot dead in identical slayings, in rooms locked from the inside. Chinese museum employee Soo Lin tells Sherlock Holmes that, as a teenaged orphan in China, she ran drugs for the Black Lotus crime syndicate, for whom the two dead men also worked. She too is then murdered, the killer being a human fly who can scale buildings. The gang mistake Watson for Holmes and capture him and his new girl-friend, requiring Holmes to come to the rescue.—don @ minifie-1
- Sherlock Holmes is on the job while people are getting murdered left & right - one in a museum/auction house, one a banker in his home, and another after a long foot chase. What do they have in common? And where did the museum worker disappear to who found the first victim? And who was the man who tried to take Sherlock's head?—Ginger
- As Sherlock and John deal with the challenge of living and working together, a pair of murders in connection to a graffiti cipher is brought to Sherlock's attention. Sherlock and John investigate the cause of the murders and the meaning of the cipher while John attempts to make a good impression on his new co-worker Sarah. But even Sherlock's mental and deductive capacity cannot challenge the odds that he faces.—Consulting Hobbit Extractors
- Sherlock Holmes, assisted by Dr Watson, is hired by a large bank to investigate the vandalism of an artwork on the bank's premises. Someone managed to get into the bank and paint a symbol on the painting. Holmes works out that it was a message, and who the message was for. However, when he finds the person, he is dead, shot. To the police it is suicide, as nobody could have gotten into his apartment, it seems, but Holmes is convinced that he was murdered Just then a journalist turns up murdered in their apartment, and Holmes thinks the two crimes are connected. Through tracking the journalist's movements, Holmes discovers the connection - they both were presented with ancient Chinese symbols, sent as a warning. The key to the case lies with a Chinese woman, working at the museum.—grantss
- At the National Antiquities Museum, Chinese pottery expert Soo Lin Yao (Gemma Chan) sees something that frightens her, and she disappears. Meanwhile, John is having financial problems and realises that he needs to find a paying job. Sherlock takes him to "the bank", which turns out to be a high-powered international finance house. There Sebastian Wilkes (Bertie Carvel), an old university acquaintance of Sherlock's, 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 a portrait of a banker. Sherlock realizes that was a message meant for one man, Edward Van Coon of the Hong Kong desk, who hasn't come to work. Sherlock tricks his way into Van Coon's apartment building and climbs into his locked apartment via the balcony, and finds him dead on the bed. The police, under Detective Inspector Dimmock (Paul Chequer), are prepared to regard it as a suicide, though Sherlock sees it as murder. Soon, journalist Brian Lukis (Howard Coggins) is also killed inside his locked apartment in the same way. Sherlock and John investigate, and in a library where Lukis had been they find the same mysterious symbols painted on a shelf. Meanwhile, John obtains a job as locum at a local surgery with Sarah Sawyer (Zoe Telford).
Sherlock and John 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 John discovers that the symbols are ancient Chinese suzhou numerals, though the episode erroneously refers to them as "Hangzhou" numbers. Sherlock breaks into Soo Lin Yao's flat, which has obviously been empty for several days, and hes attacked from behind while John waits outside. The unseen attacker could have killed Sherlock but this was meant as just a warning. At the museum they discover the same symbols on a statue. Then, with the help of graffiti artist "Raz" (Jack Bence), Sherlock and John find more symbols painted on a railway yard wall, and struggle to decode the message.
Back at the Antiquities Museum, Holmes discovers Soo Lin in hiding. Soo Lin explains that the code is the work of the criminal "Black Lotus Tong", of which she was once a member. Unfortunately, before she can fully decode the message, the assassin, who is revealed to be Soo Lin's brother, strikes again and kills her. Sherlock realizes that both Van Coon and Lukis were members of the Tong, and were involved in smuggling valuable antiquities from China to sell in London. And that they were killed because one of them stole one of these valuable antiques.
Sherlock knows that the message is in the form of a book cipher, and he and John spend the night going through the first two victims' books trying to find the solution. John's first day at work does not go well though, because having stayed up all night, he falls asleep in his consulting room. Sarah covers for him and theres is an obvious attraction building between them, but when they go out on a date Sherlock tags along as well, and they go and see a traveling Chinese circus. While John and Sarah enjoy the classic escapology and acrobatics acts, Sherlock snoops around backstage and is attacked, but with Sarah and John's help, the three escape. While Sherlock continues to search for the solution to the book cipher, John and Sarah are kidnapped, Sarah is bound and gagged and then set in front of a giant crossbow that will soon shoot her. The villains believe that John is Sherlock and he has a number of items on him that seem to suggest this, and that he should reveal the location of the missing "treasure" in return for his girlfriend's life.
Fortunately Sherlock finds the solution to the code and reads the message, and hes able to track down the villains to their hideout where he eventually rescues John and Sarah. He also realizes that the elusive "treasure" has been in plain sight all the time, its a jade hairpin being worn by Van Coon's secretary/mistress Amanda. She had received it as a gift from Van Coon and is absolutely knocked off her feet when Sherlock reveals its worth around £9 million.
Meanwhile after escaping, Shan the female leader of the gang is giving her online report to her boss "M", and she is struggling to explain about Sherlock getting one over on them. "M" gets annoyed about something and a red laser dot target appears on Shan's head, and we hear a gun shot just as the episode ends.
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