The Blind Banker story
Sherlock and John Watson investigate a series of ciphers representing numbers in an ancient Chinese numeral system which have been left by a Chinese smuggling ring who seem intent on killing to retrieve an item that one of them stole. Loosely based on the short story "The Adventure of the Dancing Men", the storyline also incorporates elements from other Sherlock Holmes stories; the concept of coded messages, the markings on the feet of the Black Lotus members and the plot of escaping a secret society, then being tracked to and killed in England all feature in The Valley of Fear. A murder victim being found inside a locked room, accessible only by climbing, alludes to The Sign of the Four.
9 total · 4 major · 5 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| attitude of superiority | major | Sherlock Holmes had a massive ego and condescended people, left, right and center. |
| murder | major | Holmes and Watson were investigating three related murders. |
| private investigator occupation | major | We saw Sherlock Holmes and Watson doing what they do best. |
| smuggling | major | Holmes and Watson linked a pair of enigmatic murders to the Black Lotus gang of international smugglers, and the sordid details of the gang's smuggling of Chinese artifacts into the UK was much featured. |
| brother and sister | minor | Soo Lin was shot dead by her own brother. |
| cryptographic cypher | minor | Holmes and Watson cracked a book cipher. |
| illegal drug trade | minor | Soo Lin confided in Sherlock Holmes that she's smuggled lots drugs into Hong Kong as a teenager. |
| law enforcement | minor | A police inspector reluctantly relied on Holmes for help in getting ot the bottom of two enigmatic murders. |
| suicide | minor | The police mistakenly assumed that Eddie Van Coon had committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. |