- Holmes and Watson search for a thief who committed murder to steal a rare map. Meanwhile, Watson becomes concerned with Sherlock's escalating interference into Kitty's burgeoning personal life.
- "Elementary" - "Terra Pericolosa" - Dec. 4, 2014
Kitty returns Clyde to Joan and then discuss how busy Sherlock is keeping Kitty and just then she gets a text asking her to go to a map museum/library. Joan tells her to remember to have a personal life and to make him wait on occasion. She says she's made some new friends but she blew them off for Sherlock.
Kitty goes to the library and talks to the director and he tells her a map was stolen and he suspects the security guard. Kitty deduces the guard is probably innocent from scratches on the map drawers and, sadly, finds the guard inside one of the cases, dead.
Sherlock, Gregson, Bell, and Joan arrive and Sherlock is proud of Kitty. He deduces that the thief was after one specific map. The map in question is a 1794 map of VA, the only copy. They go to see the granddaughter of the man who donated the map to the library. She heads up the very wealthy family's philanthropic effort and doesn't seem troubled by the map's disappearance. She says she just learned about it at this moment. She says it's not a treasure map or her grandfather would've found it. Sherlock thinks the thief committed other thefts but the other museum's might've been embarrassed to admit it. She says she will look into it.
Joan is looking over crime scene photos and Kitty shows up with more of Clyde's toys. Joan points out that this errand and another crunching data means that Kitty is again missing her friends.
The next morning Joan shows up at the brownstone. Sherlock shows her a room full of maps and says that in fact other maps were stolen. He says that the thief was using a nom de plume at the libraries of a famous WWII map thief. Sherlock is all jazzed up about cartographic espionage and figures the thief is selling these rare maps. This leads him to a wall decor store run by a former cartography student. The police go to pick him up and he's dead. They do find all the stolen maps including the VA map. Sherlock studies the map and realizes it's a very skilled forgery which is likely why the buyer left it behind.
They take the fake map back to the granddaughter at the police station. She's confused that they are saying her grandfather gave the library fake. She says he wouldn't have done so knowingly. They are telling her since the last person who handled the map is dead now and the buyer is probably still looking for the original so to keep her eyes open.
When Joan arrives at the brownstone Sherlock appears to be looking at personal ads. But, of course, he has a plan. He's learned the maps were made from copper plates in atlases and they were eventually sold in pieces. There is now a big market to reassemble these atlases and he's created a cute blond alias to chat up one of the people trying to reassemble the atlas that contained the stolen map. She asks after Kitty and he notes he sent her for staples. She notes he's been running her ragged and asks him to ease up on her since she's trying to be social which is good for her and Joan is willing to pick up the slack, not to get staples though. Sherlock gets a text that the buyer gave up on the atlas and sold what he had to another buyer. Sherlock sets up a meet with Bell, to catch a predator-style and gets the name of law firm of the anonymous buyer from him.
Joan and Sherlock go to the firm. They talk about Kitty and her friends from the coffee shop. He doesn't like that Kitty may like one of the guys in the group. Joan realizes he's been keeping her busy on purpose.
Joan and Sherlock meet with William Hull, real estate magnate. They see the atlas on the table. He offers it to them. They ask about the map. He says he wants the original not a fake. He wants to hire them to find it for them. He promises he never heard of the dead thief and says he has information about a third party with designs on the map. He notes this is a win-win, bringing the criminal to justice and a payday for them. Sherlock walks out and thinks Hull is just trying to buy their allegiance and doesn't really care about the map. He deduces there is some other information on the original map that he and this alleged third party are after.
They again examine the forgery looking for some kind of clue. The granddaughter gave them photos with the original map in the background. Kitty's phone rings and Sherlock tells her not to answer it, over Joan's objections. Kitty goes to the loo. Joan yells at him for policing her. He yells back at her that he is interfering to protect her not for selfish reasons. He doesn't want her to get hurt. Joan understands but says Kitty finding a boy she likes is progress too. They all work on photos of the map.
The next morning the discussion continues. Sherlock had the idea of looking at the land that the map depicts and overlays it and notes a descrepancy, a slight bend in the flow of a river. That bend will soon house a Native American casino. It would be the first in the state but it has to get through a lot of bureaucratic red tape and the Bray map is the source of the Indian reservation, except it is now wrong and if they found the map it would kill the casino project. Sherlock thinks this casino could hurt Hull who also has casinos, so Joan wonders who he thinks the thief is if not Hull.
Along with Kitty they go to see the chairman of the Native American gaming commission who is helping with the VA casino project. They tell him about the map and asks for help in ID-ing the perps. They lean on him with evidence of his blackjack scam and he gives them another forgery of the map. He had the forgery made to switch out the map at the library to protect their interests because they thought the map there was the original. But someone else stole the map before they could and they then realized it was also a fake. He wishes he could be more help and Joan says he was more helpful then he realized as she looks at a scale model of the proposed casino. She thinks she knows who the thief/killer is.
They call the granddaughter back down to the station. They show her the second forgery and tell her about the casino. They not her family still owns land that would be worth millions but only if the casino moved forward. She is aghast that they seem to be implying she had something to do with this. They lay out how she took the real map, killed the thief and had a skilled forger make the new one. The forger rolled on her. And the find her prints on the original map. She's busted.
Later at the brownstone, Sherlock apologizes to Kitty for policing her personal life and admits he was worried. He says he's very proud of her progress and should have trusted her. She says she was secretly glad about Sherlock being protective and it made her feel loved. She gets tearful and heads off to the kitchen to put away the groceries. He actually helps her and tells her he might be giving her more personal time and she can spend it however she likes and then invites her and her beau to see an entomology exhibit at the Museum of Natural History.
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