The Blind Banker

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. It was written by Stephen Thompson and directed by Euros Lyn.

Sherlock is a loose adaption of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, taking place in the modern day. "The Blind Banker" follows Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Dr John Watson (Martin Freeman) as they 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.

"The Blind Banker" attracted 8.07 million viewers on BBC One and BBC HD. Critical reception was positive, though some reviewers felt it was inferior to the first episode.

Plot
At the National Antiquities Museum, Chinese pottery expert Soo Lin Yao (Gemma Chan) sees something that frightens her, and disappears. Meanwhile, John is having financial problems and 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 realises that was a message meant for one man - Edward Van Coon of the Hong Kong desk - who hasn't come to work. Sherlock breaks into Van Coon's locked flat and finds him dead. 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 flat. 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 Hangzhou numerals. Sherlock breaks into Soo Lin Yao's flat, obviously empty for several days. While investigating the flat, he finds the intruder. A brief fight ensues, but the attacker escapes. Outside, he doesn't mention it to Watson. 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. Sherlock 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 because one of them stole something.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, as, having stayed up all night, he falls asleep in his consulting room. Sarah covers for him, and Sherlock arranges a date for the three of them at a travelling 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 time-delayed crossbow that will soon shoot her. The villains believe that John is Sherlock, and that he can be forced to reveal the location of the missing "treasure" in return for his girlfriend's life. Fortunately, Sherlock finds the solution to the code using an A-Z London Street Atlas guide, reads the message, tracks down the villains to their hideout and rescues John and Sarah. He also realises that the elusive "treasure" has been in plain sight all the time; a jade hairpin belonging to the Chinese royal family being worn by Van Coon's secretary/mistress Amanda, who had received it as a gift from Van Coon.

However, Shan, the leader of the gang, escapes, making excuses in her report to a person identified only by the initial "M". The episode ends with Shan's assassination by a sniper sent by "M".