The Dancing Men - Part Two
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For just £6 a month, binge ad-free adventures in full and have access to so much more over at patreon.com forward slash Sherlock & Co. Previously on Sherlock & Co. Elsie is an international music sensation. Currently doing an extended UK tour before Glastonbury at the end of the month. Glastonbury, that is, the biggest music festival you can think of. And yeah, we bagged ourselves some free tickets to one of our shows at the O2 thanks to a client, so...

Yeah, not too shabby. It's a video sent to Elsie's phone. Her manager, your awards show friend, said she looked petrified upon viewing it, and has had a very severe traumatic response ever since. Dancing men. Dancing men. It's like little stick men dancing. How is this a code? Because as they dance, they make different shapes and poses out of their little stick bodies. The message seems to be some sort of threat.

But how is it tied to this dancing men cryptogram? In the message, it was clips of songs. So first of all, it was We'll Meet Again by Vera Lynn. Then I Want to Break Free. Then Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. Followed by Folsom Prison Blues, Beyond the Sea, Every Breath You Take. And finally, We'll Meet Again. Again. Ah, shit. Somebody, an ex-convict, has come to find her.

From America. Who are they? You know Abe Slaney? He was working with Elsie way before I got in the picture in my management role. Abe and her were kind of close. They would make these codes. Little cryptic messages. Music keys. The dance...

the dancing figures, dancing men, the songs. They would kind of mess around with them and hide codes in there. He wouldn't leave her alone, wouldn't stop sending messages. We, I swear to God, we went from restraining order to court order to he's behind bars in maybe two months. Abe Slaney is a certified batshit crazy psychopath. Abe Slaney, arrested in 2020. What's his current status?

Yeah, he's AWAR. I hope you have good protection here, Mr Cubitt. What? What is it? As we get it, but it has been confirmed. International music star Elsie is in critical condition after being found with a gunshot wound to the head in her hotel room. No! Her manager, Hilton Cubitt, was pronounced dead at the scene. Oh my God. Lots of reactions coming in. Oh!

What do we do, Sherlock? Sherlock, what do we do? Hello, everyone. Let's get stuck into the warnings. This episode contains swearing, it contains murder, it contains human remains, and descriptions of severe paranoid delusions. You have been warned. See you at the end. But the sooner we can get up there, the sooner we can help. What makes you think you can help?

Call it a hunch? A hunch. I'll need a lot more than a hunch, gents. Inspector Martin, please, it is imperative that I see the scene as soon as... Mr Holmes, look, just appreciate my position. I've got New York police trying to stick their noses in, I've got American consulate officials, I've spoken to the US ambassador twice, I've been on WhatsApp chat with the mayor of London and the flippin' MI5 counter-terrorism general. I've got three answer phone messages from the bloody FBI. Right? Right.

I've got a media frenzy on every doorstep of every police force in this city. Now, at what point do you expect me to indulge a hunt?

Have you spoken to the Home Secretary yet? He's just about the only bloody person I haven't spoken to this morning. So, no, I haven't. And I have no wish to. Now, please, gents... We are authorised by Hilton Cubitt to investigate Abe Slaney. Hilton Cubitt is deceased. Yes, but Elsie is not. Yet she's got a bullet in her head, Mr Holmes.

Your phone is ringing. Yeah, yeah. Hello? Detective, this is the Home Secretary. Listen, I've just been chatting with Gwen. Gwen? Dame Gwen Lestrade. Med Commissioner. Right. She's got some chaps on the ground that she'd like to get involved in this Elsie situation. Chaps on the ground. Yeah. They wouldn't be...

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson? By any chance? Yes! Yes, that's them. How do you know that? Just... a hunch. Oh man. Are you alright, Watson? Yeah, yeah. I mean, no. I'm walking into the scene of a murder-suicide. We know it isn't, though, don't we? I mean, do we? We do.

We just need a couple of clues to get the confidence levels up. Reaffirm our convictions. Don't be swayed by the simple answers. I... Yeah, I suppose. Sure. So, we are here in Elsie's penthouse room. The Lady Jane Grey. It's not like a big towering building, the Norfolk. It's kind of a grand...

Well, a grand house really. Out the window you've got the trees of Hyde Park right up against the house. You've got the Dorchester, very, very swanky hotel. A couple, well I was going to say doors down but what would you say, a block I suppose, maybe? Then Park Lane below us.

I don't know how else to put it. It is the height of London affluence. Park Lane, the cream of international wealth. And then this tragedy right in the heart of it. It's just staggering. So...

Looking into the room now, and by all means, skip this bit if you are squeamish, Hilton is bagged up. Actually, is that Hilton in there? That's correct, yes. The coroner will take him away after clearance from the senior officers. Of course, thank you. So, yeah, Hilton is in there. He took a bullet to the chest, supposedly from Elsie, but we suspect otherwise.

His blood is... And again, skip ahead if you want. His blood is splattered all over the wall behind him. I can tell you now, just looking over here at it, yeah, it went through him. A bullet would have gone into his chest, then come out the back of him. It has really buried itself into this blood-stained wall. There are... Sorry to say, there are a few...

chunkier bits of him amidst the splatter. He falls back and lands next to the bed. On the other side of the room, Elsie obviously isn't here. She's in a level 3 ICU with a bullet in her head. But they have marked out where she was found and the gun she was holding.

which was Hilton's Beretta Bobcat. And, yeah, there's not a great deal of... Hey, what are you doing? Get him off the windowsill now. Don't do it, don't! I'm not going to jump out the window, Watson. Well, you're hanging out of it. Was this open? Yes, it was. Everything was as it was. Now, please, will you get off the window, Ledge, immediately? Watson, remember that time I said I wasn't going to jump out the window? Yeah, that was about eight seconds ago, mate. Yes, well...

A lot has changed in those eight seconds. What? One moment. Oh, God. What are you doing? Oh, Sherlock. Sherlock. Stop shouting. Oh, where are you? In the tree. What the hell are you doing in the tree? Come back in here. Here, grab my hand. I can pull you in. The staff refer to this room as the tree house. Did you know that? No, I didn't. Please come in. Because of its view.

You wake up, surrounded by the trees. By nature. Of course, yeah. In you come. Get him in now, otherwise he goes under arrest. What do you think I'm trying to do? Rather convenient for a home invasion, isn't it? Or hotel room invasion, I should say. Yeah, sure, whatever. Get out of the tree. You're not a cat. One would simply climb the tree, work their way across those sturdy branches and limbs and clamber onto the window box. Right, do I need to lure you over here with a treat? Or should I call the fire brigade? To jump through the window.

That would be necessary for someone who entered the hotel room. But our killer did not. What are you talking about? He's talking nonsense. That woman killed him. She couldn't live with it. She couldn't live with something. That's right. But it wasn't being a murderer. Nobody else entered the room, Mr Holmes. There's no other murderer.

We've got the finest CSI unit in the country. They've been here since 6:30 this morning. Nobody has found any traces of another killer in this room. Yes, they're very good. And they're correct. OK, what's the theory here, Sherlock? Theory? I can do much better than that. Can you now? Yes. This fellow I'm climbing has told me plenty. Carpinus Betulus. Known as a hornbeam.

Gnarled and mighty, aren't they? Ever so hardy. Can live up to 300 years. This one, I'd say, is about 170. The things he would have seen, eh, Watson? Peering over Park Lane and Hyde Park through the 20th century. How his view must have changed over the years. No longer fed by our lost river, the Westbourne.

No longer soaking up the nutrients of horse dung that would have littered these streets and parks. OK, if we could just get to the point a little bit quicker before the inspector explodes. Our hornbeam would have seen what happened last night. But he's not merely just a witness. He's a victim too. He's a what now? A bullet hole. Right here. Our leafy friend is so robust and sturdy I don't even have to reach that deep to pull it out. Here.

6.35mm, sometimes known as... Watson? .25 ACP. Correct. The ammo one would use for a Beretta Bobcat. The gun our deceased Hilton Cubitt carried. Breaking UK law, I might add. Coming through. Steady, steady, gotcha. Pull me up! Up you come. There you go. Excellent. Thank you, Watson.

Your wall. Where is it? My wall. The exit wound. Ah, right. Over here. Yes. See the bullet here in the wall? Nine millimetres. Far more powerful than .25 ACP. Very much so. Hence why Cubid is dead and has a hole right through him and Elsie is still alive.

So Abe Slaney, whilst in the tree, was armed with something that fired a 9mm. Hilton Cubitt had his Beretta Bobcat. Inspector Martin, have this bullet analysed. Share your findings with US State Gun Registries. Hold on a sec, hold on a sec.

Who is Abe Slaney? The killer of Hilton Cubitt. What about the girl, Elsie? Abe has tormented her for many years. His reappearance, his killing of her manager right in front of her, I suspect, led to her trying to take her own life. Oh, we've got to stop him. Yes. Yes, we do. But surely, I mean, what's he going to do now? I mean, I don't want to be all doom and gloom, but...

She probably won't make it, and he's responsible. No, wait, he wouldn't have seen her do that. It's all over the news. What do you mean, Inspector? Well, security staff secured the room immediately. They started breaking the door in after they heard firing. They were in just as she shot herself. So he fled. Abe Slaney fled immediately after his assassination of Hilton Cubitt. Right, well, that was...

I'm grateful for the fresh air, put it that way. If central London air can ever be fresh. Yeah, sorry to the following group of people who get shout-outs in this gruesome tale. To Marie from Quebec. Sorry, Marie. To May in Tunisia. Apologies.

Oh God, birthdays. Happy birthday, Elsie. Happy 25th birthday to Jared. Happy birthday, Alice, in Brazil. God, so sorry, you lot. Beth. Oh God, I've got blood on my shoe. Beth would like me to give a surprise shout out to her mate, Elizabeth.

A few more. Sorry to these lot. To Megan, Kelly and Connor from Canada. To Chris from Whitechapel, who listens on the tube. To Lucy, Mick, Emmy and Holly Hanley from Saltash in Cornwall. And to Mariana Amak... Ah, hold on. Mariana Amakizura in Baker Street. Yeah, OK. Very funny, Mariana. For sake. Oh, wait.

They reckon Abe was a stowaway on a cruise ship that was docked in Manhattan. Yes, that would certainly help sneak a gun into the United Kingdom, wouldn't it? Yeah, look, footage of him boarding the night before in the uniform of the cruise ship's staff. That's crazy. So he stays aboard the ship, pretending to be staff, then it docks in Southampton...

Watch this footage they found. What is it? Watch. Suitcase. Goes flying out the side of the ship as it comes in to dock. Ready... bang. There it goes. So he docks, gets off the ship and collects his case and gun from the sea later. Yep. How are you getting this footage? I got added to that WhatsApp with the ambassadors and consulate officials and stuff. Pretty cool, innit? I mean, slightly concerning for national security, but otherwise, yes. Cool.

Shall I message? Just give, like, a thumbs up. Why would you do that? Just, like, roger that. We're on the case, yeah? Ah, maybe I should do, like, a thumbs up and then a little American flag. Please don't. Or a salute. Just, no. No emojis. No communication is necessary. Well, I have to thank them. This is helpful. You know, they're counting on us, Sherlock.

Er, OK, no, here we go. Thumbs up, American flag, and you can count on us. God bless America. Send. Yeah, they love all that God bless America stuff, you know, old Uncle Sam. I wouldn't be surprised if they called on us for other unsolved... They kicked me out. They kicked me out of the group. Nina's a doctor. Do you, um...

Do you remember Nina? Nina, yeah, with the double barrel name. Uh, triple. Triple barrel, come on. Triple barrel. Nina Hartley Redfern-Klein. It's ridiculous. Yeah, good doctor though. Yep, top of the class. I'm surprised you could even see her from the bottom. Shut up. She said there was an eight hour surgery. Not to remove the bullet. No, that's still in there.

Eesh. Sherlock's sleeping well.

Yeah, he didn't sleep at all last night. He was up all night with his dancing men. I should explain. I'm here with Stamo. Hello. And we've got a little visit with Elsie in her room on an ICU ward in King's College Hospital. Boo! Sorry, that's...

King's College is great. They were old rivals of ours back in the day. Yeah, King's College Hospital is one of the main trauma centres in London. It's a lot. It is a lot, to be honest. She's quite a sight, surrounded by the very latest in cutting-edge, life-saving tech. Mr Holmes is asleep in a chair against the wall.

And, er, yeah. We are planning our next moves. If we have any. Very well put. Thanks. So he cracked the code, then? The dancing men? Yeah. Yep. We found the guy. A former stalker of hers. Out of prison. Broke his parole. Crossed the old Atlantic Ocean. And found her. I want to break free. Prison blues. Beyond the sea. We'll meet again. Yeah. Exactly. But the, erm...

The little dancing men, they corresponded to letters. He told her when he was going to come and save her. In his words, we were too late. Well, it looks like Nina might have saved her. But how much of her is left in there? Yeah, I mean, John, we're a long way from those kind of assessments. No, I know, I know, but come on. Bullet in the head. Yeah. Yeah. Weird feeling.

What is? Being at the centre of this big tragic thing that everyone's talking about. I bet, yeah. Are you doing alright? Yeah, no, God, yeah. No, don't worry about me. I just feel like we could have done more. Just those songs and the little dancing men, it didn't seem so serious. Until it did. Until it did, yeah. And how's Sherlock doing? He's in full Sherlock mode. Right. But deep down, probably absolutely furious that his client is dead.

Yeah, of course. How do you find someone this obsessed and irrational? And more to the point, what is Abe Slaney going to do now? What? Now she's... Well, yeah, the media have basically gone out and said that she's near enough dead. So what does a guy that's that unhinged do when the focal point of his absolutely blistering, white-hot obsession...

Puts a gun to her own head. Well, what do you think he's going to do? Like a mass shooting or something? Well, I mean, he's armed, mate. He's armed and in London and he's got nothing to lose, has he? We have to lure him to us. Ah, morning. Morning. How exactly do we lure him to us? Check Mrs Hudson's message.

Yeah, sorry, my mic is probably... Can you hear me now? Mm-hmm, I can hear you. Great, great. I'm here with Sherlock in the hospital cafe. Hello. Oh, hello, you. How is she doing? Hard to say, really. The next big challenges await, put it that way. You think brain damage? Highly likely, yeah. Hey, you okay? Yeah, just...

Very intense. Okay, well, I won't keep Cynthia waiting any longer. Yes, hi, sorry. Hi, Cynthia. Hi. I'm John Watson. This is Sherlock Holmes. So glad to meet you. I listen to your show. Oh, great. Yeah, I love it. My husband and I listen and it's just great. We love it. Oh, that's very kind of you. Thank you. Thank you.

Hey, could you... would you be able to sort of introduce who... Sounds a bit mean, doesn't it? But who are you, basically? No, that's absolutely fine. My name is Dr. Cynthia Burnett. I'm the... well, I'm a criminal psychologist. But what's most pertinent to this case is...

I was the psychologist for the New York prosecutor's office in 2020 in the case against Abe Slaney. So I provided the psych evaluation and the screening for his arrest. So yeah, I am a

I'm one of the few apeslainy experts you can find. That's amazing. What can you tell us? Well, the most important thing to know is that apeslainy is suffering with erotomania. Erotomania? Yeah. Sometimes it's known as de Clermont's syndrome. The subject has a delusion, fundamentally. A very powerful delusion in which they believe that...

another person is in love with them. And it is very typical that this other person that they believe is in love with them, that they're of a higher social status. It's listed in the DSM-5 as a subtype of what would usually be classed as delusional disorders, but it's a paranoid condition. It's very severe in nearly all cases. It can come on very suddenly, as we saw in 2020 with Abe.

And the course of the condition is chronic. This isn't going away anytime soon. Right. Right. So the thing to note here is that the erotomatic individual will often perceive that they're being sent messages from the secret admirer.

It'll always be, from what we know, to be fairly innocuous events and happenings. But in Abe and Elsie's case, he was nearly always reading into her music, into her media appearances. He was absorbing the material and her persona in a completely erotomatic way. He believes, and

Hilton Cubitt. Yeah.

Why's that? Because he would perceive Hilton as coming between them. In a competitive sense. Yes, but remember, Abe believes Elsie is reaching out to him. Speaking to him through song, and Abe sees himself as her savior. As the person that can rescue her from Hilton Cupid. I will save you. What was that? It was in his coded message to her. Right, I mean...

Yeah, I wish I was surprised and caught off guard by this, but I'm not. I'm just not. You're gonna steal my love. You're gonna steal my love. Erotomania de Clarembeau's Syndrome.

John Hinckley Jr., of course. Reagan's attempted assassin. Yeah, had a fixation on Jodie Foster. Was trying to impress her. By assassinating a president. Correct. So who's de Clarembeau, then? 4th December, Paris, 1920. A woman in her early 50s who appears somewhat agitated gets off an underground train and addresses two gendarmes. Says she's being followed. She demands their protection.

Jesus, she becomes so agitated that she starts attacking them, beating them in the face. She's arrested, taken to a psychiatric crisis centre. She is interviewed by a man. He records her name, Lea Anna B, 53 years of age, and jots down a few characteristics of her delusion. She believes that the King of England, George V, is in love with her and that strangers are trying to rob her of her money.

The doctor refers her to the psychiatric institution St Anne. A certificate of admission is signed by Dr de Claremba. She would stand outside Buckingham Palace, believing that the King was communicating to her through code. What sort of code? Er, the movement of curtains in the windows, signifying messages of love, promises that they'd be together.

Declarations of sexual desires. And this, Watson, is where I need some help. Well, I don't think anyone's peering through our windows, mate, to be honest. No. We need to construct a code from Elsie to Abe. Sorry, wait. She's in an ICU, Sherlock. Why would she be communicating? That's what we must portray in our message. To lure him in. That the media is wrong. She didn't shoot herself.

She is in hiding and awaiting her rescuer. But he was there. Not according to D.I. Martin. Abe Slaney fled when security arrived and security witnessed her shoot herself. We lure him to us. Exactly. Watson, it's time to make some music. Hooray me far so larty. Would you play the keyboard, Wiggins? Why would you? Yep, fair point.

Okay. Again. Way off, man. I am trying my best. Well, can you try better? There's a fucking gunman on the loose, pal. This is not my strong suit. I deduce. Well, can you deduce that you're out of tune? Try you, Troy. Yeah, Wiggins, we've done this, mate. I can't do it. Oh, for God's sake. Do you know anybody that can sing?

Actually... I've got all my life to live, and I've got all my love to give. I will survive. Sing it, Nadia! I will survive! Hey! Yes! Ha ha ha! MUSIC

Oh, my God.