A character in BBC One drama, Sherlock, Dr John Watson writes about a previous case, The Inexplicable Matchbox.

3rd September

The Inexplicable Matchbox

The situation with Isaac Persano hit the headlines, obviously. He was found, in a hotel room, surrounded by matchboxes. And he couldn't speak. Sherlock described him as being completely 'out of his mind' but I diagnosed that he was technically suffering from an extreme case of post-traumatic stress disorder.

And so, of course, Sherlock then had to prove me wrong.

Persano had been missing since March last year, following the murder of his trainer, Gabriel Allard. Allard had, himself, been found in a hotel room. He'd been bludgeoned to death. Persano's disappearance had obviously made him the number one suspect but, despite the best efforts of the French police, he'd never been located. And then, last week, there he was.

He was found by a chambermaid at the Royal Hotel in Brighton. He was surrounded by over a thousand matchboxes all of which were empty.

Except one.

Sherlock showed me what was in the matchbox. I couldn't believe my eyes.

I'm afraid I can't say anything else about the case other than it was probably the maddest adventure we ever had. I mean, Sherlock had to dress up as a clown! Mrs Hudson was pushed out of a helicopter! And me? Well, I had to do something I never thought I'd ever do.

Basically, because of particular people in particular governments who we discovered were involved in this particular case, I can't actually blog about what happened. We're not just talking the Official Secrets Act. We're talking Every Official Secrets Act.

But, yeah, we solved it. We discovered who'd killed who and how and why.

But, most importantly, Sherlock had to dress up as a clown. And the fact that there are no photos of this is possibly the most frustrating thing in the whole damn world.

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