Previously on Elementary...
If you're looking for Sherlock, he's downstairs.
Okay.
His name is Harlan Emple.
He is the Rachel P. Hanson Professor
for Applied Mathematics at Columbia University.
What I don't get is why he isn't wearing a shirt.
He doesn't like anything to come between him and the numbers.
What is it?
The answers to your questions about Kitty.
The truth is she was a victim of a horrific crime.
After you left last night,
Sherlock gave me an envelope.
Sherlock keeps saying
that I need to get a better sense of you,
and maybe that will give you a better sense of me.
It's open.
It's nothing.
It's Sherlock and one of his experts.
Which one?
Phillip something.
Must be new.
He's a knife-thrower.
Why does Sherlock have a knife-thrower?
He got bored the other day,
started looking into this, uh, circus accident from the '30s.
The Great Galardo perforated one of his assistants during an act,
except Sherlock thinks the blade was thrown
by somebody in the stands, not Galardo.
Phillip, as far as I can tell, disagrees.
It can't be done, okay?
It was done.
You're wrong.
Nobody can chuck a knife that far.
What's this?
You're...
Not here.
I'm not here.
Remember that, okay?
Oh, yes. Heaven forfend your work
with me should endanger your precious day job.
You throw knives?
You know, it was supposed to be just you here.
Phillip is arguably the greatest knife-thrower in the world.
Has been for decades.
Only, there's little money
to be made in the impalement arts.
So, as a youth, he turned
to what you Americans term “football”"
Is this a joke?
Phillip, head and heart.
Come on. Head and heart.
Can I go?
Yeah.
15 years he spent throwing that misshapen ball around.
15 years.
When I think of the acclaim he could have brought
to competitive blade slinging.
You're following me, Watson.
I don't like it.
I want you to help me with something.
This is Chad Keswick.
He buys distressed buildings,
paints, spackles,
and then flips them for quick money.
Who'd he kill? No one.
I was hired by one of his rivals to find out
why he's been circling this old office building
in Jamaica, Queens.
She wants to know why he thinks
the building is a good investment.
Is there a crime in there, something worth investigating?
Well, I've been shadowing Keswick,
but yesterday I think he noticed me.
I want to switch up the tail.
You followed me for over a week before I noticed you.
Help me out, and I'll cut you in on my fee.
I don't work for you, I work for Sherlock.
I worked for him, too.
And, in my experience, he was always supportive
of taking on work outside the partnership.
Sorry, it's not my cup of tea.
Hello, Portal Ten.
I'm here, Belphegor.
So where is the next clue?
♪ Elementary 3x03 ♪ Just a Regular Irregular Original Air Date on November 13, 2014
== sync, corrected by elderman == @elder_man
♪ ♪
Look, for the last time, I was playing a game!
Yeah, you called it a puzzle hunt.
Belphegor's Prime.
Think Cicada 3301 or Octorine's Challenge.
They're math games.
Math-- maybe you've heard of it.
I've got some math for you.
One dead guy plus one live guy
found in the same deserted factory.
I was not “found” there; I am the one who called 911.
I was waiting there for the police.
Mr. Emple,
we're just trying to do our jobs, all right?
First officers on the scene described you
as “extremely agitated.”
Well, of course I was agitated.
I had just found a dead guy in mothballs!
And did I mention that I have not slept in almost two days?
Because of the math game.
Can I borrow those?
This...
is Belphegor's Prime, okay?
It's a numeric palindrome.
It's 666 bookended by 13 zeroes and then bracketed with ones.
Named for the demon Belphegor who was a prince of hell.
The first clue for the hunt started making the rounds
a few months ago.
It was a JPEG with two numbers hidden in it.
You divide those numbers by Belphegor's Prime,
and you get the GPS coordinates for a restroom at the Bronx Zoo.
You go to the restroom, you find a phone number.
You send a text to the number, you get the next clue.
Which is another math problem.
Exactly.
Only, this one is harder.
And that's how it works.
You know, but for each one that you solve,
you get a new set of GPS coordinates.
And that means that you've completed a stage, or a portal.
And last night, I was on Portal Ten.
And...
You know what?
I want to talk to Sherlock and Joan.
Look, Mr. Emple... No, I'm sorry.
I told the police down at the factory that I know them.
Isn't that the whole reason
that I was brought here to this squad?
I-I am not saying another word until they are here.
Harlan Emple is indeed an acquaintance.
He is, in point of fact, one of my “irregulars.”
One of your what?
Irregulars.
I'm your consultant, Captain; they are mine.
They're a handful of experts I turn to
when I encounter problems which are beyond my pool of knowledge.
Harlan is a brilliant mathematician.
And on the handful of occasions I have tackled a case
which pertained to mathematics...
He helped you out. Well, the good news
for him is the preliminary autopsy report just came in
before you got here.
And the M.E. puts the time of death
between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. last night.
Mr. Emple was teaching
a class at Columbia.
So the victim is yet to be identified?
No I.D., no phone.
First detective on the scene liked it for a mob hit,
so while we're running the prints,
he's showing the vic's face around OCID.
Marcus here was about to walk the scene with Mr. Emple.
You're here now; you might as well tag along.
Actually, Captain, I'm quite busy today.
This is a John Doe, and we got nothing.
And, like you just said, you're my consultant.
So, go consult.
Watson.
Um, he's your friend.
Actually, Kitty is otherwise engaged,
and he did actually help both of us with a case last year.
Did he not?
Have I told you how good it is to see you?
Yes, you have. Three times.
Well, it is.
Hey, lousy circumstances.
But, uh, hey...
I heard from your boss that you just, uh, got back from London.
Were you working a case or...?
No, I moved back there.
You mean moved, moved?
Is there another definition?
I was there for eight months,
and had a change of heart and returned to New York.
So, you moved to London, and you didn't, uh...
You know what? Doesn't even matter.
The point is you're back!
Mr. Emple. Uh, duty calls.
Yeah.
It's interesting.
Mothballs are interesting?
They were taken from that cabinet over there.
Obviously, to cover the smell of John Doe's decay.
The killer didn't bring them with him.
Perhaps leaving the body here was not part of his plan, hmm?
Doe was shot in the foot first and then the knee.
Either those were two really bad misses or...
Or the killer was torturing him.
This doesn't seem like anything you can't handle on your own.
So you want to tell me why you really asked me to come here?
“This doesn't seem like anything you can't handle on your own.”
That's funny.
That's exactly what I would have said
had I been present when you asked Kitty for her assistance
with your tawdry side job.
“Tawdry”? I wanted you to know I approve.
Of what?
Your agenda with regards to Kitty.
Several days ago, I gave you her file.
And then you show up at the brownstone yesterday,
and you invite her into an investigation.
Coincidence? No, I think not.
You feel for her. And now you wish to engage.
It's not an outcome I would have predicted, no.
But it is one I approve of, yeah.
She could learn a great deal from you,
especially with regards to how to get the most
from my tutelage.
So, I've already dispatched her to, uh, follow your Mr. Keswick.
But that's not what I actually...
Harlan!
You came here to retrieve a phone number, did you not?
You would send a text, and then receive
the next clue in the game that you were playing.
Yeah, but I didn't find it.
Not that I kept looking
after the dead guy fell out of the locker.
Yeah, CSU didn't find any number either.
Probably because it's under that paint.
It's fresh.
Applied in the last
24 hours.
Right after John Doe's murder, I'd wager.
You don't think this was a mob hit?
Doe and the killer were playing the game, too.
The killer shot Doe and then covered up the number
so no one else could use it.
What's the prize in your little contest?
Well, I'm doing it mostly for the math.
But, uh, $1,707,071.
It's another palindromic prime.
Did I not mention the money at the station?
Who the hell can afford
that kind of payout for a puzzle hunt?
Well, most people think it's CAML.
The Center for Applied Mathematics and Logic.
It's located in Ramapo...
Wait, most people “think” it's them?
Well, hunts like these,
the organizers are almost always anonymous.
It's S.O.P.
What about the contestants?
Is anonymity also S.O.P.?
For the most part, yeah.
But, guys, math peeps are my peeps, okay?
It's, uh, like a community, sort of.
I can think of ten or 12 other people
who were probably competing.
Would that help?
No.
I'm sorry, I don't know him.
But you admit you were competing in Belphegor's Prime.
I do.
Pepe!
Sorry. He doesn't like strangers.
Give him one of these.
Get on his good side.
What are you doing?
I'm just verifying that you've been lying to us.
You did know the dead man, did you not?
I reviewed his personal effects at the morgue earlier.
The coroner reported finding crumbs in one of his pockets.
I tasted one.
Why would you...?
At first, I thought they were from
a particularly rancid brand of cheese,
but, no... they're from one of Pepe's treats.
Homemade?
Harlan was able to give us the names of nine other people
he believed to be other competitors.
Our colleagues are investigating them as we speak,
but I'll quite happily recommend that the NYPD
focus its attention entirely on you.
His name was Ike Walaczek.
In another lifetime, he was my boyfriend.
And what of this lifetime?
We were working together.
On Belphegor's. What?!
He was a numerical analyst at the Tory Foundation.
I work mostly in combinatorics.
I thought we would make a good team.
But there aren't supposed to be teams.
Not in a puzzle hunt. It's bad form.
Harlan...
I'm just saying...
My husband wouldn't understand,
so I decided I wouldn't tell him until after we won the money.
A team-- so that's how you got there before me.
I wasn't there.
Tom and I were out of town until this morning.
His cousin was getting married in Hawaii.
That's why Ike went to the coordinates by himself.
Because I couldn't.
These are pictures I took.
Check the dates.
You gave the police nine other names?
People you thought were competing?
I've got 16.
And I know they were competing.
He talked to her outside the Jamaica property
for about 20 minutes, and then this truck rolled up.
Any idea what's inside the crate?
Nope.
I can't identify the woman either.
Everything about her said money though.
She, Keswick and the mystery box
stayed inside the building for about three hours,
and then off they went.
Good.
Okay.
You know where to send the check.
You haven't asked me about the file Sherlock gave me.
Why would I?
You said it would give me a better sense of you-- it did.
That's why you asked for my help.
Because you felt sorry for me.
No.
You just don't seem interested in anything
outside of becoming a detective.
There she is.
The old counselor.
Who used to hold Sherlock's hand.
Everything that you read,
everything that happened to me, that's all it is.
It's just something that happened.
And it's all in the past now.
So let's just leave it there, shall we?
Hello.
You've had sex.
Excuse me?
I can hear it in your voice.
You've joined paunches.
Good for you, Watson.
As you know, I think the act of love
can be quite conducive to... What do you want?
Merely to apprise you of a new development
in the murder of Ike Walaczek.
As I informed you yesterday,
Harlan and I were given a new list of competitors.
One name leapt out: Byron Lowenthal.
He's a statistician at the Public Utilities Commission
and a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic.
He's been hospitalized for becoming violent
on no fewer than three occasions.
Certainly sounds like it could be our guy.
Unfortunately, Mr. Lowenthal had another break earlier this year.
He's been staying in a transient hotel ever since.
Detective Bell and I are going to speak with him.
You want me to meet you?
Oh, no, we're already here.
Anyway, now that I know that you've enjoyed coitus
and could enjoy more in the near future...
When you're done, we need to talk.
Byron Lowenthal, you in there?
Who is it?
It's Detective Bell, NYPD.
My colleague and I would like to ask you some questions.
Let me get some pants on.
S-Sorry, I just... I, um...
I-I thought I heard Mr. Lowenthal retr...
You guys got lucky.
Well, luck had little to do with it, actually.
I... I heard Mr. Lowenthal
pulling a heavy object off a shelf, placing it on his bed,
and the sound of the zipper indicated
that it was a large gun case.
Looks like he was sane enough to do math, but not much else.
Plus, he was pretty hopped up.
Caffeine pills, energy drinks,
pretty much every legal stimulant you can buy.
Plus a few illegal ones.
Hmm. Obviously, he was keeping himself awake
so he could work on Belphegor's.
This... is obvious to you?
I confess the maths are beyond me,
but I took the liberty of sending pictures of what
appear to be Mr. Lowenthal's most recent scribbles
to Harlan Emple, and he's confirmed
they are part of the contest.
With your permission, I'd like copies of these
sent to my home so he can review them.
What for?
If Byron Lowenthal
did kill Ike Walaczek,
then he used and obscured a phone number,
which would have yielded the next problem.
That problem's solution
would be GPS coordinates.
If he's recorded them in his books...
Your pal will be able to tell us where he's headed next.
I'll get our guys to give you
whatever you need.
Scans are still coming through,
but I've put what we've got so far up on the wall.
Sherlock said that you prefer it that way.
Picked it up from him, actually.
Makes me feel like I'm really inside of the problem.
I'll, uh, let you know if I need anything.
Oh, I work without a shirt.
Sometimes makes me feel closer to the numbers.
You'll need to, uh, check the printer in the study
for more pages.
Uh, this is nice, you know?
Meeting another member of the team.
You know, Team Sherlock.
You help him, I help him...
Obviously, you haven't tackled a case
with high-order math since you started working with him,
or we would've...
What?
Wait...
have you worked a case with high-order math?
You have, haven't you?
Does it matter?
Of course it...
Oh, my God.
Did he fire me?
All I know is that back in London,
we worked a case that involved Fibonacci spirals...
He fired me.
...and he called some woman named Indira Patel.
She's at Berkeley.
I'm three time zones closer!
You're here now.
Sure, because I found a dead body.
I have to go; I have to run some errands for Sherlock.
I-I don't know what was in the crate,
but the stenciling on the side indicates
it came from one of the SUNY schools.
I put another detective on Keswick...
Don't kill me, I had to use your razor to shave.
I...
You must be Andrew.
Sherlock Holmes.
Sorry.
Joan said you were coming; I... I forgot.
It's not how I wanted to meet you.
She said you can tell a lot about people
just by looking at them.
I swear, I... usually wear pants.
Well, in my experience, most people
need only be concerned I won't notice
anything worth remarking upon.
Watson seems adequately sexed.
Hey.
I was just introducing myself.
I've got that thing. I'll see you tonight.
Okay.
Your home, Watson...
it's utterly pleasant.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
When you told me you wanted a life of your own,
I didn't realize that you meant you wanted
the same life everyone else has.
But at any rate, none of my business, is it?
It's not. And I didn't ask you here
to talk about my apartment.
No, you asked me here to discuss Kitty.
If she were not the topic of conversation,
then you wouldn't have invited me to your home,
where there's no chance she'll be present.
She disappointed you in some way.
Skills not up to snuff?
Please remember she is a novice.
Actually, she did a great job.
But I have some concerns.
I thought we could talk about them.
You think that Kitty needs help
above and beyond my mentorship.
You read the same file I did.
She's a rape victim.
She was kept and tortured.
Mm.
You know me, so surely you know
I've broached the subject of a support group meeting before.
Even offered to pay for therapy.
She's not interested, I know.
Just as you also know
someone with a problem can't be forced to get help.
They have to want it.
What Kitty wants is to be a detective.
I am taking pains to try and channel
her residual feelings into her work.
Well, that works out great for you.
You told me that you took on a partner
because you wanted to replicate what you and I had.
That you thought it helped with your recovery.
You think I would try and take advantage
of the victim of a trauma?
Of course not, but there is a conflict of interest here.
She needs what she needs, but you need what you need, too.
It's-it's good that you're in her life now, Watson.
I mean, it's commonly believed that, um,
a child benefits mostly from the presence of two parents.
He-- or she, in this case-- can absorb certain qualities
from the father-- clear-eyed view of the world,
capacity of rational thought, etcetera.
They can also absorb certain qualities from the mother.
Excuse me, but I am not Kitty's mother,
and she sure as hell is not our child.
You brought her here; she looks up to you.
She says that she doesn't need help-- fine--
but you know better.
And you're gonna have to be the one that tells her.
It's Harlan.
Making progress with the maths.
We thought that Byron and Ike
arrived at Portal Ten simultaneously.
That would've meant that they were doing all the same math
at essentially the same time.
Only, the math you found at Byron's place
says that's wrong.
He was one step behind Ike.
Are you proposing he did not kill Mr. Walaczek?
I don't know, but that's not the weirdest part.
Byron was obsessive.
He time-stamped almost everything he did.
He only solved the Portal Nine problem,
the same problem that sent me to that old factory last night.
But get this--
he wasn't given the same problem as me.
And so it would've yielded GPS coordinates
for an entirely different location.
The person in charge of the game changed the clue
after the police found Ike's body.
Well, he had to, right?
If he hadn't, he would be sending other competitors
to an active crime scene.
The important thing is
I figured out the coordinates
to the second location.
I know where Byron went.
What are you doing?
You're saying he time-stamped everything.
I'm looking at the time he received his clues.
It's all there, to the second, but what does that have to do...
What if you hadn't found a body?
If the game had proceeded as planned,
what were you meant to do there?
I would have sent a text to the phone number,
the one that the killer painted over, and then I would have
gotten a message back with the next problem.
There's an extra step in there.
Why all this rigmarole with phone numbers and texts?
Why not just post the problem itself at the factory?
I don't know, it's just the way the game is played.
They're for an old industrial area in Queens.
You're welcome for finding your suspect.
If I'm right, Harlan, what you've found...
is the site of another murder.
Byron Lowenthal's.
You were right, Lowenthal's dead.
He was shot in the foot, then the knee.
Just like Ike Wallaczek.
I'm, uh, gonna look over here now.
Well, we think the perp was pulling the body
to a car that was parked over there.
Then he just left him here.
Probably afraid he'd been spotted.
There's a lot of homeless in the area.
Question is:
how'd you know Lowenthal was the next victim
and not the killer?
Well, that's quite simple, really.
The game is directing its players to remote locales,
and then instructing them to send a text message
indicating their presence.
I suspect the killer wanted to remove the body
so he could keep this new location “in play,” so to speak.
Still missing the “simple” part.
The late Mr. Lowenthal
received his final clue
after Harlan discovered Ike Wallaczek's body,
but before news of the killing had reached the media.
That means the game's designer
knew the location had been compromised.
And the only way that he could have known that,
at the time that he knew it,
was if he, himself, was the killer.
Belphegor's Prime is not a treasure hunt.
It's a trap.
Better?
False alarm.
But I still feel a little queasy.
This new dead guy--
your friend said that he was tortured, too, right?
Right before the killer tried to abscond with his corpse.
I assume he intended to take
Ike Wallaczek away with him as well, only Ike was too large.
A speedy mothballing was the best he could do.
So, just to recap,
I've spent the last few months of my life
playing a game that was designed to kill me.
Got to be a metaphor in there somewhere, right?
I think the word you're looking for is “moral.”
There is a moral in there: games are for idiots.
Breaking news from Ramapo.
Kitty reports the Center for Applied Mathematics and Logic
is not the sponsor of Belphegor's Prime.
Then it's got to be a serial killer, right?
Someone who's obsessed with mathematicians?
Mm.
Perhaps he was bullied by mathematicians as a child.
Or mathematicians killed his parents.
I'm being serious.
Serial killers who devise elaborate death traps
are the stuff of pulp fiction.
And besides, with respect to these murders,
there are none of the elaborations
which mark that sort of culprit.
If anything, I would describe the work as businesslike.
Then it's the government.
I mean, the-the game was some sort of test to weed out people
who could weaponize math.
The American intelligence apparatus may be clod-like,
but I think they would do a better job
of disposing of two bodies, don't you?
Watson?
I just heard from one of the suspects
Marcus and I talked to yesterday,
another puzzle-hunter.
Tell me he confessed to the murders.
We ruled him out right away, but he heard about
Byron Lowenthal's murder on the news and wanted me to know
he's at a friend's place, some guy named Paul.
That is fascinating.
Actually, it might be.
Paul is positive he knows who the killer is.
I know the guards are a bit much,
but I wanted everyone to feel safe.
And, besides, math has been good to me.
Commodities.
So, you and your friends,
you were competitors in Belphegor's Prime?
Most of us. Some of the others are just here for the math.
You said you could identify the killer.
I can, sort of.
“Mo Shellshocker.”
It's a pseudonym, obviously, but I'm telling you,
this is the guy you're looking for.
I've heard of him.
He uses his blog to expose bad math.
Corrupt economists, biased pollsters, that sort of thing.
He's actually sort of a crusader.
He's a murderer.
How can you be so sure?
When he isn't crusading, he's competing in puzzle hunts.
A few months ago,
he claimed to have solved
Cicada 3301 two years in a row.
Some people called BS, including...
Ike Wallaczek and Byron Lowenthal.
“WallaCheckYourMath,”
“ByLow2020.”
Those are their online handles.
Their friends will confirm it.
A flame war does not a murderer make.
The stuff these guys were slinging at each other was ugly.
Mo knew they were into hunts, and so he built one
that would send them to places where he could kill them.
That's what we're doing here is
we're just sifting through all the math
he's posted on his blog over the years,
to see if we could find his signature
or something that could identify him.
If two people weren't dead, we'd probably be having fun.
But still, the chances that he left
something like that in his math...
If it's there, we'll find it. In the meantime,
we thought the police should know
who they're really dealing with.
I've got to go meet someone
about my other case.
You're good to pass all this along to Marcus? Okay.
I must say, I'm surprised you didn't offer to stay and help.
Mr. Ettinger makes a compelling case with respect
to Mo Shellshocker's viability as a suspect.
Mo is a genius.
We're talking off the charts.
Leibniz meets Euler meets Gauss.
Huh. He may have an ego,
but he's not gonna kill anyone over a few comments.
So, while “The League of Concerned Mathematician”"
chases its tail up there, I am gonna do the smart thing
and get out of town.
You can let me know when it all blows over.
You're not going anywhere, Harlan.
Or should I call you Mo Shellshocker?
Did you honestly think I wouldn't recognize
an anagram of my own name?
I knew I should've gone with “Choker Hell Moss”"
But I never thought that you would see it, okay?
Math is my thing, not yours.
It's my name, Harlan; that makes it my thing.
It was an homage.
Explain.
Every day, all over the world,
math is used to trick people.
Data dredging to sell pharmaceuticals.
Publication bias to justify wars.
In the wrong hands, math can be manipulated, abused.
And I decided to do something about it.
You catch people who murder other people.
I catch people who murder math.
According to this, Mo is a wanted man.
Harlan?
The D.O.D. was working on a new fighter.
Only, I knew that the performance stats were bogus.
A friend of mine found the internal numbers,
and I sort of published them.
So you put classified Department of Defense documents
on the Internet.
Isn't that what you would have done?
Fine! I screwed up, okay?
But, hey, that's what I do, right? I screw up.
If I didn't, then probably you wouldn't have secretly fired me.
Excuse me?
I know about Indira Patel!
I know you replaced me.
Kitty, I think we could use some tea.
Just tell me.
Tell me what math I got wrong.
Tell me why you didn't let me make it up to you.
It wasn't the maths, it was you.
Your work was impeccable.
And for the most part, I enjoyed our collaborations.
B-But over time, you just... you became quite... needy.
What are you talking about?
Y-You asked my advice on-on social matters,
and you even invited me to a party.
You were my friend.
I was your employer, Harlan.
A-And you were my consultant.
One of many.
I know that I'm a little obsessed with what I do.
That has always made it hard to make friends.
And I used to feel pretty bad about that, and then I met you.
And I thought to myself,
hey, if it doesn't bother him, why should I let it bother me?
I got a lot out of the work that we did.
A lot.
But if someone like you thinks that I'm a loser, then...
Hey, are we still doing this?
Doing what?
Talking about the case.
You're just sitting there.
I'm thinking.
I suspect the silence is exacerbated
by the nature of our communication.
Yes. Well, I don't live there anymore.
So, if you want to talk shop at night,
this is the best I can do.
Keep asking myself: what did the killer want?
He went to great lengths to lure brilliant mathematicians
to their deaths.
Winnowed out the less gifted
by making his problems more and more complicated.
He had a type, but I still think he's a serial killer
only in the most technical sense.
He tortured both his victims.
But there's no sign that he enjoyed it.
The work was utilitarian,
suggesting it was less for pleasure
and more for persuasion.
He wanted something.
But what?
Maybe there's a connection between Wallaczek and Lowenthal
we haven't spotted yet.
Maybe they were working on a project together,
something that was worth a lot of money.
There's no way the killer could have predicted
which competitors would make it to the terminal stage.
That part of the game was beyond his control.
If it weren't, he would've been prepared
to dispose of a body the size of Ike Wallaczek's.
So, even if there were a connection between the victims,
the killer could not have counted on them
being lured into his trap.
Certainly not in sequence.
His game was, in many respects, one of chance.
Suggesting he knows what he wants, but not who has it.
Like he was on a puzzle hunt of his own.
I'm back.
I'll set up downstairs, yeah?
I've been thinking about what you said earlier.
I've decided to engage her one more time
with regards to her recuperation.
I doubt she'll listen, but I'll keep you apprised.
I've been thinking.
About? You. Your history.
Your decision not to seek help.
I think it's a mistake.
Oh?
I've looked into a number of support groups.
As you are well aware,
I have benefited greatly from similar settings.
You have.
The process, I find,
is not unlike voiding one's bowels...
I'll go. What?
I'll go. Just get me the details.
I've been thinking, too-- about your number-cruncher, Harlan.
You think I was too hard on him.
You will have consultants of your own one day.
You'll see that they require management and focus.
They are but keys on a keyboard, and we're the typists.
You could've given him a shoeing for all I care.
No, I'm just saying that
some of the stuff he's got up to, it's quite good.
You should take a look.
You may find a fellow typist.
Hello?
Yeah, I hear that you and some friends
are trying to identify Mo Shellshocker.
That's right. Who is this?
His name is Harlan Emple.
You got a pen?
I'll-I'll give you his address.
Harlan.
You can't take a hint, can you?
I got your text messages.
I don't want to see you right now.
So if you came here to apologize...
Actually, I came here to spare you an agonizing death.
Can I come in?
I was puzzling earlier
as to why the killer went to such specific lengths.
What did he want?
And then Watson, quite by accident,
she made a most compelling analogy.
She said it was as if he was on a hunt of his own.
Duh. He was hunting mathematicians.
No, he wasn't.
He was hunting a mathematician.
One.
A man who had concealed his identity not only
from the mathematics community at large,
but also from the FBI.
A “crusader,” you might call him.
Wait a minute.
Are you saying that this was all about me?
Unfortunately, emulating the work of people like me
is not without risks.
Creates enemies.
I knew it was the government.
It was a lottery winner.
Little over a year ago,
you started a series of blogs where you exposed the flaws
in certain scratch card lottery games.
Tickets like this one.
I wrote about baited hook games.
Games where the numbers are printed on the front.
Scratch off the hidden numbers, hope for a match.
Only, you proved that with careful mathematical analysis
of the visible numbers, you could predict
which tickets were winners 80% of the time.
If you had exploited
this flaw, rather than exposing it,
you could have made millions.
Well... sure. But that would been cheating.
Right.
So imagine for a moment
that you are a less honest mathematician.
Right?
You've been taking advantage of these games
for a couple of years to amass a small fortune.
And then “Mo" comes along.
He starts exposing the broken games.
State lottery commissions shut them down.
The exploitable games dry up.
Now, if you were a psychopathic lottery cheat,
how do you fix that?
You kill Mo.
Unfortunately, Mo is elusive.
Anonymous.
The only thing he knew about him for sure
was that he could not resist a puzzle hunt.
Now, if you were smart enough to identify
and take advantage of broken lottery games...
Then I'm smart enough to design a puzzle hunt.
This plan was not without its flaws.
Once a competitor reached the terminal stage,
the killer could not be certain that he'd trapped Mo, could he?
So he tortured them.
I submit he forced them to log on to Mo's Web site,
and when they failed...
After two murders,
the game was compromised.
So the killer devises a Plan “B.”
He tricks
a group of his peers
into helping search for an alternative means
of identifying Mo.
You're talking about that guy.
The one with the penthouse.
Paul?
Lottery winners are public record.
So when I searched for the names of repeat winners
in the dates prior to your posts...
I can't believe I drank his water.
I called him.
I identified you as Mo.
And I gave him your address.
You what?!
Drop your weapon!
I did not, however, give him
the correct apartment number.
He was arrested a little over an hour ago.
Tried to call you to tell you, but, um...
But I was ignoring you.
Yes, you were ignoring me.
Look, you know
that I'm still screwed, right?
You told him that I'm Mo.
He's gonna tell the police, they're gonna tell the FBI...
The NYPD is under the impression
that I lied about your connection to Mo
in order to draw Mr. Ettinger out.
As far as the FBI goes, well,
I've got some associates who have created a trail
which will strongly suggest that Mo
is a cyber-terrorist I became aware of
whilst working for, um...
queen and country.
Your secret's quite safe.
Thanks.
My reasons for preserving you are entirely selfish, Harlan.
You are a tremendous asset.
I have little doubt
I will need your help again in the future.
Me or him?
You.
I have an update on that real estate flipper.
I thought you might want to know.
I tracked down the truck rental receipts to get her name.
Valerie Cork.
She's an art authenticator.
And that crate you saw?
There was something called
a scanning fluorescence spectrometry machine inside.
They're used... To find paintings
underneath other paintings.
So it turns out that the building
Chad Keswick was looking to buy
was leased by the WPA during the Depression.
They commissioned a mural for the lobby.
The artist was a notorious communist,
so when the property passed into private hands in the '50s,
the new owners had it painted over.
But it was still there, under the paint.
A lost work by Diego Rivera.
It's worth ten times the price of the building.
I was hoping to leak the truth to the Times.
I promised you a cut of my fee.
But I'm pretty sure the mural's gonna end up
in the hands of a historical trust.
I'd feel obligated to refund my client,
which means you'd get a cut of nothing.
That works for me.
Okay.
I think you should know
that I am going to a meeting tonight.
One of those support groups for...
people like me.
It was, uh, Sherlock's idea.
That's great.
I know you put him up to it.
We talked.
When he first approached me in London,
I was...
in a bad way.
And I had been for a while.
But then, when he talked about
the work that he did,
about the things that he saw in me...
I want it.
I want every bit of what's he offered me,
of what he offered you, but...
if I've learned one thing over the last few weeks,
it's that he can't pull it off.
Not by himself, anyway.
And if I'm gonna get what I want,
then I'm going to need your help, too.
I still think the meetings are bollocks,
but you say they're important.
They matter to you, so...
What do you say, Watson?
Will you help me?
I don't know how it happened.
It just... hit me.
Like a truck, out of nowhere.
Work is good.
I have friends.
I'm in a relationship.
Somewhere along the way, somehow,
I stopped being a victim
and became a survivor.
So, I guess all I'm saying is, there's hope.
Do the work. Love yourself. There's hope.
== sync, corrected by elderman == @elder_man
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