Charles Augustus Milverton - Part Two

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Previously on Sherlock and Co. He has a legal team that is

the tricks they have that Milverton. He just has control over everything.

We saw similar things with Hector MacFarlane. It's uh

you should speak to Evan Brackwell. Here, here's his number.
Oh, thank you.

Why should we speak to him? Because he's looking for a detective.

And I said I knew the very best. Your daughter

has a picture of her

exposing herself at a gravestone.

Correct. So, flashing.

Yes. Yeah.

Out of the blue, broad daylight, her phone gets nicked, and a couple days later, he messages me

the photo. He?

Milverton.

There's this little slip of paper on my desk. Here I have it.
Let me see. It's metadata, isn't it? It's image metadata.

The ray of hope, I suppose, is that Milverton is sending you this in the first place.

This is hope, is it? He doesn't wish to publish it. That's not his primary objective.
He wants leverage. And he has it.
Of course. Yeah.

What are you thinking? I'm thinking we're being watched, Watson. Really? Hmm.
The eavesdropper in question isn't learning anything new about Milverton. How

exactly can you be sure about that? Sorry? Because he is Milverton. You really do loathe me,

don't you, Mr. Holmes? Yes.
Good.

I rather like it. All right, come on.
Let's just prowling big cat,

the monkey throwing his own feces,

and the slithering serpent. Come on, Sherlock.
All under the watchful spider.

What did you say? Better get back to work. I have clients of my own.
What did you say? Sherlock, get me over to that bastard. Who are you alluding to? Oh, goodness.

All right.

Come on, Sherlock.

Break into my house again, and I will feed you to him, Holmes. Understand me? I didn't break into your house.

I'll watch his fangs sink into your skull and see that brilliant brain foam out your eyes like battery acid. You shatter it!

Shit.

Shit. Obviously, I um...

Oh, Barlocks, I didn't mean to knock him out.

Don't punch powerful people in the face without thinking long and hard about it beforehand would be my advice. Welcome to part two.
Content warnings in the description. Enjoy.

What'd you do that for, man? I.

he was being really annoying. Annoying? You knocked him out for being annoying? What's with the limp? I sprained my knee.

Why?

Because I'm not 25 anymore, Wiggins. Oh, 25 now, thanks.
Oh, yeah. Sorry, I forgot you were 10.
I'm 18. Ridiculous.
This is ridiculous. What do you call this, Wiggins? A moustache, mate.

It's called a moustache. And, despite what everyone else seems to think, it's more of a look-don't touch kind of thing.

Wiggins? Oh, nice hat. Thank you.
So, what you found out, big man? Milverton knows I entered his home, which means someone was able to discern who exactly I was, despite my disguise.

Tricky, that. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what? What is it? So you did actually enter his house? Yes.
You wa

when?

When I sent you to Lausanne.

This.

What the hell? When? Why didn't you tell us? I told you I was doing research and having meetings. Sorry, can I just

look, I love a little insinuation here and there, right? But meetings and research does not equate to breaking into the homes of powerful people. Oh, I think it does.

What else did you get up to while we were away, for God's sake? Not a great deal. There you are.

Miss you, my darling. As I, you, my love.

Oh, sorry. Wiggins, Watson, Watson, this is Agatha.
Nice to meet you. Hi.
Ah, a friend. It's always great to meet other friends of Sherlock.
You know, we can compare notes. She's my fiancée.

She's.

No, we met. When did we meet? Um, not last Tuesday.
Tuesday before. Ah, Tuesday before.
That's right. Yeah, of course, that's right.

We were in Hampstead when we I was so down with this whole stupid visa thing.

I just finished work and I was walking to the tube and he came up to me and he said that my walk was the most elegant he's ever seen.

I mean, wow, this tall, handsome man comes up to you in the street and tells you something like that, right? What do you do? Um, yeah,

you you marry him, apparently.

Right, so we were just together for that 24 hours, weren't we? But because of his religion, he wanted marriage before we did anything else.

Your religion? Mm-hmm. Yes.
My faith. Deep, profound faith.
Your faith, your faith. Yeah, yeah, you remind me again.
Restorationist biblical, Unitarian, Christadelphian. Hmm.
Of course you are.

It's a lot, right? This engagement. No, yeah, sorry, it's just uh.

just a long confusing day we thought it was fast didn't we darling oh very much so yeah but love is impatient our hearts are restive and yearning for one another Watson yeah no I noticed yep I'm going to need another coffee before I go to work I think do you want anything no fine all good thank you Agatha darling no thank you darling okay be right back

sure you don't want anything darling you're irritated am I darling? You are, yes. Oh, I wonder why, my love.
You perhaps are feeling a little uninformed and confused. Or, how about this?

I'm irritated because I'm in the immediate vicinity of someone very fucking irritating. She has her flaws, but I don't think there's any need.

You idiot! You! Don't flick my hat. This is an iconic symbol of my brilliance.
Oh, is it? Is it loud?

Stop it! Yeah, yeah.

Stop.

You

stop touching the moustache. Get off the hat.
hack! Oh, enough! Enough!

You sent us away, didn't you? You actually sent me a Mariana away. I don't know what you could possibly be talking about, Watson.
You sent us away to

piss about in Switzerland and bloody Egypt just so you could sneak about London on some other case without us. I don't sneak.
Yeah, you do. Sneak.
You absolutely sneak.

Firstly, you are involved in the case. Ah, what case is it then? Mysteria Lodge.
Closed, mate. Locked.
Sealed. Watertight.
But a little leak still springs through, Watson.

M.

The message thing, again. Yes, the message thing.
Was it M for marriage? Was it? M for madness? M for complete moron? Come with me. Uh, you're forgetting something.
Ah, my pipe.

No, the fiancé over there. She'll be fine.

Oh, I couldn't do the hyde park, horse, and cart tourist thing. Too many people just stare.

Like you, you mean? Oh, yeah.

I suppose. How's the limp? Getting better.
How's the pipe?

Glorious.

Look at this.

Well, sir. Eccles' wife took this photo a couple of days before he died.
It's a car. A car parked outside the Eccles residence.
License plate IF70KNK.

Uh-huh. Check it against this on gov.uk.
Registered to a BMW 7 series. Right.
I found the garage that performed its MOT and their logbook of jobs and located the address of the driver. Okay.

I went to the property. It was indeed a BMW 7 Series.

Is that the end of the story?

Because it's not very good. I asked her, Mrs.
Eccles, that is, why she took the photo. She said because there were a number of BMWs that would sit outside her house.
A number of them, Watson. I'm not.

I don't really follow. You're not the follower.

They are.

You are the followed. Sorry, what? While at the property, I opened the bonnet of the BMW, triggered the alarm in doing so, unfortunately, and took a photo of the chassis number.

The chassis number is the true identifier of the vehicle. The BMW is black.
Kidney grille, laser headlights, tinted windows, and 20-inch alloys with Pirelli PZ4s.

Yeah, I mean, I saw the picture, I understand all that bit. That chassis number reveals a service history.
And every time a different license plate is used.

21 CBY, 7-1 HVV, 7-2MNX, 6-8-YGT.

See?

See? It's the same car, Watson. The plates are just being changed.
Right, so. it was sat outside the house of John Scott Eccles.
Okay.

And you think he died of natural causes? He did die of natural causes.

Sherinford Holmes.

You're shaking. Sherinford Holmes.
The picture of me used in that paper. Look, Watson.

Look.

Over your shoulder in the picture there.

The black BMW. The black BMW.

And then there's this.

When you access one of the Milverton affiliated accounts or sites

here

look

I don't see it that's because this image is from the car it's Milverton's BMW now do you see

M M for Milverton M for Milverton

So I thought

oh

you don't think any more? I thought you were onto something there for a second, mate. I thought that.

I was certain of that.

Until

that little outburst.

Now,

that thought I once had, that was just this morning, so stimulating and downright fizzy with zeal in my head is dulling to a fade. Because he mentioned the spider.
Yes.

Watching over the three of us, he said.

Milverton included himself in the watched,

the slithery serpent.

But he does know something.

He does

know something.

I think the problem with him, Sherlock, is he knows everything.

Yep.

Right.

Ice cream, I think. Sherlock.
That mustache is really growing on me.

I was just thinking that about your hat. Oh my goodness, we're so synchronized, as our affections grow for each other's latest idiosyncrasies.

Come. Ice cream? Sherlock.
You may wish to be careful as the moustache will collect ice cream residue. Sherlock? Hmm? Well, you've explained everything, except for the.

Oh, what was it? There was that one thing, the um oh yeah, your engagement to some woman called Agatha. Well, I would think that's fairly obvious.
Oh, would you? Yes. Try me.
Hampstead. Okay.

You met in Hampstead? Where she was coming from work. Okay, so she works in Hampstead.
Who lives in Hampstead? Uh, lots of people. Ah, right, Gruner.

Oh, Milverton said Baron Gruner was a neighbour of his. Milverton lives in Hampstead.
And she works there. Right, yeah, but I'm sure plenty of people do, mate.

Hair tied up, fingernails scrubbed down to nubs, knees faded on her jeans, defined forearms, flat-soled shoes. Okay,

I'm going with

cleaner. See? You can do it.
Oh my god, she says cleaner. Correct.
And she's my fiancé. Stop saying that.
Why? Because it's extremely unconvincing.

I can perform the role of a straight man in the grips of love, Watson. Don't you worry about that? Yeah.

No, you can't. Can't I? No.
Oh.

But she seems convinced. She seems rather overjoyed with the arrangement, to be quite frank.
She might like the citizenship, mate. No, it.

Oh, bugger.

Yes.

Goodness, that makes sense now.

I thought I was just being extremely charming. It's a lovely thought, it really is.
But hey, upside, at least you're not gonna break her heart. She's just using you as well.
Excellent. Good to know.

Right,io, ice cream. Wait for nightfall, then offer a break-in, I think.
Don't you? Um,

I like the ice cream bit.

Then it kind of went downhill a little bit for me, mate. Here, some ladies' black tights.
You'll need those. And still, it goes downhill.

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Hello, everyone.

I am currently masked with a woman's black tights over my face.

My head is sort of squished into it. I'm kind of halfway up one leg, then they're kind of draping down like bunny ears.

I'm sat in a wooded area of the heath that overlooks a very fancy neighbourhood. And to be honest, the only thing that is

making me not feel like a complete weirdo is that I'm not exposing myself. I do at least have clothes on, so yeah,

that's a real bonus.

Sherlock, our detective friend, is meeting his fiancée.

Yeah, if you've missed the first half somehow, this all sounds completely insane.

Or for this show, maybe that's quite sane. I don't know.
Anyway, he's meeting his fiancée and he's taking her out for dinner.

He tells me the last time he entered the property she was in there with him.

He pretended he needed the toilet and she let him in. Now, however, the lovely Agatha has actually finished her shift.
And so she should. You know, it's nine o'clock at night.

So, yeah, Sherlock is going to take the key out of her pocket at dinner, which is really lovely, isn't it? Really, really sweet of him.

A couple of dogs walking past should probably

keep quiet. Um, oh, great.

No, go away. Go, go.
Oh, all right, she says, Hi, yes. Hello.
Yeah, you're very nice. Walk on, bugger off.

Oh, great, piss on my shoes. Yeah, thanks.
Thank you. Oh, and you're mate, too.

excellent any other dogs want to come piss on me

i was i am a doctor a qualified doctor and now just a masked man in a bush waiting for my best mate to rob an immigrant who works long hours for little money it's great it's great i feel really proud of myself

Leg is still killing me. Found a fantastic stick though in here.
It was staff-like originally until I cut it in half. Now it's a walking stick.

Sorry, hold on a sec.

Okay, I'm just gonna stay completely still.

What's that smell? Ah, Jesus, man. What? You scared me.
Did you wee yourself? No, I didn't. Dogs weed themselves on me.
Why? Well, maybe because I'm sat on the ground with this thing on my head.

Rather eager to put that on, aren't you? You said to. I said to when we were on our approach to the property.
Yeah? Well, we're not now, are we? Great, excellent.

How did it go? Easy peasy. Couldn't you have just pickpocketed her in the first place? Saved all this engagement stuff.
Your jealousy really needs to be kept in check, Watson. Haha,

very funny. And no.
I failed to do so over the dinner. It required a much more vigorous level of affection at the tube station as we said goodbye in order for me to secure the keys.

Would you prefer that, hmm? That I go and snog unsuspecting women on the street? Oh, no one wants that. Not you, and certainly not them.
Well then, my methods, once again, prove the most effective.

Let us begin our venture towards Appledore. Appledore? Appledore.
That's his house. Right, gotcha.
Gotcha. Now, wait, wait, wait.
Just what, um,

what are we expecting in this safe? Bits, and, I suspect, Bob's

a drive with the asset that Evan Brackwell and his daughter would very much like destroyed. But Milverton's probably got copies and bloody cloud storage and backup.

I mean, this is the digital age, Sherlock. If it was about one singular piece of information, Watson, I would agree with you.
Then what is it about? The drive will contain many things.

Many, many things.

He harvests information, Watson, and I expect to find a bumper crop on that drive. Yeah, but listen to me.
You spend plenty of time online, don't you, John? Hmm? Scrolling and all that sort of thing.

Ah, yeah.

Yeah, I do a bit of that, yeah, sadly. And tell me, do you believe the digital world to be more secure and less turbulent than the real one at this moment in time?

Yeah, okay, I agree there. So you should.
Milverton is a sharp mind. He knows what he's doing.
And I ask you to assume the same of me. Sure, okay.

Okay. He is out at the opera, which finishes shortly, but generally, when he's out in central London, he frequents a gentleman's club called Harrison's.
He'll be back at approximately eleven.

Thirty if other nights are to go by.

We have time, we have the equipment, and we have the heart. Don't we, John? We do.

Take my hand. Okay, where are we? Ah, okay, okay.
Steady, steady. Lean on me if the pain is too much, John.
What are you doing? The gate to this heath entrance has just been closed.

The street lamps for the next four minutes will remain off. We must use this brief window to sprint, as we are, down through to the Vale.
What's the Vale? The Vale of Health.

Named so during the Black Death. The monks of Covent Garden would retreat here for safety.
Now it remains somewhat of a sanctuary from the hustle and bustle.

A tiny, affluent neighbourhood in the heart of Hampstead Heath.

Okay, and

stop.

Your hat is coming off a bit. It's got no grip on these nylon tights.
Right, where now? Crouch with me. Move along this wall, then through the front garden of Appledore.

We get to the front porch. You look out towards the street the whole time while I proceed to unlock the door.
What about alarm system? 4872. I've seen Agatha enter it before.
Of course.

And?

We don't need to hold hands. Yes, we do.

Go, go, go.

Yeah, I am, mate.

Okay.

Anything? Anyone visible? Any cars? People? Uh, no, nothing. This

main road up the top has some activity. I can see a family in their kitchen a couple of houses down.

Uh, a woman walking her dog right down the other way. Lovely.

In.

Splendid. Yeah, pretty good.
Can I take this off now?

Yes. Let's get these off.
Yeah, whipping my tights off in some bloke's house. It's quite the Saturday night, this one.
Uh, right.

Come, up the stairs.

Likes a picture of himself with a celeb, doesn't he? He certainly does.

Oh, God, you know, most people tend to hide the pictures of themselves with Gillane Maxwell. His has got pride of place here.
Look. Watson, come on.
Him and Hulk Hogan there. Watson, will you please?

Sorry. Yep, yep, yep, yep.
Up we go. We make for his bedroom.
That's where we'll find the safe. Oh, does his safe have the same code as the front door? What an idiot.
No, it doesn't. Oh, okay.

What's the code? No idea.

Right.

I have found a wee little problem in our plan, then. That's why I consulted an expert while you were off in Switzerland.
Expert?

In what? A cracksman. Well, crackswoman.
This way. So it's the safe in his bedroom, yeah? Yes, well, it's more of a bedroom suite.
Come down this way here, and

here we have it.

Milverton's bedroom. Indeed.
God, it's about twice the size of our flat.

Welcome, listeners, to the

den of the monster that is Charles Augustus Milverton, proprietor of various media outlets, backer of just about every shit political influence that you can think of, and self-appointed corrupter of the British justice system as and when he pleases.

The room kind of looks like a lounge when you first enter. There's a Chez Long type thing as you come in with a little TV.

Then it opens up towards the back. There's an archway and a bedroom that looks like it overlooks the heath.

As

we come through to the actual bedroom,

the bedchamber part of it, there's a big ornate wardrobe on the right of me, bed in the middle, and uh oh yeah, what are you doing? Removing this picture. Is the safe behind it? Of course.

What, people really do that? Yes. You know, you think something is just a tired old cliche, and then you go and discover that it really does happen.
Put this over there, would you? Yeah, sure.

Just oh, go, that's heavy. Oh, who has art of weird centipede women?

Right then, Safe Cracker Extraordinaire. Is

why have you got your laptop? My expert. She informs me.
Right, who is this expert? A friend. Well, family, really.
A cousin. A.J.
Raffles. You have a cousin? She recommends a power whisper.

We place this clamp on the security circuit of the home. It dips the voltage to a point where this safe leaks RAM data out of its USB port that I can access with this microlift driver.

Oh.

Okay.

After this, you can place the snap clamps on the circuit. Yeah, I feel like there's a snap clamp on my brain right now, mate.

You just tell me what to do and I'll do it. Right.
As Raffles noted, first we must use the microlift driver. Fit it with the head she provided.

All good? So far.

And yes, these are the screws here on the faceplate.

Out you come.

Feels like a pretty weak electric screwdriver. The safe is fitted with a seismic sensor.
It will detect movement. Ah,

of course.

Then what would happen? It would shut down access points and set to lockout mode. Right.
Yes.

Okay.

Two screws remaining.

Oish, big old wardrobe, this.

Ah, pretty beige clothing choices. I bet it's all bloody expensive, mate.
He can't even fill this thing. What is the point? Done.

Right. Now, Watson.
Yes, yes, mate. What can I do? This is the snap clamp.
Above the front door is the cable that runs from the security camera at the front of the property.

Wait, there's a security camera? Of course. This is a highly secure building for a very powerful individual.
But surely we're on camera. Masked, but yes, we are.
So the police will just. The police?

Why would he call the police? To report his own blackmail. Good point, but he is gonna know it's us.

I hope he does. Lovely.
Very snidey, I like it. May I continue? Yes.
Put the clamp on the cable. Note the exact time you do it.

Come back in here, and we will work as quickly as we can to that time frame. Cool.
Be quick. The clamp can only be used once as its own power will drain.
Gotcha. Okay.
Oh.

Okay, folks, here we go. This is Mission Impossible level stuff here, guys.
John Watson is about to cut. Well, well, not cut,

dip the power in this big fancy house. So, let me just

there's where the cable comes in, and I will just put this clamp onto it.

Okay, clamp is on 9.26 and 14 seconds. Off we go

back upstairs, past the CD Celeb pictures, and down the corridor, back to the bedroom. Hello.
Hello. 9.26 and 14 seconds is when it went on.
Excellent. I can see the display starting to flicker.

We have three minutes. Is the micro USB in? It is indeed.
From there, into this laptop. That is reading and picking up the safe as an external source.

Aha!

It's writing. Writing what? Writing what? The data, the files.
It's creating the backup files in the RAM for its shutdown, and it should eventually...

It.

It stopped. Why? Because it's complete, Watson.
Well, you're telling me it actually worked. I open this dump file in this to edit.

Read only, that's fine. Then we...

look for the

I think there's about 90 seconds left mate yes yes

I'm looking for the key code in the XML Watson just wait it's not me this is the power clamp this is the time it takes shush please yeah yeah

60 seconds. Come on.
There's so much. There's just a wall of data, a sheer mass of text, and nothing that really seems like it could be.

Why is this file so bloody big, for goodness sake? This is all just a data dump. It could take quite

some time to sift through. Come on.
Come on.

30 seconds. That's...

Ah, right. That's the intended action of the data transfer.
And this is the tertiary data on the not-so-intended RAM leak that we now.

Ah, sensor data is all finished. Where are you?

Where are you? Security and access. Ten seconds.
Security. Secure read prompt action.
Null, false status. Active null.
Access gateway. Security.
Pass key log. 4721.
4721. 4721.
Two seconds. Put it in.

Put it in. Seven, two, one.

What happened?

It opened. Oh, get in! Yes!

What

was that? Um. Did you leave the door open? No.
Sure? Yes. Why are you sure? What makes you sure? Because I'm not a complete moron that leaves doors open while burgling houses.

You have a prize, and if you can reach it by

any means necessary, then I can't see why not. Milverton.
He's coming upstairs. Shitting, shitty shit.

Come on. Come on.
What about the safe? I'm looking. Where is it? It's...

There's a few boxes in here. Oh, you are fucking kidding.
Conveniently, for the situation, I keep it all offline.

And in the bedroom.

Something we could adhere to ourselves. No, no, no, no.
I'm done. We are climbing out the window.
Watson, we don't have the drive. Just give me a moment.

Again, I'm not the one you need to worry about. Bucker it, in here.
No, not in here. Out there, we're climbing out the window.
No, we need to remain in the property.

We cannot let this work go to waste.

What are you doing?

Putting the portrait back. We must hide in the wardrobe.

Yes.

I just cannot, cannot shake it. A stunning,

stunning performance.

Thank you.

As always.

Who is that?

But

I

don't recall an encore.

Perhaps

I could get a private one.

Who knows?

Who is that woman, Sherlock?

Sherlock.

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