Just one more thing, ma'am...

Here's a funny thing. The trouble is I can't find any decent videos to illustrate it on Youtube. But since everyone in the known universe now owns a copy of "Sherlock" series two on DVD, you will no doubt be able to confirm it for yourself. Watch the video below. In fact, you really only need to watch the first ten seconds or so:




If you don't have access to the DVD, watch it at the best resolution you can. If you do have access to a DVD copy, go back to the previous shot of the blurry figure in the doorway, a few seconds before the Youtube video starts and watch from there.

Watch it a couple of times, then answer the following: when Moriarty walks across the front of the shot and picks up an apple, who is standing by the fireplace in the background, looking in the mirror?

Duuh! It's Sherlock, of course. Or is it?

Because when you see it from the end of the previous shot on a television screen, it looks very much like the late Mr Henry Fishguard, the mannequin who appeared previously in the episode suspended by his neck in the kitchen.

Apart from the lack of facial features reflected in the mirror, the curious angle of the neck and the slightly too thick-set torso, the effect is most noticeable as Moriarty enters, immediately after Sherlock's line "kettle's just boiled": his violin bow moves onto his left shoulder in a distinctly mechanical manner, while the rest of the body moves not a jot.

But then Moriarty picks up an apple, says his line "Johann Sebastian would be appalled" as we go briefly to a mid-shot, then it's back to Sherlock in the flesh as he offers Moriarty a seat.

But it seems to make no sense. Was the shot filmed on a day when Benedict Cumberbatch wasn't called? Is it an "Easter egg", a hidden treat for us internet obsessives? Or is it plot related? If it is, how does Sherlock pull the 'switcharoo' so quickly?

Perhaps it's a piece of semiological sleight of hand. We assume that the figure who breaks into the flat and creeps up the stairs before appearing as a blurred outline in the doorway is Moriarty, but are we we, in fact seeing two nearly identical scenes cut together. Might it, after all, be Mycroft crossing the room? As Sherlock says "Most people knock. But then you're not most people". This could apply equally to Mycroft or Moriarty. And they are certainly both inclined to wearing light grey suits on occasion.

Time for a long lie down in a darkened room, I think...

But before I finish, I would just add that the straight-legged, open stance with the left arm held stiffly by the side adopted by Mr Fishguard in this shot is distinctly reminiscent of Sherlock standing on the parapet in the final scene of the episode, as seen from Watson's point of view.

Which, in a way, is pretty much where I started.

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By the way, if anyone can find a link to an internet video of the shot starting from the figure in the doorway, it would be appreciated.