The Cardboard Box

Susan Cushing comes to Baker Street about her sister, Mary Browner, who has disappeared. Holmes listens, asks a question or two, and shows very little interest, because a missing wife without a crime attached is only a domestic matter, and Holmes has never much cared for domestic matters. Susan leaves with a polite promise. And then Christmas arrives.

The parcel is a cardboard box, and it contains a present of the sort that ends seasons. Inside are two human ears, packed in salt, addressed to a woman who has done nobody any harm. Holmes, who was bored an hour earlier, is now very interested, and the case that began as a sister's worry becomes a hunt for a dangerous man. The box was meant for the other sister, which is the sort of mistake a murderer makes when he writes an address in anger, and Holmes has to work out both who sent it and why.

The trail leads to Jim Browner, and to a story that starts with love and ends with a parcel. Ciarán Hinds gives the man a bulk and a stillness that make the final scenes genuinely uncomfortable. It all resolves into one of the bleakest little stories Conan Doyle ever wrote, and the packaging is relentlessly domestic.

T.R. Bowen wrote it, Sarah Hellings directed. Joanna David is Susan Cushing, Deborah Findlay is her sister Sarah, and Lucy Whybrow is Mary Browner. Tom Chadbon is Inspector Hawkins, Thierry Harcourt is Marcel Jacottet, Richard Dixon is Mr Bradbrook, and Rosalie Williams is Mrs Hudson. Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke are Holmes and Watson, and Brett's quiet reaction to the contents of the box is the episode in miniature.

The Cardboard Box is not an easy watch, and it should not be. Holmes solves the case, as he always does, but the solving does not make anyone feel better. Some stories end with justice. This one just ends.