- Sherlock tries to give the perfect best man speech at John's wedding when he suddenly realizes a murder is about to take place.
- As Lestrade fumes over his constant inability to convict the Waters gang of bank robbers, Holmes prepares for his role as best man at Mary and John's wedding. His speech, initially bizarre, turns out to be a moving tribute to his friend whilst he also contributes two anecdotes of recent cases, both unsolved. The first concerns a young guardsman whose life John saved after he was the victim of a 'locked room' attempted murder. The second involves a man who uses the identities of the recently deceased to date different women. As he looks around the wedding party, Holmes suddenly realizes their connected solutions, which also involve Watson's former commanding officer, disfigured war hero Major Sholto.—don @ minifie-1
- Sherlock is about to face one of the greatest challenges of his life: giving a speech as best man at John's wedding. On the big day, he starts off somewhat rambling but in the end delivers a charming and warm oration on his good friend John and his new bride Mary. He also recounts two cases, still unsolved, from John's blog. The first deals with a Guardsman who, soon after being relieved from guard duty, is found stabbed and dying inside a locked shower stall. The second involves a young woman who wants Sherlock to locate a man she had recently met and who then disappeared. As he recounts these tales Sherlock realizes they are linked by a common thread and also to John and Mary's wedding - where one of the guests is going to be murdered.—garykmcd
- It is John Watson and Mary's wedding day. Holmes is the best man and has laboured over his speech, plus micromanaging the reception. While giving his speech he recounts how Watson invited him to be best man, the wedding plans and recent cases of theirs. One of the cases involved a member of the Household Guards who believed he was being stalked, and then was found stabbed in the shower, with no weapon in sight. Another case seemed bizarre - a woman who believed she had had a relationship with a ghost.—grantss
- John Watson and Mary Morstan are having their wedding. Sherlock Holmes, being John Watson's best man, rises from his seat to give the best man's speech, but he hesitates and is unsure of what to say. Flashbacks show that he had failed in writing the speech. Sitting in the audience and watching him are Lestrade, Molly, Tom, and Mrs Hudson, as well as Major Sholto, who is John's former commander. John was delighted when Sholto walked in, since he didn't reply to his invitation, and it is explained that Sholto lives in seclusion. He is suffering from criticism by the media, and death threats, after having lost a unit of newly trained soldiers in Afghanistan.
Sherlock grasps for material and starts giving a rambling narrative about an attempted murder he and Watson had worked on, the Bloody Guardsman: not long ago, a Grenadier Guard was found unconscious in a shower room, suffering from a stab wound, but the weapon couldn't be found, and there wasn't a route for the attacker to escape. Earlier, the guardsman had emailed Sherlock after suspecting that someone was stalking him. Sherlock reluctantly admits that the case was never solved.
Sherlock's narrative drifts to another case, the Mayfly Man; a woman who worked as a private nurse, several days after going to a man's apartment for dinner, found that the apartment was vacated, and moreover, that the man was listed as having died weeks ago. Sherlock and Watson swept that apartment but couldn't find clues. One thing was strange; the woman knew John's middle name. Afterwards, Sherlock chatted online with other London women who had a similar experience, but couldn't find a connection between them. He concludes in his speech that the perpetrator must have been a man bored with marriage. The man must have used disguises and broken into the homes of people who recently died, as seen in obituaries.
While moving to the toast, Sherlock suddenly freezes in realisation. Knowing that John Watson is a man who never uses his middle name, it is obvious that the woman must have seen it somewhere besides normal print. Specifically, in John Watson's wedding invitation, one of whose recipients was Major Sholto. Sherlock concludes that all of the women were working for Sholto and bound to confidentiality, being his gardener, security guard, etc, and private nurse. The perpetrator is trying to get close to him to attack him, and the current wedding is his chance.
Sherlock slips a note to Sholto and the latter returns to his hotel room, and gets his pistol in order to defend himself. However, Sherlock deduces again that the stabbing of the guardsman might be linked, and spots the common element as the military uniform. Since the guardsman collapsed in the shower, he must have been stabbed with a razor thin stiletto type blade beforehand, but with the military waistbelt firmly holding the flesh together, the damage wouldn't take effect until the belt loosened. They send Sholto to hospital and arrest the wedding photographer, who is found to be someone who wants to kill Sholto because his brother was one of the new soldiers that perished.
Afterwards, with the sun having set, people move to a different hall for a dance. Sherlock quietly reveals to John and Mary the three signs he has observed confirming she is pregnant, then, unable to find a dance partner, he departs from the venue alone.
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