The Final Problem

i-ve-been-sherlocked asked: Okay. I don't know what happened there, I had the post liked and bookmarked. Their theory was this: there was some construction work in progress at Bart's(it's in the breakfast scene, on the frontpage of the newspaper Sherlock is reading, Moffat also mentions in the commentary that this scene is important?). So Sherlock could have jumped down onto the scaffolding. The camera angles weren't off, it was a purposeful shift in views from Sherlock, when he violently pulls Moriarty to the edge.

The actual fall happens on a different side than the one from which Sherlock and Moriarty looked down together. Moriarty doesn’t follow Sherlock when he steps up to the second ledge, so he couldn’t have seen any arrangements/precautions Sherlock might have taken on this side. So the shift in angles was purposefully orchestrated by Sherlock. The original theory was illustrated with screencaps and positioning diagrams and such. I’d like to post something similar to show you, but it’s not my idea.

Background: The deal with this question is that the asker tried to link me to a theory post someone else had made, but that post had been taken down when I followed the link. So the asker summarized the general idea of the theory for me instead.

I talked about the St. Bart’s construction on the blog recently, and it seems to me like Gatiss has confirmed that didn’t end up part of the fall story. So I’ll set the construction aspect of the theory aside.

I know things get a little confusing because they shot most of the Sherlock/Jim confrontation on a different roof that was prettier than the real St. Bart’s roof. (Edited to clarify: Both roofs were at St. Bart’s, but only one was the “real” roof Sherlock fell from.)

But I don’t think there’s any way Sherlock pulled a trick involving which side of the building he jumped off of. When Sherlock and Jim looked down together the first time, they saw this:

After Sherlock grabbed Jim, the next view of the ground they had was this:

And after Sherlock fell, it looked like this:

The camera position was slightly different for each of those shots, but they’re all of the same thing. Compare the shapes and relative positions of the squares in the sidewalk, or that “smile” of dirt on the roof of the bus shelter.

And all of that stuff matches up with the real-world sidewalk in front of that particular St. Bart’s building, as seen on Google Street View:

Actually, maybe I can use Google Street View to clear up something that I think must’ve been hard for people to see in the show.

Here’s one side of the building Sherlock fell from:

It’s directly connected to another building.

Here’s the other side of the building Sherlock fell from:

It’s got a tree by it.

I can’t  even show you the back of the building, because it’s completely inside the St. Bart’s campus, and isn’t accessible to the public:

The building Sherlock fell from only has one street-facing side. Only one side appropriate for playing the part of a disgraced man committing suicide in public.

In fact, when you take the tree into account, the only sides Sherlock could possibly have jumped off of are the street side and the back of the building. And if you want to argue that Sherlock jumped off the back of the building, you really might as well say he took the stairs because neither the sniper nor John could see that side.

Hopefully that’s all clearer now.

Hopefully this won’t end with me getting questions about whether Sherlock could’ve climbed down the tree.

As usual, I’ll refer you to my crime scene tour if you’d like to explore St. Bart’s further.