BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 / Mycroft and texting

**Posted by Marta** March 16, 2014 10:33 pm

Sherlock said that Mycroft only texts when he can't talk and he was seeing a dentist at that particular moment. But he has been texting Sherlock and (mostly) John during the entire episode and he clearly wasn't at the dentist all the time. So why didn't he call? He was just texting and texting and neither Sherlock or John answered him, not even once. It was strange for me that he was being ignored and didn't do anything about it. He's Mycroft. Was he really that busy that he didn't have time to do anything else? Or did he trust Sherlock that he'd solve the case eventually but sent all the messages just to remind him he's waiting? What do you think?

**Posted by belis** March 23, 2014 8:56 am

Maybe he was busy. It's quite easy to send a text under the table in a meeting but not make a phone call. Or maybe he didn't want to get into an argument with Sherlock at that point, which would probably happen if they spoke on the phone.

**Posted by Wholocked** March 23, 2014 11:12 pm

Sherlock 'deduced' that he must have had a root canal - that is a procedure that would have had Mycroft in pain for a long time. They weren't saying he was at the dentist, but that he'd been to the dentist. Later when we see Mycroft in person, he does indicate pain in his jaw when speaking.

**Posted by Marta** March 23, 2014 11:35 pm

Wholocked wrote:
Sherlock 'deduced' that he must have had a root canal - that is a procedure that would have had Mycroft in pain for a long time. They weren't saying he was at the dentist, but that he'd been to the dentist. Later when we see Mycroft in person, he does indicate pain in his jaw when speaking.

He really does! I haven't noticed it before.. Well, the root canal explains everything - I suppose he had the whole procedure during one long visit. Thank you.

**Posted by VaticanCameo** March 24, 2014 7:32 am

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but I've had two root canals, and I was never in such pain that I couldn't or didn't want to talk. And the procedure itself doesn't usually take more than half an hour, maybe an hour if there's complications.

Obviously everyone is different, but with me, the most pain I had was before I went to the dentist. While it's certainly not pleasant to be poked with a metal stick up your root canal, anything that the dentist did only helped to relieve the previous discomfort I had. While of course it's not impossible that Mycroft had a very painful experience, he must have had one hell of an infection to have his will to speak impaired for hours on end.