While Joan’s away, the murderers still play on tonight’sElementary season 3, episode 5, “Rip Off.”

Have you ever been so busy going about your day that you step in a puddle of diluted blood and find a severed hand? The rest of the body, caught in the undercarriage of a towed compact car, calls Sherlock, Kitty, and Bell to take the lead and connect the pieces of this week’s Elementary season 3, episode 5, “Rip Off.”

Secrets, secrets, are no fun: Sherlock approaches Kitty with a non-disclosure agreement as a means to prevent her from exposing the intricacies of the method to his madness. She signs away, seeing as she has no real friends which she may share the information with, only to have Clyde trigger a buzzer for his lettuce snack. Surely she signed too fast. Who wouldn’t want to know the test that may prove whether reptiles warm up to certain people over others?

Kitty may not be able to speak freely about their work, but it still needs to be done. Sherlock becomes clearly frustrated by the Not-Watson medical examiner rehashing the details of the dead man’s injuries. Two clear indicators identify their man; chemo has left him hairless, and he is a practicing Orthodox Jew.

Moshi’s brother, and Rabbi, informs them that he was the owner of a Postal Unlimited shop which leads Sherlock and Kitty to meet Amit, one of Moshi’s employees. A false fuse box conceals the ledger to Moshi’s side business in an illegal diamond trade. Back at the brownstone, Sherlock and Kitty try to make sense of the ledger, but anger clouds his thoughts. Watson’s old computer holds the key to his anguish.

It’s true, Joan and Sherlock’s relationship, under the roof of the brownstone left little space for secrets. If Joan felt something, especially when she disapproved of Sherlock, the walls positively vibrated with her judgement. So how could he not notice that she spent her few spare moments composing a 474 page manuscript entitled, The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes? Entry espionage, as he refers to it, will not be swept under the rug. After her “sexcapade” he plans to demand any and all copies she may have. It’s hard to have any agency in a relationship with Sherlock. The casebook is a reminder to Sherlock that his methods are open to far more than the praise he receives at the end of the day. The discovery of Joan’s thoughts, even if he does not read them, reveals his fear masked as anger.

But for now, diamonds.

The mailbox, leased to a deceased UN translator from Nigeria, and a suitcase, discovered a few blocks from the murder, shows up at the station, leading Sherlock to believe that the murderer had no idea what was inside. He also believes that Moshi’s hand was ripped off. A small physics project, ropes and pulleys, prove his point. With the brittle bones of a cancer patient, it would take 495 pounds of force to rip off the appendage.

Sherlock’s weekly challenge to not die while getting evidence involves a professional body builder and a match of British arm wrestling. When he manages to get the man to punch himself in the face, the blood that pours from his nose in enough to connect the DNA to the murder. But what he is not expecting is a contract killer, with a bribed lawyer. Money and payoffs aside, the Dutch man, Moshi’s competitor, turns out to be a clever decoy covering up the real conspirator, Amit. Moshi’s miraculous recovery from cancer scared Amit, second to take over the business.

Pinning Amit to the case becomes frustrating as Joan’s casebook taunts him from across the room. Kitty is more observant with each passing week of Sherlock’s various mood shifts. The former protege, turned close friend, has composed a book chock full of her unfiltered thoughts of her mentor. Her judgement is not what concerns him, but the fact that she felt the need to tuck it away. Kitty decides that eliminating an object that holds no interest to either of them is the only way that work is going to get done and she pours the soda over the only known copy.

Downstairs, Clyde rings the bell for Sherlock, while Kitty talks them through the final steps to arrest Amit in connection to the murder. Kitty’s ruthlessness, and sass, compliment Sherlock in a way that Joan cannot. But Joan and Bell’s concern that Kitty may set Sherlock off in the wrong way is proving to be unwarranted. Sherlock still needs to put in the hours of reflection to come to his own conclusions on matters that affect his heart.

For this week’s episode, we get a taste of what life without Joan is like for Sherlock and Kitty. The looming presence of her unpublished manuscript serves as the stories that Sherlock flooded Kitty with in London, the giant elephant missing from the room. But Sherlock still cannot face all of his past demons with Joan, even in written form.

Physical contact:

The secondary story this week found a way to both establish a greater connection between Kitty and Gregson and reassert her identity is more than victim. Captain Gregson opens the episode in a holding room refusing to call in any favors for his rash action, hitting another officer. Whatever the consequences may be, Gregson justifies his actions as a father protecting his daughter. Officer Hannah Gregson told her father, in confidence, of the romantic turned abusive relationship she endured with her partner.

Though the duo kept the relationship a secret, once Dad caught word, it was only a matter of time before he punched the ex in front of the entire 15th precinct. Hannah, a woman trying to carve her own path within the system to captain, does not want to attention that comes with being labeled a victim of abuse. Over coffee Kitty offers herself as a resource, someone who knows the whole story and can speak for Hannah. Outside of their conversation, she has the ability to take a bit more control, offering the abuser a few words that make him reconsider his occupation as an officer.

Keeping the past in the past is something that Kitty simply could not do once those close to found out her secret. Their mouths said nothing changed, but it was their eyes that made her crave a new life. Perception is everything.

Sherlock greets Kitty with a ripped up agreement encouraging her to tell whatever stories she wishes. Sherlock pushes his comment to Kitty, taking it one step further, by reminding her that however she chooses to tell her tale, it is worth telling.

Clyde Watch:

•He and Kitty are still getting over that, “your turtle” remark from last week.

Watch Elementary season 3, episode 6, “Terra Pericolosa,” Thursday, December 4 at 10:00 p.m. ET on CBS.