The story is set in 1947, following a long-retired Holmes living in a Sussex village with his housekeeper and rising detective son. But then he finds himself haunted by an unsolved 50-year old case. Holmes' memory isn't what it used to be, so he only remembers fragments of the case: a confrontation with an angry husband, a secret bond with his beautiful but unstable wife.
Holmes falls unconscious from over exertion while working on a medical experiment. Towards the end of the movie Roger is found unconscious with a large number of stings close to the bee hives
Not shown on screen but while in Japan they visit Hiroshima and the area devastated by the atom bomb just a few years earlier. There's also at least one person with what looks like radiation burns.