# sherlock series 3 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 18, 2013, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-series-3/653312 "2013-03-18T23:15:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 24
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2014, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-series-3/653312/461 "2014-02-05T16:01:16Z")
BC on _Sesame Street_: [Benedict Cumberbatch must solve a mystery of his own on Sesame Street](http://io9.com/benedict-cumberbatch-must-solve-a-mystery-of-his-own-on-1515676588) ---
**Author:** ![epbrown01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2014, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-series-3/653312/462 "2014-02-05T18:09:39Z")
> [@yellowjacketcoder](#): > > Just watched S3E3 last night. > > I really didn’t think much of Magnusson. Sure, he was creepy, but as pointed out, the whole “I can blackmail anyone!” schtick will fall apart once you try to blackmail someone that just doesn’t give a damn. On the last season of 24, Katee Sackhoff’s character was blackmailed by an old boyfriend. She practically destroyed her life jumping thru hoops obeying his every whim, then spent two episodes agonizing over killing him and his buddy. Later that same “day” as her character is outed as the season mole, she coldly kills people to protect her cover and shoots people randomly during various escape attempts, and is seen standing up to being waterboarded. It was some of the worst plotting I’d seen, until this. Numerous powerful people who regularly order the death’s of others are blackmailed for what appear to be _decades_ before it occurs to someone to just blow him away? C’mon! I enjoyed the ep, with its twist and characters, but the bad guy was just silly. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2014, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-series-3/653312/463 "2014-02-05T18:26:04Z")
> [@epbrown01](#): > > Numerous powerful people who regularly order the death’s of others are blackmailed for what appear to be _decades_ before it occurs to someone to just blow him away? C’mon! > > I enjoyed the ep, with its twist and characters, but the bad guy was just silly. The reason no-one killed him before is that no-one knew what he had in place to reveal secrets should he be killed. Everyone assumed that he had vaults filled with his blackmail material under his house. Sherlock is the only person likely to believe his “memory palace” device, exactly because Sherlock uses the same device. Hence, Sherlock is the only person able to kill him without fear of blackmail material being disclosed. ---
**Author:** ![epbrown01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-series-3/653312/464 "2014-02-06T01:29:04Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > The reason no-one killed him before is that no-one knew what he had in place to reveal secrets should he be killed. Everyone assumed that he had vaults filled with his blackmail material under his house. Okay. So Mary was there to kill him because…? She was pretty desperately trying to make sure John didn’t find out, and she seemed to think a .22 to his brain would solve her problem. ---
**Author:** ![Lasciel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e79b87/32.png) [@Lasciel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lasciel)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-series-3/653312/465 "2014-02-06T02:42:44Z")
> [@epbrown01](#): > > Okay. So Mary was there to kill him because…? She was pretty desperately trying to make sure John didn’t find out, and she seemed to think a .22 to his brain would solve her problem. Mary’s also established as a LIAR, and John has believed her so far. If Magnussen is dead, she could easily be willing to lie her ass off to him. Sherlock hasn’t said anything, so either he doesn’t know about her, or he knows and figures it’s her business. (According to Nary’s thinking, anyway) ---
**Author:** ![epbrown01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-series-3/653312/466 "2014-02-06T03:56:57Z")
> [@Lasciel](#): > > Mary’s also established as a LIAR, and John has believed her so far. If Magnussen is dead, she could easily be willing to lie her ass off to him. Sherlock hasn’t said anything, so either he doesn’t know about her, or he knows and figures it’s her business. (According to Nary’s thinking, anyway) Mary, like everyone else, didn’t know there was no vault. So you’re saying her plan was to kill him, wait for the info to surface, and deny everything. Even though it’s pretty certain that 1) groups of people would show up trying to kill them and 2) groups of people would show up trying to arrest her? She seems a bit smarter than that. The only way her actions make sense is if she knew there was no vault, putting her ahead of Sherlock at reaching the obvious solution to dealing with the problem. But then, you’re faced with the conundrum of why let Sherlock do it in front of everyone when a professional who was far less likely to get caught was available and motivated? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-series-3/653312/467 "2014-02-06T15:02:09Z")
> [@epbrown01](#): > > Okay. So Mary was there to kill him because…? She was pretty desperately trying to make sure John didn’t find out, and she seemed to think a .22 to his brain would solve her problem. Mary’s case was different. She wasn’t being blackmailed over threats to her reputation that would be published in a newspaper, but a private and personal threat that her secret background would be whispered in just the right ears. Frankly, M. was a fool to attempt to blackmail an assassin. The biggest plot-hole I can’t find a reason for is why Mary doesn’t just shoot them both dead. How does it help her to wound Sherlock? The notion that murdering them both would put John behind bars doesn’t fly, as presumably she would walk out with the gun. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-series-3/653312/468 "2014-02-06T15:05:29Z")
> [@epbrown01](#): > > Mary, like everyone else, didn’t know there was no vault. So you’re saying her plan was to kill him, wait for the info to surface, and deny everything. Even though it’s pretty certain that 1) groups of people would show up trying to kill them and 2) groups of people would show up trying to arrest her? She seems a bit smarter than that. > > The only way her actions make sense is if she knew there was no vault, putting her ahead of Sherlock at reaching the obvious solution to dealing with the problem. But then, you’re faced with the conundrum of why let Sherlock do it in front of everyone when a professional who was far less likely to get caught was available and motivated? Her situation was different in that the knowledge she was formerly an assassin doesn’t need files to prove. Merely knowing it - and whispering it in the right ears - is enough. The people who want her are presumably the types who can find their own proof. ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-series-3/653312/469 "2014-02-06T16:41:32Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > How does it help her to wound Sherlock? Saving Sherlock’s life helps her a great deal; also, killing him would mean hurting John a great deal. She saw what John went through the first time Sherlock died. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Lowry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Sam\_Lowry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Lowry)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-series-3/653312/470 "2014-02-06T16:59:57Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > The point about Janine being Magnusson’s PA gets weaker the more I think of it: > > Magnusson knew Mary was a spy/assassin; > Magnusson knew Mary was getting married, including the date and location; > Magnusson had Janine under his thumb and flicking finger; > Either - Magnusson knew that Janine was bridesmaid at Mary the stealth killer’s wedding and didn’t find this connection between his inner circle and a pissed-off ninja to be a concern > Or - Magnusson somehow didn’t know, despite the close tabs he was keeping on both women, that they were best friends. > > Both of those options seem (to me!) to be pretty implausible, given the characterisation of Magnusson. He’s a hyper-controlling, nigh-omnsicient manipulator who excavates people’s lives for fun and profit until the plot says he isn’t. > And, as has been pointed out, his whole power base is built on a house of cards. And it’s implausible again that at no point in his career was he ever challenged to provide proof. We know from recent revelations about the culture and practices of the British press that most celebs/politicians were indeed cowed - but not all. If real-world Steve Coogan and Charlotte Church could take these papers to trial despite the pressure to keep things hidden, it’s assuming a lot to say that no-one in Sherlock-world had similar nerve. And the risk was **enormous**. If he’d ever had his bluff called and it was shown he’d printed highly damaging statements with no proof, he’d have blown everything. > > It doesn’t even need to be trial. “OK, Magnusson - you show me you’ve got the letters and I’ll do what you say”. “Well I can quote them.” “Sure, but just humour and unfold one in front of me please.” “Oops, I left them in my other pocket.” > > That most people are too scared of a public fight I can buy. But that none of the explicitly powerful and capable people he has under his thumb ever thought to do due diligence or put up a fight is, again, sacrificing plausibility for a good story. That’s very true about Magnusson should have known and cared about Mary becoming friends with Janine. I would have thought that Magnusson would find out about them becoming friends, then would have a meeting with Mary in a restaurant or something and tell her that he knows what she’s trying to do and it won’t work. Also, his regard for security makes no sense. It would have made much more sense if he was super arrogant about how no one could hurt him because of all the information he had, and so he had no bodyguards with him when he went to Baker Street. Then he got spooked after almost being murdered by Mary, then had bodyguards and more security at the end of the episode. Sherlock could still get a gun or something somehow and shoot Magnusson. That’s very true about asking for proof regarding blackmailing. I’ve never been blackmailed, but if I ever was, the first thing I’d do would be ask for the proof. Politicians and celebrities often have rumors about various bad deeds they’ve done. If he threatened a politician with blackmail about an affair the politician had, but didn’t show any proof, the politician could just call his bluff and not pay Magnusson. Then if Magnusson published in his paper without any proof that the politician had an affair, the politician could deny it, and say something about the horrible rumors spread by his opposition. > [@AuntiePam](#): > > I was okay with Magnusson’s “It’s all in my head”. You can know where the bodies are buried without having the bodies in your back yard. He wasn’t making shit up. This works in some cases, like in Mary’s case where there are buried bodies. But wouldn’t work as well for events like adultery or drug use at a party or something. Someone threatening to expose your adultery last year with your secretary, with clear pictures of the event, and receipts, and several sworn eyewitness accounts is a scary thing that would probably get you to pay the blackmailer. Someone threatening to expose your adultery last year but with no proof is still a concern, but one you could manage without paying the blackmailer. Maybe Magnusson could just blackmail people like Mary where proof stored in physical files isn’t necessary. But the other blackmail threat we’re shown is when he is threatening blackmail over some letters a man wrote to an underage woman. Without those letters, then that blackmail attempt is pointless. > [@Malthus](#): > > Agreed - he always had the goods (even if he later destroyed them). How would his victims know he never kept the evidence? > > His position relied on him basically never lying. If you knew a guy who (a) never lied and (b) always made sure he had the goods before blackmail, you the victim would be intimidated - and if you weren’t, why other people would be ready to believe it. > > The unbelievable part of that episode, to me, was Mary shooting Sherlock ‘just enough’ not to instantly kill him. Why not just kill both Sherlock and Magnusson? Watson would be OK, as she would then escape with the gun - there is no way the cops could pin it on him. How long did Magnusson blackmail people for? I would think some people would just get tired of paying, or think that their secret coming out would hurt less than continuing to pay. Then if some people stopped paying and no proof came out, I would think that word would get around. I’m guessing Mary didn’t intentionally kill Sherlock because she does like him and she loves John, and she knows that if Sherlock died (again!) it would hurt John. Mary did look conflicted when she heard that Sherlock was alive. I’m sure she’d have been relieved if he was dead since that would be less trouble for her, but also glad John didn’t lose his friend. > [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Or even “show me this blackmail material”. Having all the material in his mind (even assuming that a “mind palace” could possibly exist, but that’s something I’m willing to have suspension-of-disbelief for since the entire show depends on Sherlock being able to do that kind of thing) is better for security, but much worse for actually-being-able-to-blackmail-people. Having it all in his mind and then TELLING SHERLOCK AND WATSON ABOUT IT is suicidal, because even if they are disgraced and arrested, Watson can presumably post on his widely-read blog “hey, outside world, just learned something interesting about Magnusson, in case you happen to be being blackmailed by him…”, at which point anyone being blackmailed by him knows (a) he can’t actually produce proof, and (b) if you just kill him dead then there is no beyond-the-grave threat. That’s a very good point about his blog. Magnusson telling them that his vault is actually in his mind palace was not smart at all. But I can kinda go with that, since it’s a common trope of the villain being too arrogant, and telling his plans to the hero even though it ends up ruining things for him. > [@Malthus](#): > > The “mind palace” thing is a real memorization technique - it’s been used for centuries, by people with a need to memorize vast amounts of stuff. > > [Method of loci - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci) > > In fact, the Jesuit Priest Matto Ricci, wanting to impress the Chinese in the 16th Century with the fact that Western Culture had _some_ things it did better than China (a hard sell), used the existance of the “memory palace” technique as his example! > > [The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci: Spence, Jonathan D.: 9780140080988: Books - Amazon.ca](http://www.amazon.ca/The-Memory-Palace-Matteo-Ricci/dp/0140080988) How accurate are “mind palaces” in real life? The wikipedia article mentions people using it to memorize decks of cards and digits of pi and things like that, but I would think that would be different that remembering much different facts about many different people, including dates, times, addresses, amounts of money, relations between people, and all sorts of other things. And all of the facts would have to be remembered extremely precisely and accurately to be of any use as blackmail. I’m not saying this to nitpick the show, I can go with the mind palaces being amazing and accurate in the show, I’m just curious about how much that corresponds to real life. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-series-3/653312/471 "2014-02-06T17:11:41Z")
> [@Sam\_Lowry](#): > > This works in some cases, like in Mary’s case where there are buried bodies. But wouldn’t work as well for events like adultery or drug use at a party or something. Someone threatening to expose your adultery last year with your secretary, with clear pictures of the event, and receipts, and several sworn eyewitness accounts is a scary thing that would probably get you to pay the blackmailer. Someone threatening to expose your adultery last year but with no proof is still a concern, but one you could manage without paying the blackmailer. Reminds me of the Nero Wolfe story built around (spoilers? seriously?) a blackmailer who only ever threatens to expose people for stuff they _haven’t_ done, but where it’s always something downright plausible, and the victim only ever gets asked for an endurably small amount of money to prevent the evidence-free rumormongering. Of course, that blackmailer eventually – _inevitably,_ if you will – targets someone who actually did it, and of course has no Release-After-My-Death evidence stashed away to stop someone from resorting to murder, because he thinks he’s once again playing the old game, and, hoo, boy, he ain’t. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-series-3/653312/472 "2014-02-06T18:28:49Z")
> [@Sam\_Lowry](#): > > How accurate are “mind palaces” in real life? The wikipedia article mentions people using it to memorize decks of cards and digits of pi and things like that, but I would think that would be different that remembering much different facts about many different people, including dates, times, addresses, amounts of money, relations between people, and all sorts of other things. And all of the facts would have to be remembered extremely precisely and accurately to be of any use as blackmail. > > I’m not saying this to nitpick the show, I can go with the mind palaces being amazing and accurate in the show, I’m just curious about how much that corresponds to real life. I don’t really know. I’ve never attempted the technique myself. By all accounts I have read, some people can perform amazing feats of memorization using this technique (remember that in real life the Jesuits used it to impress Chinese scholar-officials - no slouches themselves in memorizing tons of stuff, given how their written language works!), but as to how amazing - that I could not say. I suspect it would be only the very, very unusual person who could use it to obtain near-eidetic memory. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-series-3/653312/473 "2014-02-06T18:40:25Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > I don’t really know. I’ve never attempted the technique myself. By all accounts I have read, some people can perform amazing feats of memorization using this technique (remember that in real life the Jesuits used it to impress Chinese scholar-officials - no slouches themselves in memorizing tons of stuff, given how their written language works!), but as to how amazing - that I could not say. I suspect it would be only the very, very unusual person who could use it to obtain near-eidetic memory. But from my perspective, that’s the type of suspension-of-disbelief I’m perfectly happy to make for purposes of an entertaining TV show… it’s the logic of motivations surrounding things like why-didn’t-Mary-go-through-with-killing-Magnusson that bother me. (Because John would be a suspect? Ridiculous… shoot Magnusson dead. Shoot Sherlock to wound. Shoot John in the shoulder without letting him see your face. How is John a suspect?) ---
**Author:** ![Sean\_Factotum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Sean\_Factotum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sean_Factotum)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-series-3/653312/474 "2014-02-06T19:42:13Z")
> [@yellowjacketcoder](#): > > Or has half a brain - I specifically thought that Lady Smallwood was going to call Magnusson’s bluff in the beginning; “Oh, you have my husband’s letters! Oh, whatever will I do… about some 30 year old crap that happened before I even met the man. Seriously, I deal with bigger scandals on a weekly basis. Oh, and my desk is bugged, so security is on the way to arrest you for attempted blackmail. Be fun to seize your estate and rifle through everything while you’re sitting in jail”. Instead we get - “Oh no, my hubby my have something dredged up from decades ago! I guess you can lick my face now.” :rolleyes: Obviously it was enough for Lord Smallwood to kill himself. At least, the headline of the newspaper that Lady Smallwood was reading when conferencing with Mycroft and the others just before Sherlock’s plane took off said so. ---
**Author:** ![Lasciel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e79b87/32.png) [@Lasciel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lasciel)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-series-3/653312/475 "2014-02-06T23:59:11Z")
Mind palaces apparently work best for people with very visual, spatially oriented minds. I read a study where they talked about chess players and how they visualize the board and the placement of the pieces in several iterations, and how that was very similar, mentally, to creating a mind palace, but I can’t remember where I found it online. Most likely Popular Science. I do know that I have a decent memory, and I have a weird tic for remembering random things that I’ve read (the internet screws that over something horrible, but if it’s physically printed, I can recall page formats and where the info is on the page/which side of the page/how far through the book) and I can’t do mind palaces for SHIT. I spent a good couple of years trying to build one because I read about it and it seemed really useful, but I get hung up on the visualization aspects. Just cannot do it. As a related note, I suck equally hard at that “rotate complicated objects in your mind” task, and my navigation drives my husband utterly mad, so I think I’m just a bad candidate for the conceptual format. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-series-3/653312/476 "2014-02-07T01:17:24Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Or even “show me this blackmail material”. Having all the material in his mind (even assuming that a “mind palace” could possibly exist, but that’s something I’m willing to have suspension-of-disbelief for since the entire show depends on Sherlock being able to do that kind of thing) is better for security, but much worse for actually-being-able-to-blackmail-people. Having it all in his mind and then TELLING SHERLOCK AND WATSON ABOUT IT is suicidal, because even if they are disgraced and arrested, Watson can presumably post on his widely-read blog “hey, outside world, just learned something interesting about Magnusson, in case you happen to be being blackmailed by him…”, at which point anyone being blackmailed by him knows (a) he can’t actually produce proof, and (b) if you just kill him dead then there is no beyond-the-grave threat. except he knows where the material is and he says he can get it if needed. As to “Mary” he threatened her life outright by saying he knows people who would like a piece of her and has their phone number. SHE should have been the one to kill him. I don’t understand how forgiving Sherlock was of getting shot by her. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-series-3/653312/477 "2014-02-07T01:25:43Z")
> [@Lasciel](#): > > Mind palaces apparently work best for people with very visual, spatially oriented minds. > > I read a study where they talked about chess players and how they visualize the board and the placement of the pieces in several iterations, and how that was very similar, mentally, to creating a mind palace, but I can’t remember where I found it online. Most likely Popular Science. > > I do know that I have a decent memory, and I have a weird tic for remembering random things that I’ve read (the internet screws that over something horrible, but if it’s physically printed, I can recall page formats and where the info is on the page/which side of the page/how far through the book) and I can’t do mind palaces for SHIT. > > I spent a good couple of years trying to build one because I read about it and it seemed really useful, but I get hung up on the visualization aspects. Just cannot do it. As a related note, I suck equally hard at that “rotate complicated objects in your mind” task, and my navigation drives my husband utterly mad, so I think I’m just a bad candidate for the conceptual format. chess has always been about how many iterations you can process ahead of your opponent. I can’t get very far on that but I use to be very good at assembling and and rotating stuff I was trying to build in my head. I think this is a different talent than number of permutations. You’re focused on a single purpose versus a task that has many multiple paths. The few times I’ve gone through and discarded large numbers of options in my head it seemed to be done on a subconscious flash of activity. I would greatly enjoy being able to do that at will. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-series-3/653312/478 "2014-02-07T06:26:00Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > except he knows where the material is and he says he can get it if needed. It certainly wasn’t entirely clear to me what the deal was. If his basic plan was: (1) get ahold of some blackmail material (2) memorize it in his mind palace (3) hide it somewhere very far away, but fetchable if necessary (4) start a rumor that there’s a huge vault under his house where he keeps all his blackmail material, just so that anyone who wants to try to retrieve the material will be looking in the wrong place Then that’s actually a reasonable and non-nonsensical plan. Is that his plan? It kind of might be, but it’s left vague. (Certainly doesn’t explain why he didn’t bother having his goons frisk our heroes before letting them into his house.) ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-series-3/653312/479 "2014-02-07T07:19:00Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > It certainly wasn’t entirely clear to me what the deal was. If his basic plan was: > (1) get ahold of some blackmail material > (2) memorize it in his mind palace > (3) hide it somewhere very far away, but fetchable if necessary > (4) start a rumor that there’s a huge vault under his house where he keeps all his blackmail material, just so that anyone who wants to try to retrieve the material will be looking in the wrong place > > Then that’s actually a reasonable and non-nonsensical plan. Is that his plan? It kind of might be, but it’s left vague. (Certainly doesn’t explain why he didn’t bother having his goons frisk our heroes before letting them into his house.) yes he was vague but he did say he could get his hands on it if he wanted to. But that was his mistake. by saying he didn’t have a central vault containing it all the solution became obvious. Kill him and his empire of threats melt into their individual unrelated hidy-holes. ---
**Author:** ![Dunkelheit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dunkelheit/32/248_2.png) [@Dunkelheit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunkelheit)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-series-3/653312/480 "2014-02-07T08:50:59Z")
> [@Sam\_Lowry](#): > > That’s very true about asking for proof regarding blackmailing. I’ve never been blackmailed, but if I ever was, the first thing I’d do would be ask for the proof. Politicians and celebrities often have rumors about various bad deeds they’ve done. If he threatened a politician with blackmail about an affair the politician had, but didn’t show any proof, the politician could just call his bluff and not pay Magnusson. Then if Magnusson published in his paper without any proof that the politician had an affair, the politician could deny it, and say something about the horrible rumors spread by his opposition. He did apparently have the letters, and he did say to Sherlock and John that even though most of his ‘files’ were in his mind palace, he could get his hands on hard copies when he needed to. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-series-3/653312.md?page=23) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-series-3/653312.md?page=25)