THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES THE FINAL PROBLEM

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$Title{MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES; The Final Problem}

$Author{Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan}

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$Journal{}

$Volume{}

$Date{}

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                         THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES

                          MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

                              THE FINAL PROBLEM

IT IS with a heavy heart that I take up my pen to write these the last words

in which I shall ever record the singular gifts by which my friend Mr.

Sherlock Holmes was distinguished.  In an incoherent and, as I deeply feel, an

entirely inadequate fashion, I have endeavoured to give some account of my

strange experiences in his company from the chance which first brought us

together at the period of the "Study in Scarlet," up to the time of his

interference in the matter of the "Naval Treaty"--an interference which had

the unquestionable effect of preventing a serious international complication.

It was my intention to have stopped there, and to have said nothing of that

event which has created a void in my life which the lapse of two years has

done little to fill.  My hand has been forced, however, by the recent letters

in which Colonel James Moriarty defends the memory of his brother, and I have

no choice but to lay the facts before the public exactly as they occurred.  I

alone know the absolute truth of the matter, and I am satisfied that the time

has come when no good purpose is to be served by its suppression.  As far as I

know, there have been only three accounts in the public press:  that in the

Journal de Geneve on May 6th, 1891, the Reuter's dispatch in the English

papers on May 7th, and finally the recent letters to which I have alluded.  Of

these the first and second were extremely condensed, while the last is, as I

shall now show, an absolute perversion of the facts.  It lies with me to tell

for the first time what really took place between Professor Moriarty and Mr.

Sherlock Holmes.

     It may be remembered that after my marriage, and my subsequent start in

private practice, the very intimate relations which had existed between Holmes

and myself became to some extent modified.  He still came to me from time to

time when he desired a companion in his investigations, but these occasions

grew more and more seldom, until I find that in the year 1890 there were only

three cases of which I retain any record.  During the winter of that year and

the early spring of 1891, I saw in the papers that he had been engaged by the

French government upon a matter of supreme importance, and I received two

notes from Holmes, dated from Narbonne and from Nimes, from which I gathered

that his stay in France was likely to be a long one.  It was with some

surprise, therefore, that I saw him walk into my consulting-room upon the

evening of April 24th.  It struck me that he was looking even paler and

thinner than usual.

     "Yes, I have been using myself up rather too freely," he remarked, in

answer to my look rather than to my words; "I have been a little pressed of

late.  Have you any objection to my closing your shutters?"

     The only light in the room came from the lamp upon the table at which I

had been reading.  Holmes edged his way round the wall, and, flinging the

shutters together, he bolted them securely.

     "You are afraid of something?" I asked.

     "Well, I am."

     "Of what?"

     "Of air-guns."

     "My dear Holmes, what do you mean?"

     "I think that you know me well enough, Watson, to understand that I am by

no means a nervous man.  At the same time, it is stupidity rather than courage

to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you.  Might I trouble you

for a match?"  He drew in the smoke of his cigarette as if the soothing

influence was grateful to him.

     "I must apologize for calling so late," said he, "and I must further beg

you to be so unconventional as to allow me to leave your house presently by

scrambling over your back garden wall."

     "But what does it all mean?" I asked.

     He held out his hand, and I saw in the light of the lamp that two of his

knuckles were burst and bleeding.

     "It's not an airy nothing, you see," said he, smiling.  "On the contrary,

it is solid enough for a man to break his hand over.  Is Mrs. Watson in?"

     "She is away upon a visit."

     "Indeed!  You are alone?"

     "Quite."

     "Then it makes it the easier for me to propose that you should come away

with me for a week to the Continent."

     "Where?"

     "Oh, anywhere.  It's all the same to me."

     There was something very strange in all this.  It was not Holmes's nature

to take an aimless holiday, and something about his pale, worn face told me

that his nerves were at their highest tension.  He saw the question in my

eyes, and, putting his finger-tips together and his elbows upon his knees, he

explained the situation.

     "You have probably never heard of Professor Moriarty?" said he.

     "Never."

     "Ay, there's the genius and the wonder of the thing!" he cried.  "The man

pervades London, and no one has heard of him.  That's what puts him on a

pinnacle in the records of crime.  I tell you Watson, in all seriousness, that

if I could beat that man, if I could free society of him, I should feel that

my own career had reached its summit, and I should be prepared to turn to some

more placid line in life.  Between ourselves, the recent cases in which I have

been of assistance to the royal family of Scandinavia, and to the French

republic, have left me in such a position that I could continue to live in the

quiet fashion which is most congenial to me, and to concentrate my attention

upon my chemical researches.  But I could not rest, Watson, I could not sit

quiet in my chair, if I thought that such a man as Professor Moriarty were

walking the streets of London unchallenged."

     "What has he done, then?"

     "His career has been an extraordinary one.  He is a man of good birth and

excellent education, endowed by nature with a phenomenal mathematical faculty.

At the age of twenty-one he wrote a treatise upon the binomial theorem, which

has had a European vogue.  On the strength of it he won the mathematical chair

at one of our smaller universities, and had, to all appearances, a most

brilliant career before him.  But the man had hereditary tendencies of the

most diabolical kind.  A criminal strain ran in his blood, which, instead of

being modified, was increased and rendered infinitely more dangerous by his

extraordinary mental powers.  Dark rumours gathered round him in the

university town, and eventually he was compelled to resign his chair and to

come down to London, where he set up as an army coach.  So much is known to

the world, but what I am telling you now is what I have myself discovered.

     "As you are aware, Watson, there is no one who knows the higher criminal

world of London so well as I do.  For years past I have continually been

conscious of some power behind the malefactor, some deep organizing power

which forever stands in the way of the law, and throws its shield over the

wrong-doer.  Again and again in cases of the most varying sorts--forgery

cases, robberies, murders--I have felt the presence of this force, and I have

deduced its action in many of those undiscovered crimes in which I have not

been personally consulted.  For years I have endeavoured to break through the

veil which shrouded it, and at last the time came when I seized my thread and

followed it, until it led me, after a thousand cunning windings, to

ex-Professor Moriarty, of mathematical celebrity.

     "He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson.  He is the organizer of half that

is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city.  He is a

genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker.  He has a brain of the first

order.  He sits motionless, like a spider in the centre of its web, but that

web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them.

He does little himself.  He only plans.  But his agents are numerous and

splendidly organized.  Is there a crime to be done, a paper to be abstracted,

we will say, a house to be rifled, a man to be removed--the word is passed to

the professor, the matter is organized and carried out.  The agent may be

caught.  In that case money is found for his bail or his defence.  But the

central power which uses the agent is never caught--never so much as

suspected.  This was the organization which I deduced, Watson, and which I

devoted my whole energy to exposing and breaking up.

     "But the professor was fenced round with safeguards so cunningly devised

that, do what I would, it seemed impossible to get evidence which would

convict in a court of law.  You know my powers, my dear Watson, and yet at the

end of three months I was forced to confess that I had at last met an

antagonist who was my intellectual equal.  My horror at his crimes was lost in

my admiration at his skill.  But at last he made a trip--only a little, little

trip--but it was more than he could afford, when I was so close upon him.  I

had my chance, and, starting from that point, I have woven my net round him

until now it is all ready to close.  In three days--that is to say, on Monday

next--matters will be ripe, and the professor, with all the principal members

of his gang, will be in the hands of the police.  Then will come the greatest

criminal trial of the century, the clearing up of over forty mysteries, and

the rope for all of them; but if we move at all prematurely, you understand,

they may slip out of our hands even at the last moment.

     "Now, if I could have done this without the knowledge of Professor

Moriarty, all would have been well.  But he was too wily for that.  He saw

every step which I took to draw my toils round him.  Again and again he strove

to break away, but I as often headed him off.  I tell you, my friend, that if

a detailed account of that silent contest could be written, it would take its

place as the most brilliant bit of thrust-and-parry work in the history of

detection.  Never have I risen to such a height, and never have I been so hard

pressed by an opponent.  He cut deep, and yet I just undercut him.  This

morning the last steps were taken, and three days only were wanted to complete

the business.  I was sitting in my room thinking the matter over when the door

opened and Professor Moriarty stood before me.

     "My nerves are fairly proof, Watson, but I must confess to a start when I

saw the very man who had been so much in my thoughts standing there on my

threshold.  His appearance was quite familiar to me.  He is extremely tall and

thin, his forehead domes out in a white curve, and his two eyes are deeply

sunken in his head.  He is clean-shaven, pale, and ascetic-looking, retaining

something of the professor in his features.  His shoulders are rounded from

much study, and his face protrudes forward and is forever slowly oscillating

from side to side in a curiously reptilian fashion.  He peered at me with

great curiosity in his puckered eyes.

     "'You have less frontal development than I should have expected,' said he

at last.  'It is a dangerous habit to finger loaded firearms in the pocket of

one's dressing-gown.'

     "The fact is that upon his entrance I had instantly recognized the

extreme personal danger in which I lay.  The only conceivable escape for him

lay in silencing my tongue.  In an instant I had slipped the revolver from the

drawer into my pocket and was covering him through the cloth.  At his remark I

drew the weapon out and laid it cocked upon the table.  He still smiled and

blinked, but there was something about his eyes which made me feel very glad

that I had it there.

     "'You evidently don't know me,' said he.

     "'On the contrary,' I answered, 'I think it is fairly evident that I do.

Pray take a chair.  I can spare you five minutes if you have anything to say.'

     "'All that I have to say has already crossed your mind,' said he.

     "'Then possibly my answer has crossed yours,' I replied.

     "'You stand fast?'

     "'Absolutely.'

     "He clapped his hand into his pocket, and I raised the pistol from the

table.  But he merely drew out a memorandum-book in which he had scribbled

some dates.

     "'You crossed my path on the fourth of January,' said he.  'On the

twenty-third you incommoded me; by the middle of February I was seriously

inconvenienced by you; at the end of March I was absolutely hampered in my

plans; and now, at the close of April, I find myself placed in such a position

through your continual persecution that I am in positive danger of losing my

liberty.  The situation is becoming an impossible one.'

     "'Have you any suggestion to make?' I asked.

     "'You must drop it, Mr. Holmes,' said he, swaying his face about.  'You

really must, you know.'

     "'After Monday,' said I.

     "'Tut, tut!' said he.  'I am quite sure that a man of your intelligence

will see that there can be but one outcome to this affair.  It is necessary

that you should withdraw.  You have worked things in such a fashion that we

have only one resource left.  It has been an intellectual treat to me to see

the way in which you have grappled with this affair, and I say, unaffectedly,

that it would be a grief to me to be forced to take any extreme measure.  You

smile, sir, but I assure you that it really would.'

     "'Danger is part of my trade,' I remarked.

     "'This is not danger,' said he.  'It is inevitable destruction.  You

stand in the way not merely of an individual but of a mighty organization, the

full extent of which you, with all your cleverness, have been unable to

realize.  You must stand clear, Mr. Holmes, or be trodden under foot.'

     "'I am afraid,' said I, rising, 'that in the pleasure of this

conversation I am neglecting business of importance which awaits me

elsewhere.'

     "He rose also and looked at me in silence, shaking his head sadly.

     "'Well, well,' said he at last.  'It seems a pity, but I have done what I

could.  I know every move of your game.  You can do nothing before Monday.  It

has been a duel between you and me, Mr. Holmes.  You hope to place me in the

dock.  I tell you that I will never stand in the dock.  You hope to beat me.

I tell you that you will never beat me.  If you are clever enough to bring

destruction upon me, rest assured that I shall do as much to you.'

     "'You have paid me several compliments, Mr. Moriarty,' said I.  'Let me

pay you one in return when I say that if I were assured of the former

eventuality I would, in the interests of the public, cheerfully accept the

latter.'

     "'I can promise you the one, but not the other,' he snarled, and so

turned his rounded back upon me and went peering and blinking out of the room.

     "That was my singular interview with Professor Moriarty.  I confess that

it left an unpleasant effect upon my mind.  His soft, precise fashion of

speech leaves a conviction of sincerity which a mere bully could not produce.

Of course, you will say:  'Why not take police precautions against him?'  The

reason is that I am well convinced that it is from his agents the blow would

fall.  I have the best of proofs that it would be so."

     "You have already been assaulted?"

     "My dear Watson, Professor Moriarty is not a man who lets the grass grow

under his feet.  I went out about midday to transact some business in Oxford

Street.  As I passed the corner which leads from Bentinck Street on to the

Welbeck Street crossing a two-horse van furiously driven whizzed round and was

on me like a flash.  I sprang for the foot-path and saved myself by the

fraction of a second.  The van dashed round by Marylebone Lane and was gone in

an instant.  I kept to the pavement after that, Watson, but as I walked down

Vere Street a brick came down from the roof of one of the houses and was

shattered to fragments at my feet.  I called the police and had the place

examined.  There were slates and bricks piled up on the roof preparatory to

some repairs, and they would have me believe that the wind had toppled over

one of these.  Of course I knew better, but I could prove nothing.  I took a

cab after that and reached my brother's rooms in Pall Mall, where I spent the

day.  Now I have come round to you, and on my way I was attacked by a rough

with a bludgeon.  I knocked him down, and the police have him in custody; but

I can tell you with the most absolute confidence that no possible connection

will ever be traced between the gentleman upon whose front teeth I have barked

my knuckles and the retiring mathematical coach, who is, I daresay, working

out problems upon a black-board ten miles away.  You will not wonder, Watson,

that my first act on entering your rooms was to close your shutters, and that

I have been compelled to ask your permission to leave the house by some less

conspicuous exit than the front door."

     I had often admired my friend's courage, but never more than now, as he

sat quietly checking off a series of incidents which must have combined to

make up a day of horror.

     "You will spend the night here?" I said.

     "No, my friend, you might find me a dangerous guest.  I have my plans

laid, and all will be well.  Matters have gone so far now that they can move

without my help as far as the arrest goes, though my presence is necessary for

a conviction.  It is obvious, therefore, that I cannot do better than get away

for the few days which remain before the police are at liberty to act.  It

would be a great pleasure to me, therefore, if you could come on to the

Continent with me."

     "The practice is quiet," said I, "and I have an accommodating neighbour.

I should be glad to come."

     "And to start to-morrow morning?"

     "If necessary."

     "Oh, yes, it is most necessary.  Then these are your instructions, and I

beg, my dear Watson, that you will obey them to the letter, for you are now

playing a double-handed game with me against the cleverest rogue and the most

powerful syndicate of criminals in Europe.  Now listen!  You will dispatch

whatever luggage you intend to take by a trusty messenger unaddressed to

Victoria to-night.  In the morning you will send for a hansom, desiring your

man to take neither the first nor the second which may present itself.  Into

this hansom you will jump, and you will drive to the Strand end of the Lowther

Arcade, handing the address to the cabman upon a slip of paper, with a request

that he will not throw it away.  Have your fare ready, and the instant that

your cab stops, dash through the Arcade, timing yourself to reach the other

side at a quarter-past nine.  You will find a small brougham waiting close to

the curb, driven by a fellow with a heavy black cloak tipped at the collar

with red.  Into this you will step, and you will reach Victoria in time for

the Continental express."

     "Where shall I meet you?"

     "At the station.  The second first-class carriage from the front will be

reserved for us."

     "The carriage is our rendezvous, then?"

     "Yes."

     It was in vain that I asked Holmes to remain for the evening.  It was

evident to me that he thought he might bring trouble to the roof he was under,

and that that was the motive which impelled him to go.  With a few hurried

words as to our plans for the morrow he rose and came out with me into the

garden, clambering over the wall which leads into Mortimer Street, and

immediately whistling for a hansom, in which I heard him drive away.

     In the morning I obeyed Holmes's injunctions to the letter.  A hansom was

procured with such precautions as would prevent its being one which was placed

ready for us, and I drove immediately after breakfast to the Lowther Arcade,

through which I hurried at the top of my speed.  A brougham was waiting with a

very massive driver wrapped in a dark cloak, who, the instant that I had

stepped in, whipped up the horse and rattled off to Victoria Station.  On my

alighting there he turned the carriage, and dashed away again without so much

as a look in my direction.

     So far all had gone admirably.  My luggage was waiting for me, and I had

no difficulty in finding the carriage which Holmes had indicated, the less so

as it was the only one in the train which was marked "Engaged."  My only

source of anxiety now was the non-appearance of Holmes.  The station clock

marked only seven minutes from the time when we were due to start.  In vain I

searched among the groups of travellers and leave-takers for the lithe figure

of my friend.  There was no sign of him.  I spent a few minutes in assisting a

venerable Italian priest, who was endeavouring to make a porter understand, in

his broken English, that his luggage was to be booked through to Paris.  Then,

having taken another look round, I returned to my carriage, where I found that

the porter, in spite of the ticket, had given me my decrepit Italian friend as

a travelling companion.  It was useless for me to explain to him that his

presence was an intrusion, for my Italian was even more limited than his

English, so I shrugged my shoulders resignedly, and continued to look out

anxiously for my friend.  A chill of fear had come over me, as I thought that

his absence might mean that some blow had fallen during the night.  Already

the doors had all been shut and the whistle blown, when-- --

     "My dear Watson," said a voice, "you have not even condescended to say

good-morning."

     I turned in uncontrollable astonishment.  The aged ecclesiastic had

turned his face towards me.  For an instant the wrinkles were smoothed away,

the nose drew away from the chin, the lower lip ceased to protrude and the

mouth to mumble, the dull eyes regained their fire, the drooping figure

expanded.  The next the whole frame collapsed again, and Holmes had gone as

quickly as he had come.

     "Good heavens!" I cried, "how you startled me!"

     "Every precaution is still necessary," he whispered.  "I have reason to

think that they are hot upon our trail.  Ah, there is Moriarty himself."

     The train had already begun to move as Holmes spoke.  Glancing back, I

saw a tall man pushing his way furiously through the crowd, and waving his

hand as if he desired to have the train stopped.  It was too late, however,

for we were rapidly gathering momentum, and an instant later had shot clear of

the station.

     "With all our precautions, you see that we have cut it rather fine," said

Holmes, laughing.  He rose, and throwing off the black cassock and hat which

had formed his disguise, he packed them away in a hand-bag.

     "Have you seen the morning paper, Watson?"

     "No."

     "You haven't seen about Baker Street, then?"

     "Baker Street?"

     "They set fire to our rooms last night.  No great harm was done."

     "Good heavens, Holmes, this is intolerable!"

     "They must have lost my track completely after their bludgeonman was

arrested.  Otherwise they could not have imagined that I had returned to my

rooms.  They have evidently taken the precaution of watching you, however, and

that is what has brought Moriarty to Victoria.  You could not have made any

slip in coming?"

     "I did exactly what you advised."

     "Did you find your brougham?"

     "Yes, it was waiting."

     "Did you recognize your coachman?"

     "No."

     "It was my brother Mycroft.  It is an advantage to get about in such a

case without taking a mercenary into your confidence.  But we must plan what

we are to do about Moriarty now."

     "As this is an express, and as the boat runs in connection with it, I

should think we have shaken him off very effectively."

     "My dear Watson, you evidently did not realize my meaning when I said

that this man may be taken as being quite on the same intellectual plane as

myself.  You do not imagine that if I were the pursuer I should allow myself

to be baffled by so slight an obstacle.  Why, then, should you think so meanly

of him?"

     "What will he do?"

     "What I should do."

     "What would you do, then?"

     "Engage a special."

     "But it must be late."

     "By no means.  This train stops at Canterbury; and there is always at

least a quarter of an hour's delay at the boat.  He will catch us there."

     "One would think that we were the criminals.  Let us have him arrested on

his arrival."

     "It would be to ruin the work of three months.  We should get the big

fish, but the smaller would dart right and left out of the net.  On Monday we

should have them all.  No, an arrest is inadmissible."

     "What then?"

     "We shall get out at Canterbury."

     "And then?"

     "Well, then we must make a cross-country journey to Newhaven, and so over

to Dieppe.  Moriarty will again do what I should do.  He will get on to Paris,

mark down our luggage, and wait for two days at the depot.  In the meantime we

shall treat ourselves to a couple of carpet-bags, encourage the manufactures

of the countries through which we travel, and make our way at our leisure into

Switzerland, via Luxembourg and Basle."

     At Canterbury, therefore, we alighted, only to find that we should have

to wait an hour before we could get a train to Newhaven.

     I was still looking rather ruefully after the rapidly disappearing

luggage-van which contained my wardrobe, when Holmes pulled my sleeve and

pointed up the line.

     "Already, you see," said he.

     Far away, from among the Kentish woods there rose a thin spray of smoke.

A minute later a carriage and engine could be seen flying along the open curve

which leads to the station.  We had hardly time to take our place behind a

pile of luggage when it passed with a rattle and a roar, beating a blast of

hot air into our faces.

     "There he goes," said Holmes, as we watched the carriage swing and rock

over the points.  "There are limits, you see, to our friend's intelligence.

It would have been a coup-de-maitre had he deduced what I would deduce and

acted accordingly."

     "And what would he have done had he overtaken us?"

     "There cannot be the least doubt that he would have made a murderous

attack upon me.  It is, however, a game at which two may play.  The question

now is whether we should take a premature lunch here, or run our chance of

starving before we reach the buffet at Newhaven."

     We made our way to Brussels that night and spent two days there, moving

on upon the third day as far as Strasbourg.  On the Monday morning Holmes had

telegraphed to the London police, and in the evening we found a reply waiting

for us at our hotel.  Holmes tore it open, and then with a bitter curse hurled

it into the grate.

     "I might have known it!" he groaned.  "He has escaped!"

     "Moriarty?"

     "They have secured the whole gang with the exception of him.  He has

given them the slip.  Of course, when I had left the country there was no one

to cope with him.  But I did think that I had put the game in their hands.  I

think that you had better return to England, Watson."

     "Why?"

     "Because you will find me a dangerous companion now.  This man's

occupation is gone.  He is lost if he returns to London.  If I read his

character right he will devote his whole energies to revenging himself upon

me.  He said as much in our short interview, and I fancy that he meant it.  I

should certainly recommend you to return to your practice."

     It was hardly an appeal to be successful with one who was an old

campaigner as well as an old friend.  We sat in the Strasbourg salle-a-manger

arguing the question for half an hour, but the same night we had resumed our

journey and were well on our way to Geneva.

     For a charming week we wandered up the valley of the Rhone, and then,

branching off at Leuk, we made our way over the Gemmi Pass, still deep in

snow, and so, by way of Interlaken, to Meiringen.  It was a lovely trip, the

dainty green of the spring below, the virgin white of the winter above; but it

was clear to me that never for one instant did Holmes forget the shadow which

lay across him.  In the homely Alpine villages or in the lonely mountain

passes, I could still tell by his quick glancing eyes and his sharp scrutiny

of every face that passed us, that he was well convinced that, walk where we

would, we could not walk ourselves clear of the danger which was dogging our

footsteps.

     Once, I remember, as we passed over the Gemmi, and walked along the

border of the melancholy Daubensee, a large rock which had been dislodged from

the ridge upon our right clattered down and roared into the lake behind us.

In an instant Holmes had raced up on to the ridge, and, standing upon a lofty

pinnacle, craned his neck in every direction.  It was in vain that our guide

assured him that a fall of stones was a common chance in the springtime at

that spot.  He said nothing, but he smiled at me with the air of a man who

sees the fulfilment of that which he had expected.

     And yet for all his watchfulness he was never depressed.  On the

contrary, I can never recollect having seen him in such exuberant spirits.

Again and again he recurred to the fact that if he could be assured that

society was freed from Professor Moriarty he would cheerfully bring his own

career to a conclusion.

     "I think that I may go so far as to say, Watson, that I have not lived

wholly in vain," he remarked.  "If my record were closed to-night I could

still survey it with equanimity.  The air of London is the sweeter for my

presence.  In over a thousand cases I am not aware that I have ever used my

powers upon the wrong side.  Of late I have been tempted to look into the

problems furnished by nature rather than those more superficial ones for which

our artificial state of society is responsible.  Your memoirs will draw to an

end, Watson, upon the day that I crown my career by the capture or extinction

of the most dangerous and capable criminal in Europe."

     I shall be brief, and yet exact, in the little which remains for me to

tell.  It is not a subject on which I would willingly dwell, and yet I am

conscious that a duty devolves upon me to omit no detail.

     It was on the third of May that we reached the little village of

Meiringen, where we put up at the Englischer Hof, then kept by Peter Steiler

the elder.  Our landlord was an intelligent man and spoke excellent English,

having served for three years as waiter at the Grosvenor Hotel in London.  At

his advice, on the afternoon of the fourth we set off together, with the

intention of crossing the hills and spending the night at the hamlet of

Rosenlaui.  We had strict injunctions, however, on no account to pass the

falls of Reichenbach, which are about halfway up the hills, without making a

small detour to see them.

     It is, indeed, a fearful place.  The torrent, swollen by the melting

snow, plunges into a tremendous abyss, from which the spray rolls up like the

smoke from a burning house.  The shaft into which the river hurls itself is an

immense chasm, lined by glistening coal-black rock, and narrowing into a

creaming, boiling pit of incalculable depth, which brims over and shoots the

stream onward over its jagged lip.  The long sweep of green water roaring

forever down, and the thick flickering curtain of spray hissing forever

upward, turn a man giddy with their constant whirl and clamour.  We stood near

the edge peering down at the gleam of the breaking water far below us against

the black rocks, and listening to the half-human shout which came booming up

with the spray out of the abyss.

     The path has been cut halfway round the fall to afford a complete view,

but it ends abruptly, and the traveller has to return as he came.  We had

turned to do so, when we saw a Swiss lad come running along it with a letter

in his hand.  It bore the mark of the hotel which we had just left and was

addressed to me by the landlord.  It appeared that within a very few minutes

of our leaving, an English lady had arrived who was in the last stage of

consumption.  She had wintered at Davos Platz and was journeying now to join

her friends at Lucerne, when a sudden hemorrhage had overtaken her.  It was

thought that she could hardly live a few hours, but it would be a great

consolation to her to see an English doctor, and, if I would only return, etc.

The good Steiler assured me in a postscript that he would himself look upon my

compliance as a very great favour, since the lady absolutely refused to see a

Swiss physician, and he could not but feel that he was incurring a great

responsibility.

     The appeal was one which could not be ignored.  It was impossible to

refuse the request of a fellow-countrywoman dying in a strange land.  Yet I

had my scruples about leaving Holmes.  It was finally agreed, however, that he

should retain the young Swiss messenger with him as guide and companion while

I returned to Meiringen.  My friend would stay some little time at the fall,

he said, and would then walk slowly over the hill to Rosenlaui, where I was to

rejoin him in the evening.  As I turned away I saw Holmes, with his back

against a rock and his arms folded, gazing down at the rush of the waters.  It

was the last that I was ever destined to see of him in this world.

     When I was near the bottom of the descent I looked back.  It was

impossible, from that position, to see the fall, but I could see the curving

path which winds over the shoulder of the hills and leads to it.  Along this a

man was, I remember, walking very rapidly.

     I could see his black figure clearly outlined against the green behind

him.  I noted him, and the energy with which he walked, but he passed from my

mind again as I hurried on upon my errand.

     It may have been a little over an hour before I reached Meiringen.  Old

Steiler was standing at the porch of his hotel.

     "Well," said I, as I came hurrying up, "I trust that she is no worse?"

     A look of surprise passed over his face, and at the first quiver of his

eyebrows my heart turned to lead in my breast.

     "You did not write this?" I said, pulling the letter from my pocket.

"There is no sick Englishwoman in the hotel?"

     "Certainly not!" he cried.  "But it has the hotel mark upon it!  Ha, it

must have been written by that tall Englishman who came in after you had gone.

He said-- --"

     But I waited for none of the landlord's explanation.  In a tingle of fear

I was already running down the village street, and making for the path which I

had so lately descended.  It had taken me an hour to come down.  For all my

efforts two more had passed before I found myself at the fall of Reichenbach

once more.  There was Holmes's Alpine-stock still leaning against the rock by

which I had left him.  But there was no sign of him, and it was in vain that I

shouted.  My only answer was my own voice reverberating in a rolling echo from

the cliffs around me.

     It was the sight of that Alpine-stock which turned me cold and sick.  He

had not gone to Rosenlaui, then.  He had remained on that three-foot path,

with sheer wall on one side and sheer drop on the other, until his enemy had

overtaken him.  The young Swiss had gone too.  He had probably been in the pay

of Moriarty and had left the two men together.  And then what had happened?

Who was to tell us what had happened then?

     I stood for a minute or two to collect myself, for I was dazed with the

horror of the thing.  Then I began to think of Holmes's own methods and to try

to practise them in reading this tragedy.  It was, alas, only too easy to do.

During our conversation we had not gone to the end of the path, and the

Alpine-stock marked the place where we had stood.  The blackish soil is kept

forever soft by the incessant drift of spray, and a bird would leave its tread

upon it.  Two lines of footmarks were clearly marked along the farther end of

the path, both leading away from me.  There were none returning.  A few yards

from the end the soil was all ploughed up into a patch of mud, and the

brambles and ferns which fringed the chasm were torn and bedraggled.  I lay

upon my face and peered over with the spray spouting up all around me.  It had

darkened since I left, and now I could only see here and there the glistening

of moisture upon the black walls, and far away down at the end of the shaft

the gleam of the broken water.  I shouted; but only that same half-human cry

of the fall was borne back to my ears.

     But it was destined that I should, after all, have a last word of

greeting from my friend and comrade.  I have said that his Alpine-stock had

been left leaning against a rock which jutted on to the path.  From the top of

this bowlder the gleam of something bright caught my eye, and raising my hand

I found that it came from the silver cigarette-case which he used to carry.

As I took it up a small square of paper upon which it had lain fluttered down

on to the ground.  Unfolding it, I found that it consisted of three pages torn

from his notebook and addressed to me.  It was characteristic of the man that

the direction was as precise, and the writing as firm and clear, as though it

had been written in his study.

          MY DEAR WATSON [it said]:

               I write these few lines through the courtesy of Mr. Moriarty,

          who awaits my convenience for the final discussion of those

          questions which lie between us.  He has been giving me a sketch of

          the methods by which he avoided the English police and kept himself

          informed of our movements.  They certainly confirm the very high

          opinion which I had formed of his abilities.  I am pleased to think

          that I shall be able to free society from any further effects of his

          presence, though I fear that it is at a cost which will give pain to

          my friends, and especially, my dear Watson, to you.  I have already

          explained to you, however, that my career had in any case reached

          its crisis, and that no possible conclusion to it could be more

          congenial to me than this.  Indeed, if I may make a full confession

          to you, I was quite convinced that the letter from Meiringen was a

          hoax, and I allowed you to depart on that errand under the

          persuasion that some development of this sort would follow.  Tell

          Inspector Patterson that the papers which he needs to convict the

          gang are in pigeonhole M., done up in a blue envelope and inscribed

          "Moriarty."  I made every disposition of my property before leaving

          England and handed it to my brother Mycroft.  Pray give my greetings

          to Mrs. Watson, and believe me to be, my dear fellow,

                                               Very sincerely yours,

                                                       SHERLOCK HOLMES.

     A few words may suffice to tell the little that remains.  An examination

by experts leaves little doubt that a personal contest between the two men

ended, as it could hardly fail to end in such a situation, in their reeling

over, locked in each other's arms.  Any attempt at recovering the bodies was

absolutely hopeless, and there, deep down in that dreadful cauldron of

swirling water and seething foam, will lie for all time the most dangerous

criminal and the foremost champion of the law of their generation.  The Swiss

youth was never found again, and there can be no doubt that he was one of the

numerous agents whom Moriarty kept in his employ.  As to the gang, it will be

within the memory of the public how completely the evidence which Holmes had

accumulated exposed their organization, and how heavily the hand of the dead

man weighed upon them.  Of their terrible chief few details came out during

the proceedings, and if I have now been compelled to make a clear statement of

his career, it is due to those injudicious champions who have endeavoured to

clear his memory by attacks upon him whom I shall ever regard as the best and

the wisest man whom I have ever known.