                                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
     endeavored 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 Genève on May 6th, 1891,
     the Reuter's despatch 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
     investigation, 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 is 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."

     "Aye, 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 appearance, 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 rumors 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 endeavored 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 center
     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 that 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 4th of January,' said he.  'On the 23d
     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.

     "'That 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
     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 mid-day 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 dare say, 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
     neighbor.  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 precaution 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 endeavoring 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 traveling 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 bludgeon-man 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 point. "There are limits, you see, to our friend's
     intelligence.  It would have been a coup-de-maître 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 Strasburg.  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-à-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 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 spring-time at that spot.  He said
     nothing, but he smiled at me with the air of a man who sees the
     fulfillment 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 half-way up the hill, 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 clamor.  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 half-way round the fall to afford a complete
     view, but it ends abruptly, and the traveler 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 favor, 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 hill 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 explanations.  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 branches 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 the 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 boulder 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 note-book 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 endeavored 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.
