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“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 [471] 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 [472] 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 [473] 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, [474] 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 [475] 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. [476] 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-ma�tre 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 [477] 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-�-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 [478] 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.
[479] “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 [480] 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.
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