It is a dismaying chapter, come upon for the first time, that "Adventure of the Final Problem." One suffers with poor Watson. "It is with a heavy heart," he says, "that I take up my pen to write these last words in which I shall ever record the singular gifts by which my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes was distinguished." They had not seen each other in some time. The year was 1891, and Holmes persumably was in France, "engaged by the French Government upon a matter of supreme importance." It was with surprise, therefore, that the doctor saw his friend walk into his consulting room, and with consternation that he noted the detective's appearance. Sherlock Holmes was paler and more gaunt than Watson had ever seen him.Small wonder, her he had just foiled the third of three murderous attempts upon his life, all made within a single afternoon. He was at grips, at last, with Professor Moriarty, that colossal genius of crime. It was inevitable that they should triumph. "Moriarty!" "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 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."
It was the evening of April 14; that memory, at least, was burned in Watson's brain.
There was a chance, however, that Moriarty would be taken, that all would still be well. And Watson's practice, fortunately, was quiet. He was able to accompany his friend to the Continent, whether it was certain Moriarty, if he escaped the net, would be drawn in search of them. The falls of Reichenbach were waiting their arrival . . . . ."A fearful place . . . .The long sweep of green water roaring for ever down, and the thick flickering curtain of spray hissing for ever upwards," turned Watson a bit giddy. "We stood near the edge," he says, "peering down at the gleam of water breaking 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." It was then the afternoon of May 4.
And then the false and fatal message--calling the doctor back! And Moriarty walking swiftly along the curving path that led upward to the brink! And Holmes's final letter written on pages torn from his notebook: "My dear Watson--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 . . .
God in Heaven! So they were dead, both of them--the great criminal and the immortal crime savant--deep down in the boiling depths, among the jagged rocks of Reichenbach. And Dr. Conan Doyle was free to turn his agile mind to worthier matters.
Thus it was; and it was to be many years before the public knew that Sherlock Holmes was still among the living--that he was dead, and never "had" been dead. Even Conan Doyle himself didn't know the glorious truth. For three long years even the devoted Watson did not know.
Good old Watson!
