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.
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
will lie for all time the most dangerous criminal and the foremost champion of the law of their generation.
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
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.”
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
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.
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
It was characteristic of the man that the direction was a precise, and the writing as firm and clear, as though it had been written in his study.
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
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.
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
I shouted; but only the same half-human cry of the fall was borne back to my ears.
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
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.
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
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?
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
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.
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
“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—”
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
It may have been a little over an hour before I reached Meiringen. Old Steiler was standing at the porch of his hotel.
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
Along this a man was, I remember, walking very rapidly.
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
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.
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
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.
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
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.
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
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.
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
and narrowing into a creaming, boiling pit of incalculable depth, which brims over and shoots the stream onward over its jagged lip.
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
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 détour to see them.
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
and spoke excellent English, having served for three years as waiter at the Grosvenor Hotel in London.
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
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.”
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
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.
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
He said nothing, but he smiled at me with the air of a man who sees the fulfillment of that which he had expected.
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
we could not walk ourselves clear of the danger which was dogging our footsteps.
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
We sat in the Strasburg 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.
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
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.”
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
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?”
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
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.”
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
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.
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
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.”
#SherlockHolmes
#ArthurConanDoyle
#TheFinalProblem
