Conclusion
Two days later I woke up. I was in bed at the hotel. Someone had found me on the edge of the path, high above the Reichenbach Falls.
After a week I returned to London. I went immediately to the empty house, where I burned the papers and destroyed the jars. I wanted to be sure that nobody would ever know the evil things that Holmes had done. I wanted only the good that was in my friend to live on after his death.
I was lucky. ACD had been busy writing more stories about Holmes. These stories were an immediate success. ACD became a famous writer, and people who had never met Holmes the man, knew Holmes the story-book detective. As the years passed, people began to forget that Sherlock Holmes had ever been a real person.
After Holmes's death my life was difficult for a long time. It was two years before I could live without cocaine. I could not work, and my wife and I had little money.
My story is at an end. Since Holmes's death I have lived quietly. But sometimes, as I sit by the fire in the evening, I think of that day at the Reichenbach Falls. I hear again the gentleness of Holmes's last words, and see the light of understanding in his eyes during those last moments, when he seemed once again the best and wisest man I have ever known.