I asked him to tell me more, and found out that his final meeting with Moriarty had been in Switzerland, on a narrow path above a famous waterfall. Holmes had won the argument, he told me coldly. And that was all that he would tell me.
Holmes and I were friends again, and soon I began helping him with new cases. It was just like old times. I am afraid that I often left my wife alone, and I did not give enough time to my patients, but I was happy to see Holmes interested and busy.
One day he gave me his cocaine-bottle. 'Take it, doctor,' he said. 'I do not need it any more.'
I was very pleased indeed at this news, and only one thing that happened at this time worried me. A woman was killed in Whitechapel, and people began to talk again about Jack the Ripper. I carefully checked where Holmes had been on the night of the murder, and found that he had spent the evening with two famous foreign detectives. I even spoke to them both secretly, and so I was sure that Holmes had not been in Whitechapel that night.
In 1890 I decided that I must begin to spend less time with Holmes. I wanted to be a success as a doctor, and I knew that I was not working hard enough for that. Mary and I moved to a new house, further from Baker Street.
There was another change, too. ACD's story, A Study in Scarlet, which had failed in this country, was a big success in America, and he began to write about more of Holmes's cases. To my surprise, Holmes quickly agreed to let him do this. He had been angry when he first read A Study in Scarlet, but now he seemed amused by what ACD was doing.
1891 began, and life for me was calm and happy. I was working hard, and I had little time to spend with Holmes. Jack the Ripper was a thing of the past, as forgotten as yesterday's newspapers, as dead as the women he had murdered. But Jack was not dead. He was only resting, and his rest would soon be over.