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.