finished, isn't it? Poor Moriarty! Did you not realize that my snuffbox contains cocaine, not snuff?'
I felt sick and weak. Before my eyes Holmes was changing colour - red, then green, then blue. I shook my head to clear it, but he was still talking.
'And your letter, telling Lestrade that I was the Whitechapel murderer. What rubbish! How Scotland Yard would laugh! But I have the letter here - 1 saw it in your cook's hand and took it from her while you were calling the cab. You have failed, Moriarty. I have enjoyed making you run around Europe with me, but now you must die.'
He took out a long knife.
'Holmes!' I cried. 'I am Watson, your friend, Watson! I have tried to save you - save you from yourself and
from the police!' He held up the knife and stepped towards me.
'If you kill me,' I screamed, 'Moriarty will win! That is what he wants! Kill your only friend, and Moriarty has won!'
I closed my eyes and waited for the pain and the darkness. It did not come. I opened my eyes and saw that Holmes was looking at me. He had put the knife down. The look in his eyes was sadder than anything that I had ever seen. He seemed to see far into both the past and the future, and to find them sad beyond words.
'Never fear, old fellow,' he said. 'I shall not let him hurt you.' Then he stepped backwards off the path. 1 saw his body hit the rocks far below.
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.