It was, alas, only too easy to do. During our conversation we hadnot gone to the end of the path, and the Alpine-stock marked theplace where we had stood. The blackish soil is kept forever soft bythe incessant drift of spray, and a bird would leave its tread uponit. Two lines of footmarks were clearly marked along the fartherend of the path, both leading away from me. There were nonereturning. A few yards from the end the soil was all ploughed upinto a patch of mud, and the branches and ferns which fringed thechasm were torn and bedraggled. I lay upon my face and peeredover with the spray spouting up all around me. It had darkenedsince I left, and now I could only see here and there the glisteningof moisture upon the black walls, and far away down at the end ofthe shaft the gleam of the broken water. I shouted; but only thesame half-human cry of the fall was borne back to my ears.
But it was destined that I should after all have a last word ofgreeting from my friend and comrade. I have said that his Alpinestockhad been left leaning against a rock which jutted on to thepath. From the top of this bowlder the gleam of something brightcaught my eye, and, raising my hand, I found that it came fromthe silver cigarette-case which he used to carry. As I took it up asmall square of paper upon which it had lain fluttered down on tothe ground. Unfolding it, I found that it consisted of three pagestorn from his note-book and addressed to me. It was characteristicof the man that the direction was a precise, and the writing as firmand clear, as though it had been written in his study.
My dear Watson [it said]:
I write these few lines through the courtesy of Mr. Moriarty, whoawaits my convenience for the final discussion of those questionswhich lie between us. He has been giving me a sketch of themethods by which he avoided the English police and kept himselfinformed of our movements. They certainly confirm the very highopinion which I had formed of his abilities. I am pleased to thinkthat I shall be able to free society from any further effects of hispresence, though I fear that it is at a cost which will give pain tomy friends, and especially, my dear Watson, to you. I have alreadyexplained to you, however, that my career had in any case reachedits crisis, and that no possible conclusion to it could be morecongenial to me than this. Indeed, if I may make a full confessionto you, I was quite convinced that the letter from Meiringen wasa hoax, and I allowed you to depart on that errand under thepersuasion that some development of this sort would follow. TellInspector Patterson that the papers which he needs to convict thegang are in pigeonhole M., done up in a blue envelope and inscribed“Moriarty.” I made every disposition of my property before leavingEngland, and handed it to my brother Mycroft. Pray give mygreetings to Mrs. Watson, and believe me to be, my dear fellow,Very sincerely yours,
Sherlock Holmes
A few words may suffice to tell the little that remains. Anexamination by experts leaves little doubt that a personal contestbetween the two men ended, as it could hardly fail to end in sucha situation, in their reeling over, locked in each other’s arms. Anyattempt at recovering the bodies was absolutely hopeless, andthere, deep down in that dreadful caldron of swirling water andseething foam, will lie for all time the most dangerous criminaland the foremost champion of the law of their generation. TheSwiss youth was never found again, and there can be no doubt thathe was one of the numerous agents whom Moriarty kept in thisemploy. As to the gang, it will be within the memory of the publichow completely the evidence which Holmes had accumulatedexposed their organization, and how heavily the hand of the deadman weighed upon them. Of their terrible chief few details cameout during the proceedings, and if I have now been compelled tomake a clear statement of his career it is due to those injudiciouschampions who have endeavored to clear his memory by attacksupon him whom I shall ever regard as the best and the wisest manwhom I have ever known.