The Final Problem (adapted), Arthur Conan Doyle
The Final Problem (adapted)
Arthur Conan Doyle
Category: Short Stories
Genres: Mystery,Thriller,Adventure
Level 3.770:51 h18.7 mb
Sherlock Holmes faces his greatest enemy, the clever and dangerous Professor Moriarty. As Holmes and Dr. Watson travel across Europe, Moriarty follows closely behind, ready to strike. The chase leads to a dramatic meeting at a famous waterfall, where Holmes must risk everything. This is an adapted version of Arthur Conan Doyle’s story, simplified to A2 level.

The Final Problem

[adapted]

by
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Final Problem (adapted)

I am very sad as I pick up my pen to write these last words in which I will ever write about the special gifts that made my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes stand out. In a confused and, I strongly feel, a very poor way, I have tried to tell of my strange experiences with him from the chance that first brought us together at the time of the “Study in Scarlet,” up to the time when he took part in the matter of the “Naval Treaty” — an action which clearly stopped a serious problem between countries. I planned to stop there, and to say nothing about that event which has made an empty space in my life, which two years have done little to fill. However, the recent letters have forced me, in which Colonel James Moriarty defends his brother’s name, and I have no choice but to put the facts before the public exactly as they happened. Only I know the full truth of the matter, and I am sure that the time has come when no good will come from keeping it hidden. As far as I know, there have been only three reports in the public press: the one in the Journal de Genève on May 6th, 1891, the Reuter’s report in the English papers on May 7th, and finally the recent letter I have mentioned. Of these, the first and second were very short, while the last is, as I will now show, a complete twisting of the facts. It is my duty to tell for the first time what really happened between Professor Moriarty and Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

It may be remembered that after my marriage, and after I started my own medical practice, the very close relations which had existed between Holmes and me changed a little. He still came to me from time to time when he wanted a companion in his work, but these times grew more and more rare, until I find that in the year 1890 there were only three cases of which I have any record. During the winter of that year and the early spring of 1891, I saw in the papers that he had been hired by the French government on a matter of great importance, and I received two notes from Holmes, dated from Narbonne and from Nimes, from which I understood that his stay in France was likely to be long. So it was with some surprise that I saw him walk into my office on the evening of the 24th of April. It seemed to me that he was looking even paler and thinner than usual.

“Yes, I have been tiring myself out a bit too much,” he said, answering my look, not my words; “I have been a little busy lately. Do you mind if I close your shutters?”

The only light in the room came from the lamp on the table where I was reading. Holmes moved slowly along the wall and, throwing the shutters together, he locked them tightly.

“You are afraid of something?” I asked.

“Well, I am.”

“Of what?”

“Of air-guns.”

“My dear Holmes, what do you mean?”

“I think you know me well enough, Watson, to know that I am not a nervous man at all. At the same time, it is foolish, not brave, to not see danger when it is very near you. Could you give me a match?” He breathed in the smoke from his cigarette as if the calm feeling helped him.

“I must say sorry for coming so late,” he said, “and I must also ask you to agree to something unusual and let me leave your house soon by climbing over your back garden wall.”

“But what does it all mean?” I asked.

He held out his hand, and I saw in the light of the lamp that two of his finger joints were cut open and bleeding.

“It is not just nothing, you see,” he said, smiling. “In fact, it is hard enough for a man to break his hand on. Is Mrs. Watson in?”

“She is away on a visit.”

“Really! You are alone?”

“Yes.”

“Then it makes it easier for me to ask you to come with me for a week to the Continent.”

“Where?”

“Oh, anywhere. It doesn’t matter to me.”

There was something very strange in all this. It was not Holmes’s way to take a holiday without a purpose, and something about his pale, tired face told me that he was very nervous. He saw the question in my eyes, and, putting his finger-tips together and his elbows on his knees, he explained the situation.

“You have probably never heard of Professor Moriarty?” he said.

“Never.”

“Yes, there’s the genius and the wonder of it!” he cried. “The man is everywhere in London, and no one has heard of him. That’s what puts him at the top in the history of crime. I tell you, Watson, very seriously, that if I could beat that man, if I could free the people from him, I would feel that my own career had reached its highest point, and I would be ready to turn to some more calm kind of life. Between us, the recent cases in which I have helped the royal family of Scandinavia, and the French republic, have put me in such a position that I could continue to live in the quiet way which is most pleasant to me, and to focus my attention on my chemical studies. But I could not rest, Watson, I could not sit quiet in my chair, if I thought that such a man as Professor Moriarty was walking the streets of London without anyone stopping him.”

“What has he done, then?”

“His career has been a very unusual one. He is a man from a good family and with a very good education, born with an amazing talent for math. At the age of twenty-one he wrote a paper about the Binomial Theorem, which became well known in Europe. Because of it he won the job of Professor of Mathematics at one of our smaller universities, and it seemed he had a very bright future before him. But the man had inherited tendencies of the most evil kind. There was a criminal part in him, which, instead of being softened, was made stronger and much more dangerous by his great mind. Bad rumours grew around him in the university town, and in the end he had to leave his professor job and come down to London, where he started work as an Army teacher. This much is known to the world, but what I am telling you now is what I myself have found out.

“As you know, Watson, no one knows the top criminal world of London as well as I do. For years I have always felt there was some power behind the criminal, some strong, organized power which always stands in the way of the law, and protects the criminal. Again and again in cases of many different kinds — fake papers, robberies, murders — I have felt this force, and I have worked out what it did in many of those unsolved crimes in which I was not asked to help. For years I have tried to break through the cover that hid it, and at last the time came when I took my clue and followed it, until it led me, after a thousand clever turns, to ex-Professor Moriarty, famous in mathematics.

“He is the king of crime, Watson. He is the planner of half that is evil and of nearly all that is not found in this big city. He is a genius, a thinker, a person who thinks about ideas. He has a very good brain. He sits without moving, like a spider in the centre of its web, but that web has a thousand lines, and he knows well every small shake of each of them. He does little himself. He only plans. But his agents are many and very well organized. Is there a crime to be done, a paper to be taken, we will say, a house to be robbed, a man to be taken away — the message is sent to the Professor, the plan is made and done. The agent may be caught. In that case money is found for his bail or his defence in court. But the main power which uses the agent is never caught — not even guessed. This was the group which I figured out, Watson, and which I gave all my energy to showing and breaking up.

“But the Professor was surrounded with protections so cleverly planned that, whatever I did, it seemed impossible to get proof that would make a court of law find him guilty. You know my powers, my dear Watson, and yet at the end of three months I had to admit that I had at last met an enemy who was my equal in mind. My horror at his crimes was lost in my admiration for his skill. But at last he made a mistake — only a little, little mistake — but it was more than he could risk when I was so close to him. I had my chance, and, starting from that point, I have spread my net around him until now it is all ready to close. In three days — that is, on next Monday — things will be ready, and the Professor, with all the main members of his gang, will be in the hands of the police. Then will come the greatest criminal trial of the century, the solving of over forty mysteries, and hanging for all of them; but if we move too early, you understand, they may escape from our hands even at the last moment.

“Now, if I could have done this without Professor Moriarty knowing, all would have been well. But he was too clever for that. He saw every step which I took to set my trap around him. Again and again he tried to break away, but I just as often stopped him. I tell you, my friend, that if a full account of that silent contest could be written, it would be the most brilliant bit of back-and-forth work in the history of detecting. Never have I done so well, and never have I been pushed so hard by an opponent. He struck hard, and yet I just beat him. This morning the last steps were taken, and only three days were needed to finish the business. I was sitting in my room thinking it over, when the door opened and Professor Moriarty stood before me.

“My nerves are fairly strong, Watson, but I must admit I was startled when I saw the very man I had been thinking about so much standing there on my doorstep. His appearance was quite familiar to me. He is very tall and thin, his forehead curves out in a white curve, and his two eyes are set deep in his head. He is clean-shaven, pale, and serious-looking, still keeping something of the professor in his face. His shoulders are rounded from much study, and his face sticks out forward, and is always slowly moving from side to side in a strange way like a reptile. He looked closely at me with great curiosity in his wrinkled eyes.

“‘You have a smaller forehead than I expected,’ he said, at last. ‘It is a dangerous habit to touch loaded guns in the pocket of your bathrobe.’

“The truth is that when he came in I right away saw the great danger I was in. The only possible way for him to escape was to stop me from speaking. At once I took the gun from the drawer and put it in my pocket, and I was aiming at him through the cloth. When he spoke I took the gun out and put it on the table ready to shoot. He still smiled and blinked, but there was something in his eyes which made me feel very glad that I had it there.

“‘You clearly don’t know me,’ he said.

“‘Quite the opposite,’ I answered, ‘I think it is quite clear that I do. Please sit down. I can give you five minutes if you have anything to say.’

“‘Everything I have to say has already come to your mind,’ he said.

“‘Then maybe my answer and yours have come at the same time,’ I replied.

“‘Will you not move?’

“‘Yes.’

“He put his hand quickly into his pocket, and I raised the pistol from the table. But he only took out a small notebook where he had written some dates.

“‘You got in my way on the 4th of January,’ he said. ‘On the 23rd you bothered me; by the middle of February I was seriously bothered by you; at the end of March my plans were completely blocked; and now, at the end of April, I find myself in such a situation because you keep chasing me that I am in real danger of losing my freedom. The situation is becoming an impossible one.’

“‘Do you have any suggestion to make?’ I asked.

“‘You must stop it, Mr. Holmes,’ he said, moving his head around. ‘You really must, you know.’

“‘After Monday,’ I said.

“‘Tut, tut,’ he said. ‘I am very sure that a man as clever as you will see that there can be only one result to this case. You must give up. You have done things in such a way that we have only one choice left. It has been a pleasure to me to see how you have dealt with this case, and I say, honestly, that it would make me sad to be forced to take any serious action. You smile, sir, but I promise you that it really would.’

“‘Danger is part of my job,’ I said.

“‘That is not danger,’ he said. ‘It is certain destruction. You stand in the way not only of one person, but of a very powerful organization, which you, with all your cleverness, have not been able to understand fully. You must stand clear, Mr. Holmes, or be crushed under foot.’

“‘I am afraid,’ I said, standing up, ‘that because I enjoy this talk I am not doing important business which is waiting for me somewhere else.’

“He stood up also and looked at me in silence, shaking his head sadly.

“‘Well, well,’ said he, at last. ‘It is a shame, but I have done what I could. I know every move of your game. You can do nothing before Monday. It has been a fight between you and me, Mr. Holmes. You hope to put me in court. I tell you that I will never stand in court. You hope to beat me. I tell you that you will never beat me. If you are clever enough to destroy me, be sure that I shall do the same to you.’

“‘You have given me several compliments, Mr. Moriarty,’ I said. ‘Let me give you one in return by saying that if I were sure of the first result I would, for the good of the public, gladly accept the second.’

“‘I can promise you the one, but not the other,’ he said angrily, and so turned his bent back to me, and went looking hard and blinking out of the room.

“That was my only meeting with Professor Moriarty. I admit that it left a bad feeling on my mind. His soft, careful way of speaking gives a strong feeling that he is honest which just a bully could not give. Of course, you will say: ‘Why not use the police against him?’ the reason is that I am sure that the attack will come from his helpers. I have the best proof that it would be so.”

“Have you already been attacked?”

“My dear Watson, Professor Moriarty is not a man who waits or is slow. I went out about midday to do some business in Oxford Street. As I passed the corner that leads from Bentinck Street to the Welbeck Street crossing a two-horse van, driven very fast, turned quickly and was on me at once. I jumped for the footpath and saved myself by a split second. The van raced round by Marylebone Lane and was gone in a moment. I kept to the pavement after that, Watson, but as I walked down Vere Street a brick fell from the roof of one of the houses, and broke into pieces at my feet. I called the police and had the place checked. There were slates and bricks piled up on the roof ready for some repairs, and they wanted me to believe that the wind had knocked over one of these. Of course I knew better, but I could prove nothing.

I took a cab after that and got to my brother’s rooms in Pall Mall, where I spent the day. Now I have come to you, and on my way I was attacked by a rough man with a club. I knocked him down, and the police have arrested him; but I can tell you with full confidence that no possible link will ever be found between the gentleman on whose front teeth I have hurt my knuckles and the quiet math teacher, who is, I think, working out problems on a blackboard ten miles away. You will not wonder, Watson, that my first act when I came into your rooms was to close your shutters, and that I have had to ask your permission to leave the house by some more hidden exit than the front door.”

I had often admired my friend’s bravery, but never more than now, as he sat quietly going over a series of events which together must have made a terrible day.

“Will you stay here tonight?” I said.

“No, my friend, you might find me a dangerous guest. I have my plans ready, and all will be well. Things have gone so far now that they can go on without my help for the arrest, though my being there is needed for someone to be found guilty. So it is clear that I cannot do better than get away for the few days that are left before the police are free to act. So it would please me very much if you could come to the Continent with me.”

“The work is quiet,” I said, “and I have a helpful neighbour. I would be happy to come.”

“And to start tomorrow morning?”

“If necessary.”

“Oh yes, it is very important. Then these are your directions, and I ask, my dear Watson, that you will follow them exactly, for you are now playing a two-person game with me against the smartest criminal and the strongest group of criminals in Europe. Now listen! You will send whatever bags you plan to take by a trusted messenger, without any address, to Victoria tonight. In the morning you will send for a hansom cab, telling your man not to take the first or the second that comes. Into this hansom you will jump, and you will drive to the Strand end of the Lowther Arcade, giving the address to the driver on a slip of paper, and asking him not to throw it away. Have your fare ready, and the moment that your cab stops, run through the Arcade, making sure to reach the other side at a quarter past nine. You will find a small carriage waiting close to the curb, driven by a man with a heavy black coat with red at the collar. Into this you will step, and you will reach Victoria in time for the Continental express.”

“Where shall I meet you?”

At the station. The second first class car from the front will be kept for us.

“The carriage is our meeting place, then?”

“Yes.”

It was no use that I asked Holmes to stay for the evening. It was clear to me that he thought he might bring trouble to the house he was in, and that that was the reason which made him go. With a few hurried words about our plans for the next day he stood up and came out with me into the garden, climbing over the wall that leads to Mortimer Street, and at once whistling for a cab, in which I heard him drive away.

In the morning I obeyed Holmes’s instructions exactly. A cab was hired with such care that it would not be one that was set ready for us, and I drove immediately after breakfast to the Lowther Arcade, through which I hurried as fast as I could. A carriage was waiting with a very large driver wearing a dark cloak, who, the moment that I had stepped in, whipped the horse and drove off quickly to Victoria Station. When I got out there he turned the carriage, and drove away quickly again without even a look in my direction.

So far all had gone very well. My luggage was waiting for me, and I had no trouble in finding the carriage which Holmes had pointed out, especially as it was the only one in the train which was marked “Reserved.” My only worry now was that Holmes did not appear. The station clock showed only seven minutes left before we were supposed to start. I searched in vain among the groups of travellers and people saying goodbye for the slim figure of my friend. There was no sign of him. I spent a few minutes helping a very old Italian priest, who was trying to make a porter understand, in his broken English, that his luggage was to be sent through to Paris. Then, after taking another look around, I returned to my carriage, where I found that the porter, in spite of the ticket, had given me my weak and old Italian friend as a traveling companion. It was useless for me to explain to him that his presence was not wanted, for my Italian was even more limited than his English, so I shrugged my shoulders with a sigh, and continued to look out anxiously for my friend. A cold fear came over me, as I thought that his absence might mean that something bad had happened during the night. Already the doors had all been shut and the whistle blown, when —

“My dear Watson,” said a voice, “you have not even bothered to say good morning.”

I turned in great surprise. The old priest had turned his face towards me. For a moment the wrinkles seemed to go away, the nose moved away from the chin, the lower lip stopped sticking out and the mouth stopped mumbling, the dull eyes became bright again, the bent body stood up straighter. Then the whole body fell back again, and Holmes had gone as quickly as he had come.

“Goodness!” I said. “How you scared me!”

“We still need to be very careful,” he whispered. “I have reason to think they are close behind us. Ah, there is Moriarty himself.”