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The Final Problem

by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
It is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen to write these the last words in which I shall ev re the si gifts by which my friend Mr. Sh Holmes was distinguished. In an incoherent and, as I dee feel, an entirely inadequa fashion, I ha endeavored to give so accou of my strange experiences in his co fr the chance which first brought us together at the period of the "Study in Scarlet," up to the time of his interfe in the ma of the "Naval Treaty"—and interference wh had the unquestionable effect of preventing a serious inte complication. It was my intention to have stopped there, and to have said nothing of th event which has created a void in my life wh the lapse of two years has done litt to fill. My hand has be forced, however, by the rece letters in which Colonel James Mor defends the memory of his brother, and I have no choice but to lay the fa before the public ex as they occurred. I alone know the absolute truth of the matter, and I am satisfied that the time has come wh on go purp is to be served by its suppression. As far as I know, there have been only three accoun in the public press: that in the Jour de Genève on May 6th, 1891, the Reuters di in the Eng papers on May 7th, and fi the recent letter to which I have alluded. Of th the first and second we extre condensed, whi the last is, as I shall now show, an absolute perversion of the facts. It li with me to tell for the fir time what really took pla between Professor Moriarty and Mr. Sher Holmes. It may be remembered that aft my marriage, and my subs st in pri practice, the very intimate relations which had existed between Holmes and myself bec to so extent modified. He still came to me from time to time wh he desired a comp in his investigation, but these occ grew more and mo seldom, until I fi that in the year 1890 there were only three cases of which I retain any record. During the winter of that year and the early sp of 1891, I saw in the pap that he had be engaged by the French government up a ma of su importance, and I recei two notes from Holmes, dated fr Narbonne and from Nimes, from which I gath that his stay in France was likely to be a lo one.