aced up on to the ridge,
and, standing upon a lofty pinnacle, craned his neck in every direction.
It was in vain that our guide assured him that a fall of stones was a
common chance in the spring-time at that spot. He said nothing, but
he smiled at me with the air of a man who sees the fulfillment of that
which he had expected.

And yet for all his watchfulness he was never depressed. On the
contrary, I can never recollect having seen him in such exuberant
spirits. Again and again he recurred to the fact that if he could
be assured that society was freed from Professor Moriarty he would
cheerfully bring his own career to a conclusion.

"I think that I may go so far as to say, Watson, that I have not lived
wholly in vain," he remarked. "If my record were closed to-night I could
still survey it with equanimity. The air of London is the sweeter for my
presence. In over a thousand cases I am not aware that I have ever used
my powers upon the wrong side. Of late I have been tempted to look into
the problems furnished by nature rather than those more superficial ones
for which our artificial state of society is responsible. Your memoirs
will draw to an end, Watson, upon the day that I crown my career by
the capture or extinction of the most dangerous and capable criminal in
Europe."

I shall be brief, and yet exact, in the little which remains for me to
tell. It is not a subject on which I would willingly dwell, and yet I am
conscious that a duty devolves upon me to omit no detail.

It was on the 3d of May that we reached the little village of Meiringen,
where we put up at the Englischer Hof, then kept by Peter Steiler the
elder. Our landlord was an intelligent man, and spoke excellent English,
having served for three years as waiter at the Grosvenor Hotel in
London. At his advice, on the afternoon of the 4th we set off together,
with the intention of crossing the hills and spending the night at the
hamlet of Rosenlaui. We had strict injunctions, however, on no account
to pass the falls of Reichenbach, which are about half-way up the hill,
without making a small detour to see them.

It is indeed, a fearful place. The torrent, swollen by the melting snow,
plunges into a tremendous abyss, from which the spray rolls up like the
smoke from a burning house. The shaft into which the river hurls itself
is an immense chasm, lined by glistening coal-black rock, and narrowing
into a creaming, boiling pit of incalculable depth, whi