The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes Part 21 (1/2)
”Why?”
”Because you will find one He is lost if he returns to London If I read his character right he will devote his whole energies to revenging himself upon me He said as much in our short interview, and I fancy that he meant it I should certainly recommend you to return to your practice”
It was hardly an appeal to be successful with one as an old ca salle-a-ht we had resumed our journey and ell on our way to Geneva
For a char andered up the Valley of the Rhone, and then, branching off at Leuk, we made our way over the Gemmi Pass, still deep in snow, and so, by way of Interlaken, to Meiringen It was a lovely trip, the dainty green of the spring below, the virgin white of the winter above; but it was clear to et the shadohich lay across hies or in the lonelyeyes and his sharp scrutiny of every face that passed us, that he ell convinced that, here ould, we could not walk ourselves clear of the danger which was dogging our footsteps
Once, I re the border of the ed froht clattered down and roared into the lake behind us In an instant Hol upon a lofty pinnacle, craned his neck in every direction It was in vain that our guide assured hi-ti, 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 hiain he recurred to the fact that if he could be assured that society was freed fro his own career to a conclusion
”I think that I o so far as to say, Watson, that I have not lived wholly in vain,” he reht I could still survey it with equanimity The air of London is the sweeter for my presence In over a thousand cases I a 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 erous and capable criminal in Europe”
I shall be brief, and yet exact, in the little which remains for ly 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 intelligentserved 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, withouta small detour to see them
It is indeed, a fearful place The torrent, swollen by the es into a tremendous abyss, fro house The shaft into which the river hurls itself is an i coal-black rock, and narrowing into a crea pit of incalculable depth, which bried lip The long sweep of green water roaring forever down, and the thick flickering curtain of spray hissing forever upward, turn a iddy with their constant whirl and claleaainst the black rocks, and listening to the half-hu up with the spray out of the abyss
The path has been cut half-way round the fall to afford a complete view, but it ends abruptly, and the traveler has to return as he came We had turned to do so,a Swiss lad co it with a letter in his hand It bore the mark of the hotel which we had just left, and was addressed to me by the landlord It appeared that within a very few lish lady had arrived as in the last stage of consu now to join her friends at Lucerne, when a sudden heht that she could hardly live a few hours, but it would be a great consolation to her to see an English doctor, and, if I would only return, etc The good Steiler assured me in a postscript that he would hireat favor, since the lady absolutely refused to see a Swiss physician, and he could not but feel that he was incurring a great responsibility