The Final Problem

Holmes arrives at Watson’s door late at night with bleeding knuckles, closes the shutters against airguns, and asks to leave over the back garden wall. For three months he has been tightening a net around a criminal mastermind no one has heard of, and in three days the whole gang will be arrested. Until then, Professor Moriarty means to kill him. Watson writes this account two years later, with a heavy heart, to set the record straight about the last time he saw his friend.

What happens in The Final Problem

Watson opens by saying that these are the last words he will write about Holmes, and that he writes them two years after the event only because Moriarty’s brother has published letters distorting the truth. On the evening of April 24th, 1891, Holmes, pale and thin, slips into Watson’s consulting room, bolts the shutters and shows his burst knuckles. He explains that for years he has sensed an organizing power behind London’s crimes, and has traced it to Professor Moriarty, a former mathematics professor who now runs a vast criminal network while never touching a crime himself. Holmes has spent three months building a case, and on Monday Moriarty and his whole gang will be arrested. That morning Moriarty visited him at Baker Street, read off a list of dates on which Holmes had hampered him, and warned that if Holmes destroyed him, he would destroy Holmes in return. Since then a van has nearly run Holmes down, a brick has fallen at his feet, and a thug with a club has attacked him. Holmes asks Watson to come to the Continent until the arrests are made. Next morning Watson follows elaborate instructions to Victoria station and finds himself sharing a reserved carriage with an elderly Italian priest, who turns out to be Holmes in disguise. As the train pulls out, Moriarty is seen pushing through the crowd. Holmes learns that his rooms in Baker Street were set on fire overnight, and reveals that the cloaked driver who brought Watson to the station was his brother Mycroft. Reasoning that Moriarty will hire a special train, Holmes and Watson get off at Canterbury and watch the special roar past. They cross to France by another route and travel through Brussels to Strasbourg. There a telegram arrives: the police have arrested the whole gang except Moriarty. Holmes urges Watson to go home, since Moriarty now has nothing left but revenge, but Watson refuses. They travel through Switzerland, where a rock crashes down near them on a mountain pass, and reach the village of Meiringen. On May 4th they walk up to see the Reichenbach Falls. A Swiss boy brings a letter asking Watson, as a doctor, to come back and treat a dying Englishwoman at the hotel. Watson goes, leaving Holmes on the narrow path above the falls. On the way down he sees a man in black walking fast up the path. At the hotel no one knows of any sick Englishwoman. Watson runs back and finds only Holmes’s alpine-stock, two lines of footprints going toward the edge and none returning, trampled mud at the brink, and Holmes’s silver cigarette case holding a farewell note. Holmes writes that Moriarty is waiting for their final discussion, that he guessed the letter was a hoax, and that the papers to convict the gang are in a blue envelope at Baker Street. Experts conclude that the two men fell together into the falls, and their bodies are never recovered.

Where and when The Final Problem happens

Timeline the story arc, beat by beat

1. The warning
   Airguns and bleeding knuckles

   Holmes arrives at Watson’s house at night, bolts the shutters, and explains that Professor Moriarty is trying to kill him.

2. The threat
   Moriarty’s visit

   Holmes recounts how Moriarty came to Baker Street and promised to destroy him if Holmes destroyed his organization.

3. The escape
   The Italian priest

   Holmes, disguised as an old priest, slips onto the Continental train with Watson as Moriarty arrives too late.

4. The chase
   The special train

   Holmes predicts that Moriarty will hire a special, and they hide at Canterbury as it thunders past.

5. The setback
   The gang taken, the master free

   In Strasbourg Holmes learns that the police have caught every member of the gang except Moriarty.

6. The trap
   A letter from the hotel

   At the Reichenbach Falls a false message calls Watson away, leaving Holmes alone on the narrow path.

7. The end
   Two lines of footprints

   Watson returns to find Holmes’s alpine-stock, a farewell letter and footprints leading only to the edge of the falls.

Characters and how they connect

Character Relationships who connects to whom, and the themes that bind them

Themes in The Final Problem what the story is really about

Symbols & motifs

Conflicts

Literary devices

Watson’s reading of the scene

At the falls Watson uses Holmes’s own method. The alpine-stock marks where Holmes waited. Two lines of footprints lead to the end of the path and none come back. The ground at the edge is churned into mud and the ferns are torn. The silver cigarette case catches his eye, and under it lies the letter. From these signs he reads a struggle and a fall, and experts later agree.

Elegiac frame

Watson opens with a heavy heart and the knowledge of the ending, so every scene of the journey is shadowed by what the reader already expects.

The double

Moriarty is Holmes’s dark mirror, a genius who uses his gifts for crime. Doyle invented him for this story to give Holmes an opponent worthy of ending him.

Suspense

Near-misses in London, the race to the station, the special train and the falling rock build tension until the quiet trap at the falls.

Ambiguous ending

No one sees the fall and no bodies are found. Watson reads the scene as death, but the open evidence later allowed Doyle to bring Holmes back.

Important quotes

The ending of The Final Problem, explained

The ending is a death without a body. Watson, called away by a forged letter, realizes the trick when the landlord denies writing it and says a tall Englishman came in after they left. He runs back to the falls, which takes him two hours, and finds Holmes’s alpine-stock against the rock but no Holmes. Using his friend’s own method, he reads the ground: two sets of footprints lead to the end of the path, none return, and the edge is torn and trampled. On the rock he finds Holmes’s silver cigarette case and a letter written, as Holmes says, through the courtesy of Mr. Moriarty, who is waiting for him. Holmes says he suspected the letter was a hoax, accepts that his career has reached its crisis, and tells Watson where the evidence to convict the gang is kept. Experts conclude that the two men went over the edge together, locked in each other’s arms. The Swiss boy, probably Moriarty’s agent, is never found, and the gang is convicted on Holmes’s evidence. Doyle meant this to be the end. He had grown tired of Holmes and wanted to be known for his historical novels, so he invented Moriarty, a criminal great enough to take Holmes with him, and introduced him in this very story. The public reaction was fierce. Doyle held out for years, then published The Hound of the Baskervilles, set before Reichenbach, and in 1903 brought Holmes back in The Adventure of the Empty House, where Holmes explains that he never fell. Read on its own, though, this story is a farewell: Watson’s grief, Holmes’s calm acceptance, and two lines of footprints that do not come back.

Common misreadings

Test yourself

Sherlock Holmes has discovered that a professor named Moriarty is secretly in charge of most of London’s crime. Holmes has set up a trap to have the whole gang arrested, but Moriarty tries to kill him first. Holmes and Watson escape to Europe. The police catch the gang but not Moriarty, who follows them to Switzerland. At a huge waterfall, a fake message sends Watson away. When he comes back, Holmes is gone. There are footprints going to the edge and none coming back, and a goodbye letter. Watson believes Holmes and Moriarty fell into the falls together.

Flashcards flip, self-grade, and the deck remembers what you know

Compare & connect the story universe

Adaptation. The Final Problem (1985, Television episode), Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011, Film), The Reichenbach Fall (2012, Television episode).

Discussion & essay prompts for class, or your next paper

Key questions students ask

• What happens at the Reichenbach Falls in Sherlock Holmes
• Who is Professor Moriarty
• Why did Arthur Conan Doyle kill Sherlock Holmes
• How does Watson know what happened to Holmes at the falls
• Why is Moriarty called the Napoleon of crime
• Does Sherlock Holmes really die in The Final Problem