On the other hand, if all the world was convinced that I was dead they
would take liberties, these men, they would soon lay themselves open,
and sooner or later I could destroy them. Then it would be time for me
to announce that I was still in the land of the living. So rapidly does
the brain act that I believe I had thought this all out before Professor
Moriarty had reached the bottom of the Reichenbach Fall.

"I stood up and examined the rocky wall behind me. In your picturesque
account of the matter, which I read with great interest some months
later, you assert that the wall was sheer. That was not literally
true. A few small footholds presented themselves, and there was some
indication of a ledge. The cliff is so high that to climb it all was
an obvious impossibility, and it was equally impossible to make my way
along the wet path without leaving some tracks. I might, it is true,
have reversed my boots, as I have done on similar occasions, but the
sight of three sets of tracks in one direction would certainly have
suggested a deception. On the whole, then, it was best that I should
risk the climb. It was not a pleasant business, Watson. The fall roared
beneath me. I am not a fanciful person, but I give you my word that
I seemed to hear Moriarty's voice screaming at me out of the abyss. A
mistake would have been fatal. More than once, as tufts of grass came
out in my hand or my foot slipped in the wet notches of the rock, I
thought that I was gone. But I struggled upward, and at last I reached a
ledge several feet deep and covered with soft green moss, where I could
lie unseen, in the most perfect comfort. There I was stretched, when
you, my dear Watson, and all your following were investigating in the
most sympathetic and inefficient manner the circumstances of my death.

"At last, when you had all formed your inevitable and totally erroneous
conclusions, you departed for the hotel, and I was left alone. I