🌊 The Fall (4 May 1891)
Holmes and Moriarty go over the Reichenbach ledge locked together — so the world believes. A farewell note under a cigarette case, an unfinished walking stick against a rock, and ten years of public mourning for a fictional man.
“It is worth a wound; it is worth many wounds; to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask.”
The end of everything
Cornered at last, Moriarty follows Holmes across Europe to a ledge above the Reichenbach Falls. A forged message about a dying Englishwoman draws Watson away; when he returns, the path is empty, the turf torn, and two men have gone over the brink into the boiling abyss. Holmes leaves a farewell note, weighted by his silver cigarette case and his alpenstock, addressed to the one friend he sent to safety.
A death staged by an exhausted author
Conan Doyle meant it as a full stop — a way to be free of a character eclipsing his other work. The public would not have it, and neither, ultimately, would he. The Fall became the canon's great cliffhanger: for the readers, a genuine grave; for the saga, the doorway to the three-year Hiatus and the miraculous Return.