Stories / The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes · 1893
The Final Problem
Moriarty's web closes; Holmes trades London for the Alps and, above the Reichenbach falls, the world loses its best and wisest man — for a while.
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⚠️ Spoilers below. The analysis discusses the solution, including who did it and how it's found out.
Summary & analysis
Holmes arrives at Watson's consulting room with bleeding knuckles and drawn blinds: he has spent months weaving a net around Professor Moriarty, the abstract centre of half of London's crime, and the net closes on Monday — if Holmes lives to see it.
There is no puzzle; there is pursuit. The Baker Street rooms burn, the pair flee by planned misdirection (luggage sent ahead, a carriage decoy, a walk over the Continent), and Moriarty follows with a special train — strategy against strategy, each man modelling the other's next move aloud.
At the Reichenbach fall a Swiss boy's fake message removes Watson; Holmes writes a farewell on three pages under his cigarette case and, so the world believes, goes over the ledge locked with Moriarty. The gang hangs on the evidence Holmes posted ahead — the case wins even as the detective is lost.
Deeper reading
The story written to kill him
The Final Problem is unique in the canon for its purpose: Conan Doyle wrote it to be free of Holmes, and the strain of that intention gives it a curious, valedictory weight. There is almost no detection — only pursuit, dread, and the sense of an ending. Moriarty, introduced here fully for the first time, exists to be a worthy enough adversary to justify the hero\'s death.
The duel of equal minds
The genius of the story is the Baker Street interview, in which professor and detective finish each other\'s threats — two great intellects modelling one another in real time. It established the archetype of the arch-enemy as intellectual peer, and the plunge at Reichenbach became the most famous cliffhanger in popular fiction. See our essays on Moriarty and on death and resurrection for its long consequences.
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Techniques on display
Argument & fallacy
Untangling claims, premises, and the flaws between them.
In this story: The Strand interview of minds: Moriarty states Holmes's moves back to him — 'you crossed my path on the fourth of January' — a duel conducted entirely in mutual inference.
Tracking & pursuit
Following a trail to its end without losing the scent.
In this story: The flight is anti-tracking as craft: decoy luggage, second-class carriages, and route improvisation — Holmes demonstrates evasion by inverting every technique he uses to follow.
Practise what this story preaches: every technique above links to a tool or game built on the same method. The best way to learn the canon is to reason along with it.