It was on the third of May that we reached the little village ofMeiringen, where we put up at the Englischer Hof, then kept byPeter Steiler the elder. Our landlord was an intelligent man, andspoke excellent English, having served for three years as waiter atthe Grosvenor Hotel in London. At his advice, on the afternoonof the fourth we set off together, with the intention of crossingthe hills and spending the night at the hamlet of Rosenlaui. Wehad strict injunctions, however, on no account to pass the falls ofReichenbach, which are about halfway up the hill, without makinga small detour to see them.
It is, indeed, a fearful place. The torrent, swollen by the meltingsnow, plunges into a tremendous abyss, from which the spray rollsup like the smoke from a burning house. The shaft into which theriver hurls itself is an immense chasm, lined by glistening coal-blackrock, and narrowing into a creaming, boiling pit of incalculabledepth, which brims over and shoots the stream onward over itsjagged lip. The long sweep of green water roaring forever down, andthe thick flickering curtain of spray hissing forever upward, turn aman giddy with their constant whirl and clamor. We stood near theedge peering down at the gleam of the breaking water far below usagainst the black rocks, and listening to the half-human shout whichcame booming up with the spray out of the abyss.
The path has been cut halfway round the fall to afford a completeview, but it ends abruptly, and the traveler has to return as he came.
846 The Complete Sherlock Holmes
We had turned to do so, when we saw a Swiss lad come runningalong it with a letter in his hand. It bore the mark of the hotelwhich we had just left, and was addressed to me by the landlord. Itappeared that within a very few minutes of our leaving, an Englishlady had arrived who was in the last stage of consumption. She hadwintered at Davos Platz, and was journeying now to join her friendsat Lucerne, when a sudden hemorrhage had overtaken her. It wasthought that she could hardly live a few hours, but it would be agreat consolation to her to see an English doctor, and, if I wouldonly return, etc. The good Steiler assured me in a post that hewould himself look upon my compliance as a very great favor, sincethe lady absolutely refused to see a Swiss physician, and he couldnot but feel that he was incurring a great responsibility.
The appeal was one which could not be ignored. It wasimpossible to refuse the request of a fellow-countrywoman dyingin a strange land. Yet I had my scruples about leaving Holmes. Itwas finally agreed, however, that he should retain the young Swissmessenger with him as guide and companion while I returned toMeiringen. My friend would stay some little time at the fall, hesaid, and would then walk slowly over the hill to Rosenlaui, wherewas to rejoin him in the evening. As I turned away I saw Holmes,with his back against a rock and his arms folded, gazing down atthe rush of the waters. It was the last that I was ever destined tosee of him in this world.
When I was near the bottom of the descent I looked back. Itwas impossible, from that position, to see the fall, but I could seethe curving path which winds over the shoulder of the hill andleads to it. Along this a man was, I remember, walking very rapidly.
I could see his black figure clearly outlined against the greenbehind him. I noted him, and the energy with which he walked buthe passed from my mind again as I hurried on upon my errand.
It may have been a little over an hour before I reachedMeiringen. Old Steiler was standing at the porch of his hotel.
“Well,” said I, as I came hurrying up, “I trust that she is noworse?”
A look of surprise passed over his face, and at the first quiver ofhis eyebrows my heart turned to lead in my breast.
“You did not write this?” I said, pulling the letter from mypocket. “There is no sick Englishwoman in the hotel?”
“Certainly not!” he cried. “But it has the hotel mark upon it. Ha,must have been written by that tall Englishman who came inafter you had gone. He said——”
But I waited for none of the landlord’s explanations. In a tingleof fear I was already running down the village street, and makingfor the path which I had so lately descended. It had taken me anMemoirs of Sherlock Holmes 847
hour to come down. For all my efforts two more had passed beforeI found myself at the fall of Reichenbach once more. There wasHolmes’s Alpine-stock still leaning against the rock by which Ihad left him. But there was no sign of him, and it was in vain thatI shouted. My only answer was my own voice reverberating in arolling echo from the cliffs around me.