Holmes: The Final Problem

/ Alex Good

In “The Greek Interpreter” Doyle shook things up a bit by introducing Sherlock’s brother Mycroft. In “The Final Problem” (published only a few month later) Mycroft has a cameo as a cab driver but of more importance is the introduction of Professor James Moriarty.

These two characters would go on to have a huge importance in later Holmes mythology, but I find it interesting that Doyle himself didn’t make much out of either. They are only referred to in a handful of stories in the canon, and usually don’t have any significant role to play.

In “The Final Problem,” however, Moriarty does have a critical function, which was to kill off Holmes and thus free Doyle to write what he thought were more important literary works. As we know, that didn’t take, but it does show a real spirit of idealism given how much money writing Holmes stories was bringing in.

It’s a different sort of Holmes story in that there’s no mystery to be solved but just a game of cat and mouse between Holmes and Moriarty that ends with the two of them plunging, presumably to their deaths, from the Reichenbach Falls.

That dramatic plunge is one of the iconic moments in all of fiction, so much so that I think all of us can picture it in our memories. We might also be thinking of any of the many illustrations of the scene, beginning with different versions in both the original British and American publications. Re-reading the story for the first time in a long while I was actually surprised to find that Watson didn’t witness the event at all. He’s been sidelined and only returns to the Falls after the fact to find some footprints in the blackish soil and an awkward note from Holmes explaining what was about to happen. After that, we’re told that an “examination by experts leaves little doubt that a personal contest between the two men ended, as it could hardly fail to end in such a situation, in their reeling over, locked in each other’s arms.”

That must have been quite an expert examination! What did they base their conclusions on, especially given that neither of the bodies was ever recovered? The only evidence for what occurred were the footprints and the note, which don’t paint a very full picture.

So as it turns out, one of the most iconic moments in all of fiction is one that’s wholly imagined. Unless you’re reading an illustrated version there’s nothing of it on the page. And Doyle could have easily arranged things so Watson sees the fatal plunge from a distance. Was he leaving himself an out? Or just playing a game? Even though this isn’t one of my favourite Holmes stories it remains one of the most intriguing.

Holmes index

21 thoughts on “Holmes: The Final Problem”

  1. What is amusing, to me, is that not is Holmes still his most popular, but it is the one series that had staying power to this day. Anything else Doyle wrote has been forgotten (for the most part) and people only find out about them once they’re done Sherlock and want to see what else Doyle might have written.

    I’d dig up Doyle’s corpse and laugh in his moldering face, but 1) I don’t know where his grave is and 2) it sounds like a lot of work.

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