The Final Problem: a Sherlock Holmes short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

If the title were not enough, Dr. Watson, opens the narrative of “The Final Problem” with shocking words:

It is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen to write these the last words in which I shall ever record the singular gifts by which my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes was distinguished.

 

"The Final Problem” is the twelfth and final short story in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes collection. According to The Annotated Sherlock Holmes¹, it was Holmes’ 31st case chronologically. And indeed, as Conan Doyle had Holmes fictitious chronicler, Dr. Watson, write, it was to be the final adventure of Sherlock Holmes.

 

My apologies for the implied spoiler. It is hardly a secret. After all, Sherlock Holmes himself warned that…

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.²

 

I can only imagine the dismay, or perhaps fury, in Jolly Ole England when “The Final Problem” was published in 1893.

 

“The Final Problem” makes the first explicit mention of Dr. James Moriarty, Holmes’ eventual
arch-enemy. However, the Sherlock Holmes novel, The Valley of Fear, published later, but chronologically occurring before “The Final Problem” alludes to Holmes’ suspicion of a criminal mastermind still on the loose.

 

In this adventure, Holmes’ arrives at Watson’s home visibly perturbed and slightly injured. Holmes relates his long-held suspicion.

As you are aware, Watson, there is no one who knows the higher criminal world of London so well as I do. For years past I have continually been conscious of some power behind the malefactor, some deep organizing power which forever stands in the way of the law, and throws its shield over the wrong-doer. Again and again in cases of the most varying sorts—forgery cases, robberies, murders—I have felt the presence of this force, and I have deduced its action in many of those undiscovered crimes in which I have not been personally consulted. For years I have endeavoured to break through the veil which shrouded it, and at last the time came when I seized my thread and followed it, until it led me, after a thousand cunning windings to ex-Professor Moriarty of mathematical celebrity.

 

Holmes further relates that he has set a perfect trap for the villain and it only awaits critical timing. The challenge for Holmes at the moment is to stay alive. Moriarty knows Holmes is on his trail and is bent on killing him.

 

This isn’t the most fascinating, nor exciting Sherlock Holmes adventure. Watson, and the reader, just have to trust Holmes both for the case and the trap that he has set for the villain.

 

And the climax, well—no one sees it. But the evidence is certain. Holmes has foiled Moriarty, who will no longer plague humanity, any more than Holmes will protect it.

 

¹ The Annotated Sherlock Holmes attempts to put all of Sherlock Holmes’ cases into their proper, fictional, chronological order.

² The Boscombe Valley Adventure