"Holmes!" I cried."Is it really you? Can it indeed be that you are alive? Is it possible that you succeeded in climbing out of that awful abyss?""Wait a moment," said he."Are you sure that you are really fit to discuss things? I have given you a serious shock by my unnecessarily dramatic reappearance.""I am all right, but indeed, Holmes, I can hardly believe my eyes.Good heavens, to think that you -- you of all men --should be standing in my study!" Again I gripped him by the sleeve and felt the thin, sinewy arm beneath it."Well, you're not a spirit, anyhow," said I."My dear chap, I am overjoyed to see you.Sit down and tell me how you came alive out of that dreadful chasm."He sat opposite to me and lit a cigarette in his old nonchalant manner.He was dressed in the seedy frock-coat of the book merchant, but the rest of that individual lay in a pile of white hair and old books upon the table.Holmes looked even thinner and keener than of old, but there was a dead-white tinge in his aquiline face which told me that his life recently had not been a healthy one.
"I am glad to stretch myself, Watson," said he."It is no joke when a tall man has to take a foot off his stature for several hours on end.Now, my dear fellow, in the matter of these explanations we have, if I may ask for your co-operation, a hard and dangerous night's work in front of us.Perhaps it would be better if I gave you an account of the whole situation when that work is finished.""I am full of curiosity.I should much prefer to hear now.""You'll come with me to-night?"
"When you like and where you like."
"This is indeed like the old days.We shall have time for a mouthful of dinner before we need go.Well, then, about that chasm.I had no serious difficulty in getting out of it, for the very simple reason that I never was in it.""You never were in it?"
"No, Watson, I never was in it.My note to you was absolutely genuine.I had little doubt that I had come to the end of my career when I perceived the somewhat sinister figure of the late Professor Moriarty standing upon the narrow pathway which led to safety.I read an inexorable purpose in his grey eyes.