So rapidly does the brain act that I believe I had thought this all out before Professor Moriarty had reached the bottom of the Reichenbach Fall.
"I stood up and examined the rocky wall behind me.In your picturesque account of the matter, which I read with great interest some months later, you assert that the wall was sheer.
This was not literally true.A few small footholds presented themselves, and there was some indication of a ledge.The cliff is so high that to climb it all was an obvious impossibility, and it was equally impossible to make my way along the wet path without leaving some tracks.I might, it is true, have reversed my boots, as I have done on similar occasions, but the sight of three sets of tracks in one direction would certainly have suggested a deception.On the whole, then, it was best that Ishould risk the climb.It was not a pleasant business, Watson.
The fall roared beneath me.I am not a fanciful person, but I give you my word that I seemed to hear Moriarty's voice screaming at me out of the abyss.A mistake would have been fatal.
More than once, as tufts of grass came out in my hand or my foot slipped in the wet notches of the rock, I thought that I was gone.
But I struggled upwards, and at last I reached a ledge several feet deep and covered with soft green moss, where I could lie unseen in the most perfect comfort.There I was stretched when you, my dear Watson, and all your following were investigating in the most sympathetic and inefficient manner the circumstances of my death.
"At last, when you had all formed your inevitable and totally erroneous conclusions, you departed for the hotel and I was left alone.I had imagined that I had reached the end of my adventures, but a very unexpected occurrence showed me that there were surprises still in store for me.A huge rock, falling from above, boomed past me, struck the path, and bounded over into the chasm.