18531 As far as I know, there have been only three accounts in the public Press: that in the Journal de Genève upon May 6th, 1891, the Reuter's despatch in the English papers upon May 7th, and finally the recent letters to which I have alluded.
18532 Of these the first and second were extremely condensed, while the last is, as I shall now show, an absolute perversion of the facts.
18533 It lies with me to tell for the first time what really took place between Professor Moriarty and Mr Sherlock Holmes.
18534 It may be remembered that after my marriage, and my subsequent start in private practice, the very intimate relations which had existed between Holmes and myself became to some extent modified.
18535 He still came to me from time to time when he desired a companion in his investigations, but these occasions grew more and more seldom, until I find that in the year 1890 there were only three cases of which I retain any record.
18536 During the winter of that year and the early spring of 1891, I saw in the papers that he had been engaged by the French Government upon a matter of supreme importance, and I received two notes from Holmes, dated from Narbonne and from Nîmes, from which I gathered that his stay in France was likely to be a long one.
18537 It was with some surprise, therefore, that I saw him walk into my consulting-room upon the evening of the 24th of April.
18538 It struck me that he was looking even paler and thinner than usual.
18539 'Yes, I have been using myself up rather too freely,' he remarked, in answer to my look rather than to my words; 'I have been a little pressed of late.
18540 Have you any objection to my closing your shutters?'
18541 The only light in the room came from the lamp upon the table at which I had been reading.
18542 Holmes edged his way round the wall, and flinging the shutters together, he bolted them securely.