18602 This was the organization which I deduced, Watson, and which I devoted my whole energy to exposing and breaking up.
18603 'But the Professor was fenced round with safeguards so cunningly devised that, do what I would, it seemed impossible to get evidence which could convict in a court of law.
18604 You know my powers, my dear Watson, and yet at the end of three months I was forced to confess that I had at last met an antagonist who was my intellectual equal.
18605 My horror at his crimes was lost in my admiration at his skill.
18606 But at last he made a trip - only a little, little trip - but it was more than he could afford, when I was so close upon him.
18607 I had my chance, and, starting from that point, I have woven my net round him until now it is all ready to close.
18608 In three days, that is to say on Monday next, matters will be ripe, and the Professor, with all the principal members of his gang, will be in the hands of the police.
18609 Then will come the greatest criminal trial of the century, the clearing up of over forty mysteries, and the rope for all of them - but if we move at all prematurely, you understand, they may slip out of our hands even at the last moment.
18610 'Now, if I could have done this without the knowledge of Professor Moriarty, all would have been well.
18611 But he was too wily for that.
18612 He saw every step which I took to draw my toils round him.
18613 Again and again he strove to break away, but I as often headed him off.
18614 I tell you, my friend, that if a detailed account of that silent contest could be written, it would take its place as the most brilliant bit of thrust-and-parry work in the history of detection.
18615 Never have I risen to such a height, and never have I been so hard pressed by an opponent.