Sherlock Holmes: A Scandal in Japan

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Two passages from this text have been quoted directly from original Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle: “The Final Problem” and “The Adventure of the Empty House.”

The sky overhead was a piercing blue. The snowdrifts piled on the towering mountain peaks were already half dissolved beneath the May sun. The scene, with the protruding rocks jutting out in shy intervals from the sheer cliff, almost seemed idyllic. But grim reality cast an all-encompassing shadow over the cliffs’ beauty. The snow? Nothing more than crystals of ice accumulated from spray suspended in the atmosphere. Even now a thunderous roar, like a wail of lament, echoed interminably from all corners. The noise came from the swelling falls, below, where the snow that blanketed the hills south of Meiringen journeyed to its most final end.

It was the devil’s own cauldron, imposing and fierce. Over the years the falls had worn away the cliff face, forming a deep chasm below, from which mist rose in a dense fog that encompassed the entire region. Leagues below, the frothing, cresting basin of the falls was visible as no more than a white haze.

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