Aleksandr Mazo

Reichenbach Falls, Meiringen, Switzerland. In Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Final Problem”, Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty confront each other beside these falls on 4 May 1891. I came here while finishing Moriarty: The Napoleon of Crime. These are photographs from that research trip.

One of my favorite finds at the Sherlock Holmes Museum in London: Vasily Livanov and Vitaly Solomin, the Soviet Holmes and Watson. They were friends for 23 years. Livanov said friendship can’t be acted. Perhaps that’s why theirs feels so real. Who is your favorite Holmes and Watson? #SherlockHolmes

The trail panel in Meiringen (photo 1) takes Holmes and Watson from the Channel steamer straight to Geneva. Watson does not: “We made our way to Brussels that night and spent two days there.” I've stood in four places on Watson's route: London, Brussels, Interlaken and Meiringen. #SherlockHolmes

The white star at Reichenbach marks the spot traditionally identified by Sherlockians with Holmes and Moriarty’s struggle. Doyle never named a precise spot. By 1951 Anthony D. Howlett was exhibiting a photograph of “the actual spot”. How did he work out where it was? #SherlockHolmes

Meiringen, 3 May 1891. Holmes and Watson put up at the Englischer Hof, “then kept by Peter Steiler the elder.” The next day, a false note bearing the hotel’s mark called Watson back from the Falls, leaving Holmes to face Moriarty alone. I had to see the place for myself.

This month I was promoted to black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. In "The Empty House", Holmes says he survived Reichenbach thanks to "baritsu, or the Japanese system of wrestling." Every grip and throw in the Moriarty books was written by someone who trains. With Shihan Gene Dunn.