"When you like and where you like."
"This is indeed like the old days. We shall have time for a mouthful of dinner before we need go. Well, then, about that chasm. I had no serious difficulty in getting out of it, for the very simple reason that I never was in it."
"You never were in it?"
"No, Watson, I never was in it.
My note to you was absolutely genuine.
I had little doubt that I had come to the end of my career when I perceived the somewhat sinister figure of the late Professor Moriarty standing upon the narrow pathway which led to safety.
I read an inexorable purpose in his grey eyes.
I exchanged some remarks with him, therefore, and obtained his courteous permission to write the short note which you afterwards received.
I left it with my cigarette-box and my stick and I walked along the pathway, Moriarty still at my heels.
When I reached the end I stood at bay.