In your picturesque account of the matter, which I read with great interest some months later, you assert that the wall was sheer.
This was not literally true.
A few small footholds presented themselves, and there was some indication of a ledge.
The cliff is so high that to climb it all was an obvious impossibility, and it was equally impossible to make my way along the wet path without leaving some tracks.
I might, it is true, have reversed my boots, as I have done on similar occasions, but the sight of three sets of tracks in one direction would certainly have suggested a deception.
On the whole, then, it was best that I should risk the climb.
It was not a pleasant business, Watson.
The fall roared beneath me.
I am not a fanciful person, but I give you my word that I seemed to hear Moriarty's voice screaming at me out of the abyss.
A mistake would have been fatal.