DR. WATSON’S SECRET DIARY 

(Dr. Watson’s secret diary was recently discovered. The following is the very last entry found in the diary. It is not difficult to guess that these words were written just a day or two before his death at the hands of his wife, who had shot him in self-defense. The Holmes followers are requested to read the passage and draw their own conclusions.)

Sherlock Holmes. How I hate that name! How that name has begun to haunt me! Even now, when I expressly wanted to write about myself and myself alone, I begin by writing his accursed name first.

So be it. I will pay the devil his dues. I will speak of Holmes.

Sherlock Holmes. The Great Detective. The Mental Giant. The Master of Disguise. The Obnoxious Worm.

Sherlock Holmes, the egoistic bastard who enjoyed crushing cheap criminals under his intellectual feet.

I don’t know if this diary of mine will ever see the light of the day, but if it ever does, I am sure the readers would be shocked to read the lines I have just written. Could this be the good old, dependable, faithful Watson talking about the great detective?

Impossible! Unbelievable!

Rot. You better believe it. And you, dear reader, better be prepared for still more shocks to follow. What do you know about me? What does anyone know about me? The world knows about me only as much as I have deemed fit to reveal to it through my chronicles of Sherlock Holmes. And most of it is lies.

I have played an important role in making Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes. It was I who cultivated him. It was I who acted as a honing instrument for his intellect. It was I who made him famous through my writings. I. I. I.

And to me it was nothing more than an entertaining diversion. I had become bored with life. I felt there were so few intellectual challenges left for me in the world. There was no competition worth mentioning. So I went about creating my own competition. I head of Sherlock Holmes and his crime-solving prowess, his deductive abilities. I sought him out. Among my numerous achievements was a degree of medicine. It was not difficult for me to become what I was not – a bumbling old physician. I took up lodgings with him. I studied him. Subtly, I built him up. I had to, if he was to provide any intellectually challenging entertainment for me.

Then for a few years I engaged him contests of wit.

In spite of all his exceptional qualities, he was no match for me. Not in deductive reasoning. I always knew what he was going to say before he said it. It amused me a lot to see him act high and mighty and assert his intellectual superiority over me and mouth such inanities as “elementary”. It also amused me a lot to see him cultivate airs – the pipe, the violin.

He was no match for me. Not even in disguises. Sherlock Holmes, Master of Disguise? Ha! I am the true master of disguise, I. Could Holmes ever maintain a disguise in front of his enemies at close quarters for years and years? No, but I have. Till today Sherlock Holmes doesn’t know my true identity. He still thinks of me as the doddering old fool, Dr. Watson. A man he can treat any way he likes. A man with whose wife he can commit adultery and get away with it undiscovered.

That is what he thinks.

No. NO.

Time has come to end the charade. In a day or two, I will kill Sherlock Holmes. I will crush him like the bug he is. In a day or two, I will also kill my faithless wife. In a few days I will discard the guise of Dr. Watson. In a few days the world will know that Dr. Watson was none other than the one and only MORIARTY.