The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (TV Series)

The Final Problem (1985)

Eric Porter: Professor Moriarty

Photos 

Quotes 

• Moriarty : If you are clever enough to bring destruction on me, rest assured, I shall do as much for you.

  Sherlock Holmes : You have paid me several compliments, Mr. Moriarty. Let me pay you one in return when I say that if I were assured of the former eventuality, I would, in the interests of the public, cheerfully accept the latter.

  Moriarty : I can promise you the one, but not the other.

• Sherlock Holmes : [voiceover]  I had not been back in Baker Street more than half an hour when...

  Mrs. Hudson : [Holmes places French Legion of Honour medal in his desk drawer as he hears Mrs. Hudson outside his rooms]  But you cannot go up there, sir!

  Moriarty : [Holmes then takes a small pistol from the desk drawer moments before Moriarty bursts in through his door]  You have less frontal development than I should have expected.

  [notices Holmes' hand in his pocket] 

  Moriarty : It is a dangerous habit to finger loaded firearms in the pocket of one's dressing-gown.

  [Holmes slowly removes the small pistol from his pocket, cocks it, and carefully places it on the table in front of him] 

• Moriarty : [Moriarty suddenly thrusts his hand inside his coat, prompting Holmes to reach for his pistol, but Moriarty only pulls out a small notebook to read from it]  You frustrated me in the affair of the French gold.

  Sherlock Holmes : Ah, so it *was* you behind "The Red-Headed League." A very ingenious and well-contrived idea.

  Moriarty : High praise, from you. You crossed my path first on the fourth of January. By the middle of February I was seriously inconvenienced by you and at the end of March I was absolutely hampered in my plans. And now with this last business in France, you have placed me in such a position by your continual persecution that I am in positive danger of losing my liberty. The situation is becoming an impossible one.

  Sherlock Holmes : Have you any suggestion to make?

  Moriarty : You must drop it, Mr. Holmes. You really must, you know.

• Moriarty : I am quite sure that a man of your intelligence will see that there can be but one outcome to this affair. It is necessary that you should withdraw. You have worked things in such a fashion that we have only one resource left. It has been an intellectual treat to me to see the way in which you have grappled with this matter, but I say, unaffectedly, that it would be a grief to me to be forced to take an extreme measure.

  [Holmes smiles slightly] 

  Moriarty : Oh, you smile, sir, but it really would, I do assure you.

  Sherlock Holmes : Danger is part of my trade.

  Moriarty : This is not danger. It is inevitable destruction. You stand in the way not merely of an individual but of a mighty organization, the full extent of which, even you, with all your cleverness, have been unable to realize. You must stand clear, Mr. Holmes, or be trodden under foot.