[ EU ] In your favourite fictional universe , the villain won . It 's one year later .

It has been some time since I have written of the adventures surrounding my friend Sherlock Holmes. In fact, this is the very anniversary of the awful day. 
 
 Two months have passed since the most recent attempt on my life, but I dare not consider that the ordeal has ended. They will come again. This is merely an attempt to wear down my vigilance. 
 
 I still do not know the location of Professor Moriarty. Our small band of allies, as well as the Swiss authorities, using the notes that Holmes left behind ( those of which Mycroft could decipher, being riddles beyond the ken of Gregson or myself ), have accumulated at great cost enough evidence to commence the disruption of Moriarty's organization, though it remains to be seen if we will find prosecutorial authorities who are unsullied by his touch. And we could ensure the conviction of the man himself for Holmes' murder, if we could only find and detain him. 
 
 Lestrade came the closest, following the trail to a comfortable villa on Malta, but an airgun ended his pursuit through the window of his hotel, and the accursed villain who pulled the trigger is unknown to us. 
 
 The circle of those who knew Holmes well and have continued his fight is small and slowly draining. But help arrives from strange quarters. When we least expect it a crucial piece of evidence or material assistance will arrive, from a bicycle repairman in Belgium, from a Maharajah, discreet deliveries of supplies or encouragement from monarchs and heads of state of various nations. 
 
 It is difficult to write of Holmes again now, after the last year of action since the terrible Reichenbach adventure. I scarcely had time to identify the body pulled from the bottom of the falls when Moriarty's villains began their pursuit of me. It was by the narrowest margin that I made it out of Switzerland alive, through assistance arriving at the exact time and manner I would need it, which at the time I thought was miraculous but later realized was due to arrangements made by Holmes before his death, seeing the road ahead as always. Since then I have shuttered my practice, traveled only with trusted associates, living on a not insubstantial sum left by Holmes, which I was previously unaware of when we were sharing the bills for 221B, a place to which I one day hope to return safely, if only to finally pack away our old things. I dare not set foot on that street now. I dare not set foot outside alone at all. We know the faces of many of his local agents by now, but more arrive from time to time, and the blow could come from any quarter. None of us who seek to complete our friend's mission can move about alone, as we are all known and watched. I know poor Mycroft laments that he can not again visit his club, that he can not again know the peace of solitude. And Gregson, with his family sent off to hide in America, how alone he must feel. 
 
 But we are on the verge. Moriarty will fall, his organization will crumble, his towering criminal enterprise will be revealed at long last and at the greatest of costs. We only need allies. 
 
 And so the root of my writing. This letter has come to you as it has come to many of your colleagues in prosecutorial law, those we believe have some inkling of the nature of our struggle and a chance of joining us. I have discussed no specifics of the nature of the evidences we possess, nor shall I unless our ability to trust you is well established, by methods Mycroft will demonstrate. 
 
 Know this: your commitment to the pursuit of justice in this matter will render you utterly unsafe, and your family equally unsafe, and the normal pattern of your life will disappear completely until we have achieved total victory. Your life will be forfeit, and you will never for a moment be out of danger. This is no small favor I ask of you. 
 
 But you may by your heroism bring about the downfall of the single greatest threat to peace in our country, and all of Europe. My previous publications will have revealed the scope of the threat, which many have dismissed as fictitious and absurd. I assure you it is real. 
 
 If you are willing to take these risks in service of justice and the Crown, leave a single blank page with your personal seal at the exact location you found this correspondence. 
 
 Yours in supplication, 
 
 John H. Watson, M.D.
