This story is a parallel story to The Adventure of the Final Problem Revisited, and both stories are based upon the same idea.

In the original story of The Final Problem, the great detective and the evil professor meet just the one time, and twice during that one account. Yet the great detective is resurrected years later while the professor is simply forgotten, in all of our joy to get our detective returned to us, once again.

A possibly true account of the story about the death of the professor in the original account. The author left several doors wide open - which can all be understood if one applies a certain element to the story. This professor, who came out of nowhere - and who disappeared just as quickly as he had come - acted very strangely in the presence of the great detective. His very words and his manner of speech all seem to betray a startling fact about him, and his real relationship with the detective. There was an uncomfortable attitude between the two men which went far deeper than just detective and criminal.

Why was this so, and why did not the author expound upon this uncomfortable strangeness?

If you re-read the original story, after considering this one enormous change I make in their actual relationship, even the original tone of their original conversation actually makes sense, now...

This slight spin upon the story could very well have been the absolute truth, and it certainly ties up a great number of loose ends, for which the great writer was so famous for leaving lying about!