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"See anything when the door opened?"
"You bet. Woundy-beg pardon sir-scary."
"You're sure, Victor?"
"Blood honour, sir."
"That's good enough for me."
I looked from one to the other. "Well?"
Holmes raised an eyebrow.
"He saw Death, Watson. Isn't that right? The thing that came to Mr Mostyn's garden?"
The youth nodded solemnly.
Holmes wasted no time. After swift directions from the boy, amply rewarded, we hailed a cab to the hidden, curious quarter he had indicated. In the neighbourhood, my friend enlisted another ragamuffin helper, a blind match-seller. A sovereign and a swift rehearsal of her role ensued. God knows she was battered enough looking, but she made her condition look even more distressing and knocked weakly and repeatedly at the door, imploring help. At the first the face behind the shutter ushered her away, but she swayed and cried and pleaded. The figure within went away a while, and then the door opened very slowly. We then abandoned all subtlety and flung ourselves at the crack. The child ran off, there was a harsh shout and a scurrying, and we burst in.
We were confronted by-a thing at bay. In one corner of the bare, meanly furnished room, there stood glowering at us a figure wrapped around in cloaks from which emerged a hairless, shrunken, bony head, where such meagre flesh as there was had a vile, livid hue.
"I do not know who or what you are," Sherlock Holmes said, "but your business is at an end. I have evidence that will co
The creature's eyes were filled with hatred, and cast wildly about for escape. Then they seemed to dim, and the skull sank down, before it looked up at us again.
"You have no evidence that would convince a court. Yet perhaps it is time to let things rest. And I believe you will not speak so harshly when you have heard my story."
I gasped, and I could sense that even the icy Holmes was taken aback. For the voice was that of a gentlewoman, clear and well-modulated. She beckoned us to two rough chairs. We made introductions and looked at her enquiringly.
"My name is of no consequence. I was born in the colony of Guiana, where my mother succumbed young to the foul waters. My father and a native nursemaid looked after me in my infancy, but he was taken too by some disease of the unhealthy conditions there. We had no close kin, but there was a distant cousin who had been once in the colony and had come to know my father before returning to England. I found that I-and my father's wealth-were entrusted to this person, and I was shipped to a land I had never known as home. The next part of my story will hardly surprise you. This cousin and guardian, so called, claimed my father's business affairs were in disorder and it was all he could do to settle his debts, penurying himself in the process. I must be put to work. I was sent to the Lyphant & Bray match factory, and housed nearby in squalid lodgings. From then onwards-I was twelve, mark you-my life was one of unremitting drudgery and callousness, in the most terrible conditions. I saw my guardian infrequently and then, I am sure, he came only to ensure I was secure. The fact that I had been educated and prepared for a gentler place made matters worse. The taskmaster-Walvis-took a hatred of me. I believe he was in league with my guardian, for I saw them confer together when he came. My natural rebelliousness against the conditions meant this creature was able to taunt, scold, fine and beat me. There was not the slightest opportunity I might escape-I was kept under close watch and had no money anyway."
"It is pitiable, Madam," I conceded.
"It is the life of many of your fellow creatures. It would be mine still, had I not taken the one opportunity that came my way. You will recall of course the great match-girls' protest some five or six years ago? I am proud to confess I was one of the agitators. After much hardship, the proprietors permitted a tour of inspection of the factory by some eminent sympathisers-it was all well-managed, of course. But some of the more astute of them realised this, and deliberately looked for an opportunity to become detached from the party and learn the untutored truth. I told my story hurriedly to Mr Shardlow, the Radical, and he was much affected and promised to see me have justice. I know now that he confronted my guardian and wrung from him some settlement on my behalf-Mr Shardlow is a lawyer and a strong orator, of course. Since this release, I have done what I can for those left behind. The terrible yellow phosphorous that Lyphant & Bray use must be abolished: there are safer alternatives. That was my campaign. But it will be too late for me."
"You have phossy-jaw, Madam? It is a bad business."
"Exactly, Dr. Watson. You may see the symptoms."
I turned to Holmes. "It affects those over-exposed to the noxious chemicals used in the match trade. It brings a green pallor, a sinking of the cheek bones, complete loss of hair, a shrinking of the flesh. It is incurable. But forgive me, madam-yours is an exceptionally severe case. "
"It is well advanced, Doctor. But also, since I ca
She hesitated.
"Mostyn," supplied Holmes.
"Yes, I see you know everything. Mostyn was already full of fear from the little message I sent him."
"The spent matches," I put in.
"Yes, Doctor. You were my accomplice in those, of course."
"I-why, I… "
"I read with great relish your account of the Five Orange Pips sent as a sinister warning. And so has half London, I should think. It gave me an idea."
"So I see," remarked Holmes, drily.
"Mostyn was an implacable opponent of the match reforms, and as a chief investor in Lyphant & Bray, was an obstacle to my plans. I had to chase him away. My guardian, I reasoned, would have heard of the strange death of his accomplice, the overseer Walvis. He will not be quite sure if it were the accident it seemed. He will hardly miss the significance of a packet of dead matches delivered to him. And a man less vilely cu
There was a silence.
"And now, gentlemen, what do you intend? You hardly have any case, you know. And it is all one to me. I ca
Sherlock Holmes stared piercingly at her.
"There must be no more apparitions."
"There will be none."
"Then this matter is concluded. I am my own law, and you are not, as I judge, in default of it."
That the case had shaken Holmes I could tell from the brooding silence he observed on our way back to Baker Street in a cab. But once in our rooms again, and after he had played over Swettenham's sweetly melancholy violin sonata, he became somewhat restored.
"I shall be able to use this case in due course as an exemplar for my monograph on lucifers, matches, and spills," he observed. "Here are the ones left on the dead men and sent in the envelope-all Lyphant & Bray-see the squared-off stalks and yellow residue at the head. Here are three that Reynolds cast in the waste basket after having several secret cigarettes-they are identical to the one he left here after smoking one of my Macedonians. They are from the Phoebus Match Co, a rounded stem and a more friable head. They led Mostyn to think he had ten days before Nemesis would strike: in fact, he had only a week.