The Singular Adventure of the Extinguished Wicks

by Will Murray

Among the myriad items at the bottom of my little tin dispatch box, to which I have referred so frequently, lies an oilskin packet containing the accounts of cases of Mr. Sherlock Holmes which, for various reasons, my esteemed friend has preferred to keep out of the public eye.

The reasons are many. Most have to do with strict confidences and the respect for privacy of notable persons, or like delicate matters. A few refer to individuals who, whilst they may have transgressed early in life, had redeemed themselves in later years.

There is one that I never believed Holmes would give me leave to write up for the edification of the general public. I do not mean to say that this was a case that was not brought to a successful conclusion. For it was.

Solving crimes is not the only kind of matter to which my friend’s keen brain bent its energies, as I will relate.

I fear that the chief reason Sherlock Holmes has acquiesced to this revelation has more to do with his increasing age and the prospect of the nearing conclusion of an illustrious life.

Although I am glad to report on the matter now at hand, I am forced to conclude that Holmes is allowing me to offer it up, as it were, because he has concluded that a final resolution of the overarching problem is not within his power. At least, not insofar as his allotted span of life can be projected.

The matter opened, as nearly as I can recall, in the year 1881. It was the month of May. Of that, I am certain. I had not been living with Holmes for very long, and his recondite ways were still unfamiliar to me.

Returning home one evening, I was nearly knocked off my feet as I attempted to enter the door at 221b Baker Street. Sherlock Holmes abruptly flung the panel open and charged out.

“My dear Holmes!” I exclaimed. “Wherever are you bound in such an infernal hurry?”

“A woman has been found burnt to death in a most uncanny way,” he replied urgently. “I would like to see her rooms before the corpse is carted off.”

“What - Do you suspect murder?”

“Murder,” replied Holmes cryptically, “is a commonplace compared to what had transpired. I am keen to see what remains. You may accompany me if you wish, Watson. Hallo! I spy a cab. Well, come along, if you are coming along.”

Following him at great speed, I climbed into the hansom cab whilst Holmes gave an address in a neighborhood I did not hold in very high esteem.

“How did you hear of this?” I inquired.

“A fellow of my acquaintance in the fire brigade informed me. I have been awaiting such a case for several years. As you know, Watson, I make it my business to converse with tradesman of various types. A fire officer is, in his unique way, a tradesman. Much can be learned by conferring with people who do interesting work.”

As the cab reeled around corner after corner, I asked, “Why would the prospect of so horrible a demise interest you?”

Holmes continued as if he had not heard the question, yet managed to answer it nevertheless.

“During the course of my conversation with the fellow, I was astonished to learn that such cases happen two and three times a year, but the fire officials go out of their way to cover them up with commonplace explanations.”

“Death by fire is a distressing consequence of dwelling in these modern times in the metropolis the size of London,” I offered.

“I am not referring to the consequences of failing to extinguish a candle, or of falling asleep whilst smoking a pipe or cigar,” Holmes continued. “This type of mystery is much more impenetrable. Rarely do the facts get into the newspapers. And when they do, they are papered over with generalities and ambiguities.”

“I confess that I cannot imagine what you are discoursing on, Holmes,” I frankly admitted.

“You should see it with your own eyes,” said my friend. “As will I. As a medical man, as well as a veteran of the British campaign in Afghanistan, you are no doubt inured to the horrible things that can befall a human being in the last ditch. But I must warn you: If I understand the situation correctly, we are about to witness the uncanny.”

I cried out, “My dear fellow, you have piqued my interest! And rest assured, you need not fear for my nerve, or for that matter for my stomach.”

A curl of a smile warped Holmes’s austere profile.

“Consider this a test, Watson. For if you intend to accompany me on future excursions, you will need iron nerve and a stomach of steel.”

His words evoked in me a nerve-chill I can still feel all these decades later. If I believed in supernatural presentiments, I would have regarded it then as a subconscious inkling of what I was about to experience.

Presently, the cab dropped us before a rather slatternly rooming house in congested Southwark, which only a few decades before, mature readers will recall, had been the site of the Great Fire of Tooley Street. The bitter odor of burnt timbers could yet be recognized on rainy days.

Brigadiers of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade stood about an idle scarlet parish steam engine, signifying that the blaze had been quenched. As we stepped to the ground, the grey-uniformed official in charge acknowledged Holmes with a rather grim wave.

“Hello!” Holmes responded, striding up to the man in his brisk, nervous way.

“It’s a sad case, Mr. Holmes. A very sad case.” He shook his helmeted head with a grave ponderousness.

“Has the body yet been removed, Mr. Clavering?”

“What remains awaits your pleasure. I would apply a handkerchief to my nostrils, were I you. Now come along.”

Calling over my shoulder, Holmes said, “Watson!” I needed no more encouragement. I drew out a handkerchief as well, and applied its thick folds to my nose and mouth.

The room was on the second floor. No sooner had we ascended to the landing than I became aware of a faintly bluish haze in the air. A sweetish smell accompanied it. I did not care for the odor, despite its sweetness.

“Brace yourselves,” said Clavering. Then he threw open the door. We entered.

We found ourselves in a parlor. It was neat and tidy. Possibly it could be called fastidious. It was clearly the apartment of a woman of conservative taste, if its appointments were any guide.

A maple rocking chair stood by one window. It bore scorch marks, and the unburnt wood showed an unusually thick coating of soot. As I looked around, I noticed the wallpaper was greyish with some oily deposit. A yellowish liquid clung to the solitary window. I recognized the color as similar to that of human fat, with which I was had been acquainted since my first dissection of a cadaver in medical school.

In my searching, I missed entirely the shoe that lay upon the hardwood floor. Or should I say the human foot, which was shod. It was only the one foot.

Giving forth a strange murmur of excitement, Sherlock Holmes went to it, knelt, and examined the member carefully, all without touching the grisly relic.

“This is all that remains of the poor woman?” he asked.

“There are fingers as well,” Clavering added. He indicated three human digits from which the phalanges protruded. They made a loose pile on the floor, like gruesome kindling. One bore a ring of gold, set with a garnet. The scorched metal was deformed by the intense heat.

I examined them all. “Remarkable!” I exploded. “The finger bones appear to be calcined.”

Holmes nodded shortly. “Exactly as was the case in previous occurrences of this sort.”

“Of what sort?” I demanded curiously.

“The phenomenon of inexplicable human combustion. What you see on the floor here, Dr. Watson, is all that remains of the woman in question, Kathleen Wick.”

“Unfortunate name,” grumbled the fire officer through his handkerchief.

“What is this pile of ash in the chair?” I asked.

“The greater portion of Miss Wick,” advised Holmes. “She was incinerated as she sat rocking.”

Turning abruptly, Holmes swept about the room. He applied a finger to the wallpaper and the fingertip came away greasy and grey.

“She lived alone?”

Clavering nodded. “So I understand from the landlord. Would you like to speak with him?”

“Presently,” said Holmes distractedly. I was astounded by the diffidence with which the fire official treated my friend. He was early in his long career in those days, but apparently had made a great impression upon certain persons in greater London.

A bottle of gin, three-quarters full, rested upon a taboret. A short glass stood beside it, its contents dirty and discolored.

“I am not surprised,” murmured Holmes. “Spiritist liquor is typically found in such cases.”

At that point, my mouth and nose protected by my handkerchief, and struggling with a compulsion to gag, I drew up to the rocking chair and studied the ashes. They lay moist and greasy upon the maple back and arms. Additional ash residue had formed a film on certain horizontal surfaces about the room, not quite so thickly as coated the rocker.

There was a fireplace, but it was cold, as this was not the season for keeping a fire.

As I studied the heap of ashes, I could not keep the incredulity out of my voice when I exclaimed, “My dear Holmes, the heat required to reduce a human body to mere ash can only be created in a proper crematorium. Even so, after the bones are incinerated, they must be pummeled with heavy tools in order to reduce them to an ashy state.”

“I am well acquainted with mortuary practices,” murmured Holmes. He was going about the room, looking at this item and that thing, taking in every detail with his piercing grey eyes. I knew him well enough in those days to understand that he was mentally cataloging every iota of datum, every detail, whether in place or out of place. Little, I was sure, would escape his notice. But what to make of it all? That was the question.

“If this woman died in this rocking chair, why is the wood not also incinerated?” I demanded.

“Why was the bed in which the late Mrs. Vanderlip was found burnt alive also untouched?” Holmes turned to the fire officer and asked, “Are you acquainted with that case?”

“I presided over the investigation,” the man returned. “The poor woman was found in bed, reduced to a collection of disassociated arms and legs. There were some portions of her skull and jaw that survived, although they broke apart up on handling. Other than that, nothing but ashes, greasy fetid ashes.”

“Yet the bed clothing, and her covering quilt, survived.”

Claverling grunted, “The quilt was scorched, but the linen beneath the body bore only a blackening caused by close contact with the greasy ash remains.”

Stupefied, I interjected, “Had she had not time to fling off her quilt and endeavor to escape the flames that consumed her?”

“That was not the conclusion I came to,” admitted the fire official with evident reluctance.

“Impossible!” I blurted out.

“I would be inclined to agree with you, Watson,” said Holmes flatly. “Except the literature is full of similar cases, going back many years. I consider myself to be fortunate to have been granted access to the death scene whilst it is still fresh.”

I looked up from the ashes. “Do you propose to solve this enigma, Holmes?”

“I propose to investigate it thoroughly. Whether I solve it or not remains to be seen, for it most baffling. The circumstances seem to defy reason. Even if one could admit to the possibility that a human being could spontaneously burst into such ferocious fire that almost nothing remains, how to account for the surroundings remaining relatively untouched?”

“If I did not stand here as witness to the aftermath,” I said somberly, “I would dismiss it as a figment of a drunken journalist’s imagination. Poe could not have conjured up such a nightmarish scenario.”

“May I,” inquired Holmes of the fire official, “appropriate a sample of ash for scientific study?”

Claverling hesitated. “It is highly irregular, Mr. Holmes. But since you would like to speak to the landlord, I will go and fetch him now. What you do in the interim is your lookout.” He gave the pile of ashes a regretful glance. “I daresay the poor woman will not miss any part of her mortal remains, such as they are.”

“Thank you,” said Holmes.

The fellow departed and Holmes removed from a pocket a stoppered vial. He employed it to scoop up some of the greasy matter that remained upon the scorched seat of the rocking chair. He availed himself of a liberal portion, then stoppered the receptacle, quickly pocketing it.

When the fire official returned, he poked his head in, saying, “Mr. Merridew prefers not to enter this room. Would you kindly step out to greet him?”

With a last wondering look at the flat, Sherlock Holmes exited, and I at his heels. I was glad to leave the death chamber. It was the most grisly charnel house I have ever imagined. Just being in it made me fear for my safety.

Merridew the landlord met us outside. He was a nervous chap, pale and quivering, and bathed in the perspiration of his agitation.

The fire official made formal introductions.

“This is Mr. Sherlock Holmes. He is a detective, but not officially with Scotland Yard. He would like to ask you several questions.”

Merridew became flushed of face, and perspiration made his features shine oilily.

“I smelt that sickly sweetish order and I at once began going about the building, knocking on doors, endeavoring to locate the source of it. We have eight apartments let in this building, Mr. Holmes. As you can well imagine, a fire would be disastrous.”

“An ordinary fire would, of course,” said Holmes. “But this was no ordinary fire. I imagine you realize that by now.”

Merridew patted his moist forehead with a sopping handkerchief. “I do not know how to take this event. It is beyond my ken. I forced the door when I realized the odor was coming from the room of poor Miss Wick. I was driven back by the smell, but then steeled myself. There was a candle burning. But nothing otherwise. I saw that ashy pile upon the chair but did not understand its significance until I came upon the shoe containing a dismembered foot. The surviving fingers I missed until I was told about them later. How this could have happened, I cannot conceive. Nor the why. What on God’s green earth could have brought that woman to such destruction, yet spared the building?”

Sherlock Holmes studied the man and said, “These are the questions of the hour. As for answers, I do not have them, nor do I imagine they will be easy to come by. Tell me, how long was Miss Wick a resident here?”

“Five, almost six years. She was a widow. She had a younger sister who visited frequently, but very few friends. He spent a great deal of her time alone.”

“Very well. Tell me of her drinking habits.”

“I am not intimately acquainted with them. But I have noticed empty bottles of gin in her rubbish. I did not consider their number excessive, although they appeared with predictable regularity.”

“Now, did you ever know Kathleen Wick to be drunk or disorderly?”

“Never!” the man said firmly. “She was a model tenant. Paid on time. Troubled no one. Was friendly enough, but kept to herself a great deal of the time. Her sister is a lovely woman, and I’m sure she will be heartbroken about the news.”

“No doubt, no doubt,” mused Holmes. “I noticed the ring on one of the surviving fingers. A garnet. Were you familiar with it?”

“Yes, I knew the ring well. She wore it from the first day until her very last hour.”

“So you were certain that the remains, such as they are, belong to Miss Wick?” prodded Holmes.

The poor fellow nodded vigorously. “What damnable and ironic fate would so snuff out a healthy woman bearing such a name?” he raged. “It is enough to make one wonder about demons and the like. It smacks of some damned grisly jest.”

“I would tend to agree with you, Mr. Merridew,” said Holmes. “And if there was a jest, there is there must be a jester. Would you not agree?”

The distracted man tore at his hair and cried out, “If such a mad jester stalks London, what manner of monster could he be?”

“If it will ease your mind,” said Holmes reasonably, “the fate of Miss Wick is not unique, even if it is extraordinary. But I feel confident in asserting that, once the remains are removed from this dwelling, and it is properly scoured of unpleasant residue, your present troubles will be entirely behind you.”

Merridew took comfort in Holmes’s reassuring words. “Oh thank you, oh thank you. This has been the most distressing and disagreeable day of my entire existence.”

Returning to the fire official, Sherlock Holmes said, “I will take my leave now. I would like to express my gratitude for the opportunity to examine the scene of this inexplicable occurrence.”

Claverling nodded deferentially. “Should your inquiry produce any illumining facts, Mr. Holmes, the superintendent would be gratified to hear them in full. Good day to you.”

I was relieved to be departing the neighborhood, which we did on foot until coming across an idle hansom cab. We secured it.

“What do you think, Watson?” Holmes asked as we made our way back to Baker Street.

“I am staggered, Holmes. This is beyond my understanding. All of it. Have you any thoughts? Any inklings of what could have transpired in that chamber of hellish horrors?”

“I will offer this, Watson. There is a pattern to these occurrences. And what I observed today only confirms that pattern. Previous examples of spontaneous destruction of living persons by fire are alike in certain particulars. The victim is older, sedentary, often burdened with adipose tissue, and inclined towards consumption of spirits.”

“Do you suspect that the regular consumption of alcohol lies at the heart of this enigma?”

“Only as a preliminary line of investigation. I rather doubt John Barleycorn will accept the full weight of responsibility. But it is a point from which to begin serious inquiry.” He turned to me and asked, “Tell me, Watson, do you still have friends at the London Hospital Medical College?”

“Many,” I replied. “Why?”

“I imagine I will need a human cadaver or two upon which to experiment,” he returned dryly. “I wonder if you would be so kind as to make for me certain introductions toward that aim?”

I was so staggered by the casual request that I was unable to summon up an answer for some minutes.

“Well, it is highly irregular, Holmes. But I will endeavor to aid you to that end. What do you propose to do with these cadavers?”

“Why, I propose to burn them in various ways. Is that not self-evident?”

“Be good enough to do so outside of the confines of our shared quarters,” I requested sincerely.

“That’s a good fellow, Watson. It would not be fitting to have to dig up my own specimens, as it were.”

The coachman was pulling up before 221b Baker Street when these words were uttered.

I distinctly recall staring at Holmes’s enigmatic profile, aghast. I did not ask the question forming in my brain. Namely, if it came to it, would Sherlock Holmes resort to the dishonorable practice of grave robbing to achieve his scientific objectives? I could not convince myself that the detestable practice was beyond his imagination.

Over the next few weeks, Holmes experimented on the ashes of Miss Wick, and acquired a cadaver which he selected from several sad specimens known to have had a history of excessive consumption of alcohol.

I readily admit that I did not inquire often as to his progress. But his experiments occurred under the watchful eyes of certain medical authorities. I understand that he burned portions of the deceased using various chemical agents and accelerants - all to no avail.

I learned of this late one evening when I found him smoking his black clay pipe furiously. It was a sign that he was vexed.

“No progress, Holmes?” I inquired.

“None to speak of,” he returned gruffly. “No matter how I try, I cannot duplicate the circumstances that brought Miss Wick to her fiery doom.”

“You are not giving up?”

“Not giving up, no,” he said somberly. “But when no progress is made, the mental machinery begins to clutch up and overheat. I may turn my attention to other problems and come back to this odious matter on a later occasion.”

“What if, as you say, the spontaneous incinerations are a recurring event? Perhaps another will happen along to aid you in your inquiry.”

Rather testily, Holmes dismissed the idea. “What I observed has been observed before. I think it unlikely another such death will add to the inventory of knowledge. But if such a case comes along, of course I will fling myself upon it. I merely doubt that another specimen will permit me to penetrate to the heart of the matter. The facts as they stand are both incontrovertible yet unsupportable by known science.”

“You admit to the possibility of supernatural explanation?”

His reply was biting. “I admit no such thing. But I am forced to go outside of the normal channels of scientific thought. At the heart of this lies two mysteries: What would cause a human body to combust without outward sources of ignition, and how did the surroundings escape the fiery fate of the unfortunate victim?”

“It is devilishly baffling,” I allowed. “But I agree that a respite is required. One cannot contend with the inexplicable for long, especially if progress is not being made. A change of mental scenery might allow you to look at the problem from a fresh perspective.”

Yet even as I spoke those words, the expression on Sherlock Holmes’s countenance suggested a dog chewing at the bone stronger than his teeth. I recognized that he was not ready to let go of this particular bone.

“Facts are stubborn, Watson. Very stubborn. Normally they are the building blocks for theory, the rungs of the logical ladder I must climb in order to achieve a solution. In this case, the facts fight one another like oil and water in solution. They refuse to combine. They will not cohere. Yet they cannot be separated, once mixed. If I could but uncover fresh facts to add to the potion, perhaps I could induce a reaction that would make all clear and simple. I fear that it is impossible in this case.”

Holmes puffed away furiously, his expression a complicated knot of flesh and sinew.

“Had this occurrence been unique,” he went on disconsolately, “I might have a better time of it. Perhaps I could drag in a culprit. Or possibly affix a motive. But Miss Wick was not the first victim of this phenomenon. Nor will she be the last, I imagine. The repeating pattern is what vexes me most. It can only mean that this is an old problem, possibly even an ancient one. I cannot look to the novelty of modern life for a solution. This may be a natural condition of the human body, and not anything external to it. But no substance can I find that will incinerate human flesh, reducing it to ash, yet not affect the surroundings appreciably.”

“Alcohol is not the culprit, I gather.”

“Dash it all!” snapped Holmes. “Alcohol is the most prominent feature in these damnable cases, yet I have immersed human muscle, bone, and every imaginable organ in it, but all organic matter refuses to burn in any meaningful way.”

I felt for my friend. He was truly at a loss. His ways where those of logic and science, data and facts, and observations and inductions. None of these tools were helping him now. His natural skepticism, as sharply as it had been honed, had encountered a brick wall that could not be pierced by its probing keenness.

In an effort to be helpful, I said, “I imagine you have ruled out lightning.”

“I can rule nothing out!” he said sharply. “Nothing! The fact that there were is no electrical disturbance on the night Miss Wick perished inclined me to rule it out. But alas, I dare not. It is abundantly clear that the victims in all cases I have reports on ignited suddenly and died at once. They did not have time to flee, only to combust and disintegrate. If I could ascribe such a feat to a bolt of lightning, I would happily do so. Regrettably, the literature provided me with no thunderstorms, no bolts from the blue, as it were. But if I could not admit lightning to my theories, neither can I exclude an electrical origin. Strive as I might, Watson, I cannot eliminate the impossible. I am at a loss. A dead loss.”

So there of the matter stood for many months. Sherlock Holmes moved on to other cases, earned notable successes, and so his reputation grew.

Less than a year had elapsed when word was received of the second such horrible occurrence.

I half expected it, but not so swiftly. According to Holmes, these things happened at random intervals. There was no predicting when the next charred corpse would manifest.

Holmes came by where I was serving as a locum late one afternoon in a highly excitable state.

“Watson! Come quick if you have no patients. If you do, send them home. Another incinerated person has been discovered!”

“Where this time?” I asked, reaching for my coat and hat.

“In the very same room where Miss Wick perished!” Holmes said excitedly, all but dragging me out into open air.

“My word! Who is the victim this time?”

“Elizabeth Wick, the sister. She moved into the rooms shortly after they were made available. Apparently, she took some spiritual solace in doing so. Unfortunately, it led to her doom.”

A cab was waiting and Holmes bundled me into it. His energy was astounding. I have known him to go through weeks of lethargy, and periods of high activity. Now he was a veritable dynamo.

The horses dashed through town and we came up before the dismal rooming house which looked outwardly as it had before.

Claverling the fire officer was there. He greeted Holmes somberly.

“I knew you would come, Mr. Holmes.”

“And so I am here. I see Mr. Merridew is at hand.”

“The poor beggar is shaken to his core. He is beside himself. Inconsolable. A second tragedy, and his thoughts are running wild.”

“I will leave him to regather his wits. First I must see the room where the event transpired.”

“It was by the fireplace this time,” said Claverling. “Come, I will show it to you.”

As we mounted the stairs, I noted a grayish haze, so different then the bluish one from before. As we approached the shut apartment door, the smell in the close air also differed from the previous incident.

For the place was redolent with the stench of burnt flesh. It was a very different, yet an equally disagreeable smell. Previously, I had considered the atmosphere to smell like cooked fat.

Of course, a burnt human being might emanate either or both odors. But I thought it so noteworthy that I called this to Sherlock Holmes his attention.

“Do you notice the odor?”

“Yes. It is very similar to that of roast pig. I am told the Polynesian cannibals who indulge in the consumption of their fellow human beings liken the taste of human flesh to that roast pork.”

“Curious indeed.”

Hesitating only slightly, we entered the death room.

The scene the greeted us was very different than the one before. The body of the victim lay sprawled across the hearth. It had been charred to a degree that was almost unbelievable. An arm was entirely missing, the right. Both legs were intact, and one appeared to have lost a shoe. I noticed it lying several feet away.

The rocking chair in which the previous Miss Wick had perished was not in evidence. Instead there was a comfortable overstuffed chair, quite new. Its brocaded covering showed no signs of scorching.

The body lay face down. Holmes stepped around it, studying the remains from every conceivable angle.

“It appears that the poor woman was struck down as she was about to light a fire,” I ventured.

Holmes snapped, “I see no evidence of that. The logs are fresh, and there was no sign of a lucifer, or any other igniter.”

“It may well have gone up with her.”

“Conceivably,” said Holmes. “But I would imagine that if a woman’s clothing caught fire whilst she was attempting to start a blaze, the beginnings of the blaze would be evident.”

The body was a horrid sight. There was not a portion of her that was untouched. There was a smudging of ash approximately where the missing arm would have rested. The head have been cooked thoroughly, but the features still yet survived, although the hair has been entirely burnt away, as was her clothing.

Kneeling, Holmes touched the body whilst I observed the surroundings. The walls were sooty. The window glass lacked the yellowish liqueur that Holmes had previously suggested was a precipitation created by the violent combustion of human flesh and fat. I did not doubt him - although such a thing had never seemed possible to me. I had attended to many burn victims, and Holmes had previously questioned me in depth on that subject. Fire tends to remove the outer layers of skin, but not penetrate very deeply into muscle or bone.

I threw off the preposterous possibility of a human body being incinerated to such a degree and found a portrait on the mantel that was grey with soot. The face was dimly visible - it was that of a youngish woman of perhaps forty. She was rather striking.

Pointing to the photograph in its frame, I asked the fire officer, “Is this the poor victim?”

Holmes’s searching gaze snapped in my direction. He strolled over. Picking up the portrait, he announced, “Of course it is.”

Using the fingers of a glove, Holmes lifted a line of soot off the glass covering the photograph and paid more attention to the residue than he did the image of the woman captured there.

He gave the deposit a great deal of scrutiny, rubbing his gloved fingers together and sniffing the black stuff.

“There was no question that this is a photograph of the victim. The shape of the head, the formation of the ears, and other particulars confirm it.”

“Holmes,” I cried out. “This woman has been cooked to a crisp! How can you be so certain?”

“The woman in the photograph lacks pendulous ear lobes, and although the configuration of the corpse’s ears has been greatly deformed by fire, the fact that she lacked ear lobes in life is beyond dispute.”

The patient fire officer offered a comment of his own. “Mr. Holmes, I have been studying the literature on spontaneous human ignition. It is a fact that many of the victims were found exactly in this position, sprawled up on their own hearths. In most cases, the fireplace was cold.”

“But not in all,” countered Holmes.

“If the act of lighting a fire is not the cause of death, one wonders if something demonic had come down the chimney to consume the poor victim,” Claverling grunted.

“As outlandish as your theory sounds,” Holmes admitted, “it is not to be dismissed out of hand.”

“I admit gruesome spectacle rather makes one consider a supernatural agency at work. A woman burns in her own living room, and there are no scorch marks whatsoever.”

“Perhaps not supernatural, but preternatural,” suggested Holmes.

The fire officer looked strangely. “I fail to comprehend the difference.”

“One is impossible, whilst the other is merely improbable.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Consider the common humbug of a thunderbolt striking a human being and incinerating him. It is considered impossible. Lighting kills by electrical disruption of the nervous system, suppressing heart action and respiration, not through heat. The resulting electrical burns are incidental to the mortal result. Yet lightning often ignites trees it blasts, creating fires.”

“I quite fail to follow your train of thought.”

“That is because I am not finished. My thoughts hurl backward in time to reports of The Great Thunderstorm of October 21st, 1638. A sizable ball of fire intruded into St. Pancras Church in Widecombe-in-the-Moor, Dartmoor, smashing it to flinders before exiting in two discrete parts. Many were killed, and several badly burned, although not to the ultimate degree. Very mysterious. Reports of so-called ball lightning have persisted through the centuries, despite the skepticism of learned men.”

“Do you imagine a freak of nature to be behind this phenomenon?” I demanded.

“I consider that theory to be improbable, but not demonstrably impossible,” snapped Holmes. “Ball lightning has been rejected by science, yet sane persons continue to report encounters with luminous balls of light during thunderstorms. Hence, I cannot dismiss it.”

He was back at the roasted corpse. This time he placed his unobstructed nostrils quite close to it. They quivered as he took in a terrible odor. He seemed to stand it well enough, but once he stood up, he resorted to his handkerchief.

Sherlock Holmes addressed the fire officer.

“If you will be good enough to summon Inspector Lestrade, I believe he will find this interesting.”

“Do you suspect foul play?”

“No, I am certain of it.”

I confess that I did not expect this turn of events.

After Claverling had left, I followed Holmes out onto the street.

“I beg you, Watson, to be silent as I make conversation with Mr. Merridew. I do not wish to alarm him in any way whilst we await Lestrade.”

“The poor fellow,” I remarked sympathetically.

“I imagine he is fated to become even poorer after the events of today,” drawled Holmes.

“No doubt,” said I, thinking of the reputation his little boarding house was destined to achieve. Soon the newspapers would christen it a “House of Horrors”.

The landlord was beside himself, pacing madly. He did not describe circles, but rather eccentric parabolas in the trampled grass.

Holmes accosted him in his forthright manner.

“A word with you, Merridrew, if I could.”

The landlord started violently, then turned. Before Holmes could pose a question, he began unburdening himself rapidly.

“It was an abominable sight, Mr. Holmes. Worse than the previous one. It happened just as before. The smell, that horrid, wretched stink alerted me. Knowing what it portended, I ran straight away to Miss Wick’s room.”

“I see,” said Holmes. “What made you jump to such a conclusion?”

“The smell. I know it well. As for why I assumed it was emanating from Miss Wick’s rooms - well you can imagine that as well as I. Where else would I first turn?”

“Your logic is impeccable,” allowed Holmes. “Pray continue.”

“Naturally, I used my key. When I went in, I received the full blast of smoke and I spied the remains. Although I only gave it a cursory glance, I deduced much.”

“Ah! And what did you deduce in those few seconds, Mr. Merridew?”

“That Miss Wick had been in the act of lighting her fire when she was consumed. I noticed that she had thrown off a shoe, over behind the chair, as if she had attempted to flee before falling. It was uncanny. The hearth was stone cold, yet the floor beneath the body unscorched. What could produce such a baffling effect? Are there demons abroad in Southwark? Is Old Scratch himself claiming souls in his illimitable way?”

“I daresay no one could contradict your theory, inasmuch as all other theories are equally preposterous. Now tell me, by your own words you seemed more than commonly familiar with the uncanny phenomenon of inexplicable human combustion.”

“Well, it was you who put me onto it in the first place, Mr. Holmes. Do you not remember? You declared that what happened to Miss Kathleen Wick was not so rare as one might suppose. Naturally, being the proprietor of a rooming house in the same parish as the Tooley Street fire, I would not want a repetition of such a tragedy. I sought out all accounts of the phenomenon I could lay hands on. They made distressing reading. Particularly, I was concerned that so many victims had fallen at their own hearths.”

“Undeniably,” said Holmes, “it is part of a pattern with no clear explanation. But this case differs from many.”

Merridew eyes blinked rapidly. “In what way, sir?”

“It is common for the victim’s trunk to be incinerated yet the extremities survive, at least in part. In this case, one arm alone seems to have been rendered into ash. I do not recall ever encountering that particular variation of the phenomenon in the literature.”

“Well, my reading indicates that the state of the victims do vary considerably.”

“Considerably, yes. But not with such a unique feature.”

Merridew frowned. “Until such a time as the cause of these outrages can be determined scientifically, I do not see how any element can be dubbed unique. It sounds rather premature to me. But I am only a common man, with a common brain. I do not have the wits of a detective.”

“How well did you know Miss Elizabeth Wick?” Holmes asked suddenly.

“She was a rare woman, a fine beauty. Such a tragedy that such a well-formed and handsome woman should be reduced to such a state. No doubt she had many years of healthy life ahead of her until this dark day.”

“That is a fine compliment you have paid her, but that was not my question,” returned Holmes flatly.

“Well, I did not know her intimately, if that is what you mean. She was a boarder. She had her own ways. Oh, she was friendly enough. But not excessively so. I could not tell you whether or not she was a widow. Only that she was not presently married.”

Holmes pressed on. “Had she many visitors? Suitors? Relatives?

“I would say that she had many admirers. She was popular in the neighborhood. I would not say that she had suitors so much as she had aroused the interest of the neighborhood men, regardless of their marital state, if you know what I mean.”

“I take your meaning quite plainly,” said Holmes. Without turning his head at the sound of familiar footfalls, he said, “Ah, I believe that Inspector Lestrade has gotten around to joining us.”

Mr. Merridew turned about, spied Lestrade coming up the way, and said rather dismissively, “I cannot imagine what Scotland Yard will make of this awful tragedy.”

“If you’ll pardon me once more,” said Holmes, stepping away and rushing to greet Lestrade.

The two men engaged in a rather animated exchange out of earshot. I made pleasantries with poor Merridew, hoping to keep his mind off his mounting troubles.

At length, Holmes returned with the inspector, and to my stark astonishment, he pointed at Mr. Merridew. “Inspector, let me suggest that you place Mr. Merridew in handcuffs whilst I explain the nature of his abominable crime.”

Merridew started, and seemed at a loss for words. His natural pallor deepened astonishingly.

Inspector Lestrade produced handcuffs, but made no move to arrest the man, evidently lacking sound reason to do so.

“I should like to hear Mr. Holmes’s accusations in full before I do anything official,” said Lestrade.

“As I just explained to the inspector, there a certain irregularities in Mr. Merridew’s account,” stated Holmes.

Merridew stared wordlessly, eyes turning glassy. His forearms seemed to tremble.

“First, Merridew claimed to have been alerted to the tragedy as a result of a familiar odor. But as Dr. Watson will attest, we both noted that the smell surrounding the death of the second Miss Wick was not the odor of cooked fat, but rather roasted flesh. They are distinctly different. Smelling one might suggest the other, but only insofar the repulsiveness of the odors involved.”

Merridew said suddenly, “When I smell a fire in my building, I do not question its origins. I leap into action.”

“And happily land on the correct spot with the agility of a cat,” said Holmes firmly. “The two odors were not identical. Yet you went to Miss Wick’s room directly.”

“Directly, and correctly as it turned out,” snapped Merridew.

“Did you touch the body when you discovered it?”

“Absolutely not!” Merridew insisted. “I know better than to disturb a dead body before the authorities arrive. I touched nothing!”

“You touched nothing. You are certain?”

“I slammed the door and called the fire brigade. They were not long in arriving.”

“If you did not touch anything, and how is it you are so confident in asserting as fact that there were no scorch marks on the floor beneath the body of the late Elizabeth Wick?”

“Why, it was plain to see that only the body was consumed. Your question, sir, seems beside the point.”

“Perhaps. But the body has yet to be moved. Perhaps the time has come.”

During this cold exchange, Lestrade said, “Let us look into this question.”

We ascended to the second-floor flat, handkerchiefs protecting our noses once more. Lestrade went first, and so did not notice this precaution.

The inspector was taken aback by the stench once he entered the room, and he was obliged to pinch his nostrils shut and breathe through his mouth, which he guarded with the trailing portion of the linen.

His eyes were a little queer as he walked around the body. Taking a poker from the fireplace, he carefully nudged the black corpse at the shoulder. It appeared to be largely intact, for when he gave it a poke, it moved without crumbling.

The bare heath flags under the body bore no scorch marks.

Lestrade turned on Mr. Merridew and said, “It appears that you are correct, sir.” He stood up and asked, “How is it you possess the knowledge, Mr. Merridew, when by your own admission you did not touch the body in any way?”

“Why - why,” Merridew stammered. “I discerned no surrounding scorch marks and I suppose I drew a correct conclusion from what I witnessed.” Glancing in Sherlock Holmes’s direction, he added, “My understanding is that certain clever persons do the very same all the livelong day.”

Ignoring the snide tone of the man’s aside, Holmes asked, “How far did you advance into the room?”

“I stood upon the threshold and immediately closed the door.”

“I see,” said Holmes. “Let us recreate your actions by proxy. Lestrade, will you take a position on the threshold.”

The man from Scotland Yard did so. Stopping at the far wall, he turned about and stood facing the interior of the room. “Please describe what you observe,” requested Holmes. “Consider this a crime scene and take inventory of all that you notice.”

Without hesitation. Inspector Lestrade commenced a crisp and clinical description of the body, the unpleasant soot on the walls and furniture, adding other details, leaving out nothing.

His final observation was, “The woman is wearing only one shoe. I do not see the other.”

Holmes nodded with satisfaction. “You do not see the other. Because it is behind this rather substantial chair. Yet Mr. Merridew described the position of the shoe without hesitation. How is it that you were able to do perform such a feat, Mr. Merridew? Do you possess preternatural vision?”

“I did not say that I saw the shoe - only that it appeared to have been left behind with the woman attempted to flee her own combustion.”

Holmes turned to me. “Dr. Watson, do you recall his exact words?”

“I do. He gave the distinct impression of having seen the shoe, for he described its position.”

“From where you stand, Lestrade, do you see the location of the shod foot?”

“No, I do not.”

“Come, come,” said Holmes. “Put some effort into it. Strain your neck, twist your body. Surely you can perceive it if you put an effort into it. Mr. Merridew did so in with but a quick glance.”

Inspector Lestrade did his best. In the end, he admitted, “I completely fail to discern the location of the shoe from this vantage point.”

“Your story, Mr. Merridew,” said Holmes stiffly, “appears not to be holding together very well. Let me add to the anomalies I have observed.”

Holmes began pacing around the room. “First, the soot on the walls is different than the residue present on the previous tragic occasion. This soot appears to have been applied with a coal-oil lamp. It is not greasy at all. Nor is it the same color. It is also rather indifferently applied, whereas the other residue was uniform.

“I will also call your attention to the window sash. It appears to have been forced open, perhaps to let out smoke. There are fingermarks on the windowsill. I wonder whose they are?” His keen grey eyes went to the landlord’s fidgety fingers.

At that, Mr. Merridew attempted to flee the room. The open door was of course blocked by Inspector Lestrade, so the frantic man turned towards the window and attempted to force it upwards.

“You’ll not get me now!” he cried.

Holmes stepped in, and delivered a fist flow to the back of the man’s head. It struck at the point at which the upper spine meets the lower skull. The blow rendered the fellow senseless. I had never seen such as expert work with the fist, although in the years that followed, Holmes performed similar feats.

After the man had fallen to the floor, Holmes said, “Inspector, I believe Mr. Merridew will not resist arrest if you consider his guilt clearly established.”

“I do, Mr. Holmes. And I thank you most sincerely.”

After Merridew was handcuffed, Lestrade strode up and asked, “What do you imagine is back of all this horror, Mr. Holmes?”

“This is supposition, but I imagine Mr. Merridew became infatuated with the Miss Wick, and she rebuffed his advances. Perhaps they were more forceful than prudent. But if you will look at the cranial remains of the poor woman, you will see an indentation suggesting a sharp blow from a heavy object. If my surmise is correct, having severely injured, if not slain Miss Wick, the abominable Mr. Merridew conjured up a novel way to cover for his crime. He surreptitiously bore the body to some other location and literally roasted it, at some point hacking off an arm and disposing of it.

“In his mind, he contrived to falsify an example of spontaneous human ignition. Although he had read deeply into the literature, he had not thought through his scheme quite so thoroughly. He failed to understand that in almost all cases, including that of the first Miss Wick, the trunk is typically incinerated, yet the extremities survive. The ashes that marked the spot of the missing limb, Inspector, you will find to be ordinary wood ash scooped out of the fireplace and arranged in the rough semblance of an arm. This would not fool an intelligent child, and it did not fool me. In the previous tragedy, particles of bone were found among the ashes. Although they were minute, they were still yet distinct from the ashes themselves. The ash I speak of is dry powder. Hardly a suitable substitute under the circumstances.”

Lestrade nodded. “You will be expected to testify at the trial, Mr. Holmes.”

“I look forward to it, inspector. But not as much as I look forward to the prospect of Mr. Merridew hanging for his abominations.”

Merridew did hang. But not before he confessed, and revealed where the missing arm of Elizabeth Wick could be found. She was buried more or less intact beside her late sister.

As for the matter of the first Miss Wick, the inquest of 1881 returned no verdict. That mystery was never solved. Nor was Merridew implicated in that tragedy. It was an uncontested example of spontaneous human combustion and remains unsolved to this day.

In the intervening years, Holmes investigated several other such cases, including the remarkable one where two brothers, going about their business several miles apart, simultaneously ignited without a reason. They perished, alas.

In time, Holmes wrote a monograph on the subject of spontaneous human combustion. He put forth certain tentative theories, based on his observations and reading, and whilst the pamphlet was widely circulated, it came to no definite conclusion. Holmes himself confided to me that even his theories amounted to “educated rubbish”.

I clearly recall him once lamenting, “It is as if I am faced with a mathematical equation to solve and some of the key integers are not numbers that I recognize, but alien symbols. The familiar numerals reassure me that I am facing a valid equation. Those that are not make it impossible for me to solve it. I’ve gone around and around on this matter. But I am stumped.”

There the matter stands to this day. Holmes is quite certain that there is an explanation for the phenomenon. Yet every new example, every succeeding tragedy, merely adds fresh strands to the tangled web of mystery. The pattern fascinates him, but the solution continues to elude him.

Time and again, I have heard Sherlock Holmes lament, “If I could but eliminate the impossible, I would have something to go on. And yet, I cannot. I simply cannot.”

I am forced to conclude that his willingness to release the singular matter of the two Wick sisters at this late date signifies that he is throwing in the towel, as it were. I cannot blame him. Perhaps future generations will unravel the riddle.

I am content to pen these words and note that whilst the problem of the two Wicks sisters was never satisfactorily concluded, Sherlock Holmes took great pride in the exposure of Mr. Merridew and his abominations.

“My collection of M’s is a fine one,” said [Holmes]... [H]ere is... Merridew of abominable memory...”

Sherlock Holmes, “The Adventure of the Empty House”