Chapter 1 – A Struggling Detective
My name is Enola Holmes, and being a detective in London is not quite the glamorous adventure I had imagined.
After solving my very first case, I thought people would flood through my door. I rented a small office, hung a neat sign that read Enola Holmes – Professional Detective, and waited. And waited.
But no one came.
Potential clients took one look at me—young, female, hardly more than a girl—and turned away. They wanted someone older. Someone male. Someone like Sherlock Holmes, my brother.
Sherlock's name carried weight. Mine carried nothing.
As days passed, I grew restless. My money ran low. The landlord demanded rent. I was on the edge of closing my doors when a small voice saved me.
"Miss Holmes?" it asked.
I looked up. Standing there was a girl, perhaps twelve or thirteen, her cheeks smudged with soot, her eyes sharp as knives. She wore the thin, patched clothes of a factory worker.
"My name's Bessie," she said. "I need you to find my sister. She's gone missing."
And just like that, my second case began.
Chapter 2 – The Matchstick Girl
Bessie Chapman was her full name, and she was braver than many adults I had met. She worked in a match factory with her sister, Sarah, but Sarah had disappeared days ago.
"She wouldn't just leave," Bessie insisted. "She's all I've got. The others say she ran off with some gentleman, but I know that's a lie. Please, you've got to find her."
I studied Bessie's trembling hands, the calluses from long hours of labor, the worry carved into her young face. She was telling the truth.
"I'll take your case," I promised.
Her eyes lit with relief, and in that moment, I felt more like a real detective than ever before.
The match factories of London were notorious—places of smoke, sweat, and danger. Girls like Bessie and Sarah worked long hours for pennies, dipping sticks into white phosphorus that poisoned their bodies. Many suffered from a terrible condition called phossy jaw—the bone in their faces rotting from the fumes.
It was a cruel world, and I was about to step directly into it.
Chapter 3 – The Factory of Smoke
The next morning, I disguised myself. Mother had always said: "A good detective must become invisible when needed." I tied my hair back, smudged my face with ash, and borrowed the clothes of a worker.
Thus disguised, I entered the match factory.
Inside, the air was thick with smoke and the sharp sting of chemicals. Dozens of girls bent over long tables, dipping matchsticks into white phosphorus, their hands raw and burned. Overseers barked orders, watching with cruel eyes.
I asked questions quietly, pretending to be a new worker. Most girls shrugged, unwilling to speak. Fear ruled this place. But one whispered to me when the overseer's back was turned:
"Sarah Chapman? She was asking too many questions. Then she disappeared."
"What kind of questions?" I pressed.
"About the sickness. About the books. She said the owners were hiding something."
Books? Sickness? My mind raced. Clearly Sarah hadn't run away. She had discovered something—and been silenced.
Chapter 4 – Secrets in the Shadows
That night, I followed a trail. Sarah had rented a small room above a print shop. Inside, I found scraps of paper filled with numbers, names, and codes. She had been collecting evidence—proof of something hidden within the factory's business records.
But before I could study them fully, I heard footsteps outside. Someone was coming.
I slipped into the shadows just as the door burst open. A man entered—tall, broad, with a scar across his cheek. His eyes searched the room, then fell on the papers I had left on the desk.
He snatched them up, cursed under his breath, and stormed away.
I followed him through the alleys of London, careful to stay unseen. At last, he delivered the papers to someone in a carriage—a wealthy gentleman, face hidden by a hat.
Whoever he was, he wanted Sarah's evidence destroyed. Which meant it was important.
I clenched my fists. The case was no longer just about a missing girl. It was about a conspiracy.
Chapter 5 – The Disease of Fire
The next day, I returned to the factory and listened more carefully to the workers. I began to hear stories—girls coughing blood, jaws swollen and rotting, bodies wasted from the fumes.
This was phossy jaw, the disease I had read about. White phosphorus was poisoning them, yet the owners refused to act.
Sarah had clearly uncovered this truth. She had gathered records—death counts, medical reports, financial ledgers showing the owners' greed. If she had exposed them, it would have ruined powerful men.
But now she was gone.
That evening, I visited Bessie again. She sat by the fire, small and tired, but fierce.
"They'll try to make you give up," she warned. "But you won't, will you?"
"No," I said firmly. "I won't."
Because it wasn't just about Sarah anymore. It was about all the girls—Bessie, the coughing workers, the nameless ones buried in shallow graves. They deserved justice.
Chapter 6 – A Sister's Disappearance
Piece by piece, I pieced together Sarah's steps. She had attended secret meetings with women fighting for workers' rights. She had spoken with printers who could publish her evidence. She had grown bolder—until she vanished.
As I walked the foggy streets of London, my thoughts tangled. Where was Sarah now? Dead, hidden, or imprisoned?
And then, as if the city itself wished to answer me, I was cornered.
In a narrow alley, the scarred man appeared again—this time with two accomplices. Their boots thudded against the cobblestones as they closed in.
"You should have stayed out of this, little girl," one sneered.
But I was no ordinary girl. Mother had taught me to fight. With swift strikes and quick feet, I slipped from their grasp, knocking one against the wall, sending another sprawling into a puddle.
I ran, heart pounding, until the alleys spat me out into the busy street.
I had escaped—for now. But I knew one thing for certain: Sarah Chapman's disappearance was at the heart of something much larger.
And I was going to uncover it.
Chapter 7 – Sherlock's Puzzle
My case grew tangled, but I soon learned I wasn't the only Holmes chasing shadows in London. Sherlock, too, was deep in his own mystery.
He had been following trails of money laundering and forged documents that connected to Parliament itself. But for once, Sherlock was struggling. I found him in a drunken stupor at his flat, papers scattered across the floor, the great detective defeated by chaos.
He glanced at me with weary eyes."Enola," he muttered, "you should not be here. This case is far too large."
"And yet," I replied, gathering his papers, "so is mine. And I believe they may be the same."
For the first time, our paths overlapped. His mystery of forged accounts and mine of a missing match girl were two threads of the same cloth. But which hand had woven it?
Sherlock smiled faintly. "Perhaps you are more like me than I thought."
I grinned. "No. I am like me."
Chapter 8 – A Dangerous Dance
While Sherlock worked to decode financial ledgers, I needed another approach. And fate offered it to me in the form of Viscount Tewkesbury.
Yes—him again. The boy I once saved on a train, now taller, more confident, and to my mild annoyance, more charming. He was now a rising voice in Parliament, campaigning for reform.
"You again," I said when we met at a ballroom gathering, arranged to celebrate political leaders.
"Enola Holmes," he replied with a mischievous smile. "Still solving mysteries, I presume?"
I pretended not to notice the warmth in my cheeks. I needed his help—his access to the elite circles. If powerful men were conspiring to silence Sarah Chapman, then their whispers might be overheard here.
So I danced. Yes, danced! The girl who once ran wild in Ferndell fields now spun across polished marble floors with a viscount. All the while, my ears caught fragments of conversation—factory owners boasting, politicians muttering about the Reform Bill, names passed between champagne glasses.
One name returned again and again: William Lyon, a wealthy industrialist. A man with everything to lose if Sarah's truth came to light.
Chapter 9 – Conspiracies in London
The puzzle pieces fit at last. Sarah Chapman had uncovered proof that Lyon and his partners were knowingly poisoning factory workers with white phosphorus, while falsifying records to hide deaths. She had gathered ledgers, pay slips, and testimonies.
But Lyon's allies in Parliament would crush anyone who exposed them. That was why Sarah had been silenced.
One night, I returned to Sarah's hidden room to search again. This time, I found a letter she had concealed in the floorboards—addressed to the women's union, detailing her findings. It was enough to topple Lyon.
But before I could deliver it, the scarred man burst through the door once more. The chase thundered through the streets—over bridges, across carts, into narrow alleys where the gaslights flickered dimly.
At last, he cornered me against a wall. "You should have stayed away," he growled.
I braced myself, but suddenly another figure struck him from behind—Sherlock. My brother, sober and sharp, stood at my side.
"Did you think I would let you do this alone?" he said calmly.
For the first time, I was glad to see him.
Chapter 10 – The Chase Through the Streets
Together, Sherlock and I pursued the scarred man across the docks of London. Rain slicked the cobblestones, the Thames roared beside us, and the moon cast eerie light across the water.
He leapt onto a barge, and we followed, the boards creaking beneath our feet. Blows were exchanged, fists and fury, until at last Sherlock struck him down and bound his hands.
But even then, he laughed. "You think stopping me will stop them? The men behind this are untouchable."
We exchanged a glance. Perhaps he was right—unless we could expose them publicly, with Sarah's evidence.
The stakes had never been higher.
Chapter 11 – The Fire of Revolution
At last, I found Sarah. She was alive, hiding among the match girls, preparing to lead a strike.
Her eyes burned with fire as she spoke: "They will never change unless we force them. We have their lies, their books. We will make the world see."
The girls gathered around, brave despite their sickness, their poverty. Together, they carried the ledgers and letters, marching through the streets of London. Banners rose, voices shouted, the city stirred with revolution.
I walked beside Sarah and Bessie, heart swelling with pride. For once, I wasn't just solving a case. I was part of something larger—a fight for justice.
The police tried to scatter us, but too many people had seen the truth. Newspapers printed Sarah's documents. Lyon and his allies were dragged into scandal. The match girls had won their first victory.
Chapter 12 – Becoming Herself
The case was over, but its lessons lingered.
Sherlock admitted that without me, he might never have solved his mystery. Mycroft was nowhere in sight—thankfully. And Tewkesbury, well… he offered his friendship, perhaps more. But I was not ready to be anyone's shadow, not even his.
I rented a new office, brighter than the first, and placed a new sign upon the door:
ENOLA HOLMES – CONSULTING DETECTIVE.
Clients would come. They would learn that I was no longer just Sherlock's sister. I was myself.
And though Mother still wandered the world in her own secret missions, I felt her voice within me: You are becoming what I always hoped, Enola. Independent. Fearless. Yourself.
I smiled, looking out at London's endless streets. My story was only beginning.
I was Enola Holmes.