“As soon as she heard the little girl scream, she knew what had happened, and she felt just terrible. Not to have warned the man first, you see. He'd very clearly been caught in a fire, possibly some sort of explosion—you know how a puff of burning gasoline can singe off eyelashes? Well, that's what had happened to this poor fellow. Swollen eyes, raw-looking skin, and no hair at all, lashes, brows, and even the front part of his head that his hat didn't cover. And he'd smeared some sort of white ointment on it as well—he startled this lady, so he must have scared the little Russell girl half to death. I can't think . . . Why are you smiling?”

“My . . . client remembered what she called a ‘faceless man.' I think you've just found him for me.”

“An apt description, I should think. We depend largely on hair for facial definition, do we not?”

“What about his beard?”

“I don't know that she mentioned a beard. But then, lack of a beard is not as startling as a lack of eyebrows, is it?”

No, thought Holmes, but it would take severe burns indeed to prevent a man's beard from growing in, and a man “all dirt and mismatched garments” would be unlikely to have visited a barber for a shave—to say nothing of submitting his burns to that degree of discomfort. Which would suggest that either the burns were recently acquired (and this was twenty-four hours after the fires were quenched), or that Russell's “faceless man” was a person without much of a beard in the first place.

Miss Adderley had begun to flag. Her back was as straight as ever, but the creases beside her mouth were growing pronounced and she had interlaced her fingers as if to keep them from trembling. Any moment the maid would burst in and send him packing.

Best to be found already preparing to leave.

He slid the photograph carefully into his breast pocket. “I shall bring this back as soon as I've had it copied.”

“Take your time, Mr Holmes. And feel free to come back anytime. You will generally find me at home.”

“May I also ask, Miss Adderley, do you know of any other persons from the tent village who might still live in the city?”

“Off-hand, I can't think of any,” she said, her voice quivering faintly with tiredness.

“Perhaps you'll think of someone. If you do, a note to the St Francis will reach me.”

He rose and bent over her hand like a courtier, then walked across the quiet room to the door. It opened before he could lay his hand on the knob, but his departure was interrupted by the thin voice from behind him.

“She's not your client, is she? Is she your wife, or your . . . ‘friend'?”

“Both,” Holmes told her.

The old eyes closed, and the withered lips curved up at the corners.

“Good,” she said.