If there were matches in the room, well and good; if not, I must go elsewhere for them, and come back.

It was a grim task, but it had to be done.
Somehow, I got to the mantelpiece; and there luckily, among a litter of pipes and bottles and miscellaneous rubbish, I did lay my hand on a broken cup containing a few matches.

I struck one, which showed me on the mantel an end of a candle standing up in a bed of its own grease.

I lighted it, and not until the flame was burning brightly did I look round.
There was but a faint illumination, yet it was enough to give me the secret of the room.

I might have seen all at a glance as I came in, before the light of my last match was blown out by the wind, had not the door as I opened it formed a screen between me and the dead man on the floor.
He lay in the midst of the wildest confusion.