Enola Holmes 2 (2022) Ending Explained – Does Enola find Sarah Chapman?

Enola Holmes 2 Plot Synopsis

Millie Bobby Brown is back with another electrifying Enola Holmes mystery. This time Enola takes on her first case as an official detective for Bessie Chapman, whose older sister Sarah is missing. Sarah used to work at a matchstick factory as well as a dancer at a music hall. As Enola investigates she suspects Lyon matchstick factory, as the girls working there have been dying of Typhus.

Things grow more sinister when Sarah’s friend Mae turns up dead in an apartment where Sarah was meant to meet her lover. Enola reaches just as she dies and the police arrive not much later, including Lestrade and Superintendent Grail. Grail accuses Enola of murdering Mae but she runs away. She attends a ball where she tries to get information out of William Lyon, the factory owner Henry Lyon’s son and also Sarah’s lover. Before she can talk to him, Grail’s men arrive and arrest Enola for murder. With the help of her mother Eudoria and her friend Edith, Enola escapes prison.

Meanwhile, Sherlock has a mysterious case of his own. He is trying to uncover a financial scam in which there were unaccounted money transfers across government offices, with the money bouncing all over banks and the perpetrator hidden behind account numbers.

Read on to find out exactly how Enola Holmes 2 ends!

What was killing the match girls?

After escaping prison, Enola gets back to Bessie and tells her to move to a safer place. While she packs, Enola notices the plants on the desk and finds that one has red powder in it while another has white. She remembers seeing two jars of flies in the apartment where Mae was killed. In the one with red powder, the flies were alive. In the one with white powder, they were dead. In Bessie’s room, Enola finds white powder in the cheese Sarah would leave out for the mice. Nearby, she finds a dead mouse.

Enola realizes that two years ago, the factory shifted from using the red powder to the white, cheaper one. That was the same time the girls started dying. She deduces that the phosphorous in the white powder was killing them.

Does Enola find Sarah Chapman?

After figuring out the truth, Enola heads to Tewkesbury and admits she needs help. They are talking about her case when someone knocks on the door. It’s Cicely, a woman Enola encountered at the ball where she met William Lyon. Cicely needs to tell Tewkesbury something important but he promises to meet her later on account of Enola.

When she leaves, Tewkesbury begins to confess his feelings to Enola but her thoughts are elsewhere. She remembers how Cicely had no chaperone at the ball, how she wore a dress Enola saw at the music hall, and how her fingernails showed the blackened phosphorous. Cicely is Sarah! And she was not only in love with William Lyon but also working with him and Mae to uncover his father’s crimes. Enola then confesses that she loves Tewkesbury too.

How were Enola and Sherlock’s cases connected?

After her big realization, Enola heads back to the match factory with Tewkesbury. Inside, she tussles with a stranger who turns out to be Sherlock. He tells Enola that the trail for his opponent led him here as the factory is in the vicinity of all five banks that were used to deposit money.

Meanwhile, he’s also figured out that the account numbers referred to the language of dance. After using that to decode the numbers, he finds the name Moriarty.

What did the music sheet mean?

At the factory, Enola and Sherlock find the dead body of William Lyon. In his hand, they find a torn piece of a music sheet, the same one that Enola took from Mae’s pocket when she died. Tewkesbury says that the piece’s title ‘Truth of the Gods’ could refer to the theatre as the top row is called ‘The Gods’.

Enola takes a closer look and realizes the various symbols on the music sheet are a map to the theatre, pointing to a specific seat.

Do Enola and team manage to expose the truth?

The three of them rush to the theatre, to the particular seat where they find hidden papers. Sarah Chapman, no longer in the guise of Cicely, arrives and tells them that those papers show the contract between Henry Lyon and Lord McIntyre (the treasury minister) and their decision to change the phosphorous. There are also the papers Sarah stole from the factory’s register, showing the names of the all the dead girls.

Just when they think they’ve won, Superintendent Grail turns up with Bessie in tow and a knife at the girl’s neck. He tells Enola to hand over the papers, as more officers surround the others. Bessie bites his hand and a long fight sequence ensues. At the end, Enola and her team overpower Grail and his men.

Who is Moriarty?

McIntyre turns up on the scene, having been called by Sherlock. He pretends to be happy that Superintendent Grail has been caught. He also tells Lestrade to arrest Sarah for blackmailing him. Sherlock says it wasn’t Sarah. He only called McIntyre to draw out the real blackmailer (and perpetrator behind the financial scam) — none other than his secretary Ms. Mira Tory, a name that is an anagram for Moriarty. She admits to everything, reveling in the fact that she made her own way when society didn’t allow her to do so because she was a woman. She says she had fun doing it. Even as Lestrade’s men take her away, she promises both the Holmes that they’ll dance yet again.

What happens to the other match girls?

As Moriarty gets taken away, McIntyre burns the paper that proves his corruption. Sarah, Bessie and Enola go to the match factory. Sarah makes a passionate speech about how the phosphorous is killing them. She persuades the girls to leave together. It doesn’t seem to work and she’s about to leave, when Bessie begins stamping her foot in protest. They all begin to stamp their feet and then walk out of the factory together. From the side lines, Eudoria Holmes and Edith watch them.

How does Enola Holmes 2 end?

Enola opens up her detective’s office again. Sherlock offers her a partnership but she kindly declines, saying she’d always be in his shadow. He gives her a newspaper that shows Tewkesbury managed to get McIntyre arrested. They agree to check in on each other from time to time, with Enola insisting Sherlock needs a friend. They agree on Thursday at 4.00 p.m. Tewkesbury arrives with flowers and the young couple go on a walk while bantering as they usually do.

On-screen text shows that Sarah Chapman’s character is based on a real person who ignited a matchgirls’ strike. It was one of the first industrial protests for women by women.

A mid-credit scene shows Sherlock in his study on Thursday at 4 o’clock when someone knocks on his door. It’s a man who claims to have come in response to a call for a flat mate. He says he was given the address and time by a young girl. Sherlock smiles and invites in him asking for his name. He replies: “Doctor John Watson.”