Arthur tried to reach it, but could not get at it even by jumping.
"The fellow who put that there must have been over six feet," said he to himself.
With some trouble he got a stick and tipped the box off the ledge, and as he did so it occurred to him that, whereas the dust lay a quarter of an inch thick on the ledge, and whereas the match-box had no similar coating of dust, but was almost clean, it must have been put up there recently.

He opened the box and looked inside.

It contained wax vestas, with curiously coloured purple heads, which on examination corresponded exactly with the matches he had picked up on the floor of the boot-box.
"Oh," said Arthur to himself, very red in the face, "here's a go!" and he bolted up to his room.
Dig, as it happened, was out, not altogether to his chum's regret, who set himself, with somewhat curious agitation, to examine his booty.
First of all he examined once more the match-box, and satisfied himself that there was no doubt about the identity of its contents with the stray vestas he had picked up.

The result was decisive.

The box had been placed above the door very recently by someone who, unless he stood on a form or climbed on somebody else's back, must have been more than six feet high.