Mammoth Book The Lost Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes (Mammoth Books)

by Smith, Denis O.

  “No, by Captain Legbourne Legge.”

  “I see. Is that Dedstone Mill over there, on the other side of that little wood?” Holmes asked abruptly, pointing with his whip to where the gable end of a tall roof showed above a belt of trees.

  “Yes, that is it,” replied the girl. “This road continues all the way to the river bank, and then turns and follows the river past the mill to the village of Dedstone.”

  “And here,” I observed, “are the geese.”

  The fields by which we were now passing were almost completely flooded, save where an occasional small hummock of land stood a little above the surrounding level plain and formed a little island in the flood. Upon these cold grey sheets of water, rippled constantly by the chill, blustery wind, were scores and scores of wild geese, their strange cacophonous honking and babbling as constant as the noise of traffic in a city street.

  “I am surprised that our passage has not disturbed them,” I remarked.

  “It will,” returned Holmes. “Yes, there they go!” cried he, as first one, then two or three, then a dozen, then hundreds and hundreds rose up from the watery ground in a great babbling crowd, until the grey sky was darkened by a thousand beating wings. “It gives away our position somewhat,” remarked Holmes in a rueful voice as the clouds of birds wheeled about the sky and circled above us, “but I doubt that matters now.”

  A few minutes more and we had reached the side of the swollen, turbid river, where the grey surging waters, thick with branches and twigs, matted heaps of decaying vegetation, and all manner of debris, boiled and frothed against the banks, as if determined to scour and grind them away. In some places, indeed, this relentless assault had already been successful, and the riverbank had collapsed into the water. By the side of this seething torrent of destruction we rattled along for some time, then the road turned away from the river and wound its way through a little wood, until, all at once, we emerged into an open space, and there before us stood the mill, gaunt and dreary against the leaden sky.

  It was a huge building, three or four storeys high, and sixty yards from one end to the other. No doubt it had once seemed the most modern establishment imaginable in the milling line. But now it resembled nothing so much as a medieval ruin, a crumbling relic of a bygone age. Half the roof tiles were missing, many of the windows were broken, and the timber walls of the upper storeys had a rotten, decayed appearance, and had clearly not received a coat of paint in fifty years. Towards the right-hand end, the destruction of the building was especially severe, and the missing section of roof and blackened, charred timbers indicated clearly that that was where the fire which Miss Borrow had mentioned had burnt most fiercely.

  As we drew to a halt before this dirty and dilapidated building, the little boy, who had seemed more lively by the minute, became extremely agitated and clung to his sister’s arm. I was helping them down from the trap when a door in the mill was abruptly opened and a scrawny, filthy-looking woman looked out. The boy let out a little shriek and turned away.

  “It is Lizzie Bagnall, Mrs Hardcastle’s sister,” said Miss Borrow in a voice tinged with fear.

  This unsavoury apparition stared uncomprehendingly at us for a moment, then, as abruptly as she had appeared, she withdrew into the darkness within the building and made to shut the door. Holmes was too quick for her, however. He dropped the reins he had been holding, ran forward and put his foot in the door before it could be fully closed. A stream of foul oaths issued from behind the door, and there followed a struggle between the two of them, she to force the door shut, Holmes to prevent her from doing so. I hurried forward to lend my weight to the argument, and it is as well that I did so, for the woman seemed possessed of an almost superhuman strength. All at once, however, she gave up the struggle, the door burst inwards, and as we stood there for a moment to get our breath back, she charged at us out of the darkness, a large stick in her hand. Holmes put up his arm to break the blow, and snatched the stick off her.

  “There is something of a family resemblance in the actions of these estimable sisters, is there not?” said he with a chuckle. “Evidently, the inflicting of blows is their one talent, and they are keen to make the most of it! Take the key from the lock, will you, old fellow?” he added as the woman retreated further into the darkness. “I shouldn’t put it past this charming female to attempt to lock us in. Now, let us see,” he continued, glancing about him. “Nothing much down here, it seems, other than dirt and disorder. I think we should try up there.” He indicated a rickety-looking flight of wooden steps, with a broken handrail. “We cannot leave the children down here with this woman about, so you had best bring them with you, Watson, but keep them back a little, if you would.”

  So saying, and with an expression of resolute determination upon his features, he stepped to the stair and began to ascend. I followed, some distance behind, as he had requested, the children clinging tightly to my jacket. The landing at the top of the stairs was as dark as the ground floor, but just as we reached it, Holmes pushed open a door, and a dull grey light spread across the landing from the room beyond, where, as I could see, a broken window on the far side of the room overlooked the river.

  “Nothing here,” murmured my companion. “The presence of that odious woman downstairs suggests that what we seek is here somewhere, though. Ah! Signs on the next staircase that it has been used recently! Let us try the floor above, then!”

  Again we followed slowly up the creaking and uneven stair. The wood was so rotten that some of the steps crumbled at the edges as I put my weight upon them. At the top was another landing. It was not quite so dark as the one below, for a little light was admitted by a cracked and dirt-smeared window in the right-hand wall, which looked out over the woods through which we had passed in the trap. But the stench of damp and decay here was as strong as ever, and the filthy, broken boards of the floor seemed alive with beetles and woodlice.

  At the side of the landing, in the centre of a wall of wooden boards opposite to the stair, was a door. I saw Holmes try the handle, but it was evident that it was locked, for he glanced about the floor and walls as if looking for a key.

  “That woman must have taken it with her,” said he. “Keep the children to the side, Watson!”

  I put my arms round the children, and we watched as Holmes kicked at the lock with the heel of his boot. Twice it resisted his efforts, but at the third attempt, with a cracking and splintering of wood, the door flew open. As it did so, there came a muffled cry from within the room, a cry so strange that I could not for a moment be certain whether it were human or animal. As I joined my friend in the doorway, an appalling sight met my eyes.

  It was a large room, stretching the full width of the building. In the wall to our left was a door and a row of windows, overlooking the river, and in the wall to the right was a window overlooking the woods. The floor was of bare, dusty boards, littered with rubbish, and with disordered heaps of wooden planks and poles everywhere. But what riveted my attention more than any of this clutter was what lay directly opposite the door. There, spread upon the floor, was a bed of sorts, which consisted mainly of old sacks, a rough, coarse blanket and a couple of dirty cushions. Beside this dishevelled and unattractive heap stood a wooden table and chair, and sitting at the table was a woman in a pale blue dress. She stood up as we entered, and I saw she was of medium height and about five and thirty years old. There was something refined and educated in her expression, but her face was streaked with dirt, as if she had been weeping, and her hair was disarranged. Harriet Borrow took one look at her, then released her grip on my arm and ran forward with a cry.

  “Aunt Margaret!” cried she, flinging her arms around the woman’s waist.

  At this, the boy, who had been burying his face in my side, looked round, then he, too, ran forward with a cry of joy and spoke for the first time. “Auntie!” cried he.

  “Who are these gentlemen?” asked the woman in a nervous, uncertain tone, eyeing us cautiously as she hugg
ed the children to her.

  “It is Mr Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson,” cried the girl excitedly as she turned to us. “They have come to rescue us!”

  “Can this be true?” asked the woman in a tone of disbelief.

  “Certainly it is,” returned Holmes with a chuckle. “I cannot claim that that was our clear intention when we left London this morning, but now that we have found you, rescue does indeed seem the most appropriate course of action!”

  “Then you will have to do something about these,” said she. As she spoke, she moved her arm and her foot, and I saw for the first time, with a shock of horror, that around both her wrist and her ankle were metal manacles, connected by chains to iron rings in the wall. “This, as you will no doubt surmise, is my husband’s doing,” she explained. “He wished to be sure that I could not escape. But strangely enough, these chains have probably saved my life. For I have many times thought that if I could only free myself from them for but a moment, I should at once fling myself from that window over there and thus end forever my miserable existence!”

  “Tut! tut!” cried Holmes, as he examined the manacle on her wrist. “You must banish such thoughts from your mind altogether! We shall soon have these chains removed, and then we can get you and the children far away from here! The woman downstairs has keys for these, I take it.”

  “Yes, she does,” returned she, but then, as Holmes made for the door, she cried out in a pitiful tone. “Don’t leave me, I beg of you!” she said, and it was clear that her hopes of release having been raised, she could not bear any possible disappointment.

  “Do not fear! I shall only be a moment. You had best remain here, Watson, to keep an eye on things.”

  “Certainly.”

  My friend was back again in a couple of minutes. In his hands were a variety of hammers, chisels and other tools.

  “I could not find the woman anywhere,” explained he. “She is evidently keeping herself out of sight. However, I found these tools on a lower floor and am confident we can soon get the manacles off with them. If you would bring that block of wood over here, Watson, to rest the edge of the manacle on, and hold this chisel for me, I’ll see if I can smash the hinge. You have been held captive here since last winter, I take it,” he continued, addressing Mrs Hartley Lessingham as he cast his jacket to the floor, rolled up his sleeves and set about trying to force apart the manacle on her wrist.

  She nodded her head. “Eight long months have I lain here in lonely imprisonment, eight long months during which I have had no knowledge of the world outside, nor of my family, and no companion save that cruel half-wit downstairs that my husband set here to guard me. Can you wonder that I have been driven half-mad, and have thought so often of flinging myself from that window?”

  “But Aunt Margaret,” cried Miss Borrow, “how can this be? We were told by Mr Hartley Lessingham that you were residing in a cottage on the estate of Mr Shepherd!”

  “What! I have never been within a hundred miles of it! What a wicked thing to have told you, when all the time he was keeping me a prisoner here!”

  “But I wrote to you there, and you replied!” protested the girl in a baffled tone.

  “My poor dear!” returned the woman, her eyes brimming with tears. “I have received no letter from you nor from anyone, and nor have I been able to write any. If Mr Hartley Lessingham told you it was a letter from me, then he lied. No doubt he wrote the letter himself.”

  “I should have known!” cried the girl in an angry tone, and burst into tears. “I should have known that you would never have told me not to write to you again.”

  “I certainly should not! Whatever was said in that letter, Harriet, was nothing but wicked lies!”

  “But Mr Hartley Lessingham did receive one letter from Sussex,” said the girl after a moment, “for I remember seeing the Lewes postmark on the envelope. He told me that it was from Mr Shepherd, informing him that you were residing at Tattingham. He said he had thrown it in the fire.”

  “I imagine,” said Holmes, addressing the woman as she shook her head in puzzlement, “that he made up that story on the spur of the moment, when he realized that Harriet had seen the postmark. No doubt the letter really was from Mr Shepherd, but was simply enquiring after you all and sending you his news. Your husband may not have bothered replying to it at all, or, if he did, he probably told Shepherd that you had gone away and he did not know your whereabouts. One moment!” said he, then he brought the hammer down with all his strength onto the chisel which I had positioned on the hinge of the manacle. “There!” he cried in triumph as the hinge burst apart. “Now for the other one! Perhaps,” he continued, addressing Mrs Hartley Lessingham as I positioned the hinge of the second manacle on the edge of the lump of wood, “you could tell us what occurred last January. Shortly after you left, on New Year’s Eve, your husband informed Harriet that you had written to say that you were staying in an hotel in London.”

  “That, at least, was true.”

  “He then went off to visit you, to try to persuade you, so he said, to return to East Harrington, but as he reported, you declined the proposition.”

  “That, also, is correct.”

  “Yet somehow he managed to get you back here.”

  “That is easily explained. When he came to my hotel in London, he said that if I would not live with him at East Harrington any longer, I had best take the children with me, as he did not wish to be troubled with them. Of course, this was what I had wished all along, so I readily agreed. I therefore accompanied him back here from London simply to collect Harriet and Edwin. We were met at the railway station by the carriage, which was driven by his unpleasant friend, Captain Legbourne Legge. This struck me as a little odd, but I thought no more about it. As we drove through the park, my thoughts were only on the children, and I could not have imagined the evil plan that my husband and his odious companion had contrived. Then, when we had almost reached the Hall, Legbourne Legge turned the carriage off the main drive at the obelisk, and instead brought it here. When I realized what they intended, I struggled to escape, but it was of no avail, and I received only bruises for my troubles. Since then I have been a prisoner here, with that evil woman you have met as my gaoler; without hope of release, and subject to constant threats and intimidation.”

  “Did the woman sometimes carry messages between here and the Hall?”

  “Yes. I recall once hearing my husband giving her instructions to that effect.”

  “The children saw her once or twice at night, I believe, leaving a message on the sundial in the garden behind the house. Those messages were subsequently collected by Legbourne Legge.”

  “He and my husband seem to have planned everything together. I do not know which of them I detest the most!”

  Holmes nodded. “The threats you mentioned, were these to try to persuade you to sign money over to your husband?”

  “To try to force me to assign everything I possess to him, and all my rights and responsibilities in what is due to the children, too.”

  “I thought as much,” said Holmes, nodding his head. “I have seen in his study that he has been forging your signature. But while the solicitor would accept your signature through the post on relatively minor matters, on more important questions he would wish to see you in person, to discuss the business with you and witness your signature. This is why it was vital for your husband to persuade you to agree to his plans.”

  “But I should never have done so. I told him I would rather die. At least,” she continued in a hesitant tone, “I had remained defiant until the last fortnight. But he has recently found a chink in my armour.” Her gaze flickered momentarily downwards.

  “He threatened to harm the children if you did not do as he wished? It does not surprise me. I will tell you later all that has happened recently.” Holmes broke off as he brought his hammer down with great force upon the chisel several times. Presently he paused, and stood for a moment recovering his breath. “You have not yet sig
ned anything for your husband?” he continued, addressing Mrs Hartley Lessingham.

  “No.”

  “Good! Then all the cards are still in our hands! I must ask you now if you know anything of the fate of Mr Theakston, the children’s tutor at the time you left.”

  “Mr Theakston?” returned she in surprise. “Why, what has happened to him?”

  “He has vanished without trace, and, to speak frankly, I fear the very worst,” said Holmes. He then described to Mrs Hartley Lessingham the quarrel between the tutor and his employer, which Miss Borrow had overheard.

  “That was in the spring, you say?” said she. “Then I think I can cast some light on it. Outside that door in the wall over there is a wooden platform, from which a long staircase descends on the outside of the building, until it reaches the ground by the millrace. One evening in the early spring, just as the light was fading, someone climbed up that staircase and looked in here through the window. I was startled, and because the light was poor and the window dirty, I could not at first make out who it was. I thought it was probably some peasant from Dedstone, so I remained perfectly still, for I was very frightened. But after a few moments, as he moved about on the platform and tried to open the door, I realized that it was Mr Theakston and called out to him. I am not sure if he heard me or knew who it was that was in here, for this room must have appeared very dark to him, but after trying unsuccessfully for some time to open the door – it is bolted on the inside, as you see – he went away, and I heard his footsteps descending the stair. For several days I hoped that something might come from this incident, that perhaps he would tell someone that I was being kept here, but when nothing happened, I abandoned my hopes, concluded that he had not realized I was in here and put it from my mind.”

  “Something had evidently aroused his curiosity as to what was happening here,” said Holmes, “possibly the behaviour of that woman downstairs, or perhaps some rumour he had heard. Whatever it was, it seems likely that he did in fact recognize you, for he confronted your husband over the matter, either that same night, or soon afterwards. This was, of course, a terrible mistake, and the very last thing he should have done, but honest men frequently make mistakes that villains never would. He has not been seen again since that evening, and I am afraid that we must conclude that he was done to death by these villains to prevent him from speaking of what he knew.”