“I understand that such a symbol is supposed to indicate hospitality and a warm welcome,” he remarked with a chuckle; “items which are conspicuous only by their absence at East Harrington!” He glanced again at his map. “Up to this point,” he continued after a moment, “we were on solid ground, legally speaking. From here, however, the public right of way goes off that way, to the left, through the woods to the river, whereas we must go straight ahead. According to the map, East Harrington Hall lies just beyond that belt of trees. Are you ready to step beyond the law?”
“I am,” I replied.
“According to legal tradition,” Holmes continued as we followed the drive ahead, “an Englishman’s house is his castle, and a very sound rule it is, too, in most circumstances. But, like all sound rules, it yields before another rule, when that other rule is one that possesses greater moral force, as in the present instance.”
“I quite agree.”
“Unfortunately, that consideration will not do us much good if we are stopped by anyone. And nor, of course, will the story of the wild geese, for we are past the point where that would be credible. If we are challenged, our best course now is probably to speak the truth: that we are here to see Miss Borrow. As she is a minor, legally speaking, I am not sure that her invitation to us to enter into Hartley Lessingham’s property is of any substance in the eyes of the law, but I see no alternative. We must press on with our intended business so long as ever we are at liberty to do so, and just hope that we do not end the day in a police cell. But surely that is Miss Borrow there now!”
We had passed quickly through the narrow belt of trees and found ourselves atop a slight rise. Spread out a little below us, about a hundred yards further on, was the red-brick Georgian splendour of East Harrington Hall. In front of it lay a broad smooth lawn, around which the drive curved, and in the very centre of the lawn a girl in a pink dress was sitting at an easel, facing towards us, painting. Holmes raised his cap, and she made an answering gesture with a long paintbrush. “Come along!” said he, and we left the drive and set off across the lawn.
“Oh, I am so glad that you have been able to come!” cried the girl, hurrying towards us, her eyes shining with tears. “I sat here that I might see you as soon as you arrived, but I scarcely dared hope that I would see you at all!”
“Now that we are here, we must waste no time,” returned Holmes in an urgent tone. “We have had an unfortunate encounter with your guardian on our way here, and it is possible that he will send back his coachman, or some other servant, to see what we are up to. You must take us to your brother’s room at once!”
Miss Borrow put down her painting things and ran before us across the lawn and up a broad and shallow flight of steps to the ornate front door of the house. We followed her into the entrance hall, where a maidservant was polishing a large, gleaming piece of green marble statuary, and looked at us with curiosity as we passed. Miss Borrow paid her no heed, but led the way up a wide, thickly carpeted staircase and into a first-floor corridor, where the scent of beeswax polish filled the air. As she turned in to another, steeper flight of stairs, a manservant in livery came round a corner, stopped and stared at us in surprise, but we ignored him and pressed on. A third flight of stairs, steeper and less extravagantly carpeted than the others, brought us to the top floor. Here was the same gleaming, polished woodwork, but on a smaller and more modest scale than on the floors below.
“This is my brother’s room,” said Miss Borrow, indicating a dark, panelled door, halfway along the corridor. We tried the handle, but the door was locked and no key was in sight. As Holmes was bending down, squinting through the keyhole to see if the key was on the inside, another door was opened further along the corridor, and a large, fat, slatternly-looking woman emerged. Miss Borrow let out a little cry, stepped back in alarm and pressed herself against the corridor wall. “It is Mrs Hard-castle,” said she in a whisper.
This, then, was the woman who had been charged with taking care of Miss Borrow’s brother, and of overseeing his return to full health. She was, I must say, every physician’s nightmare of a nurse, and the expression upon her coarse features spoke only of brutality and ignorance.
“Who might you be?” asked this unpleasant apparition in a rude and impertinent tone, addressing Holmes.
“I am the man that is going to enter this room,” returned Holmes in a sharp tone. “Where is the key?”
“That’s none of your business,” said she, but there had been a momentary flicker of her eyes towards the doorway through which she had just emerged. Holmes had evidently observed this, too, for in an instant he had stepped past the woman and into the room behind her. In a moment, he emerged again with a large iron key in his hand. She tried to snatch it from him as he passed, but he evaded her and bent to the lock with it. A low, muffled moan came from beyond the door, as if the rattle of the key had roused the occupant of the room from slumber.
A cry from Miss Borrow made me turn, to see that Mrs Hardcastle had darted into her room and re-emerged with a large stick in her hand. She moved with remarkable speed for such a large woman, and now, in what appeared to be a blind rage, dashed forward before I could stop her and struck Holmes a sharp blow across the shoulders. He turned, eyed her coldly for a moment, then stood up and wrenched the stick from her grasp. In a slow, deliberate fashion, he snapped the stick across his knee and tossed the broken pieces onto the floor.
“If you are not out of my sight in two seconds,” said he in an icy tone, “I shall personally throw you down the stairs.”
For one second she stood there, defiance struggling with fear upon her face, then, as Holmes made some slight motion towards her, fear gained the upper hand and she turned and ran into her room. The door slammed shut behind her and I heard the key turn in the lock.
“Quickly,” said Holmes, returning to the lock of the boy’s room. “We have no time to lose! There may be others in the house who will present us with more formidable opposition!” He turned the key and pushed open the door, and as he did so Miss Borrow dashed forward and into her brother’s room. It was dark within, for a heavy curtain was drawn across the window, but the light from the open doorway sufficed to illuminate a scene more shocking than anything I could have imagined. Upon the bed, under a single dirty sheet, the little boy lay still, his head upon a filthy pillow, and the eyes which turned in our direction were wide with fear. But what riveted my attention was that the lower part of his face was completely covered by the windings of some bandage-like cloth.
Quickly I untied the knot behind his neck and unwound this filthy cloth, as Holmes drew back the curtain to admit the grey light of that dull September day into the room. Beneath the bandage, a further clump of rag had been forced into his mouth. There appeared nothing whatever wrong with his face and it was evident that the cloth was nothing more than a gag, designed to prevent him crying out. As I removed it, he began to sob, although the gaze of his dark-ringed eyes never left his sister. For a moment I was puzzled as to why he did not sit up, or extend his hand to her, but as I drew back the filthy sheet that covered him, the reason became plain. Beneath the sheet, several lengths of stout cord had been passed across his chest and under the bed, binding him fast. Further lengths of the same cord had been tied tightly round his wrists, and secured to the frame of the bed. These I at once set about unfastening. As I did so, I noticed with horror that his arms and legs were covered with livid bruises. It was apparent that he had been beaten, repeatedly and severely.