“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 hugged 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?”