Sherlock Holmes Investigates

 

Holmes pushed back the black lace which fringed the hand that lay upon our visitor's knee. Five livid red spots, marks of four fingers and a thumb, were printed on the white wrist.

"You have been cruelly used" said Holmes.

The lady coloured deeply and covered over the injured wrist. "He is a hard man" she said "and perhaps he hardly knows his own strength."

There was a long silence, during which Holmes leaned his chin upon his hand and stared into the crackling fire. "This is a very deep business "he said at last." There are a thousand details which I should desire to know before I decide upon our course of action. Yet we have not a moment to lose. If we were to come to your premises today, would it be possible for us to see over these rooms without the knowledge of your stepfather?"

Vocabulary:

Lace: A type of fabric made with elaborate weaving.
Fringe: The edge of something loose. The hair on your forehead is also a fringe.
Livid: The colour of skin that has been hit or pressed very hard.
Cruelly used: In modern English - treated badly.
Coloured: Here this means blushed. The blood came to her face.
Leaned: to Put the weight of something against someting else.
Crackling: The noise made by many small explosions.
Course of action: What to do.
Not a moment to lose: To have no time.
Premises: House: Here, the Stoke Moran Estate.