Sherlock Holmes Investigates

 

"It goes to the housekeeper's room .It was only put there a couple of years ago"

"Yes, it looks newer than the other things.Your sister asked for it, I suppose?"

"No, I never heard of her using it. We used always to get what we wanted for ourselves."

"Indeed, it seemed unnecessary to put so nice a bell-pull there. You will excuse me for a few minutes while I satisfy myself as to this floor." He threw himself down upon his face with his lens in his hand and crawled swiftly backward and forward, examining minutely the cracks between the boards. Then he did the same with the wood-work with which the chamber was panelled. Finally he walked over to the bed and spent some time in staring at it and in running his eye up and down the wall. Finally he took the bell-rope in his hand and gave it a brisk tug.

"Why, it's a dummy," said he.

Vocabulary
Crawled: Moved on his hands and knees.
Minutely: In great detail.
Bell-rope: A rope attatched to a bell in the servant's rooms.
Brisk: Hard and quick.
Tug: Pull.
Why: Here this is just an exclamation of surprise.
Dummy: An imitation - not real.