Sherlock Holmes Investigates

 

"Won't it ring?"

"No, it is not even attached to a wire. This is very interesting. You can see now that it is fastened to a hook just above where the little opening for the ventilator is."

"How very absurd! I never noticed that before."

"Very strange!" muttered Holmes, pulling at the rope. "There are one or two very singular points about this room. For example, what a fool a builder must be to open a ventilator into another room, when, with the same trouble, he might have communicated with the outside air!"

"That is also quite modern," said the lady.

"Done about the same time as the bell-rope?" asked Holmes.

Vocabulary
Wire: A long thin piece of flexible metal.
Fastened: Connected.
Absurd: Ridiculous and hard to believe.
Mutter: To speak in a soft, quick voice.
Singular: Here it means very strange.
Communicate: Here it means connect with.