Sherlock Holmes Investigates

 

A small side door led into the whitewashed corridor. Inside there were doors for three bedrooms. Holmes wasn't interested in the third bedroom, so we went at once to the second room, where Miss Stoner was now sleeping - and in which her sister had died. It was a friendly little room, with a low ceiling and a wide fireplace, of the kind you often find in old country-houses. There was a brown chest of drawers in one corner, a small bed in another, and a dressing-table on the left-hand side of the window.

These things and two small chairs were all the furniture in the room except for a square of carpet in the centre. The wooden panelling of the walls was of brown, worm-eaten oak, so old that it might have been as old as the original building. Holmes pulled up one of the chairs into a corner and sat silently, while his eyes travelled round and round and up and down, taking in every detail of the room.

"Who does that bell communicate with?" he asked at last; pointing to a thick bell-rope which hung down beside the bed, the tassel actually lying upon the pillow.

Vocabulary:

Whitewash: A pure white powder used to paint walls
Chest of drawers: Part of bedroom furniture, for shirts, socks etc
Dressing table: A table with a mirror
Panelling: Squares of flat wood on the walls
Worm: A small animal with no legs, arms or eyes
Oak: Wood from an oak tree
Tassel: An ornamental ending to a piece of rope or cord