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 always used to get what we wanted for ourselves."

"Indeed, it seems unnecessary to put it there. You will excuse me for a few minutes while I check this floor." He got down to the floor with his lens in his hand and crawled swiftly backward and forward, examining the cracks between the boards. Then he did the same with the wood-work panels. Finally he walked over to the bed and spent some time staring at it and in looking up and down the wall. Finally he took the bell-rope in his hand and gave it a hard pull.

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

Vocabulary:

Check: Look at for a reason
Crawled: Moved on his hands and knees
Cracks: Here itmeans the places where the wood is joined
Boards: Flat pieces of wood on the floor
Panels: Flat pieces of wood on the walls
Bell-rope: A rope attatched to a bell in the servant's rooms
Dummy: An imitation - not real