صفحة 410 من 657

A small side door led into the whitewashed corridor from which

the three bedrooms opened. Holmes refused to examine the third

chamber, so we passed at once to the second, that in which Miss

Stoner was now sleeping, and in which her sister had met with her

fate. It was a homely little room, with a low ceiling and a

gaping fireplace, after the fashion of old country-houses. A

brown chest of drawers stood in one corner, a narrow

white-counterpaned bed in another, and a dressing-table on the

left-hand side of the window. These articles, with two small

wicker-work chairs, made up all the furniture in the room save

for a square of Wilton carpet in the centre. The boards round and

the panelling of the walls were of brown, worm-eaten oak, so old

and discoloured that it may have dated from the original building

of the house. Holmes drew one of the chairs into a corner and sat

silent, while his eyes travelled round and round and up and down,

taking in every detail of the apartment.