Dot is in the stables at Dendringham Hall, where Wizzie and the dogs at the hall, Victor the St Bernard and Angharad the Welsh Terrier, are settling down for the night. Then Mr Holmes arrives…
It was the strange man who’d been talking to everyone in the drawing room the Hall when Dot and her friends net-voyaged back to the 19th-century Dendringham Hall.
But now, he looked stranger than ever!
He wore a long coat that went nearly all the way down to his shiny brown boots. It was dark green with a kind of faint green checked pattern on it, and it had a big collar and a kind of flap at the top, across his shoulders at the back.
On his head he had a funny kind of hat – it had a peak at the front AND the back, and flaps on each side, tied up over the top with little leather straps. Dot realized it was so you could let them down to keep your ears warm. The hat was made of the same material as the coat.
He was smoking a big pipe – with a stem that curved down to the white bowl which held the burning tobacco. Looked a bit like a mini-saxophone!
As he spoke a wisp of bluey-grey smoke came out of the side of his mouth.
Yeucchh, thought Dot. Doesn’t he know how BAD that is for you? But then she remembered from one of her History projects how everyone used to smoke in those days. Usually men.
Because if a woman smoked they would be very shocked. They would think it was a bad thing for a lady to do – or, as they used to say back then, “fast”!
Mr Holmes looked down at Dot and smiled. Though his face was very white, and thin so you could see his cheekbones, he had a nice smile – but the big hooked nose and the dark eyes above it made you think of someone who could see right through you.
“Well Miss Dorothea” he said, taking his pipe out of his mouth. “And what do you make of the strange goings-on here at the Hall?”
“I don’t know sir” Dot said (she remembered just in time that children always had to say “sir” to older gentlemen in those days.) “But it’s very scary!”
Mr Holmes raised his eyebrows. “Scary?” he said. “That’s a strange word! I’ve never heard anyone ever say that before!”
Ooops, thought Dot. Must remember I’m back in Victorian times!
“Oh, I mean frightening” she said. “Miss Walsingham my governess seems very upset about everything that’s been happening!”
Mr Holmes frowned. “Yes” he said. “That’s the worst of it. This fellow, whoever he is, is upsetting the ladies. We can’t let that go on – I mean to get to the bottom of all this, and when I do, the rascal who’s been playing these tricks on the good people here will regret he ever started!”
As he spoke his face looked very fierce, and his eyes had an angry glow. He reminded Dot of Mrs Rudman her head teacher at St Mary’s, when she was angry about something that had happened at school. Only her face didn’t look so like an eagle’s!
Mr Holmes took another puff at his pipe and looked down at the three dogs. He sighed.
“I think our four-legged friends might be able to tell us a thing or two, if only they could talk!” he said. He leant down and tickled Victor behind his ear. The St Bernard yawned and flapped his big tail on the straw of the stables.
Wizzie gave Dot a wink, looking very innocent. Angharad made a funny little noise in her throat that just might have been a Welsh Terrier chuckle, and started on a very thorough clean-up of one of her paws.
And then –
“AROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”
