The Adventure of the Abbey Grange

"The Adventure of the Abbey Grange"
Holmes examines the corpse, 1904 illustration by Sidney Paget
Author	Arthur Conan Doyle
Series	The Return of Sherlock Holmes
Publication date	1904

"The Adventure of the Abbey Grange", one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 13 stories in the cycle collected as The Return of Sherlock Holmes.

Holmes wakes Doctor Watson up early one winter morning to rush to a murder scene at the Abbey Grange near Chislehurst. Sir Eustace Brackenstall has been killed, apparently by burglars. Inspector Stanley Hopkins believes that it was the infamous Randall gang who have committed several other burglaries in the neighborhood.

Holmes and Watson arrive at Abbey Grange. There, Lady Brackenstall tells Holmes that her marriage was not happy. Sir Eustace Brackenstall was a violent, abusive drunkard. She then tells that about 11 o'clock, in the dining room, she encountered an elderly man coming in the French window, followed by two younger men. The older man struck her in the face, knocking her out. When she came to, she was tied to an oaken chair with the bellrope, which they had torn down, and gagged. Then Sir Eustace came into the room, and rushed at the intruders. One of them struck and killed him with a poker. Lady Brackenstall fainted again for a minute or two. She saw the intruders drinking wine from a bottle taken from the sideboard. Then they left, taking some silver plate.

Sir Eustace's corpse is still lying at the murder scene. Hopkins tells Holmes some unsavoury things about Sir Eustace: He poured petroleum over his wife's dog and set it alight, and once threw a decanter at Theresa. Theresa says Sir Eustace physically and verbally assaulted his wife, especially when he was drunk.

Holmes, after examining the bellrope, notes that if it was tugged hard enough to tear it down, the bell would have rung in the kitchen, and asks why nobody heard it. Hopkins answers that it was late, and the kitchen is at the back of the house, where none of the servants would have heard. This suggests that the burglars must have known this, indicating a link between them and one of the servants. Oddly, the thieves did not take much, only a few items of silver plate from dining room. The half-empty wine bottle and glasses interest Holmes - the cork had been drawn with the corkscrew of a "multiplex knife", not the long corkscrew in the drawer, and one of the glasses has beeswing dregs in it, but the others have none.