| "The Adventure of the Abbey Grange" | |
|---|---|
| by Arthur Conan Doyle | |
| Released | 1904 |
| Series | The Return of Sherlock Holmes |
| Client(s) | Inspector Stanley Hopkins |
| Set in | 1897 |
"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.
Contents |
Abbey Grange owner, violent drunkard Sir Eustace Brackenstall, had head bashed in by fireplace poker, after Lady Mary née Fraser, wife of one year, says she was tied up and gagged by burglars, in a bitterly cold 1897 winter end. (Holmes wakes Watson to follow Hopkin's telegram, eighth case request.) Blue-eyed blonde Mary sports a head lump, bathed by her maid Theresa Wright, with her from Australia; Holmes spots arm bruises too. He eyes three used wine glasses, one with old flaked dregs, half-full vintage bottle, frayed bell-rope end, knots, knows the corkscrew from burglar's multiplex knife.
But Holmes puzzles on return train, partway turns back, sure the story is false. Reported in Syndenham, burglars would leave area, take more loot and wine, three would overpower one victim. Every glass would have dregs. Back at Abbey Grange, Holmes climbs, notes cut rope end, knee mark in dust, evidence a powerful climber was three inches taller than his six feet. Blood stains Mary's chair seat; she was tied after, not before. Theresa says they docked June, Brackenstalls met July, married January. In vain, Holmes begs Mary for truth; leaves Hopkins note to search pond, justifies return.
Back in London, shipping office records Rock of Gibralter came June 1895. Her officers are Suez-bound, except Jack Crocker of Sydenham, made captain of the new Bass Rock, sails in two days. Holmes declines to wait for him this morning, but asks about his character: loyal, honest, kind, the best. Holmes, cautious with experience, sits puzzled in his cab at Scotland Yard, instead telegraphs and returns home.
Lestrade thanks him for locating silver in pond, reports Randall threesome caught the morning after in New York, precludes their involvement here the night before. After supper, golden-mustached blue-eyed Crocker arrives and agrees to tell the truth. On the voyage, he fell in love; she stayed comradely. Hearing of her marriage, he only wished her the best. On leave, he chanced upon Theresa; she told all. He met her again, met Mary twice; she sent him away. Given his week's notice to sail, he got Theresa's help for a last visit.
The night icy, Mary calls him through the dining room window to talk, when Brackenstall storms in, calls her the vilest name, welts her across the face with his stick. She screams; Theresa hears. He strikes Crocker, who retaliates with the poker. Theresa enters, concocts story with Crocker, who opens reviving wine, and assembles props.
Holmes salutes his truth. The sailor climbing and knots, the silence of Lady Mary proving she protects one she loves deeply, point to one man. If the captain will leave within 24 hours, Holmes will prevent pursuit. Crocker refuses to abandon Mary, pleads for her safety, again passing Holmes' tests of character. Holmes declares himself judge, and Watson, jury, acquits their prisoner. "Come back to this lady in a year, and may her future and yours justify us in the judgement we have pronounced this night!"
Holmes wakes Doctor Watson up early one 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, a father and two sons.
Upon arrival at Abbey Grange, Lady Brackenstall is found resting with a purple swelling over one eye, the result of a blow during the previous night's incident. There are also two red spots on her arm. Her maid, Theresa Wright, who has been with her mistress since she was a girl, later tells Holmes that Sir Eustace inflicted those with a hatpin.
Lady Brackenstall tells Holmes that her marriage was not happy. Sir Eustace Brackenstall was a violent, abusive alcoholic. Moreover, Lady Brackenstall found it hard to adjust to life in England after the freedom that she enjoyed in her native Australia, which she left 18 months before. She had been married for about a year.
About 11 o'clock, Lady Brackenstall walked around the house to check it was secure before going to a bed. At one window, she says, she found an elderly man who had just climbed in, with two younger ones behind him. He struck her in the face, knocking her out. When she came to herself, she had been tied to an oaken chair with the bellrope, which they had torn down, and gagged. Then, Sir Eustace came into the room with a cudgel, and rushed the intruders. One of them struck and killed him with a poker. After fainting again, Lady Brackenstall came to and saw the men sharing some wine. They left with some silver plate.
Sir Eustace's body is still lying at the murder scene. The poker has been bent into a curve, suggesting a strong attacker. 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 describes Sir Eustace as a vicious abusive husband who regularly physically and verbally assaulted his wife, especially when he was drunk.
Holmes examines the knots in the bellrope, and the frayed end. Realising that if the bellrope was tugged, the bell would have rung in the kitchen, Holmes asks why nobody heard it. It was late, he is told, and the kitchen is at the back of the house, where none of the servants would have heard. Oddly, the thieves did not take much.
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.
Holmes is already annoyed at being called to investigate a case that apparently has a ready-made solution, so he and Watson catch the train back to London. On the way, however, Holmes thinks better of his haste, and pulls Watson off the train at a suburban station, announcing that they are going back to the Abbey Grange. Having had some time on the train to mull things over, Holmes has reached the following conclusions:
Holmes also draws Watson's attention to the wineglasses. The presence of beeswing in only one surely means that only two people used the glasses, pouring the dregs into the third to make it look as though there were three. Holmes deduces from this that Lady Brackenstall and her maid have been lying.
Upon returning to the Abbey Grange, Holmes climbs on the mantel, examining the cut end of the bellrope, and a bracket upon which he must kneel to reach it. Holmes has now developed the killer's profile: 6ft 3in (190cm) tall, active, dexterous, and quick-witted. The killer cut the bellrope with a knife, and used the same knife to fray the loose end, but he could not reach the end still hanging from the ceiling. That has clearly been cut clean. Sir Eustace's blood can also be seen on the seat of the oaken chair. How could a splatter have landed there if Lady Brackenstall was bound there before her husband's murder?
After observing a hole in the ice on the pond, Holmes writes a note for Hopkins, and then begins his search for the sailor who fell in love with Lady Brackenstall on her voyage from Australia, for surely that is what the profile and the knots, among other evidence, point to.
Back at 221B Baker Street, Inspector Hopkins arrives with the news that the stolen silver was found at the bottom of the pond and that the Randall gang has been arrested — in New York.
Holmes, meanwhile, has found the sailor, Captain Croker, who delivers himself to Baker Street, and is surprised not to be arrested. Holmes simply demands a full account of what happened at the Abbey Grange that night, although he has already deduced most of it.
Yes, Croker loves Mary (Lady Brackenstall). He came to the house to see her at a window when Sir Eustace burst into the room and insulted Mary before hitting her, and then came at him with the cudgel. There was a fight, and Croker killed Brackenstall with the poker, in self-defence. Realising what a scandal would ensue, he and Theresa concocted the cover story.
Holmes tests Croker by offering him the chance to escape and telling him that the story would be published after 24 hours. Croker indignantly refuses the offer, seeing that Mary would be sure to be held as an accomplice, and he would never abandon her to such a fate. Rather, he offers to give himself up and face trial as long as Mary's role is kept secret. Thereupon, Holmes decides to let him go free and not to refer the matter to Hopkins — but only after appointing himself "judge" and Watson the "jury". Crocker is found not guilty and Holmes tells him he will keep the secret unless an innocent person is charged with Brackenstall's death and further advises Crocker to wait for a year before seeing Mary again.
As earlier in "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" and later in "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot", Holmes lets a proven criminal go free and withholds the information from the police. In the present story as in "The Devil's Foot", it is Holmes's position (which seems to have been the writer's, too) that a man acting to defend his beloved or avenge her deserves sympathy and consideration, even if his acts constituted a serious violation of the law.
One sentence of Holmes's explanation of how he solved the mystery reflect the strict Class system that dominated British society at the time: "No one but a sailor could have made the knots... Only once had this lady been brought into contact with sailors, and that was on her voyage [from Australia], and it was someone of her own class of life, since she was trying hard to shield him, and so showing that she loved him." Evidently, Holmes categorically rules out the possibility that a lady may have fallen in love with a common sailor — rather than a captain — and be trying to shield him.
Another casual remark exhibiting the difference between mores and conventions at the time of writing and those of the present is given by Croker's explanation of why he decided to trust Holmes: "I'll chance it. I believe you are a man of your word, and a white man". (The last a reference to Holmes's character rather than to the colour of his skin.)
Some editions of the canon spell Captain Croker's name as Captain Crocker.
In the present story, the manner in which knots were tied in a rope makes Holmes conclude that they were tied by a sailor, which leads him to Captain Croker. In references to various Sherlock Holmes stories — a sailor is suspected of involvement in the murder investigated, but Lord Peter Wimsey remarks: "One thing I am sure of is that it was not a sailor who put these knots into the rope" (Part 2, Ch. 7).
This story is the one and only place in the Canons where the phrase "The game is afoot" is used.
The Granada TV adaptation with Jeremy Brett was faithful to the original story, aside from changing the season from late winter to late spring or summer.
The story was adapted for the 1964 BBC series with Douglas Wilmer. The episode is now lost.
Works related to The Adventure of the Abbey Grange at Wikisource
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