Review of The Abbey Grange

Rather a good entry. Holmes and Watson are called to Abbey Grange, one of those mansions with which the series is populated. The Master of the House has been found with his head bashed in near the fireplace. His wife, bruised and beaten, was tied to a chair nearby. So, whodunnit? The Master, Sir Eustace Brackenstall, wasn't a very nice guy, as it turns out -- a drunkard with a vile temper. But what engages Holmes are the little details that he builds his logical argument on. The rope with which the wife, played by Anne-Louise Lambert, was tied had been cut with a knife near the ceiling, at a point very difficult to reach. There are three half-empty glasses of port on the mantel but only one has dregs in it, or maybe two, I forget, but in any case the dregs aren't distributed the way they should be if there had been three intruders who murdered Brackenstall and then had a glass of port to steady their nerves.

All of this casts doubt on the story of Lady Brackenstall, who claims that during intervals of consciousness she saw three strangers. It's very ungentlemanly of Holmes or anybody else to cast any doubt on Lady Brackenstall's tale because Anne-Louise Lambert is a real dish. The last thing any normal man would want to do is cast doubt on her story, let alone beat her, although a pinch or two probably wouldn't hurt.

Holmes quickly disposes of the three-intruder story and narrows it down to one, whose motive and identity he uncovers with improbable alacrity. I don't want to give away any more of the plot because it is, after all, a genuine mystery. Let's say no one suffers who hadn't earned his suffering.