Adventure of the Abbey Grange - a Sherlock Holmes Short Story

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

From start to finish, this book managed to capture my attention. The reason? It was a well-written mystery story. It's an example of Sherlock using his heart, as opposed to cold logic, when pronouncing final judgement.

The tale begins with Holmes being summoned to investigate a death in the countryside. Holmes and Watson arrive to find out that a man named Sir Eustace has been killed; his wife, Lady Brackenstall, was attacked at the time of his murder and offers her account of the crime to Holmes. According to her, three known criminals broke into the house, attacked her, and murdered her husband, stopping to have a glass of wine each and then running off with some of the silver. After Holmes investigates the crime scene, he doubts Lady Brackenstall's story and decides to investigate further. In the end, it turns out that a man who had known her before, Croker, killed Sir Eustace in an effort to protect Lady Brackenstall from him. Holmes decides to follow his conscience rather than the law, and he lets Croker go.