@Number 71

“Allow Me To Lay The Evidence Before You”

Posted by: danhartland on: August 12, 2009

It was on a bitterly cold night and frosty morning, towards the end of the winter of ’97, that I was awakened by a tugging at my shoulder.

"There was a pond in the park, and to this my friend led the way."

"There was a pond in the park, and to this my friend led the way."

The Abbey Grange is a grand old study of the master. Early on, Holmes delivers a classic scolding of Watson’s love for the sensational narrative over the instructive examination. The doctor seems, in his writing up of the ensuing case, to take the criticism to heart: here is a story which is thoroughly satisfying precisely because Holmes, his methods and his quirks, are at its very centre.

The principle engine of the story is, however, an uncharacteristic doubt: faced at first with an interesting case, he comes quickly to accept the story of the Lady of the manor which, at first glance, covers all the facts. The exchange in which he discusses his reservations with Watson is vintage Holmes: obsessed over the most trivial, most pertinent, details.

Upon returning to the scene, we are given his analysis – that is, the step-by-step process of observation-to-conclusion – in unusual detail. Once he has his answer, the story moves to its denouement more slowly than is ordinary, dwelling on the process as much as the plot.

Holmes’s Scotland Yard protege, Stanley Hopkins, returns yet again here, and even another exotic past in the colonies is developed just enough. This feels like a story which yields its secrets to Holmes properly – not because Conan Doyle forces it, and not without the reader being able to nod along as the detective detects.

Holmes’s textbook of detection alas never appeared – but in The Abbey Grange the game is instructively afoot anyhow.

1 Response to "“Allow Me To Lay The Evidence Before You”"

[...] young police inspector for whose career Holmes has “high hopes” (for Dimmock read Hopkins). The affection for and knowledge of the original stories exhibited byMoffat cannot be questioned. [...]

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71 is the number of an apartment we return to regularly in Whinfell Forest, Cumbria. We like it there.


‘We’ are Anna French and Dan Hartland. The Story and the Truth is a sort of inadequate catch-all term for what goes on here: we tend to talk about novels, history, food and fashion, politics and music, but there may also be photographs of soft toys and musicians. Stick around and see.

Words We Like

The Weird, ed. Ann and Jeff VanderMeer


An astounding work of collecting-as-art, this compendium of 800,000 weird words is easily one of the most consistent genre anthologies I have read. Heterodox yet focused, it is fated to be the canonical text of weird fiction studies for some time to come - and deservedly so. The first-rank stories here - and there are many, not a few - are not excellent weird fiction. They are simply some of the best 20th century writing available in any mode. Not without its faults - but that is, ahem, the nature of the beast. Essential.

Sounds We Like

Sonik Kicks, by Paul Weller


I haven't paid much attention to Weller - an artist who hangs heavy in my musical tutelage - since 2000's Heliocentric, an album of diverse interests which felt like a shot of crisp elegance in that year of Steps and 'N Sync. The records that followed it - particularly Illumination - were enough, however, to make those achievements a distant memory. There have been rumblings of a renaissance - 22 Dreams got great reviews - but only the sounds of Sonik Kicks have brought me back. Energetic, fierce and, best of all, creative, this sounds like a record from a much younger man. Weller has a lesson or two in him yet.

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Dan @ Twitter

  • My #OrangePrize reading careers towards the wire, and I struggle with Georgina Harding's "Painter of Silence": wp.me/pjoBO-R4 6 hours ago
  • Now it's "John Wesley Harding". 4 days ago
  • @CTD I suspect I was being goaded. You've listed my favourites, too. I will never get enough of the fiddle, natch. 4 days ago
  • @CTD Yes, love the vocal on that one. Though used to know someone who's fave Dylan song ever was Mozambique ... 4 days ago
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