So it went.  The black coat grew ragged in the service, and hobbledehoys, finding him safe sport, smashed the tall hat over his eyes time after time.  He wept over the hat, and straightened it as best he might.  Was she coming?  Night after night, and night and night.  But tomorrow....

THE ADVENTURE OF THE ABBEY GRANGE

By Arthur Conan Doyle

(The Strand Magazine, 23 January 1897)

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.  It was Holmes.  The candle in his hand shone upon his eager, stooping face, and told me at a glance that something was amiss.

‘Come, Watson, come!’ he cried.  The game is afoot.  Not a word!  Into your clothes and come!’

Ten minutes later we were both in a cab, and rattling through the silent streets on our way to Charing Cross Station.  The first faint winter’s dawn was beginning to appear, and we could dimly see the occasional figure of an early workman as he passed us, blurred and indistinct in the opalescent London reek.  Holmes nestled in silence into his heavy coat, and I was glad to do the same, for the air was most bitter, and neither of us had broken our fast.

It was not until we had consumed some hot tea at the station and taken our places in the Kentish train that we were sufficiently thawed, he to speak and I to listen.  Holmes drew a note from his pocket, and read aloud: 

Abbey Grange, Marsham, Kent

3:30 A.M.

My Dear Mr. Holmes: 

I should be very glad of your immediate assistance in what promises to be a most remarkable case.  It is something quite in your line.  Except for releasing the lady I will see that everything is kept exactly as I have found it, but I beg you not to lose an instant, as it is difficult to leave Sir Eustace there.

Yours faithfully,

STANLEY HOPKINS

’Hopkins has called me in seven times, and on each occasion his summons has been entirely justified,’ said Holmes.  ’I fancy that every one of his cases has found its way into your collection, and I must admit, Watson, that you have some power of selection, which atones for much which I deplore in your narratives.  Your fatal habit of looking at everything from the point of view of a story instead of as a scientific exercise has ruined what might have been an instructive and even classical series of demonstrations.  You slur over work of the utmost finesse and delicacy, in order to dwell upon sensational details which may excite, but cannot possibly instruct, the reader.’

‘Why do you not write them yourself?’ I said, with some bitterness.

’I will, my dear Watson, I will.  At present I am, as you know, fairly busy, but I propose to devote my declining years to the composition of a textbook, which shall focus the whole art of detection into one volume.  Our present research appears to be a case of murder.’