Arthur and George (50 page)

“No. I think that’s plain from my Statement.”

“Yes, of course. Forgive me.”

“So, unless you have any objection, I shall include my Statement against Sharp with my other submissions to the Home Office.”

“Sir Arthur, I cannot possibly express the gratitude I feel—”

“I do not want you to. I did not do it for your blasted gratitude, which you have already sufficiently expressed. I did it because you are innocent, and I am ashamed of the way the judicial and bureaucratic machinery of this country operates.”

“Nevertheless, no one else could have done what you have done. And in so comparatively short a time as well.”

He is as good as saying I botched it, thinks Arthur. No, don’t be absurd—it’s merely that he’s far more interested in his own vindication, and in making absolutely sure of that, than in Sharp’s prosecution. Which is perfectly understandable. Finish item one before proceeding to item two—what else would you expect of a cautious lawyer? Whereas I attack on all fronts simultaneously. He’s just worrying that I might take my eye off the ball.

But later, when they had parted and Arthur sat in a cab on the way to Jean’s flat, he began to wonder. What was that dictum? People will forgive you anything except the help you give them? Something like that. And maybe such a response was exaggerated in a case like this. When he had read up about Dreyfus it had struck him that many of those who came to help the Frenchman, who worked for him out of a deep passion, who saw his case not just as a great battle between Truth and Lies, between Justice and Injustice, but as a matter which explained and even defined the country they lived in—that many of them were not at all impressed by Colonel Alfred Dreyfus. They had found him rather a dry stick, cold and correct, and not exactly flowing with the juices of gratitude and human sympathy. Someone had written that the victim was usually not up to the mystique of his own affair. That was a rather French thing to say, but not necessarily wide of the mark.

Or maybe that was just as unfair. When he had first met George Edalji, he had been impressed by how this rather frail and delicate young man could have withstood three years of penal servitude. In his surprise, he had doubtless failed to appreciate what it must have cost George. Perhaps the only way to survive was to concentrate utterly, from dawn to dusk, on the minutiae of your own case, to have nothing else in your head, to have all the facts and arguments marshalled for whenever they might be needed. Only then could you survive monstrous injustice and the squalid reversal in your habits of living. So it might be expecting too much of George Edalji to expect him to react as a free man might. Until he was pardoned and compensated, he could not go back to being the man he had been before.

Save your irritation for others, thought Arthur. George is a good fellow, and an innocent man, but there is no point wishing sanctity upon him. Wanting more gratitude than he can offer is like wanting every reviewer to declare each new book of yours a work of genius. Yes, save your irritation for others. Captain Anson for a start, whose letter this morning contained a fresh piece of insolence: the blunt refusal to admit that the mutilations could have been caused by a horse lancet. And to cap it, the dismissive line, “What you drew was an ordinary fleam.” Indeed! Arthur had not bothered George with this latest provocation.

And as well as Anson, he was finding himself irritated by Willie Hornung. His brother-in-law had a new joke, which Connie had passed on to him over lunch. “What do Arthur Conan Doyle and George Edalji have in common? No? Give up? ‘Sentences.’ ” Arthur growled to himself. Sentences—he thought that witty? Objectively, Arthur could see that some might find it so. But really . . . Unless he was beginning to lose his sense of humour. They said it happened to people in middle age. No—poppycock. And now he was starting to irritate himself. Another trait of middle age, no doubt.

George, meanwhile, was still in the writing room at the Grand Hotel. He was in low spirits. He had been disgracefully impolite and ungrateful towards Sir Arthur. And after the months and months of work he had put into the case. George was ashamed of himself. He must write to apologize. And yet . . . and yet . . . it would have been dishonest to say more than he did. Or rather, if he had said more, he would have been obliged to be honest.

He had read the Statement of the Case against Royden Sharp that Arthur was sending to the Home Office. He had read it several times, naturally. And each time his impression had hardened. His conclusion—his inevitable, professional conclusion—was that it would not help his own position. Further, his judgement—which he would never have dared utter at their meeting—was that Sir Arthur’s case against Sharp strangely resembled the Staffordshire Constabulary’s case against himself.

It was based, to begin with, and in exactly the same way, upon the letters. Sir Reginald Hardy had said in his summing-up at Stafford that the person who wrote the letters must also have been the person who maimed the livestock. This connection was explicit, and rightly criticized by Mr. Yelverton and those who had taken up his case. Yet here was Sir Arthur making exactly the same connection. The letters were his starting point, and through them he had traced Royden Sharp’s hand, and his comings and goings, at every turn. The letters incriminated Sharp, just as they had previously incriminated George. And while it was now concluded that the letters had been deliberately written by Sharp and his brother to pull George into the affair, why could they not equally have been written by someone else to pull Sharp into the affair? If they had been false the first time, why should they be true the second?

Likewise, all Sir Arthur’s evidence was circumstantial, and much of it hearsay. A woman and a child were assaulted by someone who might have been Royden Sharp, except that his name had not been raised at the time and no police action had been taken. A statement had been made to Mrs. Greatorex three or more years ago, which she had not seen fit to pass on to anyone at the time, but which she now brought up when Royden Sharp’s name was mentioned. She also remembered some hearsay—or a piece of washing line gossip—from Sharp’s wife. Royden Sharp had an exceedingly poor scholastic record: yet if that were sufficient proof of criminal intent, the gaols would be full. Royden Sharp was supposed to be strangely influenced by the moon—except on those occasions when he was not. Further, Sharp lived in a house from which it was easy to escape unobserved at night: just like the Vicarage, and any number of other houses in the district.

And if this wasn’t enough to make a solicitor’s heart sink, there was worse, far worse. Sir Arthur’s only piece of solid evidence was the horse lancet, which he had now taken possession of. And what exactly was the legal value of such an item so obtained? A third party, namely Sir Arthur, had incited a fourth party, namely Mr. Wood, to enter illegally the property of yet another party, Royden Sharp, and steal an item which he had then transported halfway across the kingdom. It was understandable that he had not handed it over to the Staffordshire Constabulary, but it could have been lodged with a proper legal official. A solicitor-at-law, for instance. Whereas Sir Arthur’s actions had contaminated the evidence. Even the police knew that they had to obtain either a search warrant, or the express and unambiguous permission of the householder, before entering premises. George admitted that criminal law was not his speciality, but it seemed to him that Sir Arthur had incited an associate to commit burglary and in the process rendered valueless a vital piece of evidence. And he might even be lucky to escape a charge of conspiracy to commit theft.

This was where Sir Arthur’s excess of enthusiasm had led him. And it was all, George decided, the fault of Sherlock Holmes. Sir Arthur had been too influenced by his own creation. Holmes performed his brilliant acts of deduction and then handed villains over to the authorities with their unambiguous guilt written all over them. But Holmes had never once been obliged to stand in the witness box and have his suppositions and intuitions and immaculate theories ground to very fine dust over a period of several hours by the likes of Mr. Disturnal. What Sir Arthur had done was the equivalent of go into a field where the criminal’s footprints might be found and trample all over it wearing several different pairs of boots. He had, in his eagerness, destroyed the legal case against Royden Sharp even as he was trying to make it. And it was all the fault of Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

Arthur
&
George

As he holds a copy of the Report of the Gladstone Committee in his hand, Arthur is relieved that he has twice failed to be elected to Parliament. He need feel no direct shame. This is how they do things, how they bury bad news. They have released the Report without the slightest warning on the Friday before the Whitsun holiday. Who will want to read about a miscarriage of justice while taking the train to the seaside? Who will be available to provide informed comment? Who will care, by the time Whit Sunday and Whit Monday have passed and work begins again? The Edalji Case—wasn’t that settled months ago?

George also holds a copy in his hand. He looks at the title page:

PAPERS
relating to the
CASE OF GEORGE EDALJI

presented to both Houses of Parliament
by Command of His Majesty

and then, at the bottom:

London: printed for His Majesty’s Stationery Office
by Eyre and Spottiswoode,
Printers to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty
[Cd. 3503.] Price 1
¹
⁄
₂
d.                     1907

It sounds substantial, but the price seems to give it away. A penny halfpenny to learn the truth about his case, his life . . . He opens the pamphlet warily. Four pages of Report, then two brief appendices. A penny halfpenny. His breath is coming short. His life summed up for him yet again. And this time not for readers of the
Cannock Chase Courier,
the Birmingham
Daily Gazette
or the Birmingham
Daily Post,
the
Daily Telegraph
or
The Times,
but for both Houses of Parliament and the King’s Most Excellent Majesty . . .

Arthur has taken the Report, unread, to Jean’s flat. This is only right. Just as the Report itself is laid before Parliament, so the consequences of his venture should be laid before her. She has taken an interest in the matter which far exceeded his expectations. In truth, he had no expectations at all. But she was always at his side, if not literally, then metaphorically. So she must be there at the conclusion.

George takes a glass of water and sits in an armchair. His mother has returned to Wyrley and he is currently alone in Miss Goode’s lodgings, whose address is registered with Scotland Yard. He places a notebook on the arm of the chair, as he does not want to mark the Report itself. Perhaps he is not yet cured of the regulations governing the use of library books in Lewes and Portland. Arthur stands with his back to the fireplace while Jean sews, her head already half-cocked for the extracts Arthur will read to her. She wonders if they should have done more on this day for George Edalji, perhaps invited him for a glass of champagne, except that he does not drink; although since it was only this morning they heard the Report was due to be released . . .

George Edalji was tried on the charge of feloniously wounding . . .

“Hah!” says Arthur, barely half a paragraph in. “Listen to this.
The Assistant Chairman of Quarter Sessions, who presided at the trial, when consulted about the conviction, reported that he and his colleagues were strongly of the opinion that the conviction was right.
Amateurs. Rank amateurs. Not a lawyer among them. I sometimes feel, my dear Jean, that the entire country is run by amateurs. Listen to them.
These circumstances make us hesitate very seriously before expressing dissent from a conviction so arrived at, and so approved.
”

George is less concerned by this opening; he is enough of a lawyer to know when a
however
is round the corner. And here it comes—not one, but three of them. However, there was considerable feeling in the neighbourhood of Wyrley at the time; however, the police, so long baffled, were
naturally extremely anxious
to arrest someone; however, the police had both begun and carried on the investigation
for the purpose of finding evidence against Edalji.
There, it was said, quite openly and now quite officially. The police were prejudiced against him from the start.

Both Arthur and George read:
The case is also one of great inherent difficulty, because there is no possible view that can be taken of it, which does not involve extreme improbabilities.
Poppycock, Arthur thinks. What on earth are the extreme improbabilities in George’s being innocent? George thinks, This is just an elaborate form of words; they are saying there is no middle ground; which is true, because either I am completely innocent or I am completely guilty, and since there are
extreme improbabilities
in the prosecution case, therefore it must and will be dismissed.

The
defects
in the trial . . . the prosecution case changed in two substantial regards as it went along. Indeed. First in the matter of when the crime was supposed to have been committed. Police evidence
inconsistent, and indeed contradictory.
Similar discrepancies about the razor . . . The footprints.
We think the value of the footprints as evidence is practically nothing.
The razor as weapon.
Not very easy to reconcile with the evidence of the veterinary surgeon.
The blood not fresh. The hairs.
Dr. Butter, who is a witness quite above suspicion.

Dr. Butter was always the stumbling block, thinks George. But this is very fair so far. Next, the letters. The Greatorex letters are the key, and the jury examined them at length.
They considered their verdict for a considerable time, and we think they must be taken to have held that Edalji was the writer of those letters. We have ourselves carefully examined the letters, and compared them with the admitted handwriting of Edalji, and we are not prepared to dissent from the finding at which the jury arrived.