The Vicar, his wife and daughter were waiting for them. Sir Arthur could immediately recognize the source of George’s simple good manners, and also of his self-containment. The family was glad of his arrival, but not effusive; conscious of his fame, yet not overawed. He was relieved for once to find himself in the presence of three people, none of whom, he was prepared to wager, had ever read a single one of his books.
The Vicar was paler-skinned than his son, with a flat-topped head balding at the front, and a strong, bulldoggy aspect to him. He shared the same mouth with George, but to Arthur’s eye looked both more handsome and more Occidental.
Two thick files were produced. Arthur took out an item at random: a letter folded from a single sheet, making four closely written pages.
“My dear Shapurji,” he read, “I have great pleasure in informing you that it is now our intention to review the persecution of the Vicar!!! (shame of Great Wyrley).” It was a competent hand, he thought, rather than a neat one. “. . . a certain lunatic asylum not a hundred miles distant from your thrice cursed home . . . and that you will be forcibly removed in case you give way to any strong expressions of opinion.” No spelling mistakes either, so far. “I shall send a double number of the most hellish postcards in your name and Charlotte’s at the earliest opportunity.” Charlotte was presumably the Vicar’s wife. “Revenge on you and Brookes . . .” That name was familiar from his researches. “. . . have sent a letter in his name to the Courier that he will not be responsible for his wife’s debts . . . I repeat that there will be no need for the lunacy act to take you in charge as these persons are sure to have you arrested.” And then, in four descending lines, a mocking farewell:
Wishing you a Merry Christmas and New Year,
I am ever
Yours Satan
God Satan
“Poisonous,” said Sir Arthur.
“Which one is that?”
“One from Satan.”
“Yes,” said the Vicar. “A prolific correspondent.”
Arthur inspected a few more items. It was one thing to hear about anonymous letters, even to read extracts from them in the Press. Then they sounded like childish pranks. But to hold one in your hand, and to be sitting with its recipients, was, he realized, quite different. That first one was filthy stuff, with its caddish reference to the Vicar’s wife by her Christian name. The work of a lunatic, perhaps; though a lunatic with a clear, well-formed hand, able lucidly to express his twisted hatreds and mad plans. Arthur was not surprised that the Edaljis had taken to locking their doors at night.
“Merry Christmas,” Arthur read out, still half in disbelief. “And you have no suspicion who might have written any of these noxious effusions?”
“Suspicion? None.”
“That servant you were obliged to dismiss?”
“She left the district. She is long gone.”
“Her family?”
“Her family are decent folk. Sir Arthur, as you may imagine, we have given this much thought from the beginning. But I have no suspicions. I do not listen to gossip and rumour, and if I did, what help would that be? Gossip and rumour were the cause of my son’s imprisonment. I would scarcely wish done to another what has been done to him.”
“Unless he were the culprit.”
“Indeed.”
“And this Brookes. He is the grocer and ironmonger?”
“Yes. He too received poison letters for a while. He was more phlegmatic about it. Or more idle. At any rate, unwilling to go to the police. There had been some incident on the railway involving his son and another boy—I no longer remember the details. Brookes was never going to make common cause with us. There is little respect for the police in the district, I have to tell you. It is an irony that of all the local inhabitants we were the family that was most inclined to trust the police.”
“Except for the Chief Constable.”
“His attitude was . . . unhelpful.”
“Mr.
Ay
dlji”—Arthur made a specific effort with the pronunciation—“I plan to find out why. I intend to go back to the very beginnings of the case. Tell me, apart from the direct persecutions, have you suffered any other hostility since you came here?”
The Vicar looked questioningly at his wife. “The Election,” she replied.
“Yes, that is true. I have, on more than one occasion, lent the schoolroom for political meetings. There was a problem for Liberals in obtaining halls. I am a Liberal myself . . . There were complaints from some of the more conservative parishioners.
“More than complaints?”
“One or two ceased coming to St. Mark’s, it is true.”
“And you continued lending the hall?”
“Certainly. But I do not want to exaggerate. I am talking of protests, strongly worded but civil. I am not talking of threats.”
Sir Arthur admired the Vicar’s precision; also his lack of self-pity. He had noted the same qualities in George. “Was Captain Anson involved?”
“Anson? No, it was much more local that that. He only became involved later. I have included his letters for you to see.”
Arthur then took the family through the events of August to October 1903, alert for any inconsistency, overlooked detail, or conflict of evidence. “In retrospect, it’s a pity you did not send Inspector Campbell and his men away until they had equipped themselves with a search warrant, and prepared yourself for their return with the presence of a solicitor.”
“But that would have been the behaviour of guilty people. We had nothing to hide. We knew George to be innocent. The sooner the police searched, the sooner they would be able to redirect their investigations more profitably. Inspector Campbell and his men were, in any case, quite correct in their behaviour.”
Not all of the time, thought Arthur. There was something missing in his understanding of the case, something to do with that police visit.
“Sir Arthur.” It was Mrs. Edalji, slender, white-haired, quiet-voiced. “May I say two things to you? First, how pleasant it is to hear a Scottish voice again in these parts. Do I detect Edinburgh on your tongue?”
“You do indeed, Ma’am.”
“And the second thing concerns my son. You have met George.”
“I was much impressed by him. I can think of many who would not have remained so strong in mind and body after three years in Lewes and Portland. He is a credit to you.”
Mrs. Edalji smiled briefly at the compliment. “What George wants more than anything is to be allowed to return to his work as a solicitor. That is all he has ever wanted. It is perhaps worse for him now than when he was in prison. Then things were clearer. Now he is in a state of limbo. The Incorporated Law Society cannot readmit him until the taint is washed from his name.”
There was nothing which galvanized Arthur more than being appealed to by a gentle, elderly, female Scottish voice.
“Rest assured, Ma’am, I am planning to make a tremendous noise. I am going to stir things up. There will be a few people sleeping less soundly in their beds by the time I have finished with them.”
But this did not seem to be the promise Mrs. Edalji required. “I expect so, Sir Arthur, and we thank you for it. What I am saying is rather different. George is, as you have observed, a boy—a young man, rather—of some resilience. To be honest, his resilience has surprised both of us. We imagined him frailer. He is determined to overthrow this injustice. But that is all he wants. He does not wish for the limelight. He does not want to become an advocate for any particular cause. He is not a representative of anything. He wishes to return to work. He wishes for an ordinary life.”
“He wishes to get married,” put in the daughter, who until this moment had been quite silent.
“Maud!” The Vicar was more surprised than rebuking. “How can he? Since when? Charlotte—did you know anything of this?”
“Father, don’t be alarmed. I mean, he wants to be married in general.”
“Married in general,” repeated the Vicar. He looked at his distinguished guest. “Do you think that is possible, Sir Arthur?”
“I myself,” replied Arthur with a chuckle, “have only ever been married in particular. It is the system I understand, and the one I would recommend.”
“In that case”—and here the Vicar smiled for the first time—“we must forbid George from getting married in general.”
Back at the Imperial Family Hotel, Arthur and his secretary took a late supper and retired to an unoccupied smoking room. Arthur fired up his pipe and watched Wood ignite some low brand of cigarette.
“A fine family,” said Sir Arthur. “Modest, impressive.”
“Indeed.”
Arthur had a sudden apprehension, set off by Mrs. Edalji’s words. What if their arrival on the scene provoked fresh persecutions? After all, Satan—indeed, God Satan—was still out there sharpening both his pen and his curved instrument with concave sides. God Satan: how peculiarly repellent were the perversions of an institutional religion once it began its irreversible decline. The sooner the whole edifice was swept away the better.
“Woodie, let me use you as a sounding board, if I may.” He did not wait for an answer; nor did his secretary think one was expected. “There are three aspects of this case which I at present fail to understand. They are blanks waiting to be filled. And the first of them is why Anson took against George Edalji. You’ve seen the letters he wrote to the Vicar. Threatening a schoolboy with penal servitude.”
“Indeed.”
“He is a person of distinction. I researched him. The second son of the Second Earl of Lichfield. Late Royal Artillery. Chief Constable since 1888. Why should such a man write such a letter?”
Wood merely cleared his throat.
“Well?”
“I am not an investigator, Sir Arthur. I have heard you say that in the detective business you must eliminate the impossible and what is left, however improbable, must be the truth.”
“Not my own formulation, alas. But one I endorse.”
“So that is why I would not make an investigator. If someone asks me a question, I just look for the obvious answer.”
“And what would be your obvious answer in the case of Captain Anson and George Edalji?”
“That he dislikes people who are coloured.”
“Now that is indeed very obvious, Alfred. So obvious it cannot be the case. Whatever his faults, Anson is an English gentleman and a Chief Constable.”
“I told you I was not an investigator.”
“Let us not abandon hope so quickly. We’ll see what you can do with my second blank. Which is this. Leaving aside that early episode with the maidservant, the persecution of the Edaljis takes place in two separate outbursts. The first runs from 1892 to the very beginning of 1896. It is intense and increasing. All of a sudden it stops. Nothing happens for seven years. Then it starts up again, and the first horse is ripped. February 1903. Why the gap, that’s what I can’t understand, why the gap? Investigator Wood, what is your view?”
The secretary did not enjoy this game very much; it seemed to be constructed so that he could only lose. “Perhaps because whoever was responsible wasn’t there.”
“Where?”
“In Wyrley.”
“Where was he?”
“He’d gone away.”
“Where to?”
“I don’t know, Sir Arthur. Perhaps he was in prison. Perhaps he’d gone to Birmingham. Perhaps he’d run away to sea.”
“I rather doubt it. Again, it’s too obvious. People in the district would have noticed. There’d have been talk.”
“The Edaljis said they didn’t listen to talk.”
“Hmm. Let’s see if Harry Charlesworth does. Now, the third area I don’t understand is the matter of the hairs on the clothing. If we could eliminate the obvious on this one—”
“Thank you, Sir Arthur.”
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Woodie, don’t take offence. You’re much too useful to take offence.”
Wood reflected that he had always had a deal of sympathy for the character of Dr. Watson. “What is the problem, sir?”
“The problem is this. The police examined George’s clothing at the Vicarage and said there were hairs on it. The Vicar, his wife and his daughter examined the clothing and said there were no hairs on it. The police surgeon, Dr. Butter—and police surgeons in my experience are the most scrupulous fellows—gave evidence that he found twenty-nine hairs ‘similar in length, colour and structure’ to those of the mutilated pony. So there is a clear conflict. Were the Edaljis perjuring themselves to protect George? That would appear to be what the jury believed. George’s explanation was that he might have leaned against a gate into a field in which cows were paddocked. I’m not surprised the jury didn’t believe him. It sounds like a statement you are panicked into, not a description of something that happened. Besides, it still leaves the family as perjurers. If the hairs were on his clothing, they’d have seen them, wouldn’t they?”
Wood took his time over this. Ever since entering Sir Arthur’s employ, he had been acquiring new functions. Secretary, amanuensis, signature-forger, motoring assistant, golf partner, billiards opponent; now sounding board and stater of the obvious. Also, one who must be prepared for ridicule. Well, so be it. “If the hairs weren’t on his coat when the Edaljis examined it . . .”
“Yes . . .”
“And if they weren’t there beforehand because George didn’t lean on any gate . . .”
“Yes . . .”
“Then they must have got there afterwards.”
“After what?”
“After the clothing left the Vicarage.”
“You mean Dr. Butter put them there?”
“No. I don’t know. But if you want the obvious answer, it’s that they got there afterwards. Somehow. And if so, then only the police are lying. Or some of the police.”
“A not impossible occurrence. You know, Alfred, you’re not necessarily wrong, I’ll say that for you.”
A compliment, Wood reflected, that Dr. Watson might have been proud to receive.
The next day they returned to Wyrley with less pretence of concealment, and called on Harry Charlesworth in his milking parlour. They squelched through the consequences of a herd of cows to a small office attached to the back of the farmhouse. There were three rickety chairs, a small desk, a muddy raffia mat, and a calendar for the previous month at an angle on the wall. Harry was a blond, open-faced young man who seemed to welcome this interruption to his work.