Arthur & George

  He sat heavily on the bed and thought of those illicit journeys to Yorkshire: how he and Jean would arrive by different trains, and leave by different ones, so that they could pretend to innocence. Ingleton was two hundred and fifty miles from Hindhead; there they were safe. But he had confused safety with honour. Over the years, it must have become perfectly plain to everyone. What were English villages but vortices of gossip? However Jean might be chaperoned, however clearly he and Jean never stayed under the same roof, here was the famous Arthur Conan Doyle, who married in the parish church, striding over wold and fell with another woman at his side.

  And then there was Waller. All that time, in his blithe smugness, he had never asked himself what Waller made of it all. The Mam had approved his course of action, and this had been sufficient. It did not matter what Waller thought. And Waller, being a smooth and easy fellow, had never been crude. He had behaved as if he entirely believed whatever story was put in front of him. The Leckies being old friends of the Doyles; the Mam having always been fond of the Leckie girl. Waller had never said more nor less than common courtesy and common prudence enjoined. He did not try to put Arthur off his golf swing with some comment about Jean Leckie being a handsome young woman. But Waller would have seen the subterfuge immediately. Perhaps—God forbid—he had discussed it with the Mam behind Arthur’s back. No, he could not bear to think as much. But in any case, Waller would have seen, Waller would have known. And—which was the hardest part, Arthur now realized—Waller would have been able to look at him with immense self-satisfaction. While they shot partridge together and went out ferreting, he would have been remembering that schoolboy back from Austria, who had viewed him as a cuckoo in the nest, who stood there galumphingly ignorant yet full of violent speculation and violent embarrassment. And then the years had passed, and Arthur began coming to Masongill for a few stolen hours alone with Jean. And now Waller was able silently, without the slightest murmur—which made it all the worse, of course, and all the more superior—Waller was able to take his moral revenge. You dared to look at me and disapprove? You dared to think you understood life? You dared impugn your mother’s honour? And now you come here and use your mother and myself and the whole village as camouflage for a rendezvous? You take your mother’s pony cart and drive past St. Oswald’s with your inamorata at your side. You think the village does not notice? You imagine your best man an amnesiac? You tell yourself—and others—that your behaviour is honourable?

  No, he must stop. He knew this spiral too well already, he knew its descending temptations, and exactly where it led: to lethargy, despair and self-contempt. No, he must stick to known facts. The Mam had approved his actions. So had everyone except Hornung. Waller had said nothing. Touie had merely warned Mary not to be shocked if he remarried—the words of a loving and considerate wife and mother. Touie had said nothing more and therefore known nothing more. Mary knew nothing. Neither the living nor the dead would benefit from him torturing himself. And life must go on. Touie knew that and Touie had not resented it. Life must go on.

  Dr. Butter agreed to meet him in London; but other correspondents were less encouraging. George had never done business of any kind in Walsall. Mr. Mitchell, the Headmaster of Walsall School, informed him that no pupil by the name of Speck had been on their roll in the last twenty years: further, that his predecessor Mr. Aldis had served with distinction for sixteen years, and the notion that he was either denounced or dismissed was plain nonsense. The Home Secretary, Mr. Herbert Gladstone, presented his compliments and respects to Sir Arthur, and after several paragraphs of flummery and twaddle regretfully declined any further review of the already much-reviewed Edalji case. The final letter was on the writing paper of the Staffordshire County Police. “Dear Sir,” it began, “I shall be much interested to note what Sherlock Holmes has to say about a case in real life . . .” But jocularity did not signal cooperativeness: Captain Anson was not inclined to assist Sir Arthur in any respect. There was no precedent for turning over police records to a member of the public, however distinguished he might be; no precedent either for permitting such a member to interview officers of the force under the Captain’s command. Indeed, since Sir Arthur’s evident intention was to discredit the Staffordshire Constabulary, its Chief Constable could not see that cooperation with the enemy was strategically or tactically advisable.

  Arthur preferred the combative bluntness of the former artillery officer to the mealy-mouthedness of the politician. It might be possible to win Anson round; though his use of military metaphor made Arthur wonder if rather than civilly answering his opponents shot for shot—his expert against their expert—he should not lay down an artillery barrage and blast their position to smithereens. Yes, why not? If they had one handwriting expert, he would produce several in return: not just Dr. Lindsay Johnson but perhaps Mr. Gobert and Mr. Douglas Blackburn as well. And in case anyone doubted Mr. Kenneth Scott of Manchester Square, he would send George to several more eye specialists. Yelverton had favoured attrition, which had produced satisfactory results until the final stalemate; now Arthur would switch to maximum force and an advance on all fronts.

  He met Dr. Butter at the Grand Hotel, Charing Cross. This time he was not late as he turned in from Northumberland Avenue; nor did he linger surreptitiously to observe the police surgeon. In any case, he could have deduced the man’s character in advance from his evidence: it was measured, cautious, and not given to wild or frivolous speculation. At the trial he had never claimed more than his observations could support: this had been advantageous to the defence over the bloodstains, disadvantageous over the hairs. It had been Butter’s evidence, even more than that of the charlatan Gurrin, which had condemned George to Lewes and Portland.

  “It is good of you to spare me the time, Dr. Butter.” They were in the same writing room where only a couple of weeks previously he had obtained his first impressions of George Edalji.

  The surgeon smiled. He was a handsome, grey-haired man about a decade older than Arthur. “I am happy to. I am glad to have the opportunity of thanking the man who wrote”—and here there seemed to be a microscopic pause, unless it was only within Arthur’s own brain—“The White Company.”

  Arthur smiled in reply. He had always found the company of police surgeons to be as agreeable as it was instructive.

  “Dr. Butter, I wonder if you would agree to talk on a frank basis. That is to say, I have great regard for your evidence, but I have various questions and indeed speculations to put before you. Everything you say will be treated in confidence, and I shall not repeat a single word without giving you the opportunity to endorse it, correct it, or withdraw it completely. Would that be acceptable?”

  Dr. Butter agreed, and Arthur led him, to begin with, through the parts of his evidence which were the least controversial, or at any rate irrefutable by the defence. The razors, the boots, the stains of various kinds.

  “Did it surprise you, Dr. Butter, that there was so little blood on the clothing, given what George Edalji was accused of doing?”

  “No. Or rather, you are asking too large a question. If Edalji had said, Yes, I mutilated the pony, this is the instrument I did it with, these were the clothes I was wearing, and I acted by myself, then I would be competent to offer an opinion. And in those circumstances I would have to say to you that yes, I would be very surprised, indeed astonished.”

  “But?”

  “But my evidence was, as it always is, about what I found: this amount of mammalian blood on this garment, and so on. That was my evidence. If I cannot tell how or when it got there, I am unable to comment further.”

  “In the witness box, of course not. But between ourselves . . .”

  “Between ourselves, I would think that if a man rips a horse, there would be a lot of blood, and he would be unable to control where it fell, especially if the deed is done on a dark night.”

  “So you are with me? He cannot have done it?”

  “No, Sir Arthur, I am not with you.
I am very far from with you. There is a wide expanse between the two positions. For instance, anyone going out deliberately to rip a horse would know to wear some kind of apron, just as slaughtermen do. It would be an obvious precaution. But a few spots might fall elsewhere, and escape notice.”

  “No evidence of any apron was given in court.”

  “That is not my point. I am merely giving you a different explanation from your own. Another might be that there were others present. If there were a gang, as has been suggested, then the young man might not have done the ripping himself, but might have been standing by, and a few drops of blood might have fallen on his clothes in the process.”

  “Again, no such evidence was given.”

  “But there was a strong suggestion of a gang, was there not?”

  “There was deliberate mention of a gang. But not a shred of proof.”

  “The other man who ripped his horse?”

  “Green. But even Green did not claim there was a gang.”

  “Sir Arthur, I quite follow your argument, and your desire for evidence to support it. I merely say, there are other possibilities, whether or not they were brought out in court.”

  “You are quite right.” Arthur decided not to press further on this. “May we talk instead about the hairs? You said in your evidence that you picked twenty-nine hairs from the clothing, and that when you examined them under the microscope they were—if I remember your words correctly—’similar in length, colour and structure’ to those from the piece of skin cut from the Colliery pony.”

  “That is correct.”

  “ ‘Similar.’ You did not say ‘exactly the same as.’ ”

  “No.”

  “Because they were not exactly the same as?”

  “No, because that is a conclusion rather than an observation. But to say that they were similar in length, colour and structure is, in layman’s terms, to say that they were exactly the same.”

  “No doubt in your mind?”

  “Sir Arthur, in the witness box I always err on the side of caution. Between ourselves, and under the conditions you have proposed for this interview, I would assure you that the hairs on the clothing were from the same animal whose skin I examined under the microscope.”

  “And from exactly the same part too?”

  “I do not follow you.”

  “The same beast, but also the same part of the beast, namely the belly?”

  “Yes, that is true.”

  “Now, the hairs on different parts of a horse or pony would vary in length, and perhaps thickness and perhaps structure. Hairs from the tail or mane, for example, would be different?”

  “That is also true.”

  “Yet all of the twenty-nine hairs you examined were exactly the same, and from exactly the same part of the pony?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Can we imagine something together, Dr. Butter? Again, in complete confidence, within these anonymous walls. Let us imagine—distasteful as it might be—that you or I go out to disembowel a horse.”

  “If I may correct you, the pony was not disembowelled.”

  “No?”

  “The evidence given was that it had been ripped, and was bleeding, and had to be shot. But the bowels were not hanging from the cut as they would have been had it been attacked differently.”

  “Thank you. So, imagine we wish to rip a pony. We would have to approach it, calm it down. Stroke its muzzle, perhaps, talk to it, stroke its flank. Then imagine how we might hold it while we rip it. If we are to rip the belly, we might stand against its flank, perhaps put an arm over its back, holding it there while we reached underneath with whatever instrument we were using.”

  “I do not know. I have never attended such a gruesome scene.”

  “But you do not dispute that this is how you might do it? I have horses myself, they are nervous creatures at the best of times.”

  “We were not in the field. And this was not a horse from your stables, Sir Arthur. This was a pit pony. Are not pit ponies notorious for their docility? Are they not used to being handled by miners? Do they not trust those who approach them?”

  “You are right, we were not in the field. But indulge me for the moment. Imagine that the act was done as I described it.”

  “Very well. Though of course it might have been done quite differently. If there was more than one person present, for example.”

  “I grant you that, Dr. Butter. And you must grant me in return that if the deed were done roughly as I described it, then it is inconceivable that the only hairs which ended up on the individual’s clothing were all from the same place, namely the belly, which in any case is not where you would touch the animal to calm it. And further, the same hairs are found on different parts of the clothing—on both the sleeve and the left breast of the jacket. Would you not expect, at the very minimum, some hairs from another part of the pony?”

  “Perhaps. If your description of events is the true one. But as before you offer only two possible explanations—that of the prosecution, and your own. There is a wide expanse between them. For instance, there might have been some longer hairs on the clothing, but they were noticed by the culprit and removed. That would not be surprising, would it? Or they might have blown away in the wind. Or again, there might have been a gang . . .”

  Arthur then moved, very cautiously, towards the “obvious” solution proposed by Wood.

  “You work at Cannock, I believe?”

  “Yes.”

  “The piece of skin was not cut by you?”

  “No, by Mr. Lewis who attended the animal.”

  “And it was delivered to you at Cannock?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the clothing was also delivered?”

  “Yes.”

  “Before or afterwards?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did the clothing arrive before the skin, or the skin before the clothing?”

  “Oh, I see. No, they arrived together.”

  “At the same time?”

  “Yes.”

  “By the same police officer?”

  “Yes.”

  “In the same parcel?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who was the police officer?”

  “I have no idea. I see so many. Besides, they all look young to me nowadays, so they all look the same.”

  “Do you remember what he said?”

  “Sir Arthur, this was over three years ago. There is not the slightest reason why I should remember a word he said. He would merely have told me that the parcel came from Inspector Campbell. He might have said what was in it. He might have said the items were for examination, but I hardly needed to be told that, did I?”

  “And during the time these items were in your possession, they were kept scrupulously apart, the skin and the clothing? I do not intend to sound like counsel.”

  “You do a very good likeness, if I may say so. And naturally I see where you are heading. There was no possibility of contamination in my laboratory, I can assure you.”

  “I was not for a moment suggesting it, Dr. Butter. I was heading in a different direction. Can you describe to me the parcel you received?”

  “Sir Arthur, I can see exactly where you are heading. I have not stood cross-examination by defence counsel for these last twenty years without recognizing such an approach, or without having to answer for the procedures of the police. You were hoping I might say that the skin and the clothing were all rolled up together in some old piece of sacking into which the police had incompetently stuffed them. In which case you impugn my integrity as well as theirs.”

  There was a steeliness now overlaying Dr. Butter’s civility. This was a witness you would always prefer to have on your side.

  “I would not do such a thing,” said Arthur mollifyingly.

  “You just have, Sir Arthur. You implied that I might have ignored the possibility of contamination. The items were separately wrapped and sealed, and no amount of shaking them arou
nd could have made the hairs escape from one package into the other.”

  “I am obliged to you, Dr. Butter, for eliminating this possibility.” And thus leaving it down to a choice of two: police incompetence before the items were packed separately, or police malice while this was happening. Well, he had pressed Butter far enough. Except . . . “May I ask one more question? It is purely factual.”

  “Of course. Forgive my irritation.”

  “It is understandable. I was behaving too much like a defence counsel, as you observed.”

  “It was not so much that. It is this. I have worked with the Staffordshire Constabulary for twenty years and more. Twenty years of going to court and having to answer sly questions based on assumptions I know to be false. Twenty years of seeing a jury’s ignorance being played to. Twenty years of presenting evidence which is as clear and unambiguous as I can make it, which is based on rigorous scientific analysis, and then being treated, if not as a fraud, then as someone who is merely giving an opinion, that opinion being no more valuable than the next man’s. Except that the next man does not have a microscope and if he did would not be competent to focus it. I state what I have observed—what I know—and find myself being told disdainfully that this is merely what I happen to think.”

  “I entirely sympathize,” said Sir Arthur.

  “I wonder. In any case, your question.”

  “At what time of day did you receive the police parcel?”

  “What time? About nine o’clock.”

  Arthur was amazed by such despatch. The pony had been discovered at about 6:20, Campbell was still in the field at the time George was leaving home to catch the 7:39, he arrived at the Vicarage with Parsons and his band of specials some time before eight. Then they had to search the place, argue with the Edaljis . . .