Arthur and George (19 page)

Sergeant Parsons continued with his evidence, and described the moment when the prisoner was put into the Newton Street lock-up in Birmingham. Edalji had turned to him and said, “This is a bit of Mr. Loxton’s work, I suppose. I’ll make him sit up before I am done.”

The next morning, the Birmingham
Daily Gazette
wrote of George:

He is 28 years of age but looks younger. He was dressed in a shrunken black and white check suit, and there was little of the typical solicitor in his swarthy face, with its full, dark eyes, prominent mouth, and small round chin. His appearance is essentially Oriental in its stolidity, no sign of emotion escaping him beyond a faint smile as the extraordinary story of the prosecution unfolded. His aged Hindoo father and his white-haired English mother were in court, and followed the proceedings with pathetic interest.

“I am twenty-eight but look younger,” he remarked to Mr. Meek. “Perhaps that is because I am twenty-seven. My mother is not English, she is Scottish. My father is not a Hindoo.”

“I warned you against reading the newspapers.”

“But he is not a Hindoo.”

“It’s near enough for the
Gazette.
”

“But Mr. Meek, what if I said you were a Welshman?”

“I would not hold you inaccurate, as my mother had Welsh blood.”

“Or an Irishman?”

Mr. Meek smiled back at him, unoffended, perhaps even looking a little Irish.

“Or a Frenchman?”

“Now there, sir, you go too far. There you provoke me.”

“And I am stolid,” George continued, looking down at the
Gazette
again. “Isn’t that a good thing to be? Isn’t stolid what a typical solicitor is meant to be? And yet I am not a typical solicitor. I am a typical Oriental, whatever that means. Whatever I am, I am typical, isn’t that it? If I were excitable, I would still be a typical Oriental, wouldn’t I?”

“Stolid is good, Mr. Edalji. And at least they didn’t call you inscrutable. Or wily.”

“What would that signify?”

“Oh, full of devilish low cunning. We like to avoid devilish. Also diabolical. The defence will settle for stolid.”

George smiled at his solicitor. “I do apologize, Mr. Meek. And I thank you for your good sense. I am likely to need more of it, I fear.”

On the second day of the proceedings, William Greatorex, a fourteen-year-old scholar of Walsall Grammar School, gave evidence. Numerous letters written over his signature were read out in court. He denied both authorship and knowledge of them, and could even show that he had been in the Isle of Man when two of them had been posted. He said that it was his custom to take the train every morning from Hednesford to Walsall, where he was at school. Other boys who generally travelled with him were Westwood Stanley, son of the well-known miners’ agent; Quibell, son of the Vicar of Hednesford; Page, Harrison and Ferriday. The names of all these boys were mentioned in the letters which had just been read out.

Greatorex stated that he had known Mr. Edalji by sight for three or four years. “He has often travelled to Walsall in the same compartment as us boys. Quite a dozen times, I should think.” He was asked when was the last time the prisoner had travelled with him. “The morning after two of Mr. Blewitt’s horses were killed. It was June 30, I think. We could see the horses lying in the field as we went by in the train.” The witness was asked if Mr. Edalji had said anything to him that morning. “Yes, he asked me if the horses that had been killed belonged to Blewitt. Then he looked out of the window.” The witness was asked if there had been any previous conversation with the prisoner about the maimings. “No, no, never,” he replied.

Thomas Henry Gurrin agreed that he was a handwriting expert of many years’ standing. He gave his report on the letters that had been read out in court. In the disguised writing he found a number of peculiarities very strongly marked. Exactly the same peculiarities were found in the letters of Mr. Edalji, which had been handed to him for comparison.

Dr. Butter, the police surgeon, who had examined the stains on Edalji’s clothing, stated that he had performed tests which revealed traces of mammalian blood. On the coat and waistcoat he found twenty-nine short, brown hairs. These he compared with hairs on the skin of a Colliery pony maimed the evening before Mr. Edalji was arrested. Under the microscope they were found to be similar.

Mr. Gripton, who was keeping company with a young lady near Coppice Lane, Great Wyrley, on the night in question, gave evidence that he saw Mr. Edalji, and passed him at about nine o’clock. Mr. Gripton was not quite certain of the spot.

“Well,” asked the police solicitor, “give us the name of the nearest public house to the place you saw him.”

“The old police station,” replied Mr. Gripton cheerily.

The police sternly stopped the laughter which greeted this remark.

Miss Biddle, who wished to make it clear that she was engaged to Mr. Gripton, had also seen Mr. Edalji; so had a number of other witnesses.

Details of the mutilation were given: the wound to the Colliery Company’s pony was described as being of fifteen inches in length.

The prisoner’s father, the Hindoo Vicar of Great Wyrley, also gave evidence.

The prisoner stated: “I am perfectly innocent of the charge, and reserve my defence.”

On Friday 4th September, George Edalji was committed for trial at the Stafford Court of Quarter Sessions on two counts. Next morning, he read in the Birmingham
Daily Gazette:

Edalji looked fresh and cheerful, and, sitting in his chair in the middle of the court, he conversed briskly with his solicitor with a keen discrimination of evidence, proceeding from thorough legal training. Mostly, however, he sat with arms folded and legs crossed, watching the witnesses with stolid interest, one boot raised and exhibiting plainly to the spectator the curious wearing down of one heel, which is one of the strongest links in the chain of circumstantial evidence against him.

George was glad still to be regarded as stolid, and wondered if he could effect a change of footwear before the Court of Quarter Sessions.

He also noted another newspaper’s description of William Greatorex as “a healthy young English boy, with a frank, sunburnt face, and a pleasing manner.”

Mr. Litchfield Meek was confident of an eventual acquittal.

Miss Sophie Frances Hickman, the lady surgeon, was still missing.

George

George spent the six weeks between the committal proceedings and the Quarter Sessions in the hospital wing of Stafford Gaol. He was not discontented; he thought it the correct decision to refuse bail. He could hardly have carried on his business with such charges hanging over him; and while he missed his family, he judged it best for all of them that he stayed in safe custody. That report of crowds besieging the Vicarage had alarmed him; and he remembered fists pounding on the cab doors as he was driven to court in Cannock. He would not be able to count himself safe if such hotheads sought him out among the lanes of Great Wyrley.

But there was another reason why he preferred to be in prison. Everyone knew where he was; every moment of the day he was spied upon and accounted for. So if a further outrage occurred, the whole pattern of events would be shown to have nothing to do with him. And were the first charge against him found untenable, then the second one—the ludicrous proposition that he had threatened to murder a man he had never met—would also have to be withdrawn. It was strange to find himself, a solicitor-at-law, actually hoping for another animal to be maimed; but a further crime seemed to him the speediest way to freedom.

Still, even if the case came to trial, there could be no doubt over the outcome. He had regained both his composure and his optimism; he did not have to play-act either with Mr. Meek or with his parents. He could already imagine the headlines.
GREAT WYRLEY MAN CLEARED. SHAMEFUL PROSECUTION OF LOCAL SOLICITOR. POLICE WITNESSES DECLARED INCOMPTENT
. Perhaps even
CHIEF CONSTABLE RESIGNS
.

Mr. Meek had more or less convinced him that it mattered little how the newspapers depicted him. It seemed to matter even less on September 21st, when a horse at the farm belonging to Mr. Green was found ripped and disembowelled. George greeted the news with a kind of cautious exultation. He could hear keys turning in locks, could smell the early morning air, and his mother’s powder when he embraced her.

“Now this proves I am innocent, Mr. Meek.”

“Not exactly, Mr. Edalji. I don’t think we can go quite that far.”

“But here I am in prison . . .”

“Which only goes to prove, in the court’s view, that you are and must be entirely innocent of mutilating Mr. Green’s horse.”

“No, it proves there was a pattern to events, before and after the Colliery pony, which has now been shown to have absolutely nothing to do with me.”

“
I
know that, Mr. Edalji.” The solicitor rested his chin on his fist.

“But?”

“But I always find it useful in these moments to imagine what the prosecution might say in the circumstances.”

“And what might they possibly say?”

“Well, on the night of August 17th, as I remember, when the defendant was walking from the bootmaker, he went as far as Mr. Green’s farm.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Mr. Green is the defendant’s neighbour.”

“That is true.”

“So what could be of greater benefit to the defendant in his present circumstances than for a horse to be mutilated even closer to the Vicarage than in any other previous incident?”

Litchfield Meek watched George work this out.

“You mean that after getting myself arrested by writing anonymous letters denouncing myself for crimes I did not commit, I then incite someone else to commit another crime in order to exculpate me?”

“That’s about the long and the short of it, Mr. Edalji.”

“It’s utterly ridiculous. And I don’t even know Green.”

“I’m just telling you how the prosecution might choose to see it. If they had the mind.”

“Which they doubtless will. But the police must at least hunt the criminal, mustn’t they? The newspapers hint quite openly that this throws doubt on the prosecution case. If they found the man, and he confessed to the string of crimes, then that would be my freedom?”

“If that were to happen, Mr. Edalji, then yes, I would agree.”

“I see.”

“And there’s another development. Does the name Darby mean anything to you? Captain Darby?”

“Darby. Darby. I don’t think so. Inspector Campbell asked me about someone called the Captain. Perhaps this is him. Why?”

“More letters have been sent. To all and sundry it appears. One even to the Home Secretary. All signed ‘Darby, Captain of the Wyrley Gang.’ Saying how the maimings are going to continue.” Mr. Meek saw the look in George’s eye. “But no, Mr. Edalji, this only means that the prosecution must accept you almost certainly didn’t write them.”

“You seem determined to discourage me this morning, Mr. Meek.”

“That is not my intention. But you must accept we are going to trial. And with that in mind we have secured the services of Mr. Vachell.”

“Oh, that’s excellent news.”

“He will not, I think, let us down. And Mr. Gaudy will be at his side.”

“And for the prosecution?”

“Mr. Disturnal, I’m afraid. And Mr. Harrison.”

“Is Disturnal bad for us?”

“To be honest with you, I would have preferred another.”

“Mr. Meek, now it is my turn to put heart into you. A barrister, however competent, cannot make bricks without straw.”

Litchfield Meek gave George a worldly smile. “In my years in the courts, Mr. Edalji, I’ve seen bricks made from all sorts of materials. Some you didn’t even know existed. Lack of straw will be no hardship to Mr. Disturnal.”

Despite this approaching threat, George spent the remaining weeks at Stafford Gaol in a tranquil state of mind. He was treated respectfully and there was an order to his days. He received newspapers and mail; he prepared for the trial with Mr. Meek; he awaited developments in the Green case; and he was allowed books. His father had brought him a Bible, his mother a one-volume Shakespeare and a one-volume Tennyson. He read the latter two; then, out of idleness, some shilling shockers which a warder passed on to him. The fellow also lent him a tattered cheap edition of
The Hound of the Baskervilles.
George judged it excellent.

He opened the newspaper each morning with less apprehension, given that his own name had temporarily vanished from its pages. Instead, he learned with interest that there were new cabinet appointments in London; that Dr. Elgar’s latest oratorio had been performed at the Birmingham musical festival; that Buffalo Bill was on a tour of England.

A week before the trial, George met Mr. Vachell, a cheerful and corpulent barrister with twenty years’ service on the Midland Circuit.

“How do you judge my case, Mr. Vachell?”

“I judge it well, Mr. Edalji, very well. That is to say, I consider the prosecution scandalous and largely devoid of merit. Of course I shall not say so. I shall merely concentrate on what seem to me to be the strong points of your case.”

“And what, to you, do they seem to be?”

“I would put it like this, Mr. Edalji.” The barrister gave him a smile which was almost a grin. “There is no evidence that you committed this crime. There is no motive for you committing this crime. And there was no opportunity for you to commit this crime. I shall wrap it up a little for the judge and jury. But that will be the essence of my case.”

“It is perhaps a pity,” put in Mr. Meek, “that we are in Court B.” His tone punctured George’s temporary elation.

“Why is that a pity?”

“Court A is run by Lord Hatherton. Who at least has legal training.”

“You mean I am to be judged by someone who doesn’t know the law?”

Mr. Vachell intervened. “Don’t alarm him, Mr. Meek. I’ve been before both courts in my time. Who do we get in Court B?”

“Sir Reginald Hardy.”

Mr. Vachell’s expression did not flicker. “Perfectly all right. In some ways I consider it an advantage not to be governed by some stickler who aspires to the High Court. You can get away with a little more. Not pulled up so often for meretricious demonstrations of procedural knowledge. On the whole, an advantage to the defence, I’d say.”

George sensed that Mr. Meek did not agree; but he was impressed by Mr. Vachell, whether the barrister was being altogether sincere or not.

“Gentlemen, I do have one request.” Mr. Meek and Mr. Vachell briefly caught one another’s eye. “It is about my name. It is
Ay
dlji.
Ay
dlji. Mr. Meek pronounces it more or less correctly, but I should have mentioned the matter earlier to you, Mr. Vachell. The police, it seems to me, have always gone out of their way to ignore any correction I have offered them. Might I suggest that Mr. Vachell makes an announcement at the beginning of the case as to how to pronounce my name. To tell that court that it is not Ee-
dal
-jee but
Ay
dlji.”

The barrister gave the solicitor an instructing nod, and Mr. Meek replied.

“George, how can I best put this? Of course it’s your name, and of course Mr. Vachell and I shall endeavour to pronounce it correctly. When we are here with you. But in court . . . in court . . . I think the argument would be: when in Rome. We would get off on the wrong foot with Sir Reginald Hardy if we made such an announcement. We are unlikely to succeed in giving pronunciation lessons to the police. And as for Mr. Disturnal, I suspect he would greatly enjoy the confusion.”

George looked at the two men. “I am not sure I follow you.”

“What I’m saying, George, is that we should acknowledge the court’s right to decide a prisoner’s name. It’s not written down anywhere, but that’s more or less the fact of the matter. What you call mispronouncing, I would call . . . making you more English.”

George took a breath. “And less Oriental?”

“Less Oriental, yes, George.”

“Then I would ask you both kindly to mispronounce my name on all occasions, so that I may get used to it.”

The trial was set to begin on October 20th. On the 19th, four young boys playing near the Sidmouth plantation in Richmond Park came upon a body in an advanced state of decomposition. It proved to be that of Miss Sophie Frances Hickman, the lady doctor from the Royal Free Hospital. Like George, she had been in her late twenties. And, he reflected, she was only one column away.

On the morning of October 20th, 1903, George was brought from Stafford Gaol to Shire Hall. He was taken to the basement and shown the holding cell where prisoners were usually placed. As a privilege, he would be allowed to occupy a large, low-ceilinged room with a deal table and a fireplace; here, under the eye of Constable Dubbs, he would be able to confer with Mr. Meek. He sat at the table for twenty minutes while Dubbs, a muscular officer with a chinstrap beard and a gloomy air, firmly avoided his eye. Then, at a signal, George was led through dim, winding passages and past inadequate gas lamps to a door giving on to the foot of a narrow staircase. Dubbs gave him a gentle shove, and he climbed up towards light and noise. As he emerged into the view of Court B, noise became silence. George stood self-consciously in the dock, an actor propelled unwillingly on stage through a trapdoor.

Then, before the Assistant Chairman Sir Reginald Hardy, two flanking magistrates, Captain Anson, the properly sworn members of an English jury, representatives of the Press, representatives of the public, and three members of his family, the indictment was read. George Ernest Thompson Edalji was charged with wounding a horse, the property of the Great Wyrley Colliery Company, on the 17th or 18th September; also with sending a letter, on or about 11th July, to Sergeant Robinson at Cannock, threatening to kill him.

Mr. Disturnal was a tall, sleek figure, with a swift manner to him. After a brief opening speech, he called Inspector Campbell, and the whole story began again: the discovery of the mutilated pony, the search of the Vicarage, the bloodstained clothing, the hairs on the coat, the anonymous letters, the prisoner’s arrest and subsequent statements. It was just a story, George knew, something made up from scraps and coincidences and hypotheses; he knew too that he was innocent; but something about the repetition of the story by an authority in wig and gown made it take on extra plausibility.

George thought Campbell’s evidence was finished, when Mr. Disturnal produced his first surprise.

“Inspector Campbell, before we conclude, there is a matter of great public anxiety, about which you are, I think, able to enlighten us. On September 21st, I understand, a horse was found maimed at the farm of a Mr. Green.”

“That is correct, sir.”

“Mr. Green’s farm is very close to the Vicarage of Great Wyrley?”

“It is.”

“And the police have conducted an investigation into this outrage?”

“Indeed. As a matter of urgency and priority.”

“And has this investigation been successful?”

“Yes it has, sir.”

Mr. Disturnal hardly needed the elaborate pause he now threw in; the whole courtroom was waiting like an open-mouthed child.

“And will you tell the court the result of your investigation?”

“John Harry Green, who is the son of the farmer on whose land the outrage took place, and who is a Yeomanry trooper of the age of nineteen, has admitted committing the action against his own horse. He has signed a confession to this effect.”

“He admitted full and sole responsibility?”

“He did.”

“And you questioned him about any possible connection between this outrage and previous ones in the district?”

“Yes, we did. Extensively, sir.”

“And what did he state?”

“That this was an isolated occurrence.”

“And did your investigations confirm that the outrage at Green’s farm had absolutely nothing to do with any other outrage in the vicinity?”

“They did.”

“No connection at all?”

“No connection at all, sir.”

“And is John Harry Green in court today?”

“Yes, he is, sir.”

George, like everyone else in the crowded court, started looking around for a nineteen-year-old trooper who admitted mutilating his own horse without apparently supplying the police with any good reason for having done so. But at that moment, Sir Reginald Hardy decided that it was time for his luncheon.

Mr. Meek’s first duties were with Mr. Vachell; only then did he come to the room where George was held during adjournments. His demeanour was lugubrious.