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.'