Arthur & George

'So,' he says. 'Royden Sharp.'

'Yes,' replies George. 'I never knew him, as I said when I wrote to you. It must have been his brother I was at school with when I was little. Though I have no memory of him either.'

Arthur nods. Come on, man, is what he thinks. I have not just exonerated you, I have produced the criminal bound hand and foot for arrest and trial. Is this not, at the very least, news to you? Against all his temperament, he waits.

'I am surprised,' George finally says. 'Why should he wish to harm me?'

Arthur does not reply. He has already offered his replies. He thinks it is time George did some work on his own behalf.

'I am aware that you consider race prejudice to be a factor in the case, Sir Arthur. But as I have already said, I cannot agree. Sharp and I do not know one another. To dislike someone you have to know them. And then you find the reason for disliking them. And then, perhaps, if you cannot find a satisfactory reason, you blame your dislike on some oddity of theirs, such as the colour of their skin. But as I say, Sharp does not know me. I have been trying to think of some action of mine that he might have taken as a slight or an injury. Perhaps he is related to someone to whom I gave professional advice…' Arthur does not comment; he thinks that you can only point out the obvious so many times. 'And I do not understand why he should wish to maim cattle and horses in this way. Or why anyone should. Do you, Sir Arthur?'

'As I said in my Statement,' replies Arthur, who is getting more dissatisfied by the minute, 'I suspect that he was strangely affected by the new moon.'

'Possibly,' replies George. 'Though not all the cases took place at the same point on the lunar cycle.'

'That is correct. But most did.'

'Yes.'

'So might you not reasonably conclude that those extraneous mutilations were performed in order deliberately to mislead investigators?'

'Yes, you might.'

'Mr Edalji, I do not appear to have convinced you.'

'Forgive me, Sir Arthur, it is not that I am, or wish to seem, in any way, less than immensely grateful to you. It is, perhaps, that I am a solicitor.'

'True.' Maybe he is being too hard on the fellow. But it is strange: as if he has brought him a bag of gold from the farthest ends of the earth, and received the reply, But frankly, I would have preferred silver.

'The instrument,' says George. 'The horse lancet.'

'Yes?'

'May I ask how you know what it looks like?'

'Indeed. By two methods. First, I asked Mrs Greatorex to draw it for me. Whereupon Mr Wood recognized it as a horse lancet. And secondly-' Arthur leaves a pause for effect, 'I have it in my possession.'

'You have it?'

Arthur nods. 'I could show you it if you like.' George looks alarmed. 'Not here. Don't worry, I haven't brought it with me. It's at Undershaw.'

'May I ask how you obtained it?'

Arthur rubs a finger up the side of his nose. Then he relents. 'Wood and Harry Charlesworth stumbled upon it.'

'Stumbled?'

'It was clear that the weapon had to be secured before Sharp could dispose of it. He knew I was in the district and on his trail. He even started sending me the sort of letters he used to send you. Threatening me with the removal of vital organs. If he had two cerebral hemispheres to rub together, he'd have buried the instrument where no one would find it for a hundred years. So I instructed Wood and Harry to stumble across it.'

'I see.' George feels as he does when a client begins confidentially telling him things no client should ever tell a solicitor, not even his own – especially not his own. 'And have you interviewed Sharp?'

'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.