'Really, Inspector, that seems to be getting hold of the wrong end of the stick. Do you not regard this letter as a criminal libel?'
'I don't know sir, to be honest. It's lawyers like yourself that decide what's the law and what isn't. From a police point of view, I would say someone was having a lark at your expense.'
'A lark? Do you not think that if this letter were broadcast, with the allegation he pretends to be denying, that I would not be in danger from local farm-hands and miners?'
'I don't know, sir. All I can say is, I can't remember an anonymous letter giving rise to an assault in this district since I've been here. Can you, Parsons?' The Sergeant shakes his head. 'Now what do you make of this phrase, towards the middle… they do not think you are a right sort?'
'What do you make of it yourself?'
'Well, you see, it's not anything that's ever been said to me.'
'Very well, Inspector, what I "make" of it is that it is almost certainly a reference to the fact that my father is of Parsee origin.'
'Yes, I suppose it could refer to that.' Campbell bends his ginger head over the letter again, as if scrutinizing it for further meaning. He is trying to make his mind up about this man and his grievance; whether he is a straightforward complainant, or something more complicated.
'Could? Could? What else might it mean?'
'Well, it might mean that you don't fit in.'
'You mean, I do not play in the Great Wyrley cricket team?'
'Do you not, sir?'
George can feel his exasperation rising. 'Nor for that matter do I patronize public houses.'
'Do you not, sir?'
'Nor for that matter do I smoke tobacco.'
'Do you not, sir? Well, we'll have to wait and ask the letter writer what he meant by it. If and when we catch him. You said there was something else?'
The second item on George's agenda is to register a complaint against Sergeant Upton, both for his manner and his insinuations. Except that, when repeated back by the Inspector, they somehow cease to be insinuations. Campbell turns them into the plodding remarks of a not very bright member of the Constabulary to a rather pompous and oversensitive complainant.
George is now in some disarray. He came expecting gratitude for the book, shock at the letter, interest in his predicament. The Inspector has been correct, yet slow; his studied politeness strikes George as a kind of rudeness. Well, he must press on to his third item nevertheless.
'I have a suggestion. For your enquiry.' George pauses, as he planned to, in order to command their full attention. 'Bloodhounds.'
'I beg your pardon?'
'Bloodhounds. They have, as I am sure you are aware, an excellent sense of smell. Were you to acquire a pair of trained bloodhounds, they would surely lead you from the scene of the next mutilation directly to the criminal. They can follow a scent with uncanny precision, and in this district there are no large streams or rivers into which the criminal might wade to confuse them.'
The Staffordshire Constabulary appears unused to practical suggestions from members of the public.
'Bloodhounds,' Campbell repeats. 'Indeed, a pair of them. It sounds like something out of a shilling shocker. "Mr Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!"' Then Parsons starts chuckling, and Campbell does not order him to be silent.
It has all gone horribly wrong, especially this last part, which George has thought up on his own account, and not even discussed with Father. He is downcast. As he leaves the station, the two policemen stand on the step watching him go. He hears the Sergeant observe, in a voice that carries, 'Maybe we could keep the bloodhounds in the library.'
The words seem to accompany him all the way back to the Vicarage, where he gives his parents an abbreviated account of the meeting. He decides that if the police decline his suggestions, he will help them even so. He places an advertisement in the Lichfield Mercury and other newspapers describing the renewed campaign of letters, and offering a reward of £25 to be paid in the event of criminal conviction. He remembers that his father's advertisement all those years ago merely had an inflammatory effect; but he hopes that this time the offer of money will produce results. He states that he is a solicitor-at-law.
Campbell
Five days later, the Inspector was summoned back to Green Hall. This time he found himself less shy of looking around. He noticed a long-case clock displaying the cycles of the moon, a mezzotint of a biblical scene, a fading Turkey rug, and a fireplace crammed with logs in anticipation of autumn. In the study he was less alarmed by the glassy-eyed moose, and registered leather-bound volumes of The Field and Punch. The sideboard held a large stuffed fish in a glass case, and a three-decanter tantalus.
Captain Anson waved Campbell to a chair and remained standing himself: a trick of small men in the presence of taller ones, as the Inspector well knew. But he had no time to reflect on the stratagems of authority. The mood this time was not genial.
'Our man has now started taunting us. These Greatorex letters. How many have we had so far?'
'Five, sir.'
'And this came for Mr Rowley at Bridgetown station last evening.' Anson put on his spectacles and began to read:
Sir, A party whose initials you'll guess will be bringing a new hook home by the train from Walsall on Wednesday night, and he will have it in his special pocket under his coat, and if you or your pals can get his coat pulled aside a bit you'll get sight of it, as it's an inch and a half longer than the one he threw out of sight when he heard someone a sloping it after him this morning. He will come by that after five or six, or if he don't come home tomorrow he is sure on Thursday, and you have made a mistake not keeping all the plain clothes men at hand. You sent them away too soon. Why, just think, he did it close where two of them were hiding only a few days gone by. But sir, he has got eagle eyes, and his ears is as sharp as a razor, and he is as fleet of foot as a fox, and as noiseless, and he crawls up on all fours to the poor beasts, and fondles them a bit, and then he pulls his hook smart across 'em, and out their entrails fly, before they guess they are hurt. You want 100 detectives, to run him in red-handed, because he is so fly, and knows every nook and corner. You know who it is, and I can prove it; but until £100 reward is offered for a conviction, I shan't split no more.
Anson looked at Campbell, inviting comment. 'None of my men saw anything thrown away, sir. And nothing resembling a hook has been found. He may or may not mutilate animals like that, but the entrails do not fly out, as we know. Do you want me to watch the Walsall trains?'
'I hardly think that after this letter some fellow is going to turn up in a long overcoat in the middle of summer, inviting to be searched.'
'No, sir. Do you think the £100 requested is a deliberate response to the lawyer's offer of a reward?'
'Possibly. That was a gross piece of impertinence.' Anson paused, and picked another sheet of paper from his desk. 'But the other letter – to Sergeant Robinson at Hednesford – is worse. Well, judge for yourself.' Anson handed it over.
There will be merry times at Wyrley in November, when they start on little girls, for they will do twenty wenches like the horses before next March. Don't think you are likely to catch them cutting the beasts; they are too quiet, and lie low for hours, till your men have gone… Mr Edalji, him they said was locked up, is going to Brum on Sunday night to see the Captain, near Northfield, about how it's to be carried on with so many detectives about, and I believe they are going to do some cows in the daytime instead of at night… I think they are going to kill beasts nearer here soon, and I know Cross Keys Farm and West Cannock Farm are the first two on the list… You bloated blackguard, I will shoot you with your father's gun through your thick head if you come in my way or go sneaking to any of my pals.