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 INCOMPETENT. 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.'