Arthur & George

Wood took his time over this. Ever since entering Sir Arthur's employ, he had been acquiring new functions. Secretary, amanuensis, signature-forger, motoring assistant, golf partner, billiards opponent; now sounding board and stater of the obvious. Also, one who must be prepared for ridicule. Well, so be it. 'If the hairs weren't on his coat when the Edaljis examined it…'

'Yes…'

'And if they weren't there beforehand because George didn't lean on any gate…'

'Yes…'

'Then they must have got there afterwards.'

'After what?'

'After the clothing left the Vicarage.'

'You mean Dr Butter put them there?'

'No. I don't know. But if you want the obvious answer, it's that they got there afterwards. Somehow. And if so, then only the police are lying. Or some of the police.'

'A not impossible occurrence. You know, Alfred, you're not necessarily wrong, I'll say that for you.'

A compliment, Wood reflected, that Dr Watson might have been proud to receive.

The next day they returned to Wyrley with less pretence of concealment, and called on Harry Charlesworth in his milking parlour. They squelched through the consequences of a herd of cows to a small office attached to the back of the farmhouse. There were three rickety chairs, a small desk, a muddy raffia mat, and a calendar for the previous month at an angle on the wall. Harry was a blond, open-faced young man who seemed to welcome this interruption to his work.

'So you've come about George?'

Arthur looked crossly at Wood, who shook his head in denial.

'How did you know?'

'You went to the Vicarage last night.'

'Did we?'

'Well, at any rate two strangers were seen going to the Vicarage after dark, one of them a tall gentleman pulling his muffler up to hide his moustache, and the other a shorter one in a bowler hat.'

'Oh dear,' said Arthur. Perhaps he should have gone to the theatrical costumier after all.

'And now the same two gentlemen, if disguising themselves less obviously, have come to see me on business I was told was confidential but was soon to be revealed.' Harry Charlesworth was enjoying himself greatly. He was also happy to reminisce.

'Yes, we were at school together, when we were littl'uns. George was always very quiet. Never got into trouble, not like the rest of us. Clever too. Cleverer than me, and I was clever back then. Not that you'd know it now. Staring up the backside of a cow all day does rub away at your intelligence, you know.'

Arthur ignored this diversion into vulgar autobiography. 'But did George have any enemies? Was he disliked – on account of his colour, for instance?'

Harry thought about this for a while. 'Not as far as I can recall. But you know what it is with boys – they have likes and dislikes different from grown-ups. And different from month to month. If George was disliked, it was more for being clever. Or because his father was the Vicar and disapproved of the sort of things boys got up to. Or because he was short-sighted. The master put him up the front so he could see the blackboard. Maybe that looked like favouritism. More of a reason to dislike him than being coloured.'

Harry's analysis of the Wyrley Outrages was not complex. The case against George was daft. The police were daft. And the notion that there was a mysterious Gang flitting around after nightfall under the orders of some mysterious Captain was daftest of all.

'Harry, we shall need to interview Trooper Green. Given that he's the only person hereabouts who actually admits to ripping a horse.'

'Fancy a long trip, do you?'

'Where to?'

'South Africa. Ah, you didn't know. Harry Green got himself a ticket to South Africa just a couple of weeks after the trial was over. It wasn't a return ticket either.'

'Interesting. Any idea who paid for it?'

'Well, not Harry Green, that's for certain. Someone interested in keeping him out of harm's way.'

'The police?'

'Possible. Not that they were too thrilled with him by the time he left. He went back on his confession. Said he'd never done the ripping, and the police had bullied the confession out of him.'

'Did he, by Jove? What do you make of that, Woodie?'

Wood dutifully stated the obvious. 'Well, I'd say he was lying either the first time or the second. Or,' he added with a touch of mischief, 'possibly both.'

'Harry, can you find out if Mr Green has an address for his son in South Africa?'

'I can certainly try.'

'And another thing. Was there talk in Wyrley about who might have done it, given that George didn't?'

'There's always talk. It's the same price as rain. All I'd say is, it's got to be someone who knows how to handle animals. You can't just go up to a horse or a sheep or a cow and say, Hold still my lovely while I rip your guts out. I'd like to see George Edalji go into the parlour and try and milk one of my cows…' Harry lost himself briefly in the amusement of this notion. 'He'd be kicked to death or fall in the shit before he'd got his stool under her.'

Arthur leaned forward. 'Harry, would you be prepared to help us clear your friend and old schoolfellow's name?'

Harry Charlesworth noted the lowered voice and cajoling tone, but was suspicious of it. 'He was never exactly my friend.' Then his face brightened. 'Of course, I'd have to take time off from the dairy…'

Arthur had initially ascribed a more chivalrous nature to Harry Charlesworth, but decided not to be disappointed. Once a retainer and fee structure had been agreed, Harry, in his new capacity as assistant consulting detective, showed them the route George was supposed to have taken that drenching August night three and a half years previously. They set off across the field behind the Vicarage, climbed a fence, forced their way through a hedge, crossed the railway by a subterranean passage, climbed another fence, crossed another field, braved a clinging, thorny hedge, crossed another paddock, and found themselves on the edge of the Colliery field. Three-quarters of a mile at a rough guess.

Wood took out his pocket watch. 'Eighteen and a half minutes.'

'And we are fit men,' commented Arthur, still plucking thorns from his overcoat and wiping mud from his shoes. 'And it is daylight, and it is not raining, and we have excellent eyesight.'

Back at the dairy, after money had changed hands, Arthur asked about the general pattern of crime in the neighbourhood. It sounded routine: theft of livestock, public drunkenness, firing of hayricks. Had there been any violent incidents apart from the attacks on farmstock? Harry half-remembered something from around the time George was sentenced. An attack on a mother and her little girl. Two fellows with a knife. Caused a bit of a stir, but never went to court. Yes, he would be happy to look into the matter.

They shook hands, and Harry walked them to the ironmonger's, which also served as the grocery, the drapery and the Post Office.

William Brookes was a small, rotund man, with bushy white whiskers counterbalancing his bald cranium; he wore a green apron stained by the years. He was neither overtly welcoming nor overtly suspicious. He was about to take them into a back room when Sir Arthur, nudging his secretary, announced that he was in great need of a bootscraper. He took an intense interest in the choice on offer, and when purchase and wrapping were complete, acted as if the rest of their visit was just a happy afterthought.

In the storeroom, Brookes spent so long digging around in drawers and muttering to himself that Sir Arthur wondered if he might have to buy a zinc bath and a couple of mops to expedite matters. But the ironmonger eventually located a small packet of heavily creased letters bound with twine. Arthur immediately recognized the paper on which they were written; the same cheap notebook had served for the letters to the Vicarage.