Dear Sir, I am reduced from a fairly comfortable position to absolute poverty, primarily through having had to pay a large sum of money (nearly £220) for a friend for whom I was surety. I borrowed from three moneylenders in the hope of righting myself, but their exorbitant interest only made matters worse, amp; two of them have now
My friends can only find me £30, I have about £21 myself, amp; shall be most thankful for
Apologizing for troubling you and trusting you may assist me as far as you can.
I am,
Yours respectfully,
G.E. Edalji
Anson watched Doyle as he read the letter. No need to point out that it was written five weeks before the first maiming. The ball was in his court now. Doyle flicked the letter over and reread some of its phrases. Eventually he said,
'You doubtless investigated?'
'Certainly not. This is not a police matter. Begging on the public highway is an offence, but begging among the professional classes is no concern of ours.'
'I see no reference here to gambling debts or misuse of clients' funds.'
'Which would hardly have been the way to Sir Benjamin Stone's heart. Try reading between the lines.'
'I decline to. This seems to me the desperate appeal of an honourable young man let down by his generosity to a friend. The Parsees are known for their charity.'
'Ah, so suddenly he's a Parsee?'
'What do you mean?'
'You cannot have him a professional Englishman one moment and a Parsee the next, just as it suits you. Is it prudent for an honourable young man to pledge such a large sum, and to put himself in the hands of three separate moneylenders? How many solicitors have you known do this? Read between the lines, Doyle. Ask your friend about it.'
'I have no intention of asking him about it. And clearly, he did not go bankrupt.'
'Indeed. I suspect the mother helped out.'
'Or perhaps there were others in Birmingham who showed him the same confidence he had shown the friend for whom he stood surety.'
Anson found Doyle as stubborn as he was naive. 'I applaud your… romantic streak, Sir Arthur. It does you credit. But forgive me if I find it unrealistic. As I do your campaign. Your fellow has been released from prison. He is a free man. What is the point of seeking to whip up popular opinion? You want the Home Office to look at the case again? The Home Office has looked at it countless times. You want a committee? What makes you sure it will give you what you want?'
'We shall get a committee. We shall get a free pardon. We shall get compensation. And furthermore we shall establish the identity of the true criminal in whose place George Edalji has suffered.'
'Oh, that too?' Anson was now becoming seriously irritated. It could so easily have been a pleasant evening: two men of the world, each approaching fifty, one the son of an earl and the other a knight of the realm, both of them, as it happened, Deputy Lieutenants of their respective counties. They had far more in common than was setting them apart… and instead it was turning rancorous.
'Doyle, let me make two points to you, if I may. You clearly imagine that there was some continuous line of persecution stretching back years – the letters, the hoaxes, the mutilations, the additional threats. You further think the police blame all of it on your friend. Whereas you blame all of it on criminals known or unknown, but the same criminals. Where is the logic in either approach? We only charged Edalji with two offences, and the second charge was in any case not proceeded with. I expect he is innocent of numerous matters. A criminal spree such as this rarely has single authorship. He might be the ringleader, he might be a mere follower. He might have seen the effect of an anonymous letter and decided to try it for himself. Might have seen the effect of a hoax and decided to play hoaxer. Heard of a gang cutting animals, and decided to join it.
'My second point is this. In my time I've seen people who were probably guilty found innocent, and people who were probably innocent found guilty. Don't look so surprised. I've known examples of wrongful accusation and wrongful conviction. But in such cases the victim is rarely as straightforward as his defenders would like. For instance, let me make a suggestion. You came across George Edalji for the first time in a hotel foyer. You were late for the meeting, I understand. You saw him in a particular posture, from which you deduced his innocence. Let me put this to you. George Edalji was there before you. He was expecting you. He knew you would observe him. He arranged himself accordingly.'
Doyle did not reply to this, just stuck out his chin and pulled on his cigar. Anson was finding him a damned stubborn fellow, this Scotsman or Irishman or whatever he claimed to be.
'You want him to be completely innocent, don't you? Not just innocent, but completely innocent? In my experience, Doyle, no one is completely innocent. They may be found not guilty, but that's different from being innocent. Almost no one's completely innocent.'
'How about Jesus Christ?'
Oh, for God's sake, thought Anson. And I'm not Pontius Pilate either. 'Well, from a purely legal point of view,' he said in a mild, after-dinner manner, 'you could argue that Our Lord helped bring the prosecution upon Himself.'
Now it was Doyle who felt they were straying from the matter in hand.
'Then let me ask you this. What, in your opinion, really happened?'
Anson laughed, rather too openly. 'That, I'm afraid, is a question from detective fiction. It is what your readers beg, and what you so winningly provide. Tell us what really happened.
'Most crimes, Doyle – almost all crimes, in fact – occur without witnesses. The burglar waits for the house to be empty. The murderer waits until his victim is alone. The man who slashes the horse waits for the cover of night. If there is a witness, it is often an accomplice, another criminal. You catch a criminal, he lies. Always. You separate two accomplices, they tell separate lies. You get one to turn King's evidence, he tells a new sort of lie. The entire resources of the Staffordshire Constabulary could be assigned to a case, and we would never end up knowing what really happened, as you put it. I am not making some philosophical argument, I am being practical. What we know, what we end up knowing, is – enough to secure a conviction. Forgive me for lecturing you about the real world.'
Doyle wondered if he would ever cease being punished for having invented Sherlock Holmes. Corrected, advised, lectured, patronized – when would it ever stop? Still, he must press on. He must keep his temper whatever the provocation.
'But leaving all that aside, Anson. And admitting – as I fear we must admit – that by the end of the evening we may not have shifted one another's position by one jot or one tittle. What I am asking is this. You believe that a respectable young solicitor, having shown no previous sign of a violent nature, suddenly goes out one night and attacks a pit pony in a most wicked and violent fashion. I ask you simply, Why?'
Anson groaned inwardly. Motive. The criminal mind. Here we go again. He rose and refilled their glasses.
'You are the one with the paid imagination, Doyle.'
'Yet I believe him innocent. And am unable to make the leap that you have made. You are not in the witness box. We are two English gentlemen sitting over fine brandy and, if I may say so, even finer cigars, in a handsome house in the middle of this splendid county. Whatever you say will remain within these four walls, I give you my word on that. I merely ask: according to you, Why?'