Arthur & George

'Very well. Let us start with known facts. The case of Elizabeth Foster, the maid-of-all-work. Where you allege it all began. Naturally, we looked at the case but there simply wasn't enough evidence to prosecute.'

Doyle looked at the Chief Constable blankly. 'I don't understand. There was a prosecution. She pleaded guilty.'

'There was a private prosecution – by the Vicar. And the girl was bullied by lawyers into pleading guilty. Not the sort of gesture to endear you to your parishioners.'

'So the police failed to support the family even then?'

'Doyle, we prosecute when the evidence is there. As we prosecuted when the solicitor himself was victim of an assault. Ah, I see he didn't tell you that.'

'He does not seek pity.'

'That's by the by.' Anson picked a paper from his file. 'November 1900. Assault by two Wyrley youths. Pushed him through a hedge in Landywood, and one of them also damaged his umbrella. Both pleaded guilty. Fined with costs. Cannock magistrates. You didn't know he'd been there before?'

'May I see that?'

'Afraid not. Police records.'

'Then at least give me the names of those convicted.' When Anson hesitated, he added, 'I can always get my bloodhounds on to the matter.'

Anson, to Doyle's surprise, gave a kind of humorous bark. 'So you're a bloodhound man too? Oh, very well, they were called Walker and Gladwin.' He saw that they meant nothing to Doyle. 'Anyway, we might presume that this was not an isolated occurrence. He was probably assaulted before or after, more mildly perhaps. Doubtless insulted too. The young men of Staffordshire are far from saints.'

'It may surprise you to know that George Edalji specifically rejects race prejudice as the basis of his misfortune.'

'So much the better. Then we may happily leave it on one side.'

'Though of course,' added Doyle, 'I do not agree with his analysis.'

'Well, that is your prerogative,' replied Anson complacently.

'And why is this assault relevant?'

'Because, Doyle, you cannot understand the ending until you know the beginning.' Anson was now starting to enjoy himself. His blows were hitting home, one by one. 'George Edalji had good reason to hate the district of Wyrley. Or thought he did.'

'So he took revenge by killing livestock? Where's the connection?'

'I see you are from the city, Doyle. A cow, a horse, a sheep, a pig is more than livestock. It is livelihood. Call it – an economic target.'

'Can you demonstrate a link between either of George's assailants in Landywood and any of the livestock subsequently mutilated?'

'No, I can't. But you should not expect criminals to follow logic.'

'Not even intelligent ones?'

'Even less so, in my experience. Anyway, we have a young man who is his parents' pet, still stuck at home when his younger brother has flown the coop. A young man with a grudge against the district, to which he feels superior. He finds himself in catastrophic debt. The moneylenders are threatening him with the bankruptcy court, professional ruin is staring him in the face. Everything he has ever worked for in his life is about to disappear…'

'And so?'

'So… perhaps he ran mad like your friend Mr Wilde.'

'Wilde was corrupted by his success, in my view. One may hardly compare the effect of nightly applause in the West End with the critical reception to a treatise on railway law.'

'You said Wilde's case was a pathological development. Why not Edalji's too? I believe the solicitor was at his wits' end for months. The strain must have been considerable, even unbearable. You yourself called his begging letter "desperate". Some pathological development might occur, some tendency to evil in the blood might inevitably emerge.'

'Half his blood is Scottish.'

'Indeed.'

'And the other half is Parsee. The most highly educated and commercially successful of Indian sects.'

'I do not doubt it. They are not called the Jews of Bombay for nothing. And equally I do not doubt that it is the mixing of the blood that is partly the cause of all this.'

'My own blood is mixed Scottish and Irish,' said Doyle. 'Does this make me cut cattle?'

'You make my argument for me. What Englishman – what Scotsman – what half Scotsman – would take a blade to a horse, a cow, a sheep?'

'You forget the miner Farrington, who did just that while George was in prison. But I ask you in return: what Indian would do the same? Do they not venerate cattle as gods there?'

'Indeed. But when the blood is mixed, that is where the trouble starts. An irreconcilable division is set up. Why does human society everywhere abhor the half-caste? Because his soul is torn between the impulse to civilization and the pull of barbarism.'

'And is it the Scottish or the Parsee blood you hold responsible for barbarism?'

'You are facetious, Doyle. You yourself believe in blood. You believe in race. You told me over dinner how your mother had proudly traced her ancestry back five centuries. Forgive me if I misquote you, but I recall that many of the great ones of the earth have roosted in your family tree.'

'You do not misquote me. Are you saying that George Edalji slit the bellies of horses because that's what his ancestors did five centuries ago in Persia or wherever they were then?'

'I have no idea whether barbaric or ritual practices were involved. Perhaps so. It may well be that Edalji himself did not know what impelled him to act as he did. An urge from centuries back, brought to the surface by this sudden and deplorable miscegenation.'

'You truly believe that this is what happened?'

'Something like it, yes.'

'Then what about Horace?'

'Horace?'

'Horace Edalji. Born of the same mixture of bloods. Currently a respected employee of His Majesty's Government. In the tax inspectorate. You are not suggesting Horace was part of the gang?'

'I am not.'

'Why not? He has as good credentials.'

'Again, you are being facetious. Horace Edalji lives in Manchester, for a start. Besides, I am merely proposing that a mixing of the blood produces a tendency, a susceptibility under certain extreme circumstances to revert to barbarism. To be sure, many half-castes live perfectly respectable lives.'

'Unless something triggers them…'

'As the full moon may trigger lunacy in some gypsies and Irish.'

'It has never had that effect on me.'

'Low-born Irish, my dear Doyle. Nothing personal intended.'

'So what is the difference between George and Horace? Why, in your belief, has one resorted to barbarism and the other not – or not as yet?'

'Do you have a brother, Doyle?'

'I do indeed. A younger one. Innes. He's a career officer.'

'Why has he not written detective stories?'

'I am not tonight's theorist.'

'Because circumstances, even between brothers, vary.'

'Again, why not Horace?'

'The evidence has been staring you in the face, Doyle. It was all brought out in court, by the family itself. I'm surprised you overlooked it.'

It was a pity, Doyle thought, that he had not booked into the White Lion Hotel over the road. He might have the need to kick some furniture before the evening was finished.

'Cases like this, which seem baffling as well as repugnant to the outsider often turn, in my experience, on matters which are not discussed in court, for obvious reasons. Matters which are normally confined to the smoking room. But you are, as you have indicated with your tales of Mr Oscar Wilde, a man of the world. You have a medical training too, as I recall. And you have travelled in support of our army in the South African War, I believe.'

'All that is true.' Where was the fellow leading him?

'Your friend Mr Edalji is thirty years old. He is unmarried.'

'As are many young men of his age.'

'And is likely to remain so.'

'Especially given his prison sentence.'

'No, Doyle, that's not the problem. There's always a certain low sort of woman attracted by the whiff of Portland. The hindrance is other. The hindrance is that your man's a goggling half-caste. Not many takers for that, not in Staffordshire.'