The Daily Telegraph published Arthur's findings over two days, the 11th and 12th of January. The newspaper laid it out well, and the compositors were on their best behaviour. Arthur read his words through again, all the way to their thundering conclusion:
The door is shut in our faces. Now we turn to the last tribunal of all, a tribunal which never errs when the facts are fairly laid before them, and we ask the public of Great Britain whether this thing is to go on.
The response to the articles was tremendous. Soon the telegram boy could have found his way to Undershaw blindfold. There was support from Barrie, Meredith, and others in the writing profession. The correspondence page of the Telegraph was filled with debate about George's eyesight and the defence's dereliction in failing to introduce it. George's mother added her own testimony:
I always spoke to the solicitor employed for the defence of the extreme short sight of my son, which has been from a child. I considered that sufficient proof at once, if there had been no other, that he could not have gone to the field, with a so-called 'road' impossible even to people with good sight, at night. I felt this so much that I was distressed that no opportunity was given me when giving evidence to speak on his defective sight. The time allowed me was very short, and I suppose people were tired of the case… My son's sight was always so defective that he bent very close to the paper in writing, and held a book or paper very close to his eyes, and when out walking he did not recognize people easily. When I met him anywhere I always felt I must look for him, not he for me.
Other letters demanded a search for Elizabeth Foster, anatomized the character of Captain Anson, and dilated upon the prevalence of gangs in Staffordshire. One correspondent explained how easily horse hairs might work themselves loose from inside the lining of a coat. There were letters from one of George's fellow passengers on the Wyrley train, from Onlooker of Hampstead NW and from A Friend to Parsees. Mr Aroon Chunder Dutt MD (Cantab.) wished to point out that cattle maiming was a crime entirely foreign to the Eastern nature. Chowry Muthu MD of New Cavendish Street reminded readers that all India was watching the case, and that the name and honour of England were at stake.
Three days after the second Telegraph article appeared, Arthur and Mr Yelverton were received at the Home Office by Mr Gladstone, Sir Mackenzie Chambers and Mr Blackwell. It was agreed that the proceedings should be considered private. The conversation lasted an hour. Afterwards, Sir A. Conan Doyle stated that he and Mr Yelverton had met with a courteous and sympathetic reception, and that he was confident the Home Office would do all it could to clear the matter up.
The waiving of copyright helped spread the story not just to the Midlands, but across the world. Arthur's cuttings agency was overburdened, and he grew used to the repeated headline, which taught him the same verb in many different languages: SHERLOCK HOLMES INVESTIGATES. Expressions of support – and occasional dissent – arrived by every post. Fantastical solutions to the case were proposed: for instance, that the persecution of the Edaljis had been conducted by other Parsees as punishment for Shapurji's apostasy. And of course there was another letter in a handwriting which had now become very familiar:
I know from a detective of Scotland Yard that if you write to Gladstone and say you find Edalji is guilty after all they will make you a lord next year. Is it not better to be a lord than to run the risk of losing kidneys and liver. Think of all the ghoolish murders that are committed why then should you escape?
Arthur noted the spelling mistake, judged that he had got his man on the run, and flipped the page:
The proof of what I tell you is in the writing he put in the papers when they loosed him out of prison where he ought to have been kept along with his dad and all the black and yellow-faced Jews. Nobody could copy his writing like that, you blind fool.
Such crude provocation merely confirmed the need to push forward on all fronts. There must be no slackening of effort. Mr Mitchell wrote to confirm that Milton had indeed been on the syllabus at Walsall School during the period that interested Sir Arthur; though begged to add that the great poet had been taught in the schools of Staffordshire for as long as the oldest master could recall, and indeed was still being taught. Harry Charlesworth reported that he had traced Fred Wynn, once the schoolfellow of the Brookes boy, now a house painter of Cheslyn Hay, and would ask him about Speck. Three days later a telegram with an agreed formula arrived: INVITED DINNER HEDNESFORD TUESDAY CHARLESWORTH STOP.
Harry Charlesworth met Sir Arthur and Mr Wood at Hednesford station and walked them to the Rising Sun public house. In the saloon bar they were introduced to a lanky young man with a celluloid collar and frayed cuffs. There were some whitish stains on one sleeve of his jacket, which Arthur thought unlikely to be either horse's saliva or even bread and milk.
'Tell them what you told me,' said Harry.
Wynn looked at the strangers slowly and tapped his glass. Arthur sent Wood off for the necessary encouragement to their informant's voice box.
'I was at school with Speck,' he began. 'He was always at the bottom of the class. Always in trouble. Set a rick on fire one summer. Liked to chew tobacco. One evening I was on the train with Brookes when Speck came running into the same compartment, straight to the end of the carriage and stuck his head through the window smashing it to bits. Just started laughing at what he'd done. Then we all moved to another carriage.
'A couple of days later some railway police arrived and said we are to be charged with breaking the window. We both said Speck did it, so he had to pay for it, and they caught him cutting the straps of the window as well, and he had to pay for that too. Then Brookes's Pa started getting letters saying Brookes and me had been spitting on an old lady at Walsall Station. He was always in mischief, Speck. Then the school had him taken away. I don't recall he was exactly expelled, but as good as.'
'And what became of him?' asked Arthur.
'A year or two later I heard he'd been sent to sea.'
'To sea? You're sure? Absolutely sure?'
'Well, that's what they said. Anyway, he disappeared.'
'When would this have been?'
'As I say, a year or two later. He probably fired the rick in about '92, I'd say.
'So he would have gone to sea at the end of '95, beginning of '96?'
'That I couldn't say.'
'Roughly?'
'I couldn't say nearer than I've said already.'
'Do you remember which port he departed from?'
Wynn shook his head.
'Or when he returned? If he did return?'
Wynn shook his head again. 'Charlesworth said you'd be interested.' He tapped his glass once more. This time Arthur ignored the gesture.
'I am interested, Mr Wynn, but you'll forgive me if I say there's a problem with your story.'
'Is there just?'
'You went to Walsall School?'
'Yes.'
'And so did Brookes?'
'Yes.'
'And so did Speck?'
'Yes.'
'Then how do you account for the fact that Mr Mitchell, the current Headmaster, assures me that there has been no boy of that name at the school in the past twenty years?'
'Oh, I see,' said Wynn. 'Speck was just what we called him. He was a little fellow, like a speck. That's probably why. No, his real name was Sharp.'
'Sharp?'
'Royden Sharp.'
Arthur picked up Mr Wynn's glass and handed it to his secretary. 'Anything with that, Mr Wynn? A chaser of whisky, perhaps?'