Save your irritation for others, thought Arthur. George is a good fellow, and an innocent man, but there is no point wishing sanctity upon him. Wanting more gratitude than he can offer is like wanting every reviewer to declare each new book of yours a work of genius. Yes, save your irritation for others. Captain Anson for a start, whose letter this morning contained a fresh piece of insolence: the blunt refusal to admit that the mutilations could have been caused by a horse lancet. And to cap it, the dismissive line, 'What you drew was an ordinary fleam.' Indeed! Arthur had not bothered George with this latest provocation.
And as well as Anson, he was finding himself irritated by Willie Hornung. His brother-in-law had a new joke, which Connie had passed on to him over lunch. 'What do Arthur Conan Doyle and George Edalji have in common?' No? Give up? "Sentences."' Arthur growled to himself. Sentences – he thought that witty? Objectively, Arthur could see that some might find it so. But really… Unless he was beginning to lose his sense of humour. They said it happened to people in middle age. No – poppycock. And now he was starting to irritate himself. Another trait of middle age, no doubt.
George, meanwhile, was still in the writing room at the Grand Hotel. He was in low spirits. He had been disgracefully impolite and ungrateful towards Sir Arthur. And after the months and months of work he had put into the case. George was ashamed of himself. He must write to apologize. And yet… and yet… it would have been dishonest to say more than he did. Or rather, if he had said more, he would have been obliged to be honest.
He had read the Statement of the Case against Royden Sharp that Arthur was sending to the Home Office. He had read it several times, naturally. And each time his impression had hardened. His conclusion – his inevitable, professional conclusion – was that it would not help his own position. Further, his judgement – which he would never have dared utter at their meeting – was that Sir Arthur's case against Sharp strangely resembled the Staffordshire Constabulary's case against himself.
It was based, to begin with, and in exactly the same way, upon the letters. Sir Reginald Hardy had said in his summing-up at Stafford that the person who wrote the letters must also have been the person who maimed the livestock. This connection was explicit, and rightly criticized by Mr Yelverton and those who had taken up his case. Yet here was Sir Arthur making exactly the same connection. The letters were his starting point, and through them he had traced Royden Sharp's hand, and his comings and goings, at every turn. The letters incriminated Sharp, just as they had previously incriminated George. And while it was now concluded that the letters had been deliberately written by Sharp and his brother to pull George into the affair, why could they not equally have been written by someone else to pull Sharp into the affair? If they had been false the first time, why should they be true the second?
Likewise, all Sir Arthur's evidence was circumstantial, and much of it hearsay. A woman and a child were assaulted by someone who might have been Royden Sharp, except that his name had not been raised at the time and no police action had been taken. A statement had been made to Mrs Greatorex three or more years ago, which she had not seen fit to pass on to anyone at the time, but which she now brought up when Royden Sharp's name was mentioned. She also remembered some hearsay – or a piece of washing-line gossip – from Sharp's wife. Royden Sharp had an exceedingly poor scholastic record: yet if that were sufficient proof of criminal intent, the gaols would be full. Royden Sharp was supposed to be strangely influenced by the moon – except on those occasions when he was not. Further, Sharp lived in a house from which it was easy to escape unobserved at night: just like the Vicarage, and any number of other houses in the district.
And if this wasn't enough to make a solicitor's heart sink, there was worse, far worse. Sir Arthur's only piece of solid evidence was the horse lancet, which he had now taken possession of. And what exactly was the legal value of such an item so obtained? A third party, namely Sir Arthur, had incited a fourth party, namely Mr Wood, to enter illegally the property of yet another party, Royden Sharp, and steal an item which he had then transported halfway across the kingdom. It was understandable that he had not handed it over to the Staffordshire Constabulary, but it could have been lodged with a proper legal official. A solicitor-at-law, for instance. Whereas Sir Arthur's actions had contaminated the evidence. Even the police knew that they had to obtain either a search warrant, or the express and unambiguous permission of the householder, before entering premises. George admitted that criminal law was not his speciality, but it seemed to him that Sir Arthur had incited an associate to commit burglary and in the process rendered valueless a vital piece of evidence. And he might even be lucky to escape a charge of conspiracy to commit theft.
This was where Sir Arthur's excess of enthusiasm had led him. And it was all, George decided, the fault of Sherlock Holmes. Sir Arthur had been too influenced by his own creation. Holmes performed his brilliant acts of deduction and then handed villains over to the authorities with their unambiguous guilt written all over them. But Holmes had never once been obliged to stand in the witness box and have his suppositions and intuitions and immaculate theories ground to very fine dust over a period of several hours by the likes of Mr Disturnal. What Sir Arthur had done was the equivalent of go into a field where the criminal's footprints might be found and trample all over it wearing several different pairs of boots. He had, in his eagerness, destroyed the legal case against Royden Sharp even as he was trying to make it. And it was all the fault of Mr Sherlock Holmes.
Arthur amp; George
As he holds a copy of the Report of the Gladstone Committee in his hand, Arthur is relieved that he has twice failed to be elected to Parliament. He need feel no direct shame. This is how they do things, how they bury bad news. They have released the Report without the slightest warning on the Friday before the Whitsun holiday. Who will want to read about a miscarriage of justice while taking the train to the seaside? Who will be available to provide informed comment? Who will care, by the time Whit Sunday and Whit Monday have passed and work begins again? The Edalji Case – wasn't that settled months ago?
George also holds a copy in his hand. He looks at the title page:
PAPERS
relating to the
CASE OF GEORGE EDALJI
presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of His Majesty
and then, at the bottom:
London: printed for His Majesty's Stationery Office
by Eyre and Spottiswoode,
Printers to the King's Most Excellent Majesty
[Cd. 3503.] Price 1½d. 1907
It sounds substantial, but the price seems to give it away. A penny halfpenny to learn the truth about his case, his life… He opens the pamphlet warily. Four pages of Report, then two brief appendices. A penny halfpenny. His breath is coming short. His life summed up for him yet again. And this time not for readers of the Cannock Chase Courier, the Birmingham Daily Gazette or the Birmingham Daily Post, the Daily Telegraph or The Times, but for both Houses of Parliament and the King's Most Excellent Majesty…
Arthur has taken the Report, unread, to Jean's flat. This is only right. Just as the Report itself is laid before Parliament, so the consequences of his venture should be laid before her. She has taken an interest in the matter which far exceeded his expectations. In truth, he had no expectations at all. But she was always at his side, if not literally, then metaphorically. So she must be there at the conclusion.