Arthur & George

'What does that mean, Arthur?'

'It means, my dearest Jean, that no one has done anything wrong. It means that the great British solution to everything has been applied. Something terrible has happened, but nobody has done anything wrong. It ought to be retrospectively enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Nothing shall be anybody's fault, and especially not ours.'

'But they admit the verdict was wrong.'

'They said that George was innocent, but the fact that he has enjoyed three years of penal servitude is nobody's fault. Time after time the defects were pointed out to the Home Office and time after time the Home Office declined to reconsider. Nobody did anything wrong. Hurrah, hurrah.'

'Arthur, calm down a little, please. Take a little brandy and soda or something. You may even smoke your pipe if you wish.'

'Never in front of a lady.'

'Well, I would happily make an exception. But do calm down a little. And then we shall see how they justify such a statement.'

But George gets there first. suggestions… prerogative of mercy… grant of a free pardon… On the one hand, we think the conviction ought not to have taken place, for the reasons we have stated… total ruin of his professional position and prospects… police supervisions… difficult if not impossible for him to recover anything like the position he has lost. George stops at this moment, and takes a drink of water. He knows that On the one hand is always followed by On the other hand, and is not sure he is able to face what that hand might be.

'On the other hand,' roars Arthur. 'My God, the Home Office will find as many hands as that Indian god, what's his name-'

'Shiva, dear.'

'Shiva, when they want to find a reason why nothing is their fault. On the other hand, being unable to disagree with what we take to be the finding of the jury, that Edalji was the writer of the letters of 1903, we cannot but see that, assuming him to be an innocent man, he has to some extent brought his troubles upon himself. No, no, no no, NO.'

'Arthur, please. People will think we are having an argument.'

'I'm sorry. It's just that… aaah, Appendix One, yes, yes, petitions, reasons why the Home Office never does anything. Appendix Two, let's see how the Solomon of the Home Office thanks the Committee. careful and exhaustive report. Exhaustive! Four whole pages, with not a single mention of Anson or Royden Sharp! Blether… brought his troubles upon himself… blether blether… accept the conclusions… however… exceptional case… I'll say so… permanent disqualifications… Oh, I see, what they're most afraid of is the legal profession, all of which knows this is the greatest miscarriage of justice since, since… yes, so if they allow him to be reinstated… blether, blether… fullest and most anxious considerations… free pardon.'

'Free pardon,' repeats Jean, looking up. So victory is theirs.

'Free pardon,' reads George, aware that there is one sentence of the Report left to come.

'Free pardon,' repeats Arthur. He and George read the last sentence together. 'But I have also come to the conclusion that the case is not one in which any grant of compensation can be made.'

George lays down the Report and puts his head in his hands. Arthur, in a tone of sardonic funereality, reads its final words, 'I am, yours very truly, H.J. Gladstone.'

'Arthur dear, you were rather rushing things towards the end.' She has never seen him in such a mood before; she finds it alarming. She would not like such feelings ever turned against her.

'They should erect new signs at the Home Office. Instead of Entrance and Exit, they should read On the One Hand and On the Other Hand.'

'Arthur, could you try to be a little less obscure and just tell me what this means, exactly.'

'It means, it means, my darling Jean, that this Home Office, this Government, this country, this England of ours has discovered a new legal concept. In the old days, you were either innocent or guilty. If you were not innocent, you were guilty, and if you were not guilty, you were innocent. A simple enough system, tried and tested down many centuries, grasped by judges, juries and the populace at large. As from today, we have a new concept in English law – guilty and innocent. George Edalji is a pioneer in this regard. The only man to be granted a free pardon for a crime he never committed, and yet to be told at the same time that it was quite right he served three years' penal servitude.'

'So it's a compromise?'

'Compromise! No, it's a hypocrisy. It's what this country does best. The bureaucrats and the politicians have spent centuries perfecting it. It's called a Government Report. It's called Blether, it's called-'

'Arthur, light your pipe.'

'Never. I once caught a fellow smoking in front of a lady. I took the pipe from his mouth, snapped it in two and threw the pieces at his feet.'

'But Mr Edalji will be able to return to his work as a solicitor.'

'He will. And every potential client of his who can read a newspaper will think they are consulting a man mad enough to write anonymous letters denouncing himself for a heinous crime which even the Home Secretary and the cousin of the blessed Anson admit he had absolutely nothing to do with.'

'But perhaps it will be forgotten. You said that they were burying bad news by producing it over Whitsun. So perhaps people will only remember that Mr Edalji was granted a free pardon.'

'Not if I have anything to do with it.'

'You mean you are continuing?'

'They haven't seen the back of me yet. I'm not going to let them get away with this. I gave George my word. I gave you my word.'

'No, Arthur. You said what you were going to do, and you did it, and you have obtained a free pardon, and George can go back to work, which is what his mother said was all he wanted. It has been a great success, Arthur.'

'Jean, please stop being reasonable with me.'

'You wish me to be unreasonable with you?'

'I would shed blood to avoid that.'

'On the other hand?' asks Jean teasingly.

'With you,' says Arthur, 'there is no other hand. There is only one hand. It is simple. It is the only thing in my life that ever seems simple. At last. At long last.'

George has no one to console him, no one to tease him, no one to stop the words rolling back and forth in his skull. A wrong-headed and malicious man, indulging in a piece of impish mischief, pretending to know what he may know nothing of, in order to puzzle the police, and increase their difficulties in a very difficult investigation. A judgment presented to both Houses of Parliament and to the King's Most Excellent Majesty.

That evening George was asked by a representative of the Press for his response to the Report. He pronounced himself profoundly dissatisfied with the result. He called it merely a step in the right direction, but the allegation that he had written the Greatorex letters was a slander – an insult… a baseless insinuation, and I shall not rest until it is withdrawn and an apology tendered. Further, no compensation has been offered. They admitted he had been wrongly convicted, so it is only just that I should be compensated for the three years' penal servitude that I suffered. I shall not let matters rest as they are. I want compensation for my wrongs.

Arthur wrote to the Daily Telegraph, calling the Committee's position absolutely illogical and untenable. He asked if anything meaner or more un-English could be imagined than a free pardon without reparation. He offered to demonstrate in half an hour that George Edalji could not have written the anonymous letters. He proposed that since it was unfair to ask the taxpayer to fund George Edalji's compensation, it might well be levied in equal parts from the Staffordshire police, the Quarter Sessions Court and the Home Office, since it is these three groups of men who are guilty among them of this fiasco.