Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated)

by SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

  I have carefully examined a considerable number of the letters and postcards written by the conspirators, and I have been able to come to some definite conclusions about them. In the first place, there appear to have been three of them, two adults and a boy. I must admit that the writings of the two adults are so fluid, and run so frequently into the same characteristics, that I am prepared to find that they both came from one individual. Such a supposition is possible, but I think that it is very improbable. I seem to trace three lines of thought and character, as well as three peculiarities of script. We will take it, then, that there is adult writing and that there is boy writing, the adult writing being separable into two. Of the boy, it may be definitely stated that he could not have been less than twelve or more than sixteen. I find no exact evidence as to the age of the others, save that the mischief which characterises the whole proceeding, and the fact that they could devote so very much time and attention to it — some of the letters are of great length — would seem to indicate that they were still youths, and that they had no settled occupation. It is fairly certain that they must have lived within a radius of a mile or two of the vicarage, since many of the missives were left by hand.

  Let us now consider what relation these three plotters bore to each other. Had there been a cramming establishment, or any other centre where mischievous young men could congregate, I should say that very likely they were no relations, but mere partners in a cruel practical joke. I have been unable to find, however, that anything of the sort exists in that neighbourhood. Yet these three individuals, the two young adults and the boy, undoubtedly lived under the same roof. Their epistles are continually on the same paper, and in the same envelopes. In some cases the rude scrawl of the boy comes in upon the very page which is taken up by the educated writing of the adult A sheet may exhibit on one side an elaborate forgery of the signatures of the Edaljis, the Brookes, or some other neighbouring family, while on the other is a rude drawing (rude in every sense), which could only have been done by a lad. The adults appeared to pride themselves upon forgers’, and the results, so far as I have been able to test them, show that they had remarkable powers in that direction. “Do you think that we could not imitate your kid’s writing?” they say exultantly in one of the 1892 letters. They most certainly could — and did.

  What are we to say, then, of three youths, all living under one roof, and engaged over several years in long succession of heartless practical jokes. It is possible that they were three clerks in an office, or three assistants in a business, but in such a case, how are we to account for the presence among them of a boy? On the whole, the balance of probability is greatly in favour of there being three relatives, brothers for choice, who are working together in the matter. The fact that the rude writing of the youngest developed at a later date some of the peculiarities of his elders, would seem to indicate a family habit In this way we have built up, as a rough working hypothesis, the idea of two young men and an exceedingly foul-mouthed boy, who are brothers or close relations, and fellow-conspirators in this persecution. Let us see now if an inspection of the letters can give us any information of the habits of these young blackguards. The first thing which is perfectly evident is the connection of the younger one with Walsall Grammar School. Walsall Grammar School is an excellent educational establishment, and a great boon to all the country round, but like every other school, it has an occasional black sheep, and it needs no far-fetched inference to make it certain that this youngster was among them. Let me explain here that it was not merely the Edalji family who were persecuted by scurrilous letters, but that several other families in the neighbourhood, notably the Brookes and the Wynnes, were troubled in the same fashion. Now, both the Brookes and the Wynnes had a son at that time at Walsall School, and the headmaster of Walsall was also a recipient of anonymous letters, written in the same rough boyish hand, so that the focus of trouble seems certainly to lie there. I may explain in passing that George Edalji was at Rugeley Grammar School, and had no connection whatever with Walsall.

  My point is, then, that the youngest of these three brothers, the ill-conditioned boy, had some connection with Walsall School. To illustrate it I append an exhibit, which, for purposes of future reference, I will call No. 1.

  Here the writer, dragging in as usual the butt, Edalji, whose very name he cannot at that time spell, utters the most scurrilous threats against the headmaster.

  This writing is, beyond all doubt, as will afterwards be demonstrated, the same as that of the younger conspirator.

  Here now we are getting at something tangible. The writer of 1 was a boy who entertained a malignant hatred of the headmaster of Walsall School. Why? It does not seem to be stretching the argument to suppose that it is a boy who has often felt the headmaster’s cane, or possibly has been expelled for his evil conduct Without over-elaborating the point it can at least be stated as a probability, indeed almost a certainty, that the boy brother was a scholar at Walsall (and a very backward unruly one) in the year 1892. The argument up to this point must certainly approximate to the truth. It is possible, therefore, that an examination of the records of Walsall (Grammar School at that date would give a starting point for an investigation.

  Not only can we say with some certainty that this young rascal was at Walsall, but there is a strong probability that one of the others was at the same school, though his age, as indicated by his writing, would show that he had either left before the older joined, or that he was in the higher when his younger brother was in the lower classes. He joins his young brother in writing anonymously to the Brookes and the Wynnes, showing a certain community of interest where school matters are concerned. His scholastic record must have been a very different one, for both his script and the contents of his letters show a very alert and ingenious mind. In one of his letters there is a long quotation from Milton. I believe that I am correct in stating that this particular book of Milton had been the school exercise some little time before. I

  repeat, therefore, that the balance of evidence is in favour of one at least of the elder brothers having been a senior scholar at Walsall at or about the time when his brother was a junior. This should narrow down the field of an inquiry.

  In this connection we must consider the incident of the Walsall Grammar School key. This key was discovered by the village constable on Dec. 12, 1892, upon the window-sill of the vicarage, and George Edalji, upon the unvarying principle of laying everything mysterious to his charge, was at once accused of having put it there, how he could have got it from the six-mile-off school, or what end could be served by so foolish a prank, was never explained. Yet it was over this incident that the chief constable wrote: “If the persons concerned in the removal of the key refuse to make any explanation of the subject, I must necessarily treat the matter as a theft. I may say at once, that I shall not pretend to believe any protestations of ignorance which your son may make about this key. My information on the subject does not come from the police.” When one takes this incident with the preceding evidence as to Walsall Grammar School being the focus of the mischief, is it not exceedingly probable that the key was brought over by the same mischievous scholars who wrote the letters, and that the chief constable’s information was conveyed in one of their ingenious epistles? There is, at least, nothing unnatural or far-fetched in such a supposition, while the suggestion that George Edalji would travel twelve miles in order to lay on his own father’s window-sill a key which nobody wanted is grotesque in its improbability. I only recall the incident at present as a corroboration of the theory which I am demonstrating, that the storm-centre at that time lay in Walsall School.

  I will now present specimens of the script of the two elders of the trio, with the proviso that it is within the bounds of possibility that the two may eventually prove to have been one. For the present, at least. I will differentiate them. One of them, who seems to me to be the elder, as his thought and expression are the more developed is the creature who writes extraordinar
y religious rant over the signature of “God-Satan.” There are remarkable qualities in these mad effusions, grim humour, wild imagination, and a maniacal turn of mind, which alternates between hysterical religion and outrageous blasphemy. It was no ordinary man who wrote the following characteristic effusion:

  “I must live partly in Heaven and partly in hell, so if that ever-accursed monster Satan tries to detain me in hell I will fight with him and throw myself into the gulf which is fixed between hell and Heaven, and then I shall be able to climb out of the gulf into Heaven. And moreover, if God tries to push me back into hell I will defy God and struggle with him, and if I cannot prevail I will hold on to God and fall with Him over the precipice of hell.”

  “If you wish to escape having your house blown up by dynamite you are to do this thus, namely, order the postman to take Mrs. M. ‘s body out of her grave and bring it to your house. You are then to break open her head, take out her brains, and boil them in a cauldron of port wine for three hours. Next you are to order Mr. — to come to your house, make him open his mouth and drink the contents of the cauldron whilst boiling. If you do this to my satisfaction I will ask God not to give you such a hot place in hell.”

  There are countless pages of this strange, pernicious stuff”, alternating with such lighter passages as this: You vindictive wretch I dare you to do to me whatever your vengeance prompts you, but spare, oh, spare, the honest police!” I

  append as a specimen of the script the page, which I shall number as 2, upon which the latter gem appears.

  The writing in all these effusions is fluent and easy, with every mark of an educated hand. I can find no evidence that any particular care has been taken to disguise it, but it is naturally unformed, and does not set rigidly into definite characteristics.

  From 1896 onwards this individual disappears entirely, and I was at some loss to form an opinion as to whether the mania was real or simulated. It bore every aspect of being real, but on the other hand it was difficult to conceive that such a person could so conceal his mental eccentricity as to escape general comment Some weeks ago, however, an incident occurred which convinced me that the man still lives, and that he is now a marked religious maniac. A newspaper containing some account of the Edalji affair had found its way to Long Beach, California, in the United States. A page of it was sent back to Mr. George Edalji, with religious and blasphemous comments scribbled in pencil all round the margins. The general character of this script the knowledge shown of the case, and the singular mental conditions, have all convinced me that whatever be his name, God-Satan is now to be found on the Pacific Coast and that he is an undoubted madman.

  So much for the elder of the three hypothetical individuals, he now drops out of the narrative, and we come to the second. This man writes a closer, smaller hand, with many of his senior’s peculiarities. There is no fancy and no madness in his productions. On the contrary, they are particularly practical. They are usually postcards of an allusive character, sent to someone at a distance, and signed with a forged name. At his ingenious bidding deluded tradesmen have brought huge consignments of goods to the vicarage, brother clergymen have hastened to Wyrley upon all sorts of urgent summonses, and editors have inserted the most monstrous advertisements as to the extraordinary needs of the vicar. The exhibit No. 3 gives a specimen of the script

  Of this man’s future I know nothing, and it may well prove, when the veil comes to be lifted, that he is simply another manifestation of the ingenuity of “God-Satan.”

  I will pursue the subject in a concluding letter.

  THE “MARTIN MOLTON” LETTERS — No. 3.

  We now come to the third individual whom we have constructed, the foul-mouthed boy. He is far the more interesting and important of the three, for whereas the others drop out he carries on the persecution. As I will presently show, I have myself received a letter from him within the last few weeks, one of a considerable series which have been signed by various pseudonyms, but which I will call in future the Martin Molton letters, since that was the name which was attached to the first specimen. That Martin Molton, of 1907, and the bad boy of 1892 are the same individual is, as I will show, beyond all reasonable doubt.

  Let me pause here for one instant to consider the theory which I really believe still lingers at the Home Office, that the bad boy of 1892-95 was actually George Edalji reviling his own people, and writing furious letters to those who had never offended him. If the officials could only make good that proposition, when they could point to him also as being Martin Molton and all would be well. But to any unprejudiced mind, with no official theory to sustain, the thing is beyond argument. Look at the writing of 1 and also of 4. It is rude, coarse, and unformed to the last degree. Such as it is it appears unchanged in the persecuting letters up to the end of 1895. Now, at that date George Edalji was nineteen years of age, an excellent scholar”, who had finished his grammar school education, and had already started that course of legal study in Birmingham at which he was to win such distinction. Can anyone believe that he is responsible for this barbarous writing and more barbarous spelling and grammar. It is impossible to suppose such a thing, and by saying so we dispose for ever of the wild idea that Martin Molton was George Edalji, for whoever wrote the schoolboy scrawl of 1892-95 wrote the letters of 1907.

  Let me now make that point clear before I go any further. I present side by side two exhibits, which I call 4 and 5. 4 is a specimen of the bad boy’s writing, dating back to 1893. Alienists will be interested in the circular dots to the i’s, which are recognised as a symptom of lunacy. 5 is a short extract from a long abusive anonymous letter which reached me on April 17 of this year, posted on that date in the N. W. or Euston quarter of London.

  Compare the character of the writing. Compare the words “run” and the words “murder” in each. Compare the peculiar r’s shaped like x. Is there any reasonable man who can doubt that the thing is beyond coincidence, and that the same hand fashioned each? It may be fairly inferred, also, that the writer has been employed during the fourteen years which have elapsed in some trade which has not required much clerical work, as it is difficult to believe otherwise that he would not have developed his calligraphy.

  Having, as I hope, satisfied the reader that the young rascal of 1893 is the writer of the anonymous letter quoted above, I must complete my point by showing that the latter is also Martin Molton. The handwriting of all these 1907 letters is identical, save that in some cases the Greek e is used with an ordinary r, while in others the ordinary e is used with the peculiar r. I append an extract from my letter, 6, and one from the Martin Molton series, 7, which will, I hope, satisfy the reader that they are the same script, and that they are therefore both the handiwork of the bad boy of Walsall School. T may add that of the Martin Molton series five were posted in London and two in Birmingham.

  Now we have secured the two ends of our chain, and it only remains to examine those central links which are formed by the letters of 1903 — those letters which the committee, and also the jury, have most unreasonably ascribed to Edalji. I claim that I have shown these two ends to be from another hand, and if I can show that there is any correspondence or connection between them and the 1903 letters, then the latter also are from another hand. I have in my previous article shown, both by the script and by the internal evidence, that it is in the highest degree improbable that they could have been by Edalji. I now propose to show that it is, on die

  other hand, in the highest degree probable that they are by the same author as the others. Who that may be it is for those upon the spot to determine.

  First of all I reproduce part of the envelope of one of the Martin Molton letters (8), and I place below it the forged signature of Wilfred Greatorex in 1903. Let the reader look at the two capital Ws. Each is curiously fashioned, and yet there is an absolute similarity between them.

  Is this within the range of coincidence? I have shown that there is a history of forgery in the family from the beginning, and the ac
tual writing is cleverly concealed, but every here and there, as in this conspicuous W, there is a glaring lapse.

  Even the same phrases recur in the different series of letters. I have one of the 1903 letters before me as I write, and I read in it, “None of the people think you a right sort,” addressed to George Edalji. Turn to exhibit 6, and you will find the same phrase applied to the same man in the letters of 1907. Is this also coincidence? See the continued ill will towards the

  Edaljis breaking out in 1893, 1903, and again in 1907. Is this also coincidence, and is the central mystification distinct from the first and the last? It is not for me to state who actually wrote the letters of 1903, but I claim that, while in my last article I proved that all the evidence is against them having been done by George Edalji, in the present I have shown that there are very sound reasons to believe that they are from the same hand as those of 1893 and of 1907. I have also given some indications by which that hand may be traced.