Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle

by Daniel Stashower

  By most accounts, George Edalji was a frail, anxious young man whose large, bulging eyes gave him the look of a sideshow hypnotist. He had distinguished himself in law school and published a well-regarded book on railway law by the age of twenty-five. He had few friends, however, and was considered a curiosity in the rural mining district of Great Wyrley.

  Some years earlier, the Edalji family had received a series of threatening letters. The chief constable of the local police, Captain George Anson, came to believe that these letters were the work of George himself, who was then a sixteen-year-old grammar school student. Reverend Edalji argued the point strenuously, pointing out that his son had been sitting in plain sight when many of the letters were pushed under the door. Nonetheless, Captain Anson remained convinced that George was the culprit and would benefit from a stretch in custody. After a time, the offending letters ceased.

  In 1903, the village suffered an outbreak of horse and cattle mutilations. Over a span of six months, as many as sixteen animals were found with long, shallow slits along the stomach—deep enough to cause profuse bleeding without puncturing the organs, leaving the animals to bleed to death. Anonymous letters came to light, taunting the police with talk of a bloodthirsty gang whose members included “Edalji the lawyer.” Although other supposed gang members had also been mentioned by name, Captain Anson focused his attentions on George, who now worked in Birmingham but still lived at his parents’ home. The police formed a theory: George was not only a mad slasher but had also written the letters denouncing himself. His possible motives for doing so were not discussed.

  When an injured pony was discovered in a field not far from the Edaljis’ home, George was taken into custody. A search of the house produced four bloody razors, a pair of mud-caked boots, and clothing that bore suspicious-looking stains and horsehairs. Reverend Edalji swore that his son had been asleep in the same room with him when the attack occurred, but the police discounted this as a possible alibi. The prosecution went ahead, in spite of the fact that the incriminating razors proved to be stained with rust rather than blood, and the mud on George’s boots had not come from the crime scene. The police case rested on the testimony of a handwriting expert, Thomas Gurrin, who confirmed that George Edalji was, in fact, the author of the incriminating letters. As it happened, Gurrin had already helped to convict at least one innocent man, but this would not be made public until the following year. In the meantime, Edalji drew a stiff prison term: seven years of hard labor.

  While Edalji broke rocks in a prison quarry, another animal was found slashed in Wyrley and the police received further anonymous communications. Here, too, the officials had a ready explanation—the original attacks had been part of a bizarre religious cult, so the further incidents could be put down to members of Edalji’s gang. Edalji, the presumed ringleader, remained behind bars.

  By this time, the case had provoked a great deal of protest, culminating in a petition to the Home Office signed by ten thousand people. After three years, the public pressure appeared to pay off: Edalji was released in October 1906, though no reason was given and his name was not cleared. Since his conviction had not been overturned, he could no longer practice law or claim any compensation. He found work as a law clerk and published an account of his ordeal in the newspapers.

  It was then that the story came to Conan Doyle’s attention. “I realized that I was in the presence of an appalling tragedy,” he wrote, “and that I was called upon to do what I could to set it right.”

  After reviewing the trial records and visiting the crime scene, Conan Doyle arranged an interview with Edalji. “I had been delayed, and he was passing the time by reading the paper,” Conan Doyle wrote. “He held the paper close to his eyes and rather sideways, proving not only a high degree of myopia but marked astigmatism. The idea of such a man scouring fields at night and assaulting cattle while avoiding the watching police was ludicrous to anyone who can imagine what the world looks like to eyes with myopia of eight diopters.”

  Conan Doyle knew that Edalji’s vision could not be fully corrected with eyeglasses. It seemed unlikely, therefore, that Edalji could even locate a farm animal in a darkened field, much less perform delicate knifework upon it. Ironically, Conan Doyle’s aborted career as an eye specialist lent a great deal of credence to this diagnosis.

  Convinced of Edalji’s innocence, Conan Doyle marshaled the evidence in his favor. Additional handwriting experts were consulted, who contradicted the earlier verification and stated that Edalji had not written the incriminating letters. The stains on Edalji’s clothing—never conclusively shown to be fresh blood—were dismissed by Conan Doyle: “The most adept operator who ever lived would not rip up a horse with a razor upon a dark night and have only two threepenny-bit spots of blood to show for it. The idea is beyond argument.” Horsehairs had also been found on the clothing, but this was not entirely persuasive—Edalji’s jacket had been carried to the police lab in a sack containing a strip of horsehide.

  Many others had taken up Edalji’s case by this time, but Conan Doyle’s name drew more publicity than ever. As more than one newspaper commented, it seemed as if Sherlock Holmes himself had rallied to Edalji’s defense. Conan Doyle brushed aside the suggestion: “There is a good deal of difference between fact and fiction,” he told the Daily Telegraph, “but I have endeavoured to get at facts first before coming to any conclusion.” Indeed, Conan Doyle’s efforts more closely resembled those of Mycroft Holmes, the detective’s older, less ambulatory brother. Most of the facts had been assembled by others, but Conan Doyle used his narrative gifts to cast the evidence into a compelling and seemingly unanswerable argument. He began with a letter-writing campaign in the newspapers and then, in late January 1907, published an eighteen-thousand-word pamphlet called “The Story of Mr. George Edalji.”

  “I have examined a very large number of documents,” he wrote, “and tested a long series of real and alleged facts. During all that time I have kept my mind open, but I can unreservedly say that in the whole research I have never come across any considerations which would make it, I will not say probable, but in any way credible, that George Edalji had anything to do, either directly or indirectly, with the outrages or with the anonymous letters.”

  In the course of his research, Conan Doyle’s suspicions came to rest with a pair of brothers, Royden and Wallace Sharpe, who had a long history of antagonism toward the Edalji family. The indications were never more than circumstantial, but Royden, in particular, had an impressive list of qualifications. He was known to have forged letters in the past, he had worked for a butcher, and he was thought to have slashed railway property with a knife. He had known George Edalji, and possibly nursed a grudge against him, since grammar school—though he himself had been expelled—and his ten months of service aboard a cattle boat happened to correspond with a lull in the abuse against the Edaljis. Conan Doyle pursued this line of inquiry with such energy that he, too, began to receive threatening letters. The evidence against the Sharpes wasn’t strong enough to prosecute a case, but, as Conan Doyle had forcefully stated, it easily outweighed the evidence against George Edalji.

  With Conan Doyle’s pamphlet fanning the flames, the Edalji case became a subject of national outrage. “I am firmly convinced,” he told one journalist after another, “that if ever a man was innocent, Edalji is.” Before long the foreign press took up the story. In America, the New York Times carried the details on its front page. “Conan Doyle Solves a New Dreyfus Case,” read one headline. “Creator of ‘Sherlock Holmes’ Turns Detective Himself.”

  With international attention focusing on the case, the British government was soon forced to take action. An Edalji Committee was formed in the spring of 1907, leading to an official investigation under the auspices of the home secretary. In time the government commission found Edalji innocent of the animal attacks, but guilty of writing the defamatory letters. As a result, Edalji received a pardon, but no compensation of any kind. Here, too, critics ch
arged that the findings could not have been impartial: Sir Albert de Rutzen, a member of the three-man commission, was the cousin of Captain George Anson, the chief constable of the Great Wyrley police.

  Conan Doyle believed the entire episode constituted an ugly blot on British justice. “After many years,” he noted in his autobiography, “I can hardly think with patience on the handling of this case.”

  Recent investigations suggest that the final chapter of the Edalji case has yet to be written. “He was of irreproachable character,” Conan Doyle insisted. “Nothing in his life had ever been urged against him.” Subsequent research indicates that Edalji may not have been entirely pure of heart. Rumors of gambling debts and misappropriation of client funds have surfaced, indicating that the story may yet take another twist. As a 1907 editorial in the New York Times noted, “[Conan Doyle] may have been misled by the literary artist’s natural desire to round out his story perfectly. Truth may be stranger than fiction, but it usually lacks what is known in literature as ‘construction.’” Whatever fresh allegations may emerge, however, the basic tenets of Conan Doyle’s argument are likely to stand. He threw himself into the episode because the police case against Edalji was deeply flawed. Conan Doyle exposed those flaws, and alerted the world to a serious miscarriage of justice. His pride in having done so was entirely warranted.

  Conan Doyle always regretted that his efforts had not brought about a more definitive result. Personally, however, the investigation had done him a world of good. His indignation over the Edalji affair burned away the lassitude that gripped him after Louisa’s death, and channeled his grief and depression into a productive form. Several months had passed in the single-minded pursuit of Edalji’s vindication; when he paused in his labors, he felt ready to resume a more normal life.

  On September 18, 1907, Conan Doyle married Jean Leckie in a small private ceremony at St. Margaret’s Church in Westminster. The wedding was very much a family affair; his brother-in-law the Reverend Cyril Angell, Dodo’s husband, conducted the ceremony, and Innes served as best man. Conan Doyle wore a traditional frock coat and striped trousers, while the bride appeared “surpassingly decorative,” according to one newspaper, in a dress of ivory silk and Spanish lace. Connie and Willie Hornung, having withdrawn their earlier objections to the relationship, joined in the celebrations.

  Afterward, Conan Doyle carried his bride up the stairs of the Hotel Metropole for a lavish reception. Among the 250 guests were Jerome K. Jerome, Bram Stoker, J. M. Barrie, George Newnes, and Greenhough Smith. Even Dr. Reginald Hoare, who had given Conan Doyle room and board some thirty years earlier, came down from Birmingham to raise a glass to his former pill-roller. George Edalji also attended, and Conan Doyle claimed that there was no guest he felt prouder to see.

  Although Conan Doyle had been secretive about the plans, the wedding received extensive coverage in the press. The Daily Telegraph devoted a lengthy column of text to the bride’s “particularly beautiful dress,” while the Morning Post remarked on the “beaming countenance” of the groom. The foreign papers also took note: “Lady Doyle a Very Handsome Woman,” opined the New York Times; “Sherlock Holmes Quietly Married,” reported the Buenos Aires Standard. Mysteriously, one New York paper informed its readers that the groom had “long been regarded as a confirmed bachelor.”

  After a honeymoon that featured a Mediterranean cruise, the newlyweds settled into their new life together. Happily, Kingsley and Mary, who were now both in their teens, were greatly attached to Jean, and their father’s new happiness marked a warming of their relationship with him. As Jean felt eager to make a fresh start, it was decided that the family would leave Hindhead. Undershaw was leased and Conan Doyle bought a new home, called Windlesham, in the Sussex town of Crowborough, on the edge of the Ashdown Forest. Jean’s parents lived nearby, having left Blackheath following Mr. Leckie’s retirement.

  The new home offered many of the same features as Undershaw, including a gabled roof and an even more impressive billiards room, which ran the width of the house and did double duty as a ballroom. Jean’s harp and piano stood at one end, the billiards table at the other. A large oil portrait of Conan Doyle, painted by The Strand illustrator Sidney Paget, looked down on a quirky collection of personal relics, including a stag’s head, several animal-skin rugs, and a vast array of Napoleonic weapons. Upstairs, Conan Doyle’s new study stretched to include two of the home’s five gables, and commanded a dramatic view of the Sussex Downs. In one corner stood a bust of Sherlock Holmes, not unlike the one smashed by Colonel Moran’s air gun in “The Adventure of the Empty House.”

  Conan Doyle would spend the rest of his life at Windlesham, extending it with additions and improvements over the years. With London no longer as accessible, he also kept a flat near Victoria Station for his frequent business and social engagements. Once again, Conan Doyle found himself reveling in what Dr. Watson had called the “home-centered interests” of a newly married man. His literary output slowed in the first years at Windlesham, and he resolved to write only when inspiration seized him. He often found himself diverted by the gardening duties he shared with Jean, along with his golf and other sports. Not all of his diversions were pleasant; in January 1909, a sudden intestinal blockage—the result of his Bloemfontein ailment—brought a team of specialists to his bedside. Surgery was performed, and the Times posted daily bulletins of his rapid recovery.

  The Edalji case had brought Conan Doyle a considerable reputation as a champion of the oppressed. Now, as he settled down to work in his new study, a second, even more notorious criminal case claimed his attention. The story had begun on a gray December evening in Glasgow in 1908, when an elderly spinster named Marion Gilchrist sent her paid companion, Helen Lambie, around the corner to buy a newspaper. When Miss Lambie returned ten minutes later, an unknown man rushed past her into the street. Entering the parlor, she found Miss Gilchrist dead on the floor. She had been bludgeoned to death. Her personal papers were scattered, and her jewels rifled, but only one item appeared to be missing—a diamond brooch.

  Police were quick to implicate a German immigrant named Oscar Slater, who had recently pawned a diamond brooch. Slater appeared to confirm his own guilt by fleeing the country under an assumed name, aboard the Lusitania. When the liner reached New York, Slater was found in possession of a small upholsterer’s hammer, thought to be the murder weapon. Extradition was threatened, but Slater returned to Britain voluntarily, convinced that he could easily prove his innocence.

  Slater was guilty of many things—gambling, petty theft, and possibly even prostitution—but he was not the murderer of Marion Gilchrist. As in the Edalji case, however, the police tailored the facts to fit their suspect, suppressing contrary evidence where necessary. Witnesses who had seen a mysterious man flee the victim’s apartment were coached with Slater’s photograph, and the suspect’s alibi—he had been at home with his mistress and a servant—was overlooked. Worse yet, the only real piece of evidence linking Slater to the crime scene—the diamond brooch—did not match the description of the victim’s jewelry and was indisputably shown to have been hocked before the murder took place.

  Astonishingly, Slater was soon found guilty and sentenced to death. No court of criminal appeal existed in Scotland at the time. Slater’s only option, then, was to ask the government for mercy. Public opinion now turned in his favor, and a petition asking for clemency gathered a staggering twenty thousand signatures. Two days before the execution was scheduled to take place, Slater’s sentence was commuted to life in prison.

  In April 1910, a prominent Edinburgh lawyer named William Roughead published a booklet entitled “Trial of Oscar Slater,” which set out the inconsistencies of the evidence and presented a transcript of the trial. Conan Doyle, who had already been approached by Slater’s lawyers, was among those stirred by Roughead’s accusations. Though he had little stomach for another investigation, he recognized that “this unhappy man had in all probability no more to do with the murd
er for which he had been condemned than I had.” The Edalji case had discouraged him, however, and he knew that the officials involved in Slater’s prosecution would close ranks in a similar manner. “What confronts you is a determination to admit nothing which inculpates another official,” he wrote, “and as to the idea of punishing another official for offences which have caused misery to helpless victims, it never comes within their horizons.”

  For all of that, Conan Doyle felt obliged to do something. Once again he decided to publish a booklet, using his name and influence to attract a wider audience for Slater’s grievance. With William Roughead’s assistance, he assembled “The Case of Oscar Slater,” published in the summer of 1912. It was an eighteen-thousand-word summary of the case that examined Roughead’s information in greater detail. The booklet presented an effective rebuttal of many of the initially damning indictments of Slater’s actions and motives. Slater had, for example, been traveling under a false name when he made his flight to America. Conan Doyle pointed out that Slater had made the trip in the company of his young mistress and wished to avoid being found out by his wife. This explanation, while not exactly laudable, did not make Slater guilty of murder. Slater had used his real name in a hotel in Liverpool before departure, Conan Doyle pointed out, something he would not have done had he been hiding from the police.

  As for the hammer found among Slater’s effects, Conan Doyle did not express much confidence in its value as a murder weapon. It was “an extremely light and fragile instrument,” he insisted, and “any task beyond fixing a tin-tack, or cracking a small bit of coal, would be above its strength.” A doctor who examined Miss Gilchrist’s body at the crime scene offered some corroboration on this point; he concluded that the victim had been dispatched with a heavy mahogany chair, found to be “dripping” with blood.