Arthur & George

by Julian Barnes

  But there was another reason why he preferred to be in prison. Everyone knew where he was; every moment of the day he was spied upon and accounted for. So if a further outrage occurred, the whole pattern of events would be shown to have nothing to do with him. And were the first charge against him found untenable, then the second one—the ludicrous proposition that he had threatened to murder a man he had never met—would also have to be withdrawn. It was strange to find himself, a solicitor-at-law, actually hoping for another animal to be maimed; but a further crime seemed to him the speediest way to freedom.

  Still, even if the case came to trial, there could be no doubt over the outcome. He had regained both his composure and his optimism; he did not have to play-act either with Mr. Meek or with his parents. He could already imagine the headlines. GREAT WYRLEY MAN CLEARED. SHAMEFUL PROSECUTION OF LOCAL SOLICITOR. POLICE WITNESSES DECLARED INCOMPTENT. Perhaps even CHIEF CONSTABLE RESIGNS.

  Mr. Meek had more or less convinced him that it mattered little how the newspapers depicted him. It seemed to matter even less on September 21st, when a horse at the farm belonging to Mr. Green was found ripped and disembowelled. George greeted the news with a kind of cautious exultation. He could hear keys turning in locks, could smell the early morning air, and his mother’s powder when he embraced her.

  “Now this proves I am innocent, Mr. Meek.”

  “Not exactly, Mr. Edalji. I don’t think we can go quite that far.”

  “But here I am in prison . . .”

  “Which only goes to prove, in the court’s view, that you are and must be entirely innocent of mutilating Mr. Green’s horse.”

  “No, it proves there was a pattern to events, before and after the Colliery pony, which has now been shown to have absolutely nothing to do with me.”

  “I know that, Mr. Edalji.” The solicitor rested his chin on his fist.

  “But?”

  “But I always find it useful in these moments to imagine what the prosecution might say in the circumstances.”

  “And what might they possibly say?”

  “Well, on the night of August 17th, as I remember, when the defendant was walking from the bootmaker, he went as far as Mr. Green’s farm.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Mr. Green is the defendant’s neighbour.”

  “That is true.”

  “So what could be of greater benefit to the defendant in his present circumstances than for a horse to be mutilated even closer to the Vicarage than in any other previous incident?”

  Litchfield Meek watched George work this out.

  “You mean that after getting myself arrested by writing anonymous letters denouncing myself for crimes I did not commit, I then incite someone else to commit another crime in order to exculpate me?”

  “That’s about the long and the short of it, Mr. Edalji.”

  “It’s utterly ridiculous. And I don’t even know Green.”

  “I’m just telling you how the prosecution might choose to see it. If they had the mind.”

  “Which they doubtless will. But the police must at least hunt the criminal, mustn’t they? The newspapers hint quite openly that this throws doubt on the prosecution case. If they found the man, and he confessed to the string of crimes, then that would be my freedom?”

  “If that were to happen, Mr. Edalji, then yes, I would agree.”

  “I see.”

  “And there’s another development. Does the name Darby mean anything to you? Captain Darby?”

  “Darby. Darby. I don’t think so. Inspector Campbell asked me about someone called the Captain. Perhaps this is him. Why?”

  “More letters have been sent. To all and sundry it appears. One even to the Home Secretary. All signed ‘Darby, Captain of the Wyrley Gang.’ Saying how the maimings are going to continue.” Mr. Meek saw the look in George’s eye. “But no, Mr. Edalji, this only means that the prosecution must accept you almost certainly didn’t write them.”

  “You seem determined to discourage me this morning, Mr. Meek.”

  “That is not my intention. But you must accept we are going to trial. And with that in mind we have secured the services of Mr. Vachell.”

  “Oh, that’s excellent news.”

  “He will not, I think, let us down. And Mr. Gaudy will be at his side.”

  “And for the prosecution?”

  “Mr. Disturnal, I’m afraid. And Mr. Harrison.”

  “Is Disturnal bad for us?”

  “To be honest with you, I would have preferred another.”

  “Mr. Meek, now it is my turn to put heart into you. A barrister, however competent, cannot make bricks without straw.”

  Litchfield Meek gave George a worldly smile. “In my years in the courts, Mr. Edalji, I’ve seen bricks made from all sorts of materials. Some you didn’t even know existed. Lack of straw will be no hardship to Mr. Disturnal.”

  Despite this approaching threat, George spent the remaining weeks at Stafford Gaol in a tranquil state of mind. He was treated respectfully and there was an order to his days. He received newspapers and mail; he prepared for the trial with Mr. Meek; he awaited developments in the Green case; and he was allowed books. His father had brought him a Bible, his mother a one-volume Shakespeare and a one-volume Tennyson. He read the latter two; then, out of idleness, some shilling shockers which a warder passed on to him. The fellow also lent him a tattered cheap edition of The Hound of the Baskervilles. George judged it excellent.

  He opened the newspaper each morning with less apprehension, given that his own name had temporarily vanished from its pages. Instead, he learned with interest that there were new cabinet appointments in London; that Dr. Elgar’s latest oratorio had been performed at the Birmingham musical festival; that Buffalo Bill was on a tour of England.

  A week before the trial, George met Mr. Vachell, a cheerful and corpulent barrister with twenty years’ service on the Midland Circuit.

  “How do you judge my case, Mr. Vachell?”

  “I judge it well, Mr. Edalji, very well. That is to say, I consider the prosecution scandalous and largely devoid of merit. Of course I shall not say so. I shall merely concentrate on what seem to me to be the strong points of your case.”

  “And what, to you, do they seem to be?”

  “I would put it like this, Mr. Edalji.” The barrister gave him a smile which was almost a grin. “There is no evidence that you committed this crime. There is no motive for you committing this crime. And there was no opportunity for you to commit this crime. I shall wrap it up a little for the judge and jury. But that will be the essence of my case.”

  “It is perhaps a pity,” put in Mr. Meek, “that we are in Court B.” His tone punctured George’s temporary elation.

  “Why is that a pity?”

  “Court A is run by Lord Hatherton. Who at least has legal training.”

  “You mean I am to be judged by someone who doesn’t know the law?”

  Mr. Vachell intervened. “Don’t alarm him, Mr. Meek. I’ve been before both courts in my time. Who do we get in Court B?”

  “Sir Reginald Hardy.”

  Mr. Vachell’s expression did not flicker. “Perfectly all right. In some ways I consider it an advantage not to be governed by some stickler who aspires to the High Court. You can get away with a little more. Not pulled up so often for meretricious demonstrations of procedural knowledge. On the whole, an advantage to the defence, I’d say.”

  George sensed that Mr. Meek did not agree; but he was impressed by Mr. Vachell, whether the barrister was being altogether sincere or not.

  “Gentlemen, I do have one request.” Mr. Meek and Mr. Vachell briefly caught one another’s eye. “It is about my name. It is Aydlji. Aydlji. Mr. Meek pronounces it more or less correctly, but I should have mentioned the matter earlier to you, Mr. Vachell. The police, it seems to me, have always gone out of their way to ignore any correction I have offered them. Might I suggest that Mr. Vachell makes an announcement at the beginning of the case a
s to how to pronounce my name. To tell that court that it is not Ee-dal-jee but Aydlji.”

  The barrister gave the solicitor an instructing nod, and Mr. Meek replied.

  “George, how can I best put this? Of course it’s your name, and of course Mr. Vachell and I shall endeavour to pronounce it correctly. When we are here with you. But in court . . . in court . . . I think the argument would be: when in Rome. We would get off on the wrong foot with Sir Reginald Hardy if we made such an announcement. We are unlikely to succeed in giving pronunciation lessons to the police. And as for Mr. Disturnal, I suspect he would greatly enjoy the confusion.”

  George looked at the two men. “I am not sure I follow you.”

  “What I’m saying, George, is that we should acknowledge the court’s right to decide a prisoner’s name. It’s not written down anywhere, but that’s more or less the fact of the matter. What you call mispronouncing, I would call . . . making you more English.”

  George took a breath. “And less Oriental?”

  “Less Oriental, yes, George.”

  “Then I would ask you both kindly to mispronounce my name on all occasions, so that I may get used to it.”

  The trial was set to begin on October 20th. On the 19th, four young boys playing near the Sidmouth plantation in Richmond Park came upon a body in an advanced state of decomposition. It proved to be that of Miss Sophie Frances Hickman, the lady doctor from the Royal Free Hospital. Like George, she had been in her late twenties. And, he reflected, she was only one column away.

  On the morning of October 20th, 1903, George was brought from Stafford Gaol to Shire Hall. He was taken to the basement and shown the holding cell where prisoners were usually placed. As a privilege, he would be allowed to occupy a large, low-ceilinged room with a deal table and a fireplace; here, under the eye of Constable Dubbs, he would be able to confer with Mr. Meek. He sat at the table for twenty minutes while Dubbs, a muscular officer with a chinstrap beard and a gloomy air, firmly avoided his eye. Then, at a signal, George was led through dim, winding passages and past inadequate gas lamps to a door giving on to the foot of a narrow staircase. Dubbs gave him a gentle shove, and he climbed up towards light and noise. As he emerged into the view of Court B, noise became silence. George stood self-consciously in the dock, an actor propelled unwillingly on stage through a trapdoor.

  Then, before the Assistant Chairman Sir Reginald Hardy, two flanking magistrates, Captain Anson, the properly sworn members of an English jury, representatives of the Press, representatives of the public, and three members of his family, the indictment was read. George Ernest Thompson Edalji was charged with wounding a horse, the property of the Great Wyrley Colliery Company, on the 17th or 18th September; also with sending a letter, on or about 11th July, to Sergeant Robinson at Cannock, threatening to kill him.

  Mr. Disturnal was a tall, sleek figure, with a swift manner to him. After a brief opening speech, he called Inspector Campbell, and the whole story began again: the discovery of the mutilated pony, the search of the Vicarage, the bloodstained clothing, the hairs on the coat, the anonymous letters, the prisoner’s arrest and subsequent statements. It was just a story, George knew, something made up from scraps and coincidences and hypotheses; he knew too that he was innocent; but something about the repetition of the story by an authority in wig and gown made it take on extra plausibility.

  George thought Campbell’s evidence was finished, when Mr. Disturnal produced his first surprise.

  “Inspector Campbell, before we conclude, there is a matter of great public anxiety, about which you are, I think, able to enlighten us. On September 21st, I understand, a horse was found maimed at the farm of a Mr. Green.”

  “That is correct, sir.”

  “Mr. Green’s farm is very close to the Vicarage of Great Wyrley?”

  “It is.”

  “And the police have conducted an investigation into this outrage?”

  “Indeed. As a matter of urgency and priority.”

  “And has this investigation been successful?”

  “Yes it has, sir.”

  Mr. Disturnal hardly needed the elaborate pause he now threw in; the whole courtroom was waiting like an open-mouthed child.

  “And will you tell the court the result of your investigation?”

  “John Harry Green, who is the son of the farmer on whose land the outrage took place, and who is a Yeomanry trooper of the age of nineteen, has admitted committing the action against his own horse. He has signed a confession to this effect.”

  “He admitted full and sole responsibility?”

  “He did.”

  “And you questioned him about any possible connection between this outrage and previous ones in the district?”

  “Yes, we did. Extensively, sir.”

  “And what did he state?”

  “That this was an isolated occurrence.”

  “And did your investigations confirm that the outrage at Green’s farm had absolutely nothing to do with any other outrage in the vicinity?”

  “They did.”

  “No connection at all?”

  “No connection at all, sir.”

  “And is John Harry Green in court today?”

  “Yes, he is, sir.”

  George, like everyone else in the crowded court, started looking around for a nineteen-year-old trooper who admitted mutilating his own horse without apparently supplying the police with any good reason for having done so. But at that moment, Sir Reginald Hardy decided that it was time for his luncheon.

  Mr. Meek’s first duties were with Mr. Vachell; only then did he come to the room where George was held during adjournments. His demeanour was lugubrious.

  “Mr. Meek, you did warn us about Disturnal. We knew to expect something. And at least we shall be able to have a go at Green this afternoon.”

  The solicitor shook his head grimly. “Not a chance of it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’s their witness. If they don’t put him up, we can’t cross-examine him. And we can’t take the risk of calling him blind as we don’t know what he might say. It could be devastating. Yet they produce him in court so it looks as if they’re being open with everyone. It’s clever. It’s typical Disturnal. I should have thought of it, but I didn’t know anything about this confession. It’s bad.”

  George felt it only his duty to cheer his solicitor up. “I can see it’s frustrating, Mr. Meek, but is there any real harm? Green said—and the police said—it had nothing to do with any other outrage.”

  “That’s just the point. It’s not what they say—it’s how it looks. Why should a man disembowel a horse—his own horse—for no apparent reason? Answer: to help out a friend and neighbour charged with a similar offence.”

  “But he’s not my friend. I doubt I would even recognize him.”

  “Yes, I know. And when we take the considered risk of putting you in the box, you will tell Mr. Vachell that. But it’s bound to look as if you’re denying an allegation that hasn’t in fact been made. It’s clever. Mr. Vachell will assail the Inspector this afternoon, but I don’t think we should be optimistic.”

  “Mr. Meek, I could not help noticing that in Campbell’s evidence he said that the clothing of mine he found—the coat I hadn’t worn for weeks—was wet. He said wet twice. At Cannock he merely called it damp.”

  Meek gave a soft smile. “It’s a pleasure to work with you, Mr. Edalji. It’s the sort of thing we notice but tend not to mention to the client in case it dispirits him. The police will be making a few more adjustments of the kind, I don’t doubt.”

  That afternoon Mr. Vachell got little of value from the Inspector, who knew his way round a witness box. During their first encounter at Hednesford police station, Campbell had struck George as rather slow-minded and vaguely impertinent. At Newhall Street and at Cannock, he had been more alert and openly hostile, if not always coherent of thought. Now his manner was measured and sombre, while his height and his uniform seemed to impart
logic as well as authority. George reflected that if his story was subtly changing around him, then so too were some of the characters.

  Mr. Vachell had more success with PC Cooper, who described, as he had done at the magistrates’ court, his matching of George’s boot-heel to the prints in the mud.

  “Constable Cooper,” Mr. Vachell began, “may I enquire who gave you the instruction to proceed as you did?”

  “I’m not quite sure, sir. I think it was the Inspector, but it might have been Sergeant Parsons.”

  “And where precisely were you told to look?”

  “Anywhere on the route the culprit might have taken between the field and the Vicarage.”

  “Assuming the culprit came from the Vicarage? And was returning there?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Anywhere?”

  “Anywhere, sir.” Cooper looked no more than about twenty to George’s eye: a red-eared, awkward boy trying to imitate the confidence of his superiors.

  “And did you assume the culprit, as you refer to him, took the most direct route?”

  “Yes, I suppose I did, sir. It’s what they usually do when leaving the scene of the crime.”

  “I see, Constable. So you did not look anywhere other than on a direct route?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And how long did your search last?”

  “An hour or more, I would estimate.”

  “And at what time did it take place?”

  “I suppose I started looking at nine thirty, more or less.”

  “And the pony was discovered at six thirty, approximately?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Three hours previously. In the course of which time anyone could have walked across that route. Miners on the way to the Colliery, sightseers brought by news of the outrage. Policemen, indeed.”

  “That’s possible, sir.”

  “And who accompanied you, Constable?”

  “I was on my own.”

  “I see. And you found a few heelmarks which in your opinion matched the boot you held in your hand.”

  “Yes, sir.”