Arthur & George

by Julian Barnes

  “That neither.”

  “So Dr. Butter, you cannot, by examining bloodstains, distinguish between those caused by a man mutilating a horse and those which might have landed on his clothes several months previously when, say, he was carving the Sunday roast—or indeed, consuming it?”

  “I would have to agree.”

  “And can you remind the court how many bloodstains you found on the cuff of Mr. Edalji’s jacket?”

  “Two.”

  “And I believe you said that each was the size of a threepenny bit?”

  “I did.”

  “Dr. Butter, if you were to rip a horse so violently that it was bleeding to death and had to be shot, do you imagine that you could do so while leaving scarcely more blood on your clothes than might be found if you were a careless eater?”

  “I would not wish to speculate—”

  “And I certainly shall not press you to do so, Dr. Butter. I certainly shall not press you.”

  Buoyant from this exchange, Mr. Vachell opened the case for the defence with a short statement, then called George Ernest Thompson Edalji.

  “He stepped briskly round from the dock and faced the crowded court with perfect composure.” This was what George read the next day in the Birmingham Daily Post, and it was a sentence which would always make him feel proud. No matter what lies had been told, no matter the whispering campaign, the slurs on his ancestry, the deliberate distortions of the police and of other witnesses, he would, and did, face his accusers with perfect composure.

  Mr. Vachell began by taking his client through his precise movements on the evening of the 17th. Both of them knew this was strictly unnecessary, given the effect of Mr. Lewis’s evidence on the known timing of events. But Mr. Vachell wanted to accustom the jury to the sound of George’s voice and the trustworthiness of his evidence. It was barely six years since defendants had been allowed to give evidence, and putting your client into the box was still regarded as a dangerous novelty.

  So the visit to Mr. Hands the bootmaker was recounted again, and that evening’s route traced for the jury—though in response to an earlier hint from Mr. Vachell, George did not mention going as far as the Green farm. Then he described the family dinner, the sleeping arrangements, the locked bedroom door, his rising, breakfast and departure for the station.

  “Now, at the station, do you recall speaking to Mr. Joseph Markew?”

  “Yes, indeed. I was standing on the platform waiting for my usual train—the 7:39—when he accosted me.”

  “Do you recall what he said?”

  “Yes, he said that he had a message from Inspector Campbell. I was to miss my train and wait at the station until such time as he could speak to me. But it was more Markew’s tone of voice that I recall.”

  “How would you describe that tone of voice?”

  “Well, it was very rude. As if he was giving me an order, or passing one on with as little civility as possible. I asked what the Inspector wished to see me about, and Markew said he did not know and would not tell me anyway.”

  “Did he identify himself as a special constable?”

  “No.”

  “So you saw no reason not to go to work?”

  “Indeed, I had pressing business at my office, and I told him so. Then his manner changed. He became ingratiating and suggested that I might for once in my life take a day’s holiday.”

  “And how did you react to that?”

  “I thought he did not have the slightest idea what being a solicitor consisted of, and what the responsibilities of the profession are. It is not like being a publican and taking the day off and getting someone else to draw the beer.”

  “Indeed not. And at this point did a man come up to you with the news that another horse had been ripped in the district?”

  “What man?”

  “I refer to Mr. Markew’s evidence, in which he said that a man came up to the two of you and reported that a horse had been ripped.”

  “That is quite untrue. No man came up to us.”

  “And then you took your train?”

  “There was no reason supplied why I should not.”

  “So there is no question of your smiling at the news that an animal had been mutilated?”

  “No question at all. No man came up to us. And I would hardly smile at such a matter. The only time I might have smiled was when Markew suggested I take a holiday. He is well known in the village as a layabout, so the suggestion fitted easily in his mouth.”

  “I see. Now, moving on to a little later in the morning, when Inspector Campbell and Sergeant Parsons came to your office and arrested you. On the way to the lock-up, they allege that you said, ‘I am not surprised at this. I have been expecting it for some time.’ Did you say those words?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Will you explain what you meant by them?”

  “Certainly. There had been a campaign of rumour against me for some time. I had received anonymous letters, which I had shown to the police. It was quite evident that they were following my movements and watching the Vicarage. Comments made to me by a policeman indicated that they had an animus against me. And there had even been a rumour a week or two earlier that I had been arrested. The police seemed determined to prove something against me. So, no, I was not surprised.”

  Mr. Vachell next put to him the supposed remark about the mysterious Mr. Loxton; George denied both making the statement, and ever having known anyone called Loxton.

  “Let us turn to another statement you are alleged to have made. At the Cannock magistrates’ court, you were offered bail, which you refused. Will you tell the court why?”

  “Certainly. The terms were extremely onerous, not just on myself but on my family. Besides, I was in the prison hospital at the time, and being comfortably treated. I was content to remain there until my trial.”

  “I see. Police Constable Meredith has given evidence that while you were in custody, you said to him, ‘I won’t have bail, and when the next horse is ripped it will not be by me.’ Did you say those words?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what did you mean by them?”

  “Merely what I said. There had been attacks on animals for weeks and months before my arrest, and because they had nothing to do with me, I expected them to continue. And if they did, that would prove the matter.”

  “You see, Mr. Edalji, it has been suggested, and will doubtless be suggested again, that there was a sinister reason why you refused bail. The supposition is that the Great Wyrley Gang, whose existence is constantly alluded to but entirely unproven, was to come to your rescue by deliberately mutilating another animal to demonstrate your innocence.”

  “All I can say in reply is that if I had been clever enough to think up such a cunning plan, then I would also have been clever enough not to confess it in advance to a police constable.”

  “Indeed, Mr. Edalji, indeed.”

  Mr. Disturnal, as George had expected, was sarcastic and disrespectful in cross-examination. He asked George to explain many things he had already explained, solely in order to exhibit a theatrical disbelief. His strategy was designed to show that the prisoner was extremely cunning and devious, yet constantly incriminating himself. George knew that he must leave Mr. Vachell to point this out. He must not allow himself to be provoked; he must take his time in answering; he must be stolid.

  Of course Mr. Disturnal did not fail to bring up the fact that George had walked as far as Mr. Green’s farm on the evening of the 17th, and allowed himself to wonder why this might have slipped George’s mind while giving evidence. The prosecuting counsel also showed himself ruthless when it came, as it inevitably did, to the matter of the hairs on George’s clothing.

  “Mr. Edalji, you said in sworn evidence that the hairs on your clothing were acquired by leaning against a gate into a field where cows were paddocked.”

  “I said that is possibly how they got there.”

  “Yet Dr. Butter picked twenty-nine hairs from y
our clothing, which he then examined under a microscope and found to be identical in length, colour and structure to the hairs of the coat cut from the dead pony.”

  “He did not say identical. He said similar.”

  “Did he?” Mr. Disturnal was briefly disconcerted, and pretended to consult his papers. “Indeed. ‘Similar in length, colour and structure.’ How do you explain this similarity, Mr. Edalji?”

  “I am unable to. I am not an expert in animal hairs. I am only able to suggest how such hairs might have appeared on my clothing.”

  “Length, colour and structure, Mr. Edalji. Are you seriously asking the court to believe that the hairs on your coat came from a cow in a paddock, when they had the length, colour and structure belonging to the pony ripped scarcely a mile from your house on the night of the 17th?”

  George had no reply to make.

  Mr. Vachell called Mr. Lewis back to the witness box. The police veterinary surgeon repeated his statement that the pony could not, in his view, have been injured before 2:30 a.m. He was then asked what kind of instrument might have inflicted the damage. A curved weapon with concave sides. Did Mr. Lewis think the wound could have been made with a domestic razor? No, Mr. Lewis did not think the wound could have been made with a razor.

  Mr. Vachell then called Shapurji Edalji, clerk in holy orders, who repeated his evidence about sleeping arrangements, the door, the key, his lumbago and his time of awakening. George thought his father, for the first time, was beginning to look like an old man. His voice seemed less compelling, his certainties less obviously irrefutable.

  George became anxious as Mr. Disturnal rose to cross-examine the Vicar of Great Wyrley. The prosecution counsel exuded courtesy, assuring the witness he would not detain him long. This, however, turned out to be a grossly false promise. Mr. Disturnal took every tiny detail of George’s alibi and held it up before the jury, as if trying to assess for the first time its exact weight and value.

  “You lock the bedroom door at night?”

  George’s father looked surprised to be asked again a question he had already answered. He paused for longer than seemed natural. Then he said, “I do.”

  “And unlock it in the morning?”

  Again, an unnatural pause. “I do.”

  “And where do you put the key?”

  “The key remains in the lock.”

  “You do not hide it?”

  The Vicar looked at Mr. Disturnal as if at some impertinent schoolboy. “Why on earth should I hide it?”

  “You never hide it? You have never hidden it?”

  George’s father looked quite puzzled. “I do not understand why you are asking me that question.”

  “I am merely trying to establish if the key is always in the lock.”

  “But that is what I said.”

  “Always in full view? Never hidden?”

  “But that is what I said.”

  When George’s father had given evidence at Cannock, the questions had been straightforward, and the witness box might as well have been a pulpit, with the Vicar bearing witness to God’s very existence. Now, under Mr. Disturnal’s interrogation, he—and the world with him—was beginning to appear more fallible.

  “You have said that the key squeaks as it turns in the lock.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is this a recent development?”

  “Is what a recent development?”

  “The key squeaking in the lock.” The prosecuting counsel’s attitude was one of helping an old man over a stile. “Has it always done this?”

  “For as long as I can remember.”

  Mr. Disturnal smiled at the Vicar. George did not like the look of that smile. “And—in all this time—as long as you can remember—no one has ever thought to oil the lock?”

  “No.”

  “May I ask you, sir, and this may seem a minor question to you, but I should like your answer nonetheless—why has no one ever oiled the lock?”

  “I suppose it has never seemed important.”

  “It is not from lack of oil?”

  The Vicar unwisely allowed his irritation to show. “You had better ask my wife about our supplies of oil.”

  “I may do so, sir. And, this squeak, how would you describe it?”

  “What do you mean? It is a squeak.”

  “Is it a loud squeak or a soft squeak? Might it be compared, for instance, to the squeak of a mouse or the creak of a barn door?”

  Shapurji Edalji looked as if he had stumbled into a den of triviality. “I suppose I would characterize it as a loud squeak.”

  “All the more surprising, perhaps, that the lock was not oiled. But be that as it may. The key squeaks loudly, once in the evening, once in the morning. And on other occasions?”

  “I fail to follow you.”

  “I mean, sir, when you or your son leave the bedroom at night.”

  “But neither of us ever does.”

  “Neither of you ever does. I understand this . . . sleeping arrangement has been in existence now for sixteen or seventeen years. You are saying that in all this time neither one of you has ever left the bedroom during the night?”

  “No.”

  “You are quite sure of this?”

  Again, there was a long pause, as if the Vicar were running through the years in his head, night by night. “As sure as I can be.”

  “You have a memory of each night?”

  “I do not see the point of that question.”

  “Sir, I do not ask you to see its point. I merely request that you answer it. Do you have a memory of each night?”

  The Vicar looked around the court, as if expecting someone to rescue him from this imbecilic catechism. “No more than anybody else.”

  “Exactly. You have given evidence that you are a light sleeper.”

  “Yes, very light. I wake easily.”

  “And, sir, you have testified that if the key was turned in the lock, it would wake you up?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you not see the contradiction in that statement?”

  “No, I do not.” George could see his father becoming flustered. He was not used to having his word challenged, however courteously. He was looking old, and irritable, and less than master of the situation.

  “Then let me explain. No one has left the room in seventeen years. So—according to you—no one has ever turned the key while you were asleep. So how can you possibly assert that if the key were turned, it would wake you up?”

  “This is angels dancing on pinheads. I mean, obviously, that the slightest noise wakes me.” But he sounded more petulant than authoritative.

  “You have never been woken by the sound of the key turning?”

  “No.”

  “So you cannot swear that you would be woken by that sound?”

  “I can only repeat what I have just said. The slightest noise wakes me.”

  “But if you have never been woken by the sound of the key turning, is it not entirely possible that the key has been turned and you have not woken?”

  “As I say, it has never happened.”

  George watched his father as a dutiful, anxious son, but also as a professional solicitor and apprehensive prisoner. His father was not doing well. Mr. Disturnal was easing him first one way, then the other.

  “Mr. Edalji, you stated in your evidence that you woke at five and did not go back to sleep until you and your son rose at six thirty?”

  “Are you doubting my word?”

  Mr. Disturnal did not exhibit pleasure at this response; but George knew that he would be feeling it.

  “No, I am merely asking for confirmation of what you have already said.”

  “Then I confirm it.”

  “You did not, perhaps, fall asleep again between five and six thirty and wake later?”

  “I have said not.”

  “Do you ever dream that you wake up?”

  “I do not follow you.”

  “Do you have dreams when you sleep?”
r />   “Yes. Sometimes.”

  “And do you sometimes dream that you wake up?”

  “I do not know. I cannot remember.”

  “But you accept that people do sometimes dream that they wake up?”

  “I had never thought about it. It does not seem important to me what other people dream.”

  “But you will accept my word that other people do have such dreams?”

  The Vicar now looked like some hermit in the desert being led into temptations whose nature he was quite unable to comprehend. “If you say so.” George was equally baffled by Mr. Disturnal’s procedure; but soon the prosecutor’s intention became clearer.

  “So you are as certain as you are reasonably able to be that you were awake between five and six thirty?”

  “Yes.”

  “And so you are equally certain that you were asleep between the hours of eleven and five?”

  “Yes.”

  “You do not remember waking in that period?”

  George’s father looked as if his word were being doubted again.

  “No.”

  Mr. Disturnal nodded. “So you were asleep at one thirty, for instance. At—” he seemed to pluck the time from the air “—at two thirty, for instance. At three thirty, for instance. Yes, thank you. Now, moving to another matter . . .”

  And so it went, on and on, with George’s father turning, before the court’s eyes, into a dotard as uncertain as he doubtless was honourable; a man whose peculiar attempts at domestic security could easily have been outwitted by his clever son who, shortly before, had been so confident in the witness box. Or perhaps something even worse: a father who, suspecting his son might possibly have had some involvement in the outrages, was anxiously but incompetently adjusting his evidence as he proceeded.

  Next came George’s mother, the more nervous for just having witnessed her husband’s unprecedented fallibility. After Mr. Vachell had taken her through her evidence, Mr. Disturnal, with a kind of idle civility, took her through it all again. He seemed only mildly interested in her replies; he was no longer the pitiless prosecutor, but rather the new neighbour dropping in for a polite tea.

  “You have always been proud of your son, Mrs. Edalji?”

  “Oh yes, very proud.”

  “And he has always been a clever boy, and a clever young man?”