Arthur & George

country; but also for his darling girl. It would be a trophy to lay at her feet.
    Rampant with these emotions, Arthur charged his first putt fifteen feet past the hole, left the next one six feet short, and managed to miss that too. An 82 instead of a 79: yes indeed, they ought to keep women off the golf course. Not simply off the fairways and putting greens, but out of the heads of the players, otherwise chaos would ensue, as it had just done. Jean had once mooted taking up golf, and at the time he had replied with moderate enthusiasm. But it was clearly a bad idea. It was not just the polling booth from which the fair sex should be barred in the interests of civic harmony.
    Back at Undershaw, he found that the afternoon mail had brought a communication from Mr Kenneth Scott of Manchester Square.
    ‘There we have it!’ he was shouting as he kicked open Wood’s office door. ‘There we have it!’
    His secretary looked at the paper laid in front of him. He read:
Right eye:
8.75 Diop Spher.
 
1.75 Diop cylind axis 90°
Left eye:
8.25 Diop Spher.
    ‘You see, I told Scott to paralyse the accommodation with atropine, so that the results were entirely independent of the patient. Just in case somebody tried claiming that George was feigning blindness. This is exactly what I would have hoped for. Rock solid! Incontrovertible!’
    ‘May I ask,’ said Wood, who was finding the part of Watson easier that day, ‘what exactly it means?’
    ‘It means, it means … in all my years practising as an oculist, I never once remember correcting so high a degree of astygmatic myopia. Here, listen to what Scott writes.’ He seized the letter back. ‘“Like all myopics, Mr Edalji must find it at all times difficult to see clearly any objects more than a few inches off, and in dusk it would be practically impossible for him to find his way about any place with which he was not perfectly familiar.”
    ‘In other words, Alfred, in other words, gentlemen of the jury, he’s as blind as the proverbial bat. Except of course that the bat would be able to find its way to a field on a dark night, unlike our friend. I know what I shall do. I shall issue a challenge. I shall offer to have glasses made up to this prescription, and if any defender of the police will put them on at night, I will guarantee that he will not be able to make his way from the Vicarage to the field and back in under an hour. I will wager my reputation on that. Why are you looking dubious, gentleman of the jury?’
    ‘I was just listening, Sir Arthur.’
    ‘No, you were looking dubious. I can recognize dubiety when I see it. Come on, give me the obvious question.’
    Wood sighed. ‘I was only wondering whether George’s eyesight might not have deteriorated in the course of three years’ penal servitude.’
    ‘Aha! I guessed you might be thinking that. Absolutely not the case. George’s blindness is a permanent structural condition. That’s official. So it was just as bad in 1903 as it is now. And he didn’t even have glasses then. Any further questions?’
    ‘No, Sir Arthur.’ Although there was a lurking observation he did not think fit to raise. His employer might indeed never have met with such a degree of astygmatic myopia in all his days as an oculist. On the other hand, Wood had many times heard him regale a dinner table with the story of how he boasted the emptiest waiting room in Devonshire Place, and how his phenomenal lack of patients had given him time to write his books.
    ‘I think I shall ask for three thousand.’
    ‘Three thousand what?’
    ‘Pounds, man, pounds. I base my calculation on the Beck Case.’
    Wood’s expression was as good as any question.
    ‘The Beck Case, surely you remember the Beck Case? Really not?’ Sir Arthur shook his head in mock disapproval. ‘Adolf Beck. Of Norwegian origin as I recall. Convicted of frauds against women. They believed him to be an ex-convict by the name of – would you believe it? – John Smith, who had previously served time for similar offences. Beck got seven years’ penal servitude. Released on licence about five years ago. Three years on, rearrested again. Convicted again. Judge had misgivings, postponed sentence, and in the meantime who should turn up but the original fraudster Mr Smith. One detail of the case I do recall. How did they know Beck and Smith were not one and the same person? One was circumcised and the other wasn’t. On such details does justice sometimes