Arthur & George

measured, cautious, and not given to wild or frivolous speculation. At the trial he had never claimed more than his observations could support: this had been advantageous to the defence over the bloodstains, disadvantageous over the hairs. It had been Butter’s evidence, even more than that of the charlatan Gurrin, which had condemned George to Lewes and Portland.
    ‘It is good of you to spare me the time, Dr Butter.’ They were in the same writing room where only a couple of weeks previously he had obtained his first impressions of George Edalji.
    The surgeon smiled. He was a handsome, grey-haired man about a decade older than Arthur. ‘I am happy to. I am glad to have the opportunity of thanking the man who wrote’ – and here there seemed to be a microscopic pause, unless it was only within Arthur’s own brain – ‘
The White Company
.’
    Arthur smiled in reply. He had always found the company of police surgeons to be as agreeable as it was instructive.
    ‘Dr Butter, I wonder if you would agree to talk on a frank basis. That is to say, I have great regard for your evidence, but I have various questions and indeed speculations to put before you. Everything you say will be treated in confidence, and I shall not repeat a single word without giving you the opportunity to endorse it, correct it, or withdraw it completely. Would that be acceptable?’
    Dr Butter agreed, and Arthur led him, to begin with, through the parts of his evidence which were the least controversial, or at any rate irrefutable by the defence. The razors, the boots, the stains of various kinds.
    ‘Did it surprise you, Dr Butter, that there was so little blood on the clothing, given what George Edalji was accused of doing?’
    ‘No. Or rather, you are asking too large a question. If Edalji had said, Yes, I mutilated the pony, this is the instrument I did it with, these were the clothes I was wearing, and I acted by myself, then I would be competent to offer an opinion. And in those circumstances I would have to say to you that yes, I would be very surprised, indeed astonished.’
    ‘But?’
    ‘But my evidence was, as it always is, about what I found: this amount of mammalian blood on this garment, and so on. That was my evidence. If I cannot tell how or when it got there, I am unable to comment further.’
    ‘In the witness box, of course not. But between ourselves …’
    ‘Between ourselves, I would think that if a man rips a horse, there would be a lot of blood, and he would be unable to control where it fell, especially if the deed is done on a dark night.’
    ‘So you are with me? He cannot have done it?’
    ‘No, Sir Arthur, I am not with you. I am very far from with you. There is a wide expanse between the two positions. For instance, anyone going out deliberately to rip a horse would know to wear some kind of apron, just as slaughtermen do. It would be an obvious precaution. But a few spots might fall elsewhere, and escape notice.’
    ‘No evidence of any apron was given in court.’
    ‘That is not my point. I am merely giving you a different explanation from your own. Another might be that there were others present. If there were a gang, as has been suggested, then the young man might not have done the ripping himself, but might have been standing by, and a few drops of blood might have fallen on his clothes in the process.’
    ‘Again, no such evidence was given.’
    ‘But there was a strong suggestion of a gang, was there not?’
    ‘There was deliberate mention of a gang. But not a shred of proof.’
    ‘The other man who ripped his horse?’
    ‘Green. But even Green did not claim there was a gang.’
    ‘Sir Arthur, I quite follow your argument, and your desire for evidence to support it. I merely say, there are other possibilities, whether or not they were brought out in court.’
    ‘You are quite right.’ Arthur decided not to press further on this. ‘May we talk instead about the hairs? You said in your evidence that you picked twenty-nine hairs from the clothing, and that when you examined them under the microscope they were – if I remember your words correctly – “similar in length, colour and structure” to those from the piece of skin cut from the Colliery pony.’
    ‘That is correct.’
    ‘“Similar”. You did not say “exactly the same as”.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Because they were not exactly the same as?’
    ‘No, because that is a conclusion rather than an observation. But to say that they