Arthur & George

dear?’
    ‘It might be advisable not to turn this into a personal vendetta against Captain Anson.’
    ‘I don’t see why not. Much of the evil has its origins with him.’
    ‘I mean, Arthur dear, that you must not let Captain Anson distract you from your primary purpose. Because if he did, then Captain Anson would be the first to be contented.’
    Arthur looks at her with pride as well as pleasure. Not just a useful suggestion, but a damned intelligent one into the bargain.
    ‘You are quite right. I shall not scourge Anson more than will serve George’s interests. But he shall not remain unscourged either. And I shall put him and his entire police force to shame with the second part of my investigation. Things are becoming clearer as to the culprit, and if I can demonstrate that he was under Anson’s nose since the beginning of the affair, and that he did nothing about it, what course will be left to him but resignation? I shall have the Staffordshire Constabulary reorganized from end to end by the time I’m finished with this business. Full steam ahead!’
    He notices Jean’s smile, which seems to him both admiring and indulgent, a powerful combination.
    ‘And talking of which, my darling, I really do think we should set a wedding date. Otherwise people might take you for an unconscionable flirt.’
    ‘Me, Arthur? Me?’
    He chuckles, and reaches for her hand. Full steam ahead, he thinks, otherwise the whole boiler room might just explode.
    Back at Undershaw, Arthur took up his pen and settled Anson’s hash. That letter to the Vicar – ‘I trust to be able to obtain a dose of penal servitude for the offender’ – had there ever been such a gross prejudging by a responsible official ? Arthur felt his temper rising as he recopied the words; felt also the coolth of Jean’s advice. He must do what was most effective for George; he must avoid libel; equally, he must make the verdict on Anson absolute. It had been a long time since he had been so condescended to. Well, Anson would find out what that felt like.
    Now, [he began] I have no doubt that Captain Anson was quite honest in his dislike of George Edalji, and unconscious of his own prejudice. It would be folly to think otherwise. But men in his position have no right to such feelings. They are too powerful, others are too weak, and the consequences are too terrible. As I trace the course of events, this dislike of their chief’s filtered down until it came to imbue the whole force, and when they had George Edalji they did not give him the most elementary justice.
    Before the case, during it, but also afterwards: Anson’s arrogance had been as boundless as his prejudice.
    I do not know what subsequent reports from Captain Anson prevented justice being done at the Home Office, but this I do know, that instead of leaving the fallen man alone, every possible effort was made after the conviction to blacken his character, and that of his father, so as to frighten off anyone who might be inclined to investigate the case. When Mr Yelverton first took it up, he had a letter over Captain Anson’s signature, saying, under date Nov. 8, 1903: ‘It is right to tell you that you will find it a simple waste of time to attempt to prove that George Edalji could not, owing to his position and alleged good character, have been guilty of writing offensive and abominable letters. His father is as well aware as I am of his proclivities in the direction of anonymous writing , and several other people have personal knowledge on the same subject.’
    Now, both Edalji and his father declare on oath that the former never wrote an anonymous letter in his life, and on being applied to by Mr Yelverton for the names of the ‘several other people’ no answer was received. Consider that this letter was written immediately after the conviction, and that it was intended to nip in the bud the movement in the direction of mercy. It is certainly a little like kicking a man when he is down.
    If that doesn’t dish Anson, Arthur thought, nothing will. He imagined newspaper editorials, questions in Parliament, a mealy-mouthed statement from the Home Office, and perhaps a lengthy foreign tour before some comfortable yet distant billet was found for the former Chief Constable. The West Indies might be the place. It would be a sadness for Mrs Anson, whom Arthur had found a spirited table-companion. But she would doubtless survive her husband’s rightful humiliation better than