Arthur & George

Edalji’s presence be required. The Committee would examine such materials as were in the possession of the Home Office and adjudicate on certain procedural matters. Sir Arthur Wilson KCIE, the Right Hon. John Lloyd Wharton, Chairman of the Quarter Sessions for the County of Durham, and Sir Albert de Rutzen, the Chief Magistrate in London, would report to Mr Gladstone as speedily as possible.
    Arthur decided that these gentlemen should not be left to jaw at one another complacently about ‘certain procedural matters’. To his reworked
Telegraph
articles – which would themselves prove George’s innocence – he would append a private memorandum setting out the case against Royden Sharp. He would describe his investigation, summarize his evidence, and list those from whom further testimony might be obtained: specifically the butcher Jack Hart of Bridgetown, and Harry Green , now of South Africa. Also Mrs Royden Sharp, who could confirm the effect of the new moon upon her husband.
    He would send George a copy of the memorandum, inviting his comments. He would also keep Anson on the hop. Every so often, as he remembered that long wrangle over brandy and cigars, an unstoppable growl would rise in his throat. Their exchange had been noisy but largely futile – like that of two Scandinavian elks locking antlers in the forest. Even so, he had been shocked by the complacency and prejudice of a man who ought to have known better. And then, at the last, for Anson to try scaring him with stories of ghosts. How very little the Chief Constable knew his man. In his study, Arthur took out the horse lancet, opened it up and drew round the blade’s outline on a sheet of tracing paper. He would send the drawing – marked ‘life size’ – to the Chief Constable, asking for his views.
    ‘Well, you have your Committee,’ said Wood, as they pulled their cues from the rack that evening.
    ‘I would rather say that
they
have
their
Committee.’
    ‘By which you indicate that you are less than satisfied?’
    ‘I have some hope that even these gentlemen cannot fail to acknowledge what is staring them in the face.’
    ‘But?’
    ‘But – you know who Albert de Rutzen is?’
    ‘The Chief Magistrate of London, my newspaper informs me.’
    ‘He is that, he is that. He is also the cousin of Captain Anson.’
    George & Arthur
    George had read the
Telegraph
articles several times before writing to thank Sir Arthur; and he read them once again before their second meeting at the Grand Hotel, Charing Cross . It was most disconcerting to see oneself described not by some provincial penny-a-liner but by the most famous writer of the day. It made him feel like several overlapping people at the same time: a victim seeking redress; a solicitor facing the highest tribunal in the country; and a character in a novel.
    Here was Sir Arthur explaining why he, George, could not possibly have been involved with the supposed band of Wyrley ruffians: ‘In the first place, he is a total abstainer, which in itself hardly seems to commend him to such a gang. He does not smoke. He is very shy and nervous. He is a most distinguished student.’ This was all true, and yet untrue; flattering, yet unflattering; believable, yet unbelievable. He was not a
most
distinguished student; merely a good, hardworking one. He had received second-class honours, not first, the bronze medal, not silver or gold, from the Birmingham Law Society. He was certainly a capable solicitor, more so than Greenway or Stentson were likely to become, but he would never be eminent. Equally, he was not, by his own estimation,
very
shy. And if he had been judged nervous on the basis of that previous meeting at the hotel, then there were mitigating circumstances. He had been sitting in the foyer reading his newspaper, beginning to worry if he were mistaken about the time or even the day, when he had become aware of a large, overcoated figure standing a few yards away and scrutinizing him intently. How would anyone else react to being stared at by a great novelist? George thought this estimation of him as shy and nervous had probably been confirmed, if not propagated, by his parents. He did not know how it was in other families, but at the Vicarage the parental view of children had not evolved at the same speed as the children themselves. George was not just thinking of himself; his parents did not seem to take account of Maud’s development, of how she was becoming stronger and more