Arthur & George

frankly, I would have preferred silver.
    ‘The instrument,’ says George. ‘The horse lancet.’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘May I ask how you know what it looks like?’
    ‘Indeed. By two methods. First, I asked Mrs Greatorex to draw it for me. Whereupon Mr Wood recognized it as a horse lancet. And secondly –’ Arthur leaves a pause for effect, ‘I have it in my possession.’
    ‘You have it?’
    Arthur nods. ‘I could show you it if you like.’ George looks alarmed. ‘Not here. Don’t worry, I haven’t brought it with me. It’s at Undershaw.’
    ‘May I ask how you obtained it?’
    Arthur rubs a finger up the side of his nose. Then he relents. ‘Wood and Harry Charlesworth stumbled upon it.’
    ‘Stumbled?’
    ‘It was clear that the weapon had to be secured before Sharp could dispose of it. He knew I was in the district and on his trail. He even started sending me the sort of letters he used to send you. Threatening me with the removal of vital organs. If he had two cerebral hemispheres to rub together, he’d have buried the instrument where no one would find it for a hundred years. So I instructed Wood and Harry to stumble across it.’
    ‘I see.’ George feels as he does when a client begins confidentially telling him things no client should ever tell a solicitor, not even his own – especially not his own. ‘And have you interviewed Sharp?’
    ‘No. I think that’s plain from my Statement.’
    ‘Yes, of course. Forgive me.’
    ‘So, unless you have any objection, I shall include my Statement against Sharp with my other submissions to the Home Office.’
    ‘Sir Arthur, I cannot possibly express the gratitude I feel –’
    ‘I do not want you to. I did not do it for your blasted gratitude, which you have already sufficiently expressed. I did it because you are innocent, and I am ashamed of the way the judicial and bureaucratic machinery of this country operates.’
    ‘Nevertheless, no one else could have done what you have done. And in so comparatively short a time as well.’
    He is as good as saying I botched it, thinks Arthur. No, don’t be absurd – it’s merely that he’s far more interested in his own vindication, and in making absolutely sure of that, than in Sharp’s prosecution. Which is perfectly understandable. Finish item one before proceeding to item two – what else would you expect of a cautious lawyer? Whereas I attack on all fronts simultaneously. He’s just worrying that I might take my eye off the ball.
    But later, when they had parted and Arthur sat in a cab on the way to Jean’s flat, he began to wonder. What was that dictum? People will forgive you anything except the help you give them? Something like that. And maybe such a response was exaggerated in a case like this. When he had read up about Dreyfus it had struck him that many of those who came to help the Frenchman, who worked for him out of a deep passion, who saw his case not just as a great battle between Truth and Lies, between Justice and Injustice, but as a matter which explained and even defined the country they lived in – that many of them were not at all impressed by Colonel Alfred Dreyfus. They had found him rather a dry stick, cold and correct, and not exactly flowing with the juices of gratitude and human sympathy. Someone had written that the victim was usually not up to the mystique of his own affair. That was a rather French thing to say, but not necessarily wide of the mark.
    Or maybe that was just as unfair. When he had first met George Edalji, he had been impressed by how this rather frail and delicate young man could have withstood three years of penal servitude. In his surprise, he had doubtless failed to appreciate what it must have cost George. Perhaps the only way to survive was to concentrate utterly, from dawn to dusk, on the minutiae of your own case, to have nothing else in your head, to have all the facts and arguments marshalled for whenever they might be needed. Only then could you survive monstrous injustice and the squalid reversal in your habits of living. So it might be expecting too much of George Edalji to expect him to react as a free man might. Until he was pardoned and compensated, he could not go back to being the man he had been before.
    Save your irritation for others, thought Arthur. George is a good fellow, and an innocent man, but there is no point wishing sanctity upon him. Wanting more gratitude than he can offer is like wanting every reviewer to declare each