Arthur & George

new book of yours a work of genius. Yes, save your irritation for others. Captain Anson for a start, whose letter this morning contained a fresh piece of insolence: the blunt refusal to admit that the mutilations could have been caused by a horse lancet. And to cap it, the dismissive line, ‘What you drew was an ordinary fleam.’ Indeed! Arthur had not bothered George with this latest provocation.
    And as well as Anson, he was finding himself irritated by Willie Hornung. His brother-in-law had a new joke, which Connie had passed on to him over lunch. ‘What do Arthur Conan Doyle and George Edalji have in common?’ No? Give up? “Sentences.”’ Arthur growled to himself. Sentences – he thought that witty? Objectively, Arthur could see that some might find it so. But really … Unless he was beginning to lose his sense of humour. They said it happened to people in middle age. No – poppycock. And now he was starting to irritate himself. Another trait of middle age, no doubt.
    George, meanwhile, was still in the writing room at the Grand Hotel. He was in low spirits. He had been disgracefully impolite and ungrateful towards Sir Arthur. And after the months and months of work he had put into the case. George was ashamed of himself. He must write to apologize. And yet … and yet … it would have been dishonest to say more than he did. Or rather, if he had said more, he would have been obliged to be honest.
    He had read the Statement of the Case against Royden Sharp that Arthur was sending to the Home Office. He had read it several times, naturally. And each time his impression had hardened. His conclusion – his inevitable, professional conclusion – was that it would not help his own position. Further , his judgement – which he would never have dared utter at their meeting – was that Sir Arthur’s case against Sharp strangely resembled the Staffordshire Constabulary’s case against himself.
    It was based, to begin with, and in exactly the same way, upon the letters. Sir Reginald Hardy had said in his summing-up at Stafford that the person who wrote the letters must also have been the person who maimed the livestock. This connection was explicit, and rightly criticized by Mr Yelverton and those who had taken up his case. Yet here was Sir Arthur making exactly the same connection. The letters were his starting point, and through them he had traced Royden Sharp’s hand, and his comings and goings, at every turn. The letters incriminated Sharp, just as they had previously incriminated George. And while it was now concluded that the letters had been deliberately written by Sharp and his brother to pull George into the affair, why could they not equally have been written by someone else to pull Sharp into the affair? If they had been false the first time, why should they be true the second?
    Likewise, all Sir Arthur’s evidence was circumstantial, and much of it hearsay. A woman and a child were assaulted by someone who might have been Royden Sharp, except that his name had not been raised at the time and no police action had been taken. A statement had been made to Mrs Greatorex three or more years ago, which she had not seen fit to pass on to anyone at the time, but which she now brought up when Royden Sharp’s name was mentioned. She also remembered some hearsay – or a piece of washing-line gossip – from Sharp’s wife. Royden Sharp had an exceedingly poor scholastic record: yet if that were sufficient proof of criminal intent, the gaols would be full. Royden Sharp was supposed to be strangely influenced by the moon – except on those occasions when he was not. Further, Sharp lived in a house from which it was easy to escape unobserved at night : just like the Vicarage, and any number of other houses in the district.
    And if this wasn’t enough to make a solicitor’s heart sink, there was worse, far worse. Sir Arthur’s only piece of solid evidence was the horse lancet, which he had now taken possession of. And what exactly was the legal value of such an item so obtained? A third party, namely Sir Arthur, had incited a fourth party, namely Mr Wood, to enter illegally the property of yet another party, Royden Sharp, and steal an item which he had then transported halfway across the kingdom. It was understandable that he had not handed it over to the Staffordshire Constabulary, but it could have been lodged with a proper legal official. A solicitor-at-law, for instance. Whereas Sir Arthur’s