Arthur & George

actions had contaminated the evidence. Even the police knew that they had to obtain either a search warrant, or the express and unambiguous permission of the householder, before entering premises. George admitted that criminal law was not his speciality, but it seemed to him that Sir Arthur had incited an associate to commit burglary and in the process rendered valueless a vital piece of evidence. And he might even be lucky to escape a charge of conspiracy to commit theft.
    This was where Sir Arthur’s excess of enthusiasm had led him. And it was all, George decided, the fault of Sherlock Holmes. Sir Arthur had been too influenced by his own creation. Holmes performed his brilliant acts of deduction and then handed villains over to the authorities with their unambiguous guilt written all over them. But Holmes had never once been obliged to stand in the witness box and have his suppositions and intuitions and immaculate theories ground to very fine dust over a period of several hours by the likes of Mr Disturnal. What Sir Arthur had done was the equivalent of go into a field where the criminal’s footprints might be found and trample all over it wearing several different pairs of boots. He had, in his eagerness, destroyed the legal case against Royden Sharp even as he was trying to make it. And it was all the fault of Mr Sherlock Holmes.
    Arthur
&
George
    As he holds a copy of the Report of the Gladstone Committee in his hand, Arthur is relieved that he has twice failed to be elected to Parliament. He need feel no direct shame. This is how they do things, how they bury bad news. They have released the Report without the slightest warning on the Friday before the Whitsun holiday. Who will want to read about a miscarriage of justice while taking the train to the seaside? Who will be available to provide informed comment? Who will care, by the time Whit Sunday and Whit Monday have passed and work begins again? The Edalji Case – wasn’t that settled months ago?
    George also holds a copy in his hand. He looks at the title page:

PAPERS
    relating to the

CASE OF GEORGE EDALJI
    presented to both Houses of Parliament

by Command of His Majesty
    and then, at the bottom:
    London: printed for His Majesty’s Stationery Office
    by Eyre and Spottiswoode,
    Printers to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty
    [Cd. 3503.] Price 1½d. 1907
    It sounds substantial, but the price seems to give it away. A penny halfpenny to learn the truth about his case, his life … He opens the pamphlet warily. Four pages of Report, then two brief appendices. A penny halfpenny. His breath is coming short. His life summed up for him yet again. And this time not for readers of the
Cannock Chase Courier
, the Birmingham
Daily Gazette
or the Birmingham
Daily Post
, the
Daily Telegraph
or
The Times
, but for both Houses of Parliament and the King’s Most Excellent Majesty …
    Arthur has taken the Report, unread, to Jean’s flat. This is only right. Just as the Report itself is laid before Parliament, so the consequences of his venture should be laid before her. She has taken an interest in the matter which far exceeded his expectations. In truth, he had no expectations at all. But she was always at his side, if not literally, then metaphorically. So she must be there at the conclusion.
    George takes a glass of water and sits in an armchair. His mother has returned to Wyrley and he is currently alone in Miss Goode’s lodgings, whose address is registered with Scotland Yard. He places a notebook on the arm of the chair, as he does not want to mark the Report itself. Perhaps he is not yet cured of the regulations governing the use of library books in Lewes and Portland. Arthur stands with his back to the fireplace while Jean sews, her head already half-cocked for the extracts Arthur will read to her. She wonders if they should have done more on this day for George Edalji, perhaps invited him for a glass of champagne, except that he does not drink; although since it was only this morning they heard the Report was due to be released …
    George Edalji was tried on the charge of feloniously wounding
…
    ‘Hah!’ says Arthur, barely half a paragraph in. ‘Listen to this.
The Assistant Chairman of Quarter Sessions, who presided at the trial, when consulted about the conviction, reported that he and his colleagues were strongly of the opinion that the conviction was right
. Amateurs. Rank amateurs. Not a lawyer among them. I sometimes feel, my dear Jean,