Arthur & George

the officials regretted that henceforth they would be too occupied with the business of state to afford Sir Arthur Conan Doyle any more of their time.
    The Incorporated Law Society voted to restore George Edalji to its Rolls.
    The
Daily Telegraph
paid out the contents of its appeal fund, which amounted to some
£
300.
    Thereafter, with no new events, no disputes, no libel suits, no government action, no further Questions in Parliament, no public inquiry, no apology and no compensation, there was little for the Press to report.
    Jean says to Arthur, ‘There is one more thing we can do for your friend.’
    ‘What is that, my dear?’
    ‘We can invite him to our wedding.’
    Arthur is rather confused by this suggestion. ‘But I thought we had decided that only our families and our closest friends would be present?’
    ‘That is the wedding itself, Arthur. Afterwards there is the reception.’
    The unofficial Englishman looks at his unofficial fiancée. ‘Did anyone ever tell you that apart from being the most adorable of women, you are also pre-eminently wise, and much more able to see what is right and necessary than the poor oaf you will be taking as a husband?’
    ‘I shall be at your side, Arthur, always at your side. And therefore looking in the same direction. Whatever that direction may prove to be.’
    George
&
Arthur
    As the summer began to pass, as conversation turned to cricket or the Indian crisis, as Scotland Yard no longer required monthly confirmation by registered post of George’s address, as the Home Office remained silent, as even the indefatigable Mr Yelverton failed to come up with a new stratagem, as George was informed that an office awaited him at 2 Mecklenburgh Street until such time as he found his own premises, as Sir Arthur’s communications diminished to brief notes of encouragement or rage, as his father returned more full-mindedly to parish work, as his mother judged it safe to leave her elder son and only daughter in one another’s care, as Captain the Honourable George Anson failed to announce any renewed investigation into the Great Wyrley Outrages despite their now having no official author, as George learned to read a newspaper again without one eye constantly snagging at a mention of his name, as yet another animal was mutilated in the Wyrley district, as interest nevertheless dribbled away and even the anonymous letter writer grew weary of his abuse, George realized that the final, official verdict on his case had been given, and was unlikely ever to be changed.
    Innocent yet guilty: so said the Gladstone Committee, and so said the British Government through its Home Secretary. Innocent yet guilty. Innocent yet wrong-headed and malicious. Innocent yet indulging in impish mischief. Innocent yet deliberately seeking to interfere with the proper investigations of the police. Innocent yet bringing his troubles upon himself. Innocent yet undeserving of compensation. Innocent yet undeserving of an apology. Innocent yet fully deserving of three years’ penal servitude.
    But that was not the only verdict. Much of the Press had been on his side: the
Daily Telegraph
had called the Committee’s and the Home Secretary’s position
weak, illogical and inconclusive
. The public’s attitude, as far as he could gauge it, was that he
never once had fair play
. The legal profession, in great numbers, had supported him. And finally, one of the greatest writers of the age had loudly and continually asserted his innocence. Would these verdicts in time come to outweigh the official one?
    George also sought to take a wider view of his own case, and the lessons it contained. If you could not expect the police to be more efficient, or witnesses more honest, then you must at least improve the tribunals where their words were tested. A case like his should never have been conducted by a Chairman with no legal training; you would have to improve the qualifications of those on the bench. And even if the Quarter Sessions and the Assize Courts could be made to function better, there must still be recourse to finer and wiser legal minds: in other words, to a court of appeal. It was an absurdity that the only way to overturn a wrongful conviction such as his was by petitioning the Home Secretary, that petition to arrive with hundreds – no, thousands – of others each year, most of them from manifestly guilty occupants of His Majesty’s prisons, who had little better to occupy their time with than