Arthur & George

followed Sir Arthur’s writings and doings, his travels and campaigns, his interventions in the public life of the nation. George often agreed with his pronouncements – on divorce reform, the threat from Germany, the need for a Channel Tunnel, the moral necessity of returning Gibraltar to Spain. He permitted himself, however, to be frankly dubious about one of Sir Arthur’s lesser-known contributions to penal reform: the proposal that hardened recidivists in His Majesty’s gaols should all be transported to the Scottish island of Tiree. George had cut articles from the newspapers, followed Sherlock Holmes’s continuing exploits in
The Strand Magazine
, and borrowed Sir Arthur’s latest books from the library. Twice he had taken Maud to the cinema to watch Mr Eille Norwood’s remarkable impersonation of the consulting detective.
    He remembered, the year they first came to Borough High Street , buying the
Daily Mail
solely to read Sir Arthur’s special despatch on the marathon race at the London Olympics. George could not have been less interested in athletic endeavour, but he was rewarded by a further insight – if any more were needed – into the nature of his benefactor. Sir Arthur’s description had been so vivid that George read it again and again until he could picture it in his head like a newsreel. The vast stadium – the expectant crowd – a small figure enters ahead of all the others – an Italian in a state of near collapse – he falls, he rises, he falls again, he rises again, he staggers – then an American enters the stadium and begins to catch him up – the plucky Italian is twenty yards from the tape – the crowd is hypnotized – he falls again – he is helped up – willing arms propel him through the tape before the American can catch him. But the Italian has, of course, broken the rules by accepting assistance and the American is declared the winner.
    Any other writer would have left it at that, pleased with his success at evoking the drama of the moment. But Sir Arthur was not any other writer, and had been so touched by the Italian’s bravery that he started a subscription for the man. Three hundred pounds had been contributed, which enabled the runner to open a baker’s shop in his native village – something a gold medal would never have been able to effect. This was typical of Sir Arthur: generous and practical in equal parts.
    After his success with the Edalji Case, Sir Arthur had involved himself in other judicial protests. George was rather ashamed to admit that his feelings towards subsequent victims consisted of envy verging occasionally on disapproval. There was Oscar Slater, for instance, whose case took up years and years of Sir Arthur’s life. The man had, it was true, been wrongly accused of murder, and nearly executed, and Sir Arthur’s intervention had spared him the gallows and eventually gained his release; but Slater was a very low sort of fellow , a professional criminal who had shown not an ounce of gratitude towards those who had helped him.
    Sir Arthur had also continued to play the detective. Only three or four years ago there had been the curious case of the woman writer who disappeared. Christie, that was her name. Apparently a rising star of detective fiction, though George had not the slightest interest in rising stars, as long as Holmes was still compiling his casebook. Mrs Christie had vanished from her home in Berkshire, and her car was found abandoned some five miles from Guildford. When three police forces could find no trace of her, the Chief Constable of Surrey had called in Sir Arthur – who had, in his time, been Deputy Lieutenant of the county. What happened next surprised many people. Did Sir Arthur interview witnesses, scour the trampled ground for footprints, or cross-examine the police, as he had done in the famous Edalji Case? Not a bit of it. He had contacted Christie’s husband, borrowed one of the missing woman’s gloves, and taken it off to a psychic who had laid it against his forehead in an attempt to locate the woman. Well, it was one thing – as George had proposed to the Staffordshire Constabulary – to use real bloodhounds to sniff out a trail, quite another to employ psychic ones who merely stayed at home and sniffed gloves. George, on reading of Sir Arthur’s novel investigative techniques, had felt quite relieved that more orthodox ones had been applied in his own case.
    However, it would take a great deal more