Arthur & George

1921; four months later, he came through at a Doyle family seance, apologized for his previous doubts about spiritualism and pronounced himself ‘no longer handicapped by my horrid old asthma’. Connie died of cancer in 1924. The Rt. Hon. George Augustus Anson served as Chief Constable of Staffordshire for forty-one years, retiring finally in 1929; he was knighted in the Coronation Honours List of 1937, and died at Bath in 1947. His wife Blanche died as a result of enemy action in 1941. Charlotte Edalji returned to Shropshire after Shapurji’s death; she died at Atcham near Shrewsbury in 1924, at the age of eighty-one, and chose to be buried there rather than beside her husband.
    George Edalji survived them all. He continued to live and practise at 79 Borough High Street until 1941; then had an office in Argyle Square from 1942 until 1953. He died at 9 Brocket Close, Welwyn Garden City, on 17th June 1953; the cause of death was given as coronary thrombosis. Maud was still living with him, and registered the death. She returned for a last visit to Great Wyrley in 1962, when she gave photographs of her father and brother to the church. Today they hang in the vestry of St Mark’s.
    Four years after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s death, Enoch Knowles, a fifty-seven-year-old labourer, pleaded guilty at Staffordshire Crown Court to the writing of menacing and obscene letters over a thirty-year period. Knowles admitted that his career began in 1903, when he joined in the campaign of persecution by sending letters signed ‘G.H. Darby, Captain of the Wyrley Gang’. After Knowles’s conviction, George Edalji wrote an article for the
Daily Express
. In this last public statement on the case, dated 7th November 1934, George makes no reference to the Sharp brothers, nor to race prejudice as a motive. He concludes:
    The great mystery, however, remained unsolved. All kinds of theories were advanced. One is that the outrages were the work of a lunatic seized from time to time with blood lust. Another was that they were done with the idea of bringing the parish and police into disrepute, or possibly the work of some dismissed policeman. One curious theory was suggested to me. A man belonging to Staffordshire told me the outrages were committed, not by a human being, but by one or more boars. He suggested that these animals were sent out at night after being given some kind of dope which made them ferocious. He said he had seen one of these boars . The boar theory seemed to me then – as it does now – too fantastic to be taken seriously.
    Mary Conan Doyle, Arthur’s first child, died in 1976. She had always kept one secret from her father. Touie, on her deathbed, had not only warned her daughter that Arthur would marry again; she also named his future bride as Miss Jean Leckie.
    J.B. January 2005
    Apart from Jean’s letter to Arthur, all letters quoted, whether signed or anonymous, are authentic; as are quotations from newspapers, government reports, proceedings in Parliament, and the writings of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I should like to thank: Sgt. Alan Walker of the Staffordshire Constabulary; the City Archives of Birmingham Central Library; the Staffordshire County Property Service; the Revd Paul Oakley; Daniel Stashower; Douglas Johnson; Geoffrey Robertson; and Sumaya Partner
.

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    First published in Great Britain in 2005 by Jonathan Cape
    First published by Vintage in 2006
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