Arthur & George

public.’ Campbell slides the book back across the desk.
    ‘Oh it’s hardly a bribe, Inspector,’ says George lightly. ‘Can you not regard it as … an addition to the library?’
    ‘The library. Do we have a library, Sergeant?’
    ‘Well, we could always start one, sir.’
    ‘Then in that case, Mr Edalji, count me grateful.’ George half-wonders if they are making fun of him. ‘It is pronounced
Ay
dlji. Not Ee-dal-ji.’
    ‘Aydlji.’ The Inspector makes a rough stab, and pulls a face. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll settle for calling you Sir.’
    George clears his throat. ‘The first item on the agenda is this.’ He produces the letter from ‘A Lover of Justice’. ‘There have been five others addressed to my place of business.’
    Campbell reads it, passes it to the Sergeant, takes it back, reads it again. He wonders if this is a letter of denunciation or support. Or the former disguised as the latter. If it is a denunciation, why would anyone bring it to the police? If it is support, then why bring it unless you have already been accused? Campbell finds George’s motive almost as interesting as the letter itself.
    ‘Any idea who it’s from?’
    ‘It’s unsigned.’
    ‘I can see that, sir. May I ask if you intend to take the fellow’s advice?
Go away for your holiday
?’
    ‘Really, Inspector, that seems to be getting hold of the wrong end of the stick. Do you not regard this letter as a criminal libel?’
    ‘I don’t know sir, to be honest. It’s lawyers like yourself that decide what’s the law and what isn’t. From a police point of view, I would say someone was having a lark at your expense.’
    ‘A lark? Do you not think that if this letter were broadcast, with the allegation he pretends to be denying, that I would not be in danger from local farm-hands and miners?’
    ‘I don’t know, sir. All I can say is, I can’t remember an anonymous letter giving rise to an assault in this district since I’ve been here. Can you, Parsons?’ The Sergeant shakes his head. ‘Now what do you make of this phrase, towards the middle …
they do not think you are a right sort
?’
    ‘What do you make of it yourself?’
    ‘Well, you see, it’s not anything that’s ever been said to me.’
    ‘Very well, Inspector, what I “make” of it is that it is almost certainly a reference to the fact that my father is of Parsee origin.’
    ‘Yes, I suppose it could refer to that.’ Campbell bends his ginger head over the letter again, as if scrutinizing it for further meaning. He is trying to make his mind up about this man and his grievance; whether he is a straightforward complainant, or something more complicated.
    ‘Could? Could? What else might it mean?’
    ‘Well, it might mean that you don’t fit in.’
    ‘You mean, I do not play in the Great Wyrley cricket team?’
    ‘Do you not, sir?’
    George can feel his exasperation rising. ‘Nor for that matter do I patronize public houses.’
    ‘Do you not, sir?’
    ‘Nor for that matter do I smoke tobacco.’
    ‘Do you not, sir? Well, we’ll have to wait and ask the letter writer what he meant by it. If and when we catch him. You said there was something else?’
    The second item on George’s agenda is to register a complaint against Sergeant Upton, both for his manner and his insinuations. Except that, when repeated back by the Inspector, they somehow cease to be insinuations. Campbell turns them into the plodding remarks of a not very bright member of the Constabulary to a rather pompous and over-sensitive complainant.
    George is now in some disarray. He came expecting gratitude for the book, shock at the letter, interest in his predicament. The Inspector has been correct, yet slow; his studied politeness strikes George as a kind of rudeness. Well, he must press on to his third item nevertheless.
    ‘I have a suggestion. For your enquiry.’ George pauses, as he planned to, in order to command their full attention. ‘Bloodhounds.’
    ‘I beg your pardon?’
    ‘Bloodhounds. They have, as I am sure you are aware, an excellent sense of smell. Were you to acquire a pair of trained bloodhounds , they would surely lead you from the scene of the next mutilation directly to the criminal. They can follow a scent with uncanny precision, and in this district there are no large streams or rivers into which the criminal might wade to confuse them.’
    The Staffordshire Constabulary appears unused to practical suggestions from members of the