Arthur & George

his cap held against the swell of his belly, told the court that the Chief Constable had instructed him to object to bail. After a brief consultation, the magistrates remanded the prisoner to appear before them again the following Monday, when arguments for bail would be heard. In the meantime he would be transferred to Stafford Gaol. And that was that. Mr Meek promised to visit George the next day, probably in the afternoon. George asked him to bring a Birmingham paper. He would need to know what his colleagues were being told. He preferred the
Gazette
, but the
Post
would suffice.
    At Stafford Gaol they asked what religion he belonged to, and also whether he could read and write. Then he was told to strip naked and instructed to place himself in a humiliating posture. He was taken to see the Governor, Captain Synge, who told him he would be housed in the hospital wing until a cell became available. Then his privileges as a prisoner on remand were explained: he would be allowed to wear his own clothes, to take exercise, to write letters, to receive newspapers and magazines. He would be allowed private conversations with his solicitor, which would be observed by a warder from behind a glass door. All other meetings would be supervised.
    George had been arrested in his light summer suit, his only headgear a straw hat. He requested permission to send for a change of clothing. This, he was told, was against the regulations. It was a privilege for a prisoner on remand to retain his own clothes; but this should not be understood as conveying the right to build up a private wardrobe in his cell.
    THE GREAT WYRLEY SENSATION , George read the next afternoon. VICAR’S SON IN COURT . ‘The sensation which the arrest caused throughout the Cannock Chase district was evidenced by the large crowds which yesterday frequented the roads leading to the Great Wyrley Vicarage, where the accused man resided, and the Police Court and Police Station, Cannock.’ George was dismayed at the idea of the Vicarage being besieged. ‘The police were allowed to search without warrant. So far as can be ascertained at present the result of the search is a quantity of bloodstained apparel, a number of razors, and a pair of boots, the latter found in a field close to the scene of the last mutilation.’
    ‘Found in a field,’ he repeated to Mr Meek. ‘Found in a field? Has someone been putting my boots in a field? Quantity of bloodstained apparel?
Quantity
?’
    Meek seemed astonishingly calm about all this. No, he did not intend to ask the police about the supposed discovery of a pair of boots in a field. No, he did not propose asking the Birmingham
Daily Gazette
to publish a retraction concerning the amount of bloodstained clothing.
    ‘If I may make a suggestion, Mr Edalji.’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘I have, as you may imagine, had many clients in positions similar to yours, and they mostly insist upon reading the newspaper accounts of their case. It sometimes makes them a trifle over-heated. When this occurs, I always advise them to read the next column along. It often seems to help.’
    ‘The next column along?’ George shifted his gaze two inches to the left. MISSING LADY DOCTOR was the heading. And beneath it: NO CLUE TO MISS HICKMAN .
    ‘Read it aloud,’ said Mr Meek.
    ‘“No clue as to the disappearance of Miss Sophie Frances Hickman, a lady surgeon at the Royal Free Hospital, has yet emerged …”’
    Meek made George read the whole column to him. He listened attentively, sighing and shaking his head, even sucking in his breath from time to time.
    ‘But Mr Meek,’ said George at the end, ‘how am I to tell if any of this is true either, given what they say about me?’
    ‘That is rather my point.’
    ‘Even so …’ George’s eyes were reverting magnetically to his own column. ‘Even so. “The accused man, as his name implies, is of Eastern origin.” They make me sound like a Chinaman.’
    ‘I promise you, Mr Edalji, if ever they say you are a Chinaman, I’ll have a quiet word with the editor.’
    The following Monday, George was taken from Stafford back to Cannock. This time the crowd on the way to court seemed more turbulent. Men ran alongside the cab, jumping up and peering in; some thumped on the doors and waved sticks in the air. George grew alarmed; but the escorting constables acted as if it were all quite normal.
    This time Captain Anson was in court; George became aware of a neat, authoritative figure staring