Arthur & George

custody, you said to him, “I won’t have bail, and when the next horse is ripped it will not be by me.” Did you say those words?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And what did you mean by them?’
    ‘Merely what I said. There had been attacks on animals for weeks and months before my arrest, and because they had nothing to do with me, I expected them to continue. And if they did, that would prove the matter.’
    ‘You see, Mr Edalji, it has been suggested, and will doubtless be suggested again, that there was a sinister reason why you refused bail. The supposition is that the Great Wyrley Gang, whose existence is constantly alluded to but entirely unproven, was to come to your rescue by deliberately mutilating another animal to demonstrate your innocence.’
    ‘All I can say in reply is that if I had been clever enough to think up such a cunning plan, then I would also have been clever enough not to confess it in advance to a police constable.’
    ‘Indeed, Mr Edalji, indeed.’
    Mr Disturnal, as George had expected, was sarcastic and disrespectful in cross-examination. He asked George to explain many things he had already explained, solely in order to exhibit a theatrical disbelief. His strategy was designed to show that the prisoner was extremely cunning and devious, yet constantly incriminating himself. George knew that he must leave Mr Vachell to point this out. He must not allow himself to be provoked; he must take his time in answering; he must be stolid.
    Of course Mr Disturnal did not fail to bring up the fact that George had walked as far as Mr Green’s farm on the evening of the 17th, and allowed himself to wonder why this might have slipped George’s mind while giving evidence. The prosecuting counsel also showed himself ruthless when it came, as it inevitably did, to the matter of the hairs on George’s clothing.
    ‘Mr Edalji, you said in sworn evidence that the hairs on your clothing were acquired by leaning against a gate into a field where cows were paddocked.’
    ‘I said that is possibly how they got there.’
    ‘Yet Dr Butter picked twenty-nine hairs from your clothing, which he then examined under a microscope and found to be identical in length, colour and structure to the hairs of the coat cut from the dead pony.’
    ‘He did not say identical. He said similar.’
    ‘Did he?’ Mr Disturnal was briefly disconcerted, and pretended to consult his papers. ‘Indeed. “Similar in length, colour and structure.” How do you explain this similarity, Mr Edalji?’
    ‘I am unable to. I am not an expert in animal hairs. I am only able to suggest how such hairs might have appeared on my clothing.’
    ‘Length, colour and structure, Mr Edalji. Are you seriously asking the court to believe that the hairs on your coat came from a cow in a paddock, when they had the length, colour and structure belonging to the pony ripped scarcely a mile from your house on the night of the 17th?’
    George had no reply to make.
    Mr Vachell called Mr Lewis back to the witness box. The police veterinary surgeon repeated his statement that the pony could not, in his view, have been injured before 2.30 a.m. He was then asked what kind of instrument might have inflicted the damage. A curved weapon with concave sides. Did Mr Lewis think the wound could have been made with a domestic razor? No, Mr Lewis did not think the wound could have been made with a razor.
    Mr Vachell then called Shapurji Edalji, clerk in holy orders, who repeated his evidence about sleeping arrangements, the door, the key, his lumbago and his time of awakening. George thought his father, for the first time, was beginning to look like an old man. His voice seemed less compelling, his certainties less obviously irrefutable.
    George became anxious as Mr Disturnal rose to cross-examine the Vicar of Great Wyrley. The prosecution counsel exuded courtesy, assuring the witness he would not detain him long. This, however, turned out to be a grossly false promise. Mr Disturnal took every tiny detail of George’s alibi and held it up before the jury, as if trying to assess for the first time its exact weight and value.
    ‘You lock the bedroom door at night?’
    George’s father looked surprised to be asked again a question he had already answered. He paused for longer than seemed natural. Then he said, ‘I do.’
    ‘And unlock it in the morning?’
    Again, an unnatural pause. ‘I do.’
    ‘And where do you put the key?’
    ‘The key remains in the