Arthur & George

lock.’
    ‘You do not hide it?’
    The Vicar looked at Mr Disturnal as if at some impertinent schoolboy. ‘Why on earth should I hide it?’
    ‘You never hide it? You have never hidden it?’
    George’s father looked quite puzzled. ‘I do not understand why you are asking me that question.’
    ‘I am merely trying to establish if the key is always in the lock.’
    ‘But that is what I said.’
    ‘Always in full view? Never hidden?’
    ‘But that is what I said.’
    When George’s father had given evidence at Cannock, the questions had been straightforward, and the witness box might as well have been a pulpit, with the Vicar bearing witness to God’s very existence. Now, under Mr Disturnal’s interrogation, he – and the world with him – was beginning to appear more fallible.
    ‘You have said that the key squeaks as it turns in the lock.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Is this a recent development?’
    ‘Is what a recent development?’
    ‘The key squeaking in the lock.’ The prosecuting counsel’s attitude was one of helping an old man over a stile. ‘Has it always done this?’
    ‘For as long as I can remember.’
    Mr Disturnal smiled at the Vicar. George did not like the look of that smile. ‘And – in all this time – as long as you can remember – no one has ever thought to oil the lock?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘May I ask you, sir, and this may seem a minor question to you, but I should like your answer nonetheless – why has no one ever oiled the lock?’
    ‘I suppose it has never seemed important.’
    ‘It is not from lack of oil?’
    The Vicar unwisely allowed his irritation to show. ‘You had better ask my wife about our supplies of oil.’
    ‘I may do so, sir. And, this squeak, how would you describe it?’
    ‘What do you mean? It is a squeak.’
    ‘Is it a loud squeak or a soft squeak? Might it be compared, for instance, to the squeak of a mouse or the creak of a barn door?’
    Shapurji Edalji looked as if he had stumbled into a den of triviality. ‘I suppose I would characterize it as a loud squeak.’
    ‘All the more surprising, perhaps, that the lock was not oiled. But be that as it may. The key squeaks loudly, once in the evening, once in the morning. And on other occasions?’
    ‘I fail to follow you.’
    ‘I mean, sir, when you or your son leave the bedroom at night.’
    ‘But neither of us ever does.’
    ‘Neither of you ever does. I understand this … sleeping arrangement has been in existence now for sixteen or seventeen years. You are saying that in all this time neither one of you has ever left the bedroom during the night?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘You are quite sure of this?’
    Again, there was a long pause, as if the Vicar were running through the years in his head, night by night. ‘As sure as I can be.’
    ‘You have a memory of each night?’
    ‘I do not see the point of that question.’
    ‘Sir, I do not ask you to see its point. I merely request that you answer it. Do you have a memory of each night?’
    The Vicar looked around the court, as if expecting someone to rescue him from this imbecilic catechism. ‘No more than anybody else.’
    ‘Exactly. You have given evidence that you are a light sleeper.’
    ‘Yes, very light. I wake easily.’
    ‘And, sir, you have testified that if the key was turned in the lock, it would wake you up?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Do you not see the contradiction in that statement?’
    ‘No, I do not.’ George could see his father becoming flustered. He was not used to having his word challenged, however courteously. He was looking old, and irritable, and less than master of the situation.
    ‘Then let me explain. No one has left the room in seventeen years. So – according to you – no one has ever turned the key while you were asleep. So how can you possibly assert that if the key were turned, it would wake you up?’
    ‘This is angels dancing on pinheads. I mean, obviously, that the slightest noise wakes me.’ But he sounded more petulant than authoritative.
    ‘You have never been woken by the sound of the key turning?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘So you cannot swear that you would be woken by that sound?’
    ‘I can only repeat what I have just said. The slightest noise wakes me.’
    ‘But if you have never been woken by the sound of the key turning, is it not entirely possible that the key has been turned and you have not woken?’
    ‘As I say, it has never happened.’
    George watched his father as a dutiful, anxious son, but also as a