Arthur & George

professional solicitor and apprehensive prisoner. His father was not doing well. Mr Disturnal was easing him first one way, then the other.
    ‘Mr Edalji, you stated in your evidence that you woke at five and did not go back to sleep until you and your son rose at six thirty?’
    ‘Are you doubting my word?’
    Mr Disturnal did not exhibit pleasure at this response; but George knew that he would be feeling it.
    ‘No, I am merely asking for confirmation of what you have already said.’
    ‘Then I confirm it.’
    ‘You did not, perhaps, fall asleep again between five and six thirty and wake later?’
    ‘I have said not.’
    ‘Do you ever dream that you wake up?’
    ‘I do not follow you.’
    ‘Do you have dreams when you sleep?’
    ‘Yes. Sometimes.’
    ‘And do you sometimes dream that you wake up?’
    ‘I do not know. I cannot remember.’
    ‘But you accept that people do sometimes dream that they wake up?’
    ‘I had never thought about it. It does not seem important to me what other people dream.’
    ‘But you will accept my word that other people do have such dreams?’
    The Vicar now looked like some hermit in the desert being led into temptations whose nature he was quite unable to comprehend. ‘If you say so.’ George was equally baffled by Mr Disturnal’s procedure; but soon the prosecutor’s intention became clearer.
    ‘So you are as certain as you are reasonably able to be that you were awake between five and six thirty?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And so you are equally certain that you were asleep between the hours of eleven and five?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You do not remember waking in that period?’
    George’s father looked as if his word were being doubted again.
    ‘No.’
    Mr Disturnal nodded. ‘So you were asleep at one thirty, for instance. At –’ he seemed to pluck the time from the air ‘– at two thirty, for instance. At three thirty, for instance. Yes, thank you. Now, moving to another matter …’
    And so it went, on and on, with George’s father turning, before the court’s eyes, into a dotard as uncertain as he doubtless was honourable; a man whose peculiar attempts at domestic security could easily have been outwitted by his clever son who, shortly before, had been so confident in the witness box. Or perhaps something even worse: a father who, suspecting his son might possibly have had some involvement in the outrages, was anxiously but incompetently adjusting his evidence as he proceeded.
    Next came George’s mother, the more nervous for just having witnessed her husband’s unprecedented fallibility. After Mr Vachell had taken her through her evidence, Mr Disturnal, with a kind of idle civility, took her through it all again. He seemed only mildly interested in her replies; he was no longer the pitiless prosecutor, but rather the new neighbour dropping in for a polite tea.
    ‘You have always been proud of your son, Mrs Edalji?’
    ‘Oh yes, very proud.’
    ‘And he has always been a clever boy, and a clever young man?’
    ‘Oh, yes, very clever.’
    Mr Disturnal made an oleaginous pretence of deep concern for the distress Mrs Edalji must feel at finding herself and her son in their current circumstances.
    This was not a question, but George’s mother automatically took it as such, and began to praise her son. ‘He was always a studious boy. He gained many prizes at school. He studied at Mason College in Birmingham, and was a Law Society medallist. His book on railway law was very well received by many newspapers and law journals. It is published, you know, as one of the Wilson’s Legal Handy Books.’
    Mr Disturnal encouraged this effusion of maternal pride. He asked if there was anything else she would like to say.
    ‘I would.’ Mrs Edalji looked across at her son in the dock. ‘He has always been kind and dutiful to us, and from a child he was always kind to any dumb creature. It would have been impossible for him to maim or injure anything, even if we had not known he was not out of the house.’
    You would almost have thought Mr Disturnal was himself a son of hers from the way he thanked her; a son, that is, who was deeply indulgent towards the blind good-heartedness and naivety of his old white-headed mother.
    Maud was called next, to give her account of the state of George’s clothing. Her voice was steady, and her evidence lucid; even so, George felt petrified as Mr Disturnal rose, nodding to himself.
    ‘Your evidence, Miss Edalji, is exactly the same,