The lad’s cries brought a group of miners squelching across the field to examine the lengthy cut across the pony’s abdomen, and the churned mud beneath it spotted with red. Within the hour Campbell had arrived with half a dozen specials, and Mr. Lewis the veterinary surgeon had been sent for. Campbell asked who had been responsible for patrolling this sector. PC Cooper replied that he had passed the field at about eleven o’clock, and the animal had appeared to be all right. But the night was dark, and he had not got close to the pony.
It was the eighth case in six months, and the sixteenth animal to be mutilated. Campbell thought a little about the pony, and the affection even the roughest miners often displayed towards such beasts; he thought a little about Captain Anson and his concern for the honour of Staffordshire; but what was most in his head as he looked at the oozing slash and watched the pony stagger was the letter the Chief Constable had shown him. There will be merry times at Wyrley in November, he recalled. And then: for they will do twenty wenches like the horses before next March. And two other words: little girls.
Campbell was a capable officer, as Anson had said; he was dutiful and level-headed. He did not have preconceptions about a criminal type; nor was he given to over-hasty theorizing or self-indulgent intuition. Even so: the field in which the outrage had occurred lay directly between the Colliery and Wyrley. If you drew a straight line from the field to the village, the first house you would come to was the Vicarage. Common logic, as well as the Chief Constable, argued for a visit.
“Anyone here watching the Vicarage last night?”
Constable Judd identified himself, and talked rather too much about the devilish weather and the rain getting in his eyes, which may have meant that he had spent half the night sheltering under a tree. Campbell did not imagine policemen to be free of human failings. But in any case, Judd had seen no one come and no one go; the lights had been turned out at half past ten, as they invariably were. Still, it had been a wild old night of it, Inspector . . .
Campbell looked at the time: 7:15. He sent Markew, who knew the solicitor, to detain him at the station. He told Cooper and Judd to wait for the surgeon and keep away gawpers, then led Parsons and the remaining specials by the most direct route to the Vicarage. There were a couple of hedges to squeeze through, and the railway to cross by a subterranean passage, but they managed it without difficulty in under fifteen minutes. Well before eight o’clock Campbell had posted a constable at each corner of the house while he and Parsons made the knocker thunder. It was not just the twenty wenches; there was also the threat to shoot Robinson in the head with somebody’s gun.
The maid showed the two policemen into the kitchen, where the Vicar’s wife and daughter were finishing breakfast. To Parsons’ eye the mother looked scared and the half-caste daughter sickly.
“I should like to speak to your son George.”
The Vicar’s wife was thin and slightly built; most of her hair had gone white. She spoke quietly, with a pronounced Scottish accent. “He has already left for his office. He takes the seven thirty-nine. He is a solicitor in Birmingham.”
“I am aware of that, Madam. Then I must ask you to show me his clothing. All his clothing, without exception.”
“Maud, go and fetch your father.”
Parsons asked with a mere turn of the head whether he should follow the girl, but Campbell indicated not. A minute or so later the Vicar appeared: a short, powerful, light-skinned fellow with none of the oddities of his son. White-haired, but good-looking in a Hindoo sort of a way, Campbell thought.
The Inspector repeated his request.
“I must ask you what the subject of your inquiry is, and whether you have a search warrant.”
“A pit pony has been found . . .” Campbell hesitated briefly, given the presence of women, “. . . in a field nearby . . . someone has injured it.”
“And you suspect my son George of the deed.”
The mother put an arm around her daughter.
“Let us say that it would be very helpful to exclude him from the investigation if possible.” That old lie, Campbell thought, almost ashamed of bringing it out again.
“But you do not have a search warrant?”
“Not with me at the moment, sir.”
“Very well. Charlotte, show him George’s clothes.”
“Thank you. And you will not object, I take it, if I ask my constables to search the house and the immediate grounds.”
“Not if it helps exclude my son from your investigation.”
So far, so good, thought Campbell. In the slums of Birmingham, he’d have had the father going for him with a poker, the mother bawling, and the daughter trying to scratch his eyes out. Though in some ways that was easier, being almost an admission of guilt.
Campbell told his men to look out for any knives or razors, agricultural or horticultural implements that might have been used in the attack, then went upstairs with Parsons. The lawyer’s clothing was laid out on a bed, including, as had been requested, shirts and underlinen. It appeared clean, and dry to the touch.
“This is all his clothing?”
The mother paused before answering. “Yes,” she said. And then, after a few seconds, “Apart from what he has on.”
Well of course, thought Parsons, I didn’t believe he went to work naked. What a queer statement. “I need to see his knife,” he said casually.
“His knife?” She looked at him wonderingly. “You mean, the knife he eats with?”
“No, his knife. Every young man has a knife.”
“My son is a solicitor,” said the Vicar rather sharply. “He works in an office. He does not sit around whittling sticks.”
“I do not know how many times I have been told that your son is a solicitor. I am well aware of that. As I am of the fact that every young man has a knife.”
After some whispering, the daughter went away and returned with a short, stubby item which she handed over defiantly. “This is his botany spud,” she said.
Campbell saw at a glance that the item could not possibly have inflicted the sort of damage he had recently witnessed. Nevertheless, he pretended to considerable interest, taking the spud over to the window and turning it in the light.
“We’ve found these, sir.” A constable was holding out a case containing four razors. One of them seemed to be wet. Another had red stains on the back.
“Those are my razors,” said the Vicar quickly.
“One of them is wet.”
“No doubt because I shaved myself with it barely an hour ago.”
“And your son—what does he shave with?”
There was a pause. “One of these.”
“Ah. So they are not, strictly speaking, your razors, sir?”
“On the contrary. This has always been my set of razors. I have owned them for twenty years or more, and when it became time for my son to shave, I allowed him to use one.”
“Which he still does?”
“Yes.”
“You do not trust him with razors of his own?”
“He does not need razors of his own.”
“Now why should he not be allowed razors of his own?” Campbell aired it as a half-question, waiting to see if anyone chose to pick it up. No, he thought not. There was something slightly queer about the family, not that he could put his finger on it. They weren’t being uncooperative; but at the same time he felt them less than straightforward.
“He was out last night, your son.”
“Yes.”
“How long for?”
“I’m not really sure. An hour, perhaps more. Charlotte?”
Again, the wife seemed to take an unconscionable time considering a simple question. “One and a half, one and three-quarters,” she finally whispered.
Time enough and plenty to get to the field and back, as Campbell had just proved. “And when would this be?”
“Between about eight and nine thirty,” answered the Vicar, even though Parsons’ question had been addressed to
his wife. “He went to the bootmaker.”
“No, I meant after that.”
“After that, no.”
“But I asked if he went out in the night and you said that he did.”
“No, Inspector, you asked if he went out last night, not in the night.”
Campbell nodded. He was no fool, this clergyman. “Well, I should like to see his boots.”
“His boots?”
“Yes, the boots he went out in. And show me which trousers he was wearing.”
These were dry, but now that Campbell looked at them again, he saw black mud around the bottoms. The boots, when produced, were also encrusted with mud, and were still damp.
“I found this too, sir,” said the sergeant who brought the boots. “Feels damp to me.” He handed over a blue serge coat.
“Where did you find this?” The Inspector passed his hand over the coat. “Yes, it’s damp.”
“Hanging by the back door just above the boots.”
“Let me feel that,” said the Vicar. He ran a hand down a sleeve and said, “It’s dry.”
“It’s damp,” repeated Campbell, thinking, And what’s more, I’m a policeman. “So who does this belong to?”
“To George.”
“To George? I asked you to show me all his clothing. Without exception.”
“We did”—the mother this time. “All this is what I think of as his clothing. That’s just an old house-coat he never wears.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“Does anyone else wear it?”
“No.”
“How very mysterious. A coat that nobody wears yet which hangs usefully by the back door. Let me start again. This is your son’s coat. When did he last wear it?”
The parents looked at one another. Eventually the mother said, “I have no idea. It is too shabby for him to go out in, and he has no cause to wear it in the house. Perhaps he wore it for gardening.”
“Now let me see,” said Campbell, holding the coat to the window. “Yes, there’s a hair here. And . . . another. And . . . yes, another. Parsons?”
The Sergeant took a look and nodded.
“Let me see, Inspector.” The Vicar was allowed to inspect the coat. “That’s not a hair. I don’t see any hairs.”
Now mother and daughter joined in, tugging at the blue serge, like in a bazaar. He waved them away and laid the coat on a table. “There,” he said, pointing at the most obvious hair.
“That’s a roving,” said the daughter. “It’s not a hair, it’s a roving.”
“What’s a roving?”
“A thread, a loose thread. Anyone can see that, anyone who’s ever sewn anything.”
Campbell had never sewn in his life, but he could recognize panic in a young woman’s voice.
“And look at these stains, Sergeant.” On the right sleeve there were two separate patches, one whitish, one darkish. Neither he nor Parsons spoke, but they were each thinking the same. Whitish, the pony’s saliva; darkish, the pony’s blood.
“I told you, it’s just his old house-coat. He would never go out in it. Certainly not to the bootmaker’s.”
“Then why is it damp?”
“It’s not damp.”
The daughter came up with another explanation useful to her brother. “Perhaps it just feels damp to you because it was hanging by the back door.”
Unimpressed, Campbell gathered up the coat, the boots, the trousers and other clothing identified as having been worn the previous evening; he also took the razors. The family was instructed not to make contact with George until given police permission. He stationed one man outside the Vicarage, and ordered the others to quarter the grounds. Then he returned with Parsons to the field, where Mr. Lewis had completed his examination and sought leave to destroy the pony. The surgeon’s report would be with Campbell the following day. The Inspector asked him to cut a piece of skin from the dead animal. PC Cooper was to take this, along with the clothes, to Dr. Butter in Cannock.
At Wyrley station Markew reported that the lawyer had curtly refused his request to wait. Campbell and Parsons therefore took the first available train—the 9:53—into Birmingham.
“Strange family,” said the Inspector, as they were crossing the canal between Bloxwich and Walsall.
“Very strange.” The Sergeant chewed his lip for a while. “If you don’t mind my saying, sir, they seemed honest enough in themselves.”
“I know what you mean. It’s something the criminal classes would do well to study.”
“What’s that, sir?”
“Lying no more than you need to.”
“That’ll be the day.” Parsons chuckled. “Still, you have to feel sorry for them, in a way. Happening to that sort of family. A black sheep, if you’ll pardon the expression.”
“I certainly will.”
Shortly after eleven o’clock the two policemen presented themselves at 54 Newhall Street. It was a small, two-room office, with a woman secretary guarding the solicitor’s door. George Edalji sat passively behind his desk, looking ill.
Campbell, alert for any sudden movement from the man, said, “We don’t want to search you here, but you must let me have your pistol.”
Edalji looked at him blankly. “I have no pistol.”
“What’s that, then?” The Inspector gestured at a long, shiny object on the desk before him.
The solicitor sounded intensely weary as he spoke. “That, Inspector, is the key to the door of a railway carriage.”
“Just joking,” Campbell replied. But he was thinking: keys. The key to Walsall School all those years ago, and now here’s another one. There’s something very queer about this fellow.
“I use it as a paperweight,” the lawyer explained. “As you might have cause to recall, I am an authority on railway law.”
Campbell nodded. Then he cautioned the man and arrested him. In a cab on the way to the Newton Street lock-up, Edalji said to the officers, “I am not surprised at this. I have been expecting it for some time.”
Campbell glanced at Parsons, who made a contemporaneous note of these words.
George
At Newton Street they took away his money, his watch and a small pocket knife. They also attempted to take his handkerchief, in case he sought to strangle himself. George protested that it was quite inadequate to such a purpose, and was allowed to keep it.
They put him in a light, clean cell for an hour, then took him by the 12:40 from New Street to Cannock. Depart Walsall 1:08, George thought. Birchills 1:12. Bloxwich 1:16. Wyrley & Churchbridge 1:24. Cannock 1:29. The two policemen said they would not restrain him on the journey, for which George was grateful. Even so, when the train pulled in to Wyrley, he lowered his head and raised a hand to his cheek in case Mr. Merriman or the porter spotted the Sergeant’s uniform and spread the news.
At Cannock he was driven in a trap to the police station. There his height was measured and his particulars taken. His clothing was examined for bloodstains. An officer asked him to remove his cuffs and then inspected his wristbands. He said, “Did you wear this shirt in the field last night? You must have changed it. There’s no blood on it.”
George did not answer. He saw no point in doing so. If he replied No to the question, the officer would come back with, “So you admit being in the field last night. What shirt did you wear?” George felt that he had been entirely cooperative so far; he would henceforth give sufficient answers to questions that were necessary and not leading.
They put him in a tiny cell with little light and less air, and which smelt of a public convenience. It lacked even water for washing purposes. They had taken his watch but he imagined it to be about half past two. A fortnight ago, he thought, just a fortnight ago, Maud and I had finished our roast chicken and apple pie at the Belle Vue, and were walking along Marine Terrace towards the Castle Grounds, where I made a light remark about the Sale of Goods Act and a passer-by attempted to point out Snowdon. Now he sat on a low bed in a police cel
l, taking the shortest breaths he could, and waiting for the next thing to happen. After a couple of hours he was brought to the interview room where Campbell and Parsons awaited him.
“So, Mr. Edalji, you know what we’re here for.”
“I know what you’re here for. And it’s Aydlji, not Ee-dal-ji.”
Campbell ignored this. He thought: I’ll call you what I like from now on, Mr. Solicitor. “And you understand your legal rights?”
“I think I do, Inspector. I understand the rules of police procedure. I understand the laws of evidence, and the right of the accused to remain silent. I understand the redress available in cases of wrongful arrest and false imprisonment. I understand, for that matter, the laws of defamation. And I also know how soon you must charge me, and how soon after that you must bring me before the magistrates.”
Campbell had been expecting some show of defiance; although not of the normal kind, which often required a sergeant and several constables to subdue.
“Well, that makes it easier for us too. You’ll doubtless inform us if we step out of line. So, you know why you’re here.”
“I am here because you have arrested me.”
“Mr. Edalji, there’s no point in being clever with me. I’ve dealt with far harder cases than you. Now, tell me why you’re here.”
“Inspector, I do not intend to answer the sort of general remarks you doubtless employ when seeking to gull common criminals. Nor do I intend to respond if you set off on what our judiciary would dismiss as a fishing expedition. I shall answer, as truthfully as I can, any specific and relevant questions you choose to ask.”
“That’s very good of you. Then tell me about the Captain.”
“What Captain?”
“You tell me.”
“I don’t know anyone called the Captain. Unless you mean Captain Anson.”
“Don’t try impertinence with me, George. We know you visit the Captain at Northfield.”