“I have never been to Northfield in my life, as far as I am aware. On what dates am I supposed to have visited Northfield?”
“Tell me about the Great Wyrley gang.”
“The Great Wyrley gang? Now
you
are talking like a shilling shocker, Inspector. I have never heard anyone speak of such a gang.”
“When did you meet Shipton?”
“I know no one called Shipton.”
“When did you meet Lee the porter?”
“The porter? A station porter, do you mean?”
“Let’s call him a station porter, if that’s what you’re telling me.”
“I know no porters called Lee. Though for all I know I may have greeted porters not knowing their names, and one of them might have been called Lee. The porter at Wyrley & Churchbridge is called Janes.”
“When did you meet William Greatorex?”
“I know no one . . . Greatorex? That boy on the train? The one who goes to Walsall Grammar School? What’s he got to do with this?”
“You tell me.”
Silence.
“So are Shipton and Lee members of the Great Wyrley gang?”
“Inspector, my answer to that is fully implied in my previous answers. Please do not insult my intelligence.”
“Your intelligence is important to you, isn’t it, Mr. Edalji?”
Silence.
“It’s important to you to be more intelligent than other people, isn’t it?”
Silence.
“And to demonstrate that greater intelligence.”
Silence.
“Are you the Captain?”
Silence.
“Tell me exactly what your movements were yesterday.”
“Yesterday. I went to work as usual. I was at my office at Newhall Street all day, except for when I ate my sandwiches in St. Philip’s Place. I returned as usual, about six thirty. I transacted some business—”
“What business?”
“Some legal business I had brought from the office. The conveyancing of a small property.”
“And then?”
“Then I left the house and walked to see Mr. Hands the bootmaker.”
“Why?”
“Because he is making me a pair of boots.”
“Is Hands in on this too?”
Silence.
“And?”
“And I talked to him while he made a fitting. Then I walked around for a while. Then I returned shortly before nine thirty for my supper.”
“Where did you walk?”
“Around. Around the lanes. I walk every day. I never really pay attention.”
“So you walked over towards the Colliery?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Come on, George, you can do better than this. You said you walked in every direction but you didn’t remember which. One of the directions from Wyrley is towards the Colliery. Why wouldn’t you walk in that direction?”
“If you will give me a moment.” George pressed his fingers to his forehead. “I remember now. I walked along the road to Churchbridge. Then I turned right towards Watling Street Road, then to Walk Mill, then along the road as far as Green’s farm.”
Campbell thought this very impressive for someone who didn’t remember where he walked. “And who did you meet at Green’s farm?”
“No one. I didn’t go in. I don’t know those people.”
“And who did you meet on your walk?”
“Mr. Hands.”
“No. You met Mr. Hands before your walk.”
“I’m not sure. Did you not have one of your special constables following me? You need only consult the man to get a full account of my movements.”
“Oh, I will, I will. And not just him either. So then you had your supper. And then you went out again.”
“No. After supper I went to bed.”
“And then got up later and went out?”
“No, I have told you when I went out.”
“What were you wearing?”
“What was I wearing? Boots, trousers, jacket, overcoat.”
“What sort of coat?”
“Blue serge.”
“The one that hangs by the kitchen door where you leave your boots?”
George frowned. “No, that’s an old house-coat. I wore one I keep on the hall stand.”
“Then why was your coat by the back door damp?”
“I have no idea. I haven’t touched that coat for weeks, if not months.”
“You wore it last night. We can prove it.”
“Then this is clearly a matter for the court.”
“The clothes you were wearing last night had animal hairs on them.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Are you calling your mother a liar?”
Silence.
“We asked your mother to show us the clothes you were wearing last night. She did so. Some of them had animal hairs on them. How do you explain that?”
“Well, I do live in the country, Inspector. For my sins.”
“For your sins? But you don’t milk cows and shoe horses, do you?”
“That is self-evident. Perhaps I leaned on a gate into a field which had cows in it.”
“It rained last night and your boots were wet this morning.”
Silence.
“That is a question, Mr. Edalji.”
“No, Inspector, that is a tendentious statement. You have examined my boots. If they were wet, it does not surprise me. The lanes are wet at this time of year.”
“But the fields are wetter, and it rained last night.”
Silence.
“So you are denying that you left the Vicarage between the hours of nine thirty p.m. and daybreak?”
“Later than daybreak. I leave the house at seven twenty.”
“But you cannot possibly prove that.”
“On the contrary. My father and I sleep in the same room. Each night he locks the door.”
The Inspector stopped in his tracks. He looked across at Parsons, who was still writing the last words down. He’d heard some jerry-built alibis in his time, but really . . . “I’m sorry, but could you repeat what you just said.”
“My father and I sleep in the same room. Each night he locks the door.”
“How long has this . . . arrangement been going on?”
“Since I was ten.”
“And you are now?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“I see.” Campbell doesn’t see at all. “And your father—when he locks the door—you know where he puts the key?”
“He doesn’t put it anywhere. He leaves it in the lock.”
“So it is perfectly easy for you to leave the room?”
“I have no need to leave the room.”
“Call of nature?”
“There is a pot beneath my bed. But I never use it.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“Very well. The key is always in the lock. So you would not have to go hunting for it?”
“My father is a very light sleeper, and is currently suffering from lumbago. He wakes very easily. The key makes a very loud squeak when it turns.”
It was all Campbell could do not to laugh in the man’s face. Who did he take them for?
“That all seems remarkably convenient, if you don’t mind my saying, sir. Have you never thought of oiling the lock?”
Silence.
“How many razors do you own?”
“How many razors? I don’t own a razor.”
“But you do shave, I presume?”
“I shave with one of my father’s.”
“Why are you not trusted with your own razor?”
Silence.
“How old are you, Mr. Edalji?”
“I have already answered that question three times today. I suggest you consult your notes.”
“A twenty-seven-year-old man who is not allowed a razor and is locked in his bedroom every night by his father who is a light sleeper. You realize what an exceptionally rare individual you are?”
Silence.
“Exceptionally rare, I’d say. And . . . tell me about animals.”
“That’s not a question, that’s a fishing expedition.” George realized the incongruity of his reply, and couldn’t help smiling.
“My apologies.” The Inspector was becoming increasingly riled. He’d gone easy on the man so far. Well, it wouldn’t take much to turn a conceited lawyer into a snivelling schoolboy. “Here is a question, then. What do you think about animals? Do you like them?”
“What do I think about animals? Do I like them? No, generally, I do not like them.”
“I might have guessed that.”
“No, Inspector, let me explain.” George had sensed a hardening in Campbell’s attitude, and thought it good tactics to relax his rules of engagement. “When I was four, I was taken to see a cow. It soiled itself. That is almost my first memory.”
“Of a cow soiling itself?”
“Yes. I think from that day I have distrusted animals.”
“Distrusted?”
“Yes. What they might do. They are unreliable.”
“I see. And that is your first memory, you say?”
“Yes.”
“And since then you have distrusted animals. All animals.”
“Well, not the cat we have at home. Or Aunt Stoneham’s dog. I am very fond of them.”
“I see. But large animals. Like cows.”
“Yes.”
“Horses?”
“Horses are unreliable, yes.”
“Sheep?”
“Sheep are just stupid.”
“Blackbirds?” asks Sergeant Parsons. It is the first word he has spoken.
“Blackbirds are not animals.”
“Monkeys?”
“There are no monkeys in Staffordshire.”
“Quite sure of that, are we?”
George feels his anger rising. He deliberately waits before replying. “Inspector, may I say that your Sergeant’s tactics are quite misconceived.”
“Oh, I don’t think that was tactics, Mr. Edalji. Sergeant Parsons is a good friend of Sergeant Robinson at Hednesford. Someone has threatened to shoot Sergeant Robinson in the head.”
Silence.
“Someone has also threatened to slice up twenty wenches in the village where you live.”
Silence.
“Well, he doesn’t seem shocked by either of those statements, Sergeant. They can’t have come as much of a surprise, then.”
Silence. George thought: it was a mistake to give him anything. Anything that isn’t a straight answer to a straight question is giving him something. So don’t.
The Inspector consulted a notebook in front of him. “When we arrested you, you said, ‘I am not surprised at this. I have been expecting it for some time.’ What did you mean by that?”
“I meant what I said.”
“Well, let me tell you what I understood by what you said, and what the Sergeant understood by what you said, and what the man on the Clapham omnibus would understand by it. That at last you have been caught, and that you are rather relieved to be caught.”
Silence.
“So why do you think you are here?”
Silence.
“Perhaps you think it’s because your father is a Hindoo.”
“My father is actually a Parsee.”
“Your boots have mud on them.”
Silence.
“Your razor has blood on it.”
Silence.
“Your coat has horse hairs on it.”
Silence.
“You were not surprised to be arrested.”
Silence.
“I don’t think any of that has anything to do with whether your father is a Hindoo or a Parsee or a Hottentot.”
Silence.
“Well, he seems to have run out of words, Sergeant. He must be saving them for the Cannock magistrates.”
George was taken back to his cell where a plate of cold mess awaited him. He ignored it. Every twenty minutes, he heard the scrape of the spy hole; every hour—or so he guessed—the door was unlocked and a constable inspected him.
On his second visit, the policeman, evidently speaking to a script, said, “Well, Mr. Edalji, I’m sorry to see you here, but how did you manage to slip by all our chaps? What time did you put the horse through it?”
George had never met the constable before, so the expression of sympathy made little impact, and did not draw any reply.
An hour later, the policeman said, “My advice, sir, frankly, is to give the show away. Because if you don’t, someone else is bound to.”
On the fourth visit, George asked if these constant checks would continue through the night.
“Orders is orders.”
“And your orders are to keep me awake?”
“Oh no, sir. Our orders is to keep you alive. It’s my neck if you do any harm to yourself.” George realized that no protest of his could stop the hourly interruptions. The constable continued, “Of course, it would be easier for all concerned, yourself included, if you were to commit yourself.”
“Commit myself? Where to?”
The constable shuffled slightly. “To a place of safety.”
“Oh, I see,” said George, his temper suddenly returning. “You want me to say I am loony.” He used the word deliberately, in the full memory of his father’s disapproval.
“It’s often easier on the family all round. Think about it, sir. Think about how it will affect your parents. I understand they’re a bit elderly.”
The cell door closed. George lay on his bed too exhausted and angry to sleep. His mind raced to the Vicarage, to the knock on the door and the house full of policemen. His father, his mother, Maud. His office at Newhall Street, now locked and deserted, his secretary sent home until further notice. His brother Horace opening a newspaper the next morning. His fellow solicitors in Birmingham telephoning one another with the news.
But beneath the exhaustion, the anger and the fear, George discovered another emotion: relief. It had come at last to this: then so much the better. There had been little he could do against the hoaxers and persecutors and writers of anonymous filth; and not much more when the police were blundering away—except offer them sensible advice they had contemptuously refused. But those tormenters and these blunderers had delivered him to a place of safety: to his second home, the laws of England. He knew where he was now. Though his work rarely took him to a courtroom, he knew it as part of his natural territory. He had sat in on cases enough times to have seen members of the public, dry-mouthed with panic, scarcely able to give evidence when faced with the solemn splendour of the law. He had seen policemen, at first all brass buttons and self-assurance, be reduced to lying fools by a half-decent defence counsel. And he had observed—no, not just observed, sensed, almost been able to touch—those unseen, unbreakable strands which linked everyone whose business was the law. Judges, magistrates, barristers, solicitors, clerks, ushers: this was their kingdom, where they spoke to one another in a
lingua franca
others could often barely comprehend.
Of course it would not get as far as judges and barristers. The police had no evidence against him, and he had the clearest proof of an alibi it was possible to have. A clergyman of the Church of England would swear on the Holy Bible that his son had been fast asleep in a locked bedroom at the time when the crime was being committed. Whereupon the magistrates would take one look at each other and not even bother to retire. Inspector Campbell would be on the receiving end of a sharp rebuke and that would be that. Naturally, he needed to engage the right solicitor, and he thought Mr. Litchfield Meek the man for the job. Case dismissed, costs awarded, released without a stain on his character, police heavily criticized.