Arthur & George (14 page)

He is also beginning to realize that he understands the world a little better than his parents. He may be only twenty-seven, but the working life of a Birmingham solicitor offers insights into human nature which may be unavailable to a country Vicar. So when his father suggests complaining once more to the Chief Constable, George disagrees. Anson was against them on the previous occasion; the man to address is the Inspector charged with the investigation.

“I shall write to him,” says Shapurji.

“No, Father, I think that is my task. And I shall go to see him by myself. If we both went, he might feel it as a delegation.”

The Vicar is taken aback, but pleased. He likes these assertions of manliness in his son, and lets him have his way.

George writes to request an interview—preferably not at the Vicarage but at a police station of the Inspector’s choice. This strikes Campbell as a little strange. He nominates Hednesford, and asks Sergeant Parsons to attend.

“Thank you for seeing me, Inspector. I am grateful for your time. I have three items on my agenda. But first, I would like you to accept this.”

Campbell is a ginger-haired, camel-headed, long-backed man of about forty, who seems even taller sitting down than standing up. He reaches across the table and examines his present: a copy of
Railway Law for the “Man in the Train.”
He flicks slowly through a few pages.

“The two hundred and thirty-eighth copy,” says George. It comes out sounding vainer than he means.

“Very kind of you, sir, but I’m afraid police regulations forbid the accepting of gifts from the general public.” Campbell slides the book back across the desk.

“Oh it’s hardly a bribe, Inspector,” says George lightly. “Can you not regard it as . . . an addition to the library?”

“The library. Do we have a library, Sergeant?”

“Well, we could always start one, sir.”

“Then in that case, Mr. Edalji, count me grateful.”

George half-wonders if they are making fun of him.

“It is pronounced
Ay
dlji. Not Ee-dal-ji.”

“Aydlji.” The Inspector makes a rough stab, and pulls a face. “If you don’t mind, I’ll settle for calling you ‘sir.’ ”

George clears his throat. “The first item on the agenda is this.” He produces the letter from “A Lover of Justice.” “There have been five others addressed to my place of business.”

Campbell reads it, passes it to the Sergeant, takes it back, reads it again. He wonders if this is a letter of denunciation or support. Or the former disguised as the latter. If it is a denunciation, why would anyone bring it to the police? If it is support, then why bring it unless you have already been accused? Campbell finds George’s motive almost as interesting as the letter itself.

“Any idea who it’s from?”

“It’s unsigned.”

“I can see that, sir. May I ask if you intend to take the fellow’s advice?
Go away for your holiday
?”

“Really, Inspector, that seems to be getting hold of the wrong end of the stick. Do you not regard this letter as a criminal libel?”

“I don’t know sir, to be honest. It’s lawyers like yourself that decide what’s the law and what isn’t. From a police point of view, I would say someone was having a lark at your expense.”

“A lark? Do you not think that if this letter were broadcast, with the allegation he pretends to be denying, that I would not be in danger from local farm-hands and miners?”

“I don’t know, sir. All I can say is, I can’t remember an anonymous letter giving rise to an assault in this district since I’ve been here. Can you, Parsons?” The Sergeant shakes his head. “Now what do you make of this phrase, towards the middle . . .
they do not think you are a right sort
?”

“What do you make of it yourself?”

“Well, you see, it’s not anything that’s ever been said to me.”

“Very well, Inspector, what I ‘make’ of it is that it is almost certainly a reference to the fact that my father is of Parsee origin.”

“Yes, I suppose it could refer to that.” Campbell bends his ginger head over the letter again, as if scrutinizing it for further meaning. He is trying to make his mind up about this man and his grievance; whether he is a straightforward complainant, or something more complicated.

“Could? Could? What else might it mean?”

“Well, it might mean that you don’t fit in.”

“You mean, I do not play in the Great Wyrley cricket team?”

“Do you not, sir?”

George can feel his exasperation rising. “Nor for that matter do I patronize public houses.”

“Do you not, sir?”

“Nor for that matter do I smoke tobacco.”

“Do you not sir? Well, we’ll have to wait and ask the letter writer what he meant by it. If and when we catch him. You said there was something else?”

The second item on George’s agenda is to register a complaint against Sergeant Upton, both for his manner and his insinuations. Except that, when repeated back by the Inspector, they somehow cease to be insinuations. Campbell turns them into the plodding remarks of a not very bright member of the Constabulary to a rather pompous and over-sensitive complainant.

George is now in some disarray. He came expecting gratitude for the book, shock at the letter, interest in his predicament. The Inspector has been correct, yet slow; his studied politeness strikes George as a kind of rudeness. Well, he must press on to his third item nevertheless.

“I have a suggestion. For your enquiry.” George pauses, as he planned to, in order to command their full attention. “Bloodhounds.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Bloodhounds. They have, as I am sure you are aware, an excellent sense of smell. Were you to acquire a pair of trained bloodhounds, they would surely lead you from the scene of the next mutilation directly to the criminal. They can follow a scent with uncanny precision, and in this district there are no large streams or rivers into which the criminal might wade to confuse them.”

The Staffordshire Constabulary appears unused to practical suggestions from members of the public.

“Bloodhounds,” Campbell repeats. “Indeed, a pair of them. It sounds like something out of a shilling shocker. ‘Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!’ ” Then Parsons starts chuckling, and Campbell does not order him to be silent.

It has all gone horribly wrong, especially this last part, which George has thought up on his own account, and not even discussed with Father. He is downcast. As he leaves the station, the two policemen stand on the step watching him go. He hears the Sergeant observe, in a voice that carries, “Maybe we could keep the bloodhounds in the library.”

The words seem to accompany him all the way back to the Vicarage, where he gives his parents an abbreviated account of the meeting. He decides that if the police decline his suggestions, he will help them even so. He places an advertisement in the
Lichfield Mercury
and other newspapers describing the renewed campaign of letters, and offering a reward of £25 to be paid in the event of criminal conviction. He remembers that his father’s advertisement all those years ago merely had an inflammatory effect; but he hopes that this time the offer of money will produce results. He states that he is a solicitor-at-law.

Campbell

Five days later, the Inspector was summoned back to Green Hall. This time he found himself less shy of looking around. He noticed a long-case clock displaying the cycles of the moon, a mezzotint of a biblical scene, a fading Turkey rug, and a fireplace crammed with logs in anticipation of autumn. In the study he was less alarmed by the glassy-eyed moose, and registered leather-bound volumes of
The Field
and
Punch.
The sideboard held a large stuffed fish in a glass case, and a three-decanter tantalus.

Captain Anson waved Campbell to a chair and remained standing himself: a trick of small men in the presence of taller ones, as the Inspector well knew. But he had no time to reflect on the stratagems of authority. The mood this time was not genial.

“Our man has now started taunting us. These Greatorex letters. How many have we had so far?”

“Five, sir.”

“And this came for Mr. Rowley at Bridgetown station last evening.” Anson put on his spectacles and began to read:

Sir, A party whose initials you’ll guess will be bringing a new hook home by the train from Walsall on Wednesday night, and he will have it in his special pocket under his coat, and if you or your pals can get his coat pulled aside a bit you’ll get sight of it, as it’s an inch and a half longer than the one he threw out of sight when he heard someone a sloping it after him this morning. He will come by that after five or six, or if he don’t come home tomorrow he is sure on Thursday, and you have made a mistake not keeping all the plain clothes men at hand. You sent them away too soon. Why, just think, he did it close where two of them were hiding only a few days gone by. But sir, he has got eagle eyes, and his ears is as sharp as a razor, and he is as fleet of foot as a fox, and as noiseless, and he crawls up on all fours to the poor beasts, and fondles them a bit, and then he pulls his hook smart across ’em, and out their entrails fly, before they guess they are hurt. You want 100 detectives, to run him in red-handed, because he is so fly, and knows every nook and corner. You know who it is, and I can prove it; but until £100 reward is offered for a conviction, I shan’t split no more.

Anson looked at Campbell, inviting comment. “None of my men saw anything thrown away, sir. And nothing resembling a hook has been found. He may or may not mutilate animals like that, but the entrails do not fly out, as we know. Do you want me to watch the Walsall trains?”

“I hardly think that after this letter some fellow is going to turn up in a long overcoat in the middle of summer, inviting to be searched.”

“No, sir. Do you think the £100 requested is a deliberate response to the lawyer’s offer of a reward?”

“Possibly. That was a gross piece of impertinence.” Anson paused, and picked another sheet of paper from his desk. “But the other letter—to Sergeant Robinson at Hednesford—is worse. Well, judge for yourself.” Anson handed it over.

There will be merry times at Wyrley in November, when they start on little girls, for they will do twenty wenches like the horses before next March. Don’t think you are likely to catch them cutting the beasts; they are too quiet, and lie low for hours, till your men have gone . . . Mr. Edalji, him they said was locked up, is going to Brum on Sunday night to see the Captain, near Northfield, about how it’s to be carried on with so many detectives about, and I believe they are going to do some cows in the daytime instead of at night . . . I think they are going to kill beasts nearer here soon, and I know Cross Keys Farm and West Cannock Farm are the first two on the list . . . You bloated blackguard, I will shoot you with your father’s gun through your thick head if you come in my way or go sneaking to any of my pals.

“That’s bad, sir. That’s very bad. This’d better not get out. There’ll be panic in every village. Twenty wenches . . . People are worried enough for their livestock as it is.”

“You have children, Campbell?”

“A boy. And a little girl.”

“Yes. The only good thing in this letter is the threat to shoot Sergeant Robinson.”

“That’s a good thing, sir?”

“Oh, maybe not for Sergeant Robinson himself. But it means our man has overstepped himself. Threatening to murder a police officer. Put that on the indictment and we’ll be able to get penal servitude for life.”

If we can find the letter writer, thought Campbell. “Northfield, Hednesford, Walsall—he’s trying to send us in all directions.”

“No doubt. Inspector, let me summarize, if you have no objection, and you tell me if you disagree with my thinking.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, you are a capable officer—no, don’t disagree already.” Anson gave the slightest smile he had in his repertoire. “You are a very capable officer. But this investigation is now three and a half months old, including three weeks with twenty specials under your command. No one has been charged, no one arrested, no one even seriously taken aside and looked over. And the mutilations have continued. Agreed?”

“Agreed, sir.”

“Local cooperation, which I am aware you compare unfavourably with what you experienced in the great city of Birmingham, has been better than usual. There is, for once, a wider interest than normal in aiding the Constabulary. But the best suspicions we have obtained so far have come in anonymous denunciations. This mysterious ‘Captain,’ for example, who lives so inconveniently on the other side of Birmingham. Should we be tempted by him? I think not. What possible interest might some Captain miles away have in mutilating animals belonging to people he has never met? Though it would be poor detective work not to take a visit to Northfield.”

“Agreed.”

“So we are looking for local people, as we have always assumed. Or a local person. I favour the notion of more than one. Three or four, perhaps. It makes more sense. I would imagine one letter writer, one postboy to travel to different towns, one person skilled at handling animals, and one planner to guide them all. A gang, in other words. Whose members have no love for the police. Indeed, take pleasure in trying to mislead us. Who like to boast.

“They name names to confuse us. Of course. But even so, one name comes up again and again. Edalji. Edalji who is going to meet the Captain. Edalji who they said was locked up. Edalji the lawyer is in the gang. I have always had my suspicions, but so far have felt it proper to keep them to myself. I told you to look up the files. There was a campaign of letter-writing before, mainly against the father. Pranks, hoaxes, petty theft. We nearly got him at the time. Eventually I gave the Vicar a pretty heavy warning that we knew who was behind it, and not long afterwards it stopped. QED, you might say, though regrettably not enough to convict. Still, if he didn’t own up, at least I put a stop to it. For—what?—seven, eight years.

“Now it’s started again, and in the same place. And Edalji’s name keeps coming up. That first Greatorex letter mentions three names, but the only one of them the lad himself knows is Edalji. Therefore, Edalji knows Greatorex. And he did the same the first time round—included himself in the denunciations. Only this time he’s older, and not satisfied with catching blackbirds and wringing their necks. This time he’s after bigger things, literally. Cows, horses. And not being much of a physical specimen himself, he recruits others to help him do the work. And now he’s raising the stakes, and threatens us with twenty wenches. Twenty wenches, Campbell.”