The next day, a postcard is delivered to Newhall Street. It is a vile effusion accusing him of having guilty relations with a woman in Cannock: 'Sir. Do you think it seemly for one in your position to be having connection with ____________________ ____________________'s sister every night seeing she is going to marry Frank Smith the Socialist?' Needless to say, he has heard of neither party. He looks at the postmark: Wolverhampton 12.30 p.m. Aug 4, 1903. This disgusting libel was being thought up just as he and Maud were sitting down to lunch at the Belle Vue Hotel.

The postcard throws him into envious thoughts of Horace, now a happy-go-lucky penpusher with the Income Tax in Manchester. Horace seems to glide through life unscathed; he goes from day to day, his ambition amounting to no more than a slow climb of the ladder, his contentment deriving from female companionship, about which he drops unsubtle hints. Most of all, Horace has escaped Great Wyrley. George as never before feels it a curse to be the first-born, and to have expectations placed upon him; also a curse to have been given more intelligence and less self-confidence than his brother. Horace has every reason to doubt himself, but doesn't; George, despite his academic success and professional qualifications, is blighted by shyness. When he is behind a desk, explaining the law, he can be clear and even assertive. But he has no ability to talk lightly or superficially; he does not know how to put people at their ease; he is aware that some consider him odd-looking.

On Monday 17th August 1903, George takes the 7.39 to New Street, as normal; he returns by the 5.25, as normal, reaching the Vicarage shortly before half past six. He works for a while, then puts on a coat and walks to see the bootmaker, Mr John Hands. He returns to the Vicarage just before 9.30, eats supper, and retires to the room where he sleeps with his father. The Vicarage doors are locked and bolted, the bedroom door is locked, and George sleeps as interruptedly as he has done in recent weeks. The next morning he is awake at 6, the bedroom door is unlocked at 6.40, and he catches the 7.39 to New Street.

He does not realize that these are the last normal twenty-four hours of his life.

Campbell

It rained heavily on the night of the 17th, with the wind coming in squalls. But by dawn it had cleared, and as the miners set off for the early shift at Great Wyrley Colliery there was a freshness in the air that comes after summer rain. A pit lad named Henry Garrett was passing a field on his way to work when he noticed one of the Colliery's ponies in a state of distress. Drawing nearer, he saw that it was barely able to stand, and dropping blood fast.

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.