This was where he was placed on the morning of September 3rd; he felt himself observed from all quarters, uncertain whether his position made him look more like the classroom scholar or its dunce. Inspector Campbell gave evidence at length, but departed little from what he had previously said. The first new police testimony came from Constable Cooper, who described how in the hours after the discovery of the injured animal he had taken possession of one of the prisoner's boots, which had a peculiarly worn-down heel. This he had compared with footprints in the field where the pony was found, and also with marks close to a wooden footbridge near the Vicarage. He had pressed Mr Edalji's boot-heel down into the wet earth and found, when he withdrew the boot, that the prints matched.

Sergeant Parsons then agreed that he was in charge of the band of twenty special constables deployed to pursue the gang of mutilators. He told how a search of Edalji's bedroom had disclosed a case of four razors. One of them had wet, brown stains on it, and one or two hairs adhering to the blade. The Sergeant had pointed this out to Edalji's father, who had commenced wiping the blade with his thumb.

'That's not true!' shouted the Vicar, rising to his feet.

'You must not interrupt,' said Inspector Campbell, before the magistrates could respond.

Sergeant Parsons continued with his evidence, and described the moment when the prisoner was put into the Newton Street lock-up in Birmingham. Edalji had turned to him and said, 'This is a bit of Mr Loxton's work, I suppose. I'll make him sit up before I am done.'

The next morning, the Birmingham Daily Gazette wrote of George:

He is 28 years of age but looks younger. He was dressed in a shrunken black and white check suit, and there was little of the typical solicitor in his swarthy face, with its full, dark eyes, prominent mouth, and small round chin. His appearance is essentially Oriental in its stolidity, no sign of emotion escaping him beyond a faint smile as the extraordinary story of the prosecution unfolded. His aged Hindoo father and his white-haired English mother were in court, and followed the proceedings with pathetic interest.

'I am twenty-eight but look younger,' he remarked to Mr Meek. 'Perhaps that is because I am twenty-seven. My mother is not English, she is Scottish. My father is not a Hindoo.'

'I warned you against reading the newspapers.'

'But he is not a Hindoo.'

'It's near enough for the Gazette.'

'But Mr Meek, what if I said you were a Welshman?'

'I would not hold you inaccurate, as my mother had Welsh blood.'

'Or an Irishman?'

Mr Meek smiled back at him, unoffended, perhaps even looking a little Irish.

'Or a Frenchman?'

'Now there, sir, you go too far. There you provoke me.'

'And I am stolid,' George continued, looking down at the Gazette again. 'Isn't that a good thing to be? Isn't stolid what a typical solicitor is meant to be? And yet I am not a typical solicitor. I am a typical Oriental, whatever that means. Whatever I am, I am typical, isn't that it? If I were excitable, I would still be a typical Oriental, wouldn't I?'

'Stolid is good, Mr Edalji. And at least they didn't call you inscrutable. Or wily.'

'What would that signify?'

'Oh, full of devilish low cunning. We like to avoid devilish. Also diabolical. The defence will settle for stolid.'

George smiled at his solicitor. 'I do apologize, Mr Meek. And I thank you for your good sense. I am likely to need more of it, I fear.'

On the second day of the proceedings, William Greatorex, a fourteen-year-old scholar of Walsall Grammar School, gave evidence. Numerous letters written over his signature were read out in court. He denied both authorship and knowledge of them, and could even show that he had been in the Isle of Man when two of them had been posted. He said that it was his custom to take the train every morning from Hednesford to Walsall, where he was at school. Other boys who generally travelled with him were Westwood Stanley, son of the well-known miners' agent; Quibell, son of the Vicar of Hednesford; Page, Harrison and Ferriday. The names of all these boys were mentioned in the letters which had just been read out.

Greatorex stated that he had known Mr Edalji by sight for three or four years. 'He has often travelled to Walsall in the same compartment as us boys. Quite a dozen times, I should think.' He was asked when was the last time the prisoner had travelled with him. 'The morning after two of Mr Blewitt's horses were killed. It was June 30, I think. We could see the horses lying in the field as we went by in the train.' The witness was asked if Mr Edalji had said anything to him that morning. 'Yes, he asked me if the horses that had been killed belonged to Blewitt. Then he looked out of the window.' The witness was asked if there had been any previous conversation with the prisoner about the maimings. 'No, no, never,' he replied.

Thomas Henry Gurrin agreed that he was a handwriting expert of many years' standing. He gave his report on the letters that had been read out in court. In the disguised writing he found a number of peculiarities very strongly marked. Exactly the same peculiarities were found in the letters of Mr Edalji, which had been handed to him for comparison.

Dr Butter, the police surgeon, who had examined the stains on Edalji's clothing, stated that he had performed tests which revealed traces of mammalian blood. On the coat and waistcoat he found twenty-nine short, brown hairs. These he compared with hairs on the skin of a Colliery pony maimed the evening before Mr Edalji was arrested. Under the microscope they were found to be similar.

Mr Gripton, who was keeping company with a young lady near Coppice Lane, Great Wyrley, on the night in question, gave evidence that he saw Mr Edalji, and passed him at about nine o'clock. Mr Gripton was not quite certain of the spot.

'Well,' asked the police solicitor, 'give us the name of the nearest public house to the place you saw him.'

'The old police station,' replied Mr Gripton cheerily.

The police sternly stopped the laughter which greeted this remark.

Miss Biddle, who wished to make it clear that she was engaged to Mr Gripton, had also seen Mr Edalji; so had a number of other witnesses.

Details of the mutilation were given: the wound to the Colliery Company's pony was described as being of fifteen inches in length.

The prisoner's father, the Hindoo Vicar of Great Wyrley, also gave evidence.

The prisoner stated: 'I am perfectly innocent of the charge, and reserve my defence.'

On Friday 4th September, George Edalji was committed for trial at the Stafford Court of Quarter Sessions on two counts. Next morning, he read in the Birmingham Daily Gazette:

Edalji looked fresh and cheerful, and, sitting in his chair in the middle of the court, he conversed briskly with his solicitor with a keen discrimination of evidence, proceeding from thorough legal training. Mostly, however, he sat with arms folded and legs crossed, watching the witnesses with stolid interest, one boot raised and exhibiting plainly to the spectator the curious wearing down of one heel, which is one of the strongest links in the chain of circumstantial evidence against him.

George was glad still to be regarded as stolid, and wondered if he could effect a change of footwear before the Court of Quarter Sessions.

He also noted another newspaper's description of William Greatorex as 'a healthy young English boy, with a frank, sunburnt face, and a pleasing manner'.

Mr Litchfield Meek was confident of an eventual acquittal.

Miss Sophie Frances Hickman, the lady surgeon, was still missing.