'Is what a recent development?'

'The key squeaking in the lock.' The prosecuting counsel's attitude was one of helping an old man over a stile. 'Has it always done this?'

'For as long as I can remember.'

Mr Disturnal smiled at the Vicar. George did not like the look of that smile. 'And – in all this time – as long as you can remember – no one has ever thought to oil the lock?'

'No.'

'May I ask you, sir, and this may seem a minor question to you, but I should like your answer nonetheless – why has no one ever oiled the lock?'

'I suppose it has never seemed important.'

'It is not from lack of oil?'

The Vicar unwisely allowed his irritation to show. 'You had better ask my wife about our supplies of oil.'

'I may do so, sir. And, this squeak, how would you describe it?'

'What do you mean? It is a squeak.'

'Is it a loud squeak or a soft squeak? Might it be compared, for instance, to the squeak of a mouse or the creak of a barn door?'

Shapurji Edalji looked as if he had stumbled into a den of triviality. 'I suppose I would characterize it as a loud squeak.'

'All the more surprising, perhaps, that the lock was not oiled. But be that as it may. The key squeaks loudly, once in the evening, once in the morning. And on other occasions?'

'I fail to follow you.'

'I mean, sir, when you or your son leave the bedroom at night.'

'But neither of us ever does.'

'Neither of you ever does. I understand this… sleeping arrangement has been in existence now for sixteen or seventeen years. You are saying that in all this time neither one of you has ever left the bedroom during the night?'

'No.'

'You are quite sure of this?'

Again, there was a long pause, as if the Vicar were running through the years in his head, night by night. 'As sure as I can be.'

'You have a memory of each night?'

'I do not see the point of that question.'

'Sir, I do not ask you to see its point. I merely request that you answer it. Do you have a memory of each night?'

The Vicar looked around the court, as if expecting someone to rescue him from this imbecilic catechism. 'No more than anybody else.'

'Exactly. You have given evidence that you are a light sleeper.'

'Yes, very light. I wake easily.'

'And, sir, you have testified that if the key was turned in the lock, it would wake you up?'

'Yes.'

'Do you not see the contradiction in that statement?'

'No, I do not.' George could see his father becoming flustered. He was not used to having his word challenged, however courteously. He was looking old, and irritable, and less than master of the situation.

'Then let me explain. No one has left the room in seventeen years. So – according to you – no one has ever turned the key while you were asleep. So how can you possibly assert that if the key were turned, it would wake you up?'

'This is angels dancing on pinheads. I mean, obviously, that the slightest noise wakes me.' But he sounded more petulant than authoritative.

'You have never been woken by the sound of the key turning?'

'No.'

'So you cannot swear that you would be woken by that sound?'

'I can only repeat what I have just said. The slightest noise wakes me.'

'But if you have never been woken by the sound of the key turning, is it not entirely possible that the key has been turned and you have not woken?'

'As I say, it has never happened.'

George watched his father as a dutiful, anxious son, but also as a professional solicitor and apprehensive prisoner. His father was not doing well. Mr Disturnal was easing him first one way, then the other.

'Mr Edalji, you stated in your evidence that you woke at five and did not go back to sleep until you and your son rose at six thirty?'

'Are you doubting my word?'

Mr Disturnal did not exhibit pleasure at this response; but George knew that he would be feeling it.

'No, I am merely asking for confirmation of what you have already said.'

'Then I confirm it.'

'You did not, perhaps, fall asleep again between five and six thirty and wake later?'

'I have said not.'

'Do you ever dream that you wake up?'

'I do not follow you.'

'Do you have dreams when you sleep?'

'Yes. Sometimes.'

'And do you sometimes dream that you wake up?'

'I do not know. I cannot remember.'

'But you accept that people do sometimes dream that they wake up?'

'I had never thought about it. It does not seem important to me what other people dream.'

'But you will accept my word that other people do have such dreams?'

The Vicar now looked like some hermit in the desert being led into temptations whose nature he was quite unable to comprehend. 'If you say so.' George was equally baffled by Mr Disturnal's procedure; but soon the prosecutor's intention became clearer.

'So you are as certain as you are reasonably able to be that you were awake between five and six thirty?'

'Yes.'

'And so you are equally certain that you were asleep between the hours of eleven and five?'

'Yes.'

'You do not remember waking in that period?'

George's father looked as if his word were being doubted again.

'No.'

Mr Disturnal nodded. 'So you were asleep at one thirty, for instance. At-' he seemed to pluck the time from the air '- at two thirty, for instance. At three thirty, for instance. Yes, thank you. Now, moving to another matter…'

And so it went, on and on, with George's father turning, before the court's eyes, into a dotard as uncertain as he doubtless was honourable; a man whose peculiar attempts at domestic security could easily have been outwitted by his clever son who, shortly before, had been so confident in the witness box. Or perhaps something even worse: a father who, suspecting his son might possibly have had some involvement in the outrages, was anxiously but incompetently adjusting his evidence as he proceeded.

Next came George's mother, the more nervous for just having witnessed her husband's unprecedented fallibility. After Mr Vachell had taken her through her evidence, Mr Disturnal, with a kind of idle civility, took her through it all again. He seemed only mildly interested in her replies; he was no longer the pitiless prosecutor, but rather the new neighbour dropping in for a polite tea.

'You have always been proud of your son, Mrs Edalji?'

'Oh yes, very proud.'

'And he has always been a clever boy, and a clever young man?'

'Oh, yes, very clever.'

Mr Disturnal made an oleaginous pretence of deep concern for the distress Mrs Edalji must feel at finding herself and her son in their current circumstances.

This was not a question, but George's mother automatically took it as such, and began to praise her son. 'He was always a studious boy. He gained many prizes at school. He studied at Mason College in Birmingham, and was a Law Society medallist. His book on railway law was very well received by many newspapers and law journals. It is published, you know, as one of the Wilson's Legal Handy Books.'

Mr Disturnal encouraged this effusion of maternal pride. He asked if there was anything else she would like to say.

'I would.' Mrs Edalji looked across at her son in the dock. 'He has always been kind and dutiful to us, and from a child he was always kind to any dumb creature. It would have been impossible for him to maim or injure anything, even if we had not known he was not out of the house.'

You would almost have thought Mr Disturnal was himself a son of hers from the way he thanked her; a son, that is, who was deeply indulgent towards the blind good-heartedness and naivety of his old white-headed mother.

Maud was called next, to give her account of the state of George's clothing. Her voice was steady, and her evidence lucid; even so, George felt petrified as Mr Disturnal rose, nodding to himself.