Harry Charlesworth sent an account of an incident which had taken place in Great Wyrley in the late autumn or early winter of 1903. Mrs Jarius Handley was coming from Wyrley Station one evening, having gone there to buy some papers for sale. She was accompanied by her young daughter. They were accosted in the road by two men. One of them caught the girl by the throat, and held something in his hand which gleamed. Both mother and child screamed, whereupon the man ran away, crying to his comrade who had gone on, 'All right, Jack, I am coming.' The girl declared that her mother had been stopped once before by the same man. He was described as having a round face, no moustache, about 5ft 8ins in height, a dark suit, a shiny peaked cap. This description fitted that of Royden Sharp, who at the time wore a sailor-like costume, which he had subsequently abandoned. It was further suggested that 'Jack' was Jack Hart, a dissolute butcher and known companion of Sharp's. The police had been informed, but there was no arrest made in the case.

Harry added in a post-scriptum that Fred Wynn had been in touch with him again and that in exchange for a pint of stout recalled something which had previously escaped him. When he and Brookes and Speck had all attended Walsall School, one thing generally known about Royden Sharp was that he could not be left in a railway carriage without turning up the cushion and slitting it on the underside with a knife, so as to let the horse hair out. Then he would laugh wildly and turn the cushion back again.

On Friday March 1st, after a six-week delay intended perhaps to show that the Home Secretary was not responding to pressure from any one known source, a Committee of Inquiry was announced. Its purpose was to consider various matters in the Edalji Case which had given rise to public disquiet. The Home Office wished to emphasize, however, that the Committee's deliberations in no wise amounted to a retrial of the case. Witnesses would not be called, nor would Mr Edalji's presence be required. The Committee would examine such materials as were in the possession of the Home Office and adjudicate on certain procedural matters. Sir Arthur Wilson KCIE, the Right Hon. John Lloyd Wharton, Chairman of the Quarter Sessions for the County of Durham, and Sir Albert de Rutzen, the Chief Magistrate in London, would report to Mr Gladstone as speedily as possible.

Arthur decided that these gentlemen should not be left to jaw at one another complacently about 'certain procedural matters'. To his reworked Telegraph articles – which would themselves prove George's innocence – he would append a private memorandum setting out the case against Royden Sharp. He would describe his investigation, summarize his evidence, and list those from whom further testimony might be obtained: specifically the butcher Jack Hart of Bridgetown, and Harry Green, now of South Africa. Also Mrs Royden Sharp, who could confirm the effect of the new moon upon her husband. He would send George a copy of the memorandum, inviting his comments. He would also keep Anson on the hop. Every so often, as he remembered that long wrangle over brandy and cigars, an unstoppable growl would rise in his throat. Their exchange had been noisy but largely futile – like that of two Scandinavian elks locking antlers in the forest. Even so, he had been shocked by the complacency and prejudice of a man who ought to have known better. And then, at the last, for Anson to try scaring him with stories of ghosts. How very little the Chief Constable knew his man. In his study, Arthur took out the horse lancet, opened it up and drew round the blade's outline on a sheet of tracing paper. He would send the drawing – marked 'life size' – to the Chief Constable, asking for his views.

'Well, you have your Committee,' said Wood, as they pulled their cues from the rack that evening.

'I would rather say that they have their Committee.'

'By which you indicate that you are less than satisfied?'

'I have some hope that even these gentlemen cannot fail to acknowledge what is staring them in the face.'

'But?'

'But – you know who Albert de Rutzen is?'

'The Chief Magistrate of London, my newspaper informs me.'

'He is that, he is that. He is also the cousin of Captain Anson.'

George amp; Arthur

George had read the Telegraph articles several times before writing to thank Sir Arthur; and he read them once again before their second meeting at the Grand Hotel, Charing Cross. It was most disconcerting to see oneself described not by some provincial penny-a-liner but by the most famous writer of the day. It made him feel like several overlapping people at the same time: a victim seeking redress; a solicitor facing the highest tribunal in the country; and a character in a novel.

Here was Sir Arthur explaining why he, George, could not possibly have been involved with the supposed band of Wyrley ruffians: 'In the first place, he is a total abstainer, which in itself hardly seems to commend him to such a gang. He does not smoke. He is very shy and nervous. He is a most distinguished student.' This was all true, and yet untrue; flattering, yet unflattering; believable, yet unbelievable. He was not a most distinguished student; merely a good, hardworking one. He had received second-class honours, not first, the bronze medal, not silver or gold, from the Birmingham Law Society. He was certainly a capable solicitor, more so than Greenway or Stentson were likely to become, but he would never be eminent. Equally, he was not, by his own estimation, very shy. And if he had been judged nervous on the basis of that previous meeting at the hotel, then there were mitigating circumstances. He had been sitting in the foyer reading his newspaper, beginning to worry if he were mistaken about the time or even the day, when he had become aware of a large, overcoated figure standing a few yards away and scrutinizing him intently. How would anyone else react to being stared at by a great novelist? George thought this estimation of him as shy and nervous had probably been confirmed, if not propagated, by his parents. He did not know how it was in other families, but at the Vicarage the parental view of children had not evolved at the same speed as the children themselves. George was not just thinking of himself; his parents did not seem to take account of Maud's development, of how she was becoming stronger and more capable. And now that he came to reflect upon it further, he didn't believe he had been so nervous with Sir Arthur. On an occasion far more likely to provoke nerves he faced the crowded court with perfect composure - wasn't that what the Birmingham Daily Post had written?

He did not smoke. This was true. He judged it a pointless, unpleasant and costly habit. But also one unconnected with criminal behaviour. Sherlock Holmes famously smoked a pipe – and Sir Arthur, he understood, did likewise – but this did not make either of them candidates for membership of a gang. It was also true that he was a total abstainer: the consequence of his upbringing, not of some principled act of renunciation. But he acknowledged that any juryman, or any committee, might interpret the fact in more than one way. Abstention could be taken as proof either of moderation or extremity. It might be a sign of a fellow able to control his human urges; or equally of someone who resisted vice in order to concentrate his mind on other, more essential things – someone a touch inhuman, even fanatical.

He in no way minimized the value and quality of Sir Arthur's work. The articles described with rare skill a chain of circumstances which seem so extraordinary that they are far beyond the invention of the writer of fiction. George had read and reread with pride and gratitude such declarations as Until each and all of these questions is settled a dark stain will remain upon the administrative annals of this country. Sir Arthur had promised to make a noise, and the noise he had made had echoed far beyond Staffordshire, far beyond London, far beyond England itself. Without Sir Arthur shaking the trees, as he had put it, the Home Office would almost certainly not have appointed a Committee; though how the Committee itself would respond to the noise and the tree-shaking was another matter. It seemed to George that Sir Arthur had gone very hard on the Home Office's handling of Mr Yelverton's memorial, when he wrote that he cannot imagine anything more absurd and unjust in an Oriental despotism. To denounce someone as despotic might not be the best way to persuade them to be less despotic in the future. And then there was the Statement of the Case against Royden Sharp…