This was where Sir Arthur's excess of enthusiasm had led him. And it was all, George decided, the fault of Sherlock Holmes. Sir Arthur had been too influenced by his own creation. Holmes performed his brilliant acts of deduction and then handed villains over to the authorities with their unambiguous guilt written all over them. But Holmes had never once been obliged to stand in the witness box and have his suppositions and intuitions and immaculate theories ground to very fine dust over a period of several hours by the likes of Mr Disturnal. What Sir Arthur had done was the equivalent of go into a field where the criminal's footprints might be found and trample all over it wearing several different pairs of boots. He had, in his eagerness, destroyed the legal case against Royden Sharp even as he was trying to make it. And it was all the fault of Mr Sherlock Holmes.

Arthur amp; George

As he holds a copy of the Report of the Gladstone Committee in his hand, Arthur is relieved that he has twice failed to be elected to Parliament. He need feel no direct shame. This is how they do things, how they bury bad news. They have released the Report without the slightest warning on the Friday before the Whitsun holiday. Who will want to read about a miscarriage of justice while taking the train to the seaside? Who will be available to provide informed comment? Who will care, by the time Whit Sunday and Whit Monday have passed and work begins again? The Edalji Case – wasn't that settled months ago?

George also holds a copy in his hand. He looks at the title page:

PAPERS

relating to the

CASE OF GEORGE EDALJI

presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of His Majesty

and then, at the bottom:

London: printed for His Majesty's Stationery Office

by Eyre and Spottiswoode,

Printers to the King's Most Excellent Majesty

[Cd. 3503.] Price 1½d. 1907

It sounds substantial, but the price seems to give it away. A penny halfpenny to learn the truth about his case, his life… He opens the pamphlet warily. Four pages of Report, then two brief appendices. A penny halfpenny. His breath is coming short. His life summed up for him yet again. And this time not for readers of the Cannock Chase Courier, the Birmingham Daily Gazette or the Birmingham Daily Post, the Daily Telegraph or The Times, but for both Houses of Parliament and the King's Most Excellent Majesty…

Arthur has taken the Report, unread, to Jean's flat. This is only right. Just as the Report itself is laid before Parliament, so the consequences of his venture should be laid before her. She has taken an interest in the matter which far exceeded his expectations. In truth, he had no expectations at all. But she was always at his side, if not literally, then metaphorically. So she must be there at the conclusion.

George takes a glass of water and sits in an armchair. His mother has returned to Wyrley and he is currently alone in Miss Goode's lodgings, whose address is registered with Scotland Yard. He places a notebook on the arm of the chair, as he does not want to mark the Report itself. Perhaps he is not yet cured of the regulations governing the use of library books in Lewes and Portland. Arthur stands with his back to the fireplace while Jean sews, her head already half-cocked for the extracts Arthur will read to her. She wonders if they should have done more on this day for George Edalji, perhaps invited him for a glass of champagne, except that he does not drink; although since it was only this morning they heard the Report was due to be released…

George Edalji was tried on the charge of feloniously wounding…

'Hah!' says Arthur, barely half a paragraph in. 'Listen to this. The Assistant Chairman of Quarter Sessions, who presided at the trial, when consulted about the conviction, reported that he and his colleagues were strongly of the opinion that the conviction was right. Amateurs. Rank amateurs. Not a lawyer among them. I sometimes feel, my dear Jean, that the entire country is run by amateurs. Listen to them. These circumstances make us hesitate very seriously before expressing dissent from a conviction so arrived at, and so approved.' George is less concerned by this opening; he is enough of a lawyer to know when a however is round the corner. And here it comes – not one, but three of them. However, there was considerable feeling in the neighbourhood of Wyrley at the time; however, the police, so long baffled, were naturally extremely anxious to arrest someone; however, the police had both begun and carried on the investigation for the purpose of finding evidence against Edalji. There, it was said, quite openly and now quite officially. The police were prejudiced against him from the start.

Both Arthur and George read: The case is also one of great inherent difficulty, because there is no possible view that can be taken of it, which does not involve extreme improbabilities. Poppycock, Arthur thinks. What on earth are the extreme improbabilities in George's being innocent? George thinks, this is just an elaborate form of words; they are saying there is no middle ground; which is true, because either I am completely innocent or I am completely guilty, and since there are extreme improbabilities in the prosecution case, therefore it must and will be dismissed.

The defects in the trial… the prosecution case changed in two substantial regards as it went along. Indeed. First in the matter of when the crime was supposed to have been committed. Police evidence inconsistent, and indeed contradictory. Similar discrepancies about the razor… The footprints. We think the value of the footprints as evidence is practically nothing. The razor as weapon. Not very easy to reconcile with the evidence of the veterinary surgeon. The blood not fresh. The hairs. Dr Butter, who is a witness quite above suspicion.

Dr Butter was always the stumbling block, thinks George. But this is very fair so far. Next, the letters. The Greatorex letters are the key, and the jury examined them at length. They considered their verdict for a considerable time, and we think they must be taken to have held that Edalji was the writer of those letters. We have ourselves carefully examined the letters, and compared them with the admitted handwriting of Edalji, and we are not prepared to dissent from the finding at which the jury arrived.

George feels himself going faint. He is only relieved his parents are not with him. He reads the words again, we are not prepared to dissent. They think he wrote the letters! The Committee is telling the world he wrote the Greatorex letters! He takes a gulp of water. He lays the Report down on his knee until he can recover himself.

Arthur, meanwhile, reads on, his anger rising. However, the fact that Edalji wrote the letters doesn't mean he also committed the outrages. 'Oh, that's very white of them,' he exclaims. They are not the letters of a guilty man trying to throw the blame on others. How in the name of all earthly and unearthly powers could they be, Arthur growls to himself, since the man they throw most blame on is George himself. We think it quite likely that they are the letters of an innocent man, but a wrong-headed and malicious man, indulging in a piece of impish mischief, pretending to know what he may know nothing of, in order to puzzle the police, and increase their difficulties in a very difficult investigation.

'Balderdash!' shouts Arthur. 'Bal-der-dash.'

'Arthur.'

'Balderdash, balderdash,' he repeats. 'I have met no one in my entire life who is a more sober and straightforward man than George Edalji. impish mischief - did the fools not read all those testimonials to his character supplied by Yelverton? wrong-headed and malicious man. Is this, this… novella' – he slaps it on the mantelpiece – 'protected by Parliamentary privilege? If not, I'll have them in the libel court. I'll have the lot of them there. I'll fund it myself.'