Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated)

by SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

  But no one could have foreseen how serious that situation would become. The family became the butt of certain malicious wags in the neighbourhood and were bombarded with anonymous letters, some of them of the most monstrous description. There was worse, however, to come. A horrible epidemic of horsemaiming had broken out, proceeding evidently from some blood-lusting lunatic of Sadie propensities. These outrages continued for a long time, and the local police were naturally much criticized for doing nothing. It would have been as well had they continued to do nothing, for they ended by arresting George Edalji for the crime, the main evidence being that there were signs that the writer of the anonymous letters knew something about the crimes, and that it was thought that young Edalji had written the anonymous letters which had plagued his family so long. The evidence was incredibly weak, and yet the police, all pulling together and twisting all things to their end, managed to get a conviction at the Stafford Quarter Sessions in 1903. The prisoner was sentenced to seven years’ penal servitude.

  There were some murmurs among discerning people at the time, and Mr. Voules, of “Truth,” has an honourable record for having kept some sort of agitation going, but nothing practical was done until the unhappy youth had already served three years of his sentence. It was late in 1906 that I chanced to pick up an obscure paper called “The Umpire,” and my eye caught an article which was a statement of his case, made by himself. As I read, the unmistakable accent of truth forced itself upon my attention and I realised that I was in the presence of an appalling tragedy, and that I was called upon to do what I could to set it right. I got other papers on the case, studied the original trial, went up to Staffordshire and saw the family, went over the scene of the crimes and finally wrote a series of articles on the case, which began in the “Daily Telegraph “of January 12, 1907. As I bargained that they should be non-copyright they were largely transferred to other papers, sold for a penny at street-curbs and generally had a very wide circulation, so that England soon rang with the wrongs of George Edalji.

  These wrongs would have been almost comic had they not had so tragic an upshot. If the whole land had been raked, I do not think that it would have been possible to find a man who was so unlikely, and indeed so incapable, of committing such actions. He was of irreproachable character. Nothing in his life had ever been urged against him. His old schoolmaster with years of experience testified to his mild and tractable disposition. He had served his time with a Birmingham solicitor, who gave him the highest references. He had never shown traits of cruelty. He was so devoted to his work that he had won the highest honours in the legal classes, and he had already at the age of twenty-seven written a book upon Railway Law. Finally he was a total abstainer, and so blind that he was unable to recognise any one at the distance of six yards. It was clear that the inherent improbability of such a man committing a long succession of bloody and brutal crimes was so great that it could only be met by the suggestion of insanity. There had never, however, been any indication even of eccentricity in George Edalji. On the contrary, his statements of defence were measured and rational, and he had come through a series of experiences which might well have unhinged a weaker intellect.

  The original theory at the trial had been that Edalji had committed the particular mutilations with which he was charged some time in the evening. This line of attack broke down completely, and he was able to advance a certain alibi. In the middle of the case, therefore, the police prosecution shifted its ground and advanced the new theory that it was done in the early hours of the morning. George Edalji, as it happened, slept in the same room as his father, the parish vicar. The latter is a light sleeper and is accustomed, as many people are, to assure privacy by turning the key of his room. He swore that George never left the room during the night. This may not constitute an absolute alibi in the eye of the law, but it is difficult to imagine anything nearer to one unless a sentinel had been placed outside the door all night. It is so near an alibi that nothing but the most cogent considerations could shake it, but far from there being any such considerations, the case was such a thing of threads and patches that one cannot imagine how any sane jury could have accepted it, even though the defence was weakly conducted. So bad was this defence that in the whole trial no mention, so far as I could ascertain, was ever made of the fact that the man was practically blind, save in good light, while between his house and the place where the mutilation was committed lay the full readth of the London and North-Western Railway, an expanse of rails, wires and other obstacles, with hedges to be forced on either side, so that I, a strong and active man, in broad daylight found it a hard matter to pass.

  What aroused my indignation and gave me the driving force to carry the thing through was the utter helplessness of this forlorn little group of people, the coloured clergyman in his strange position, the brave blue-eyed, grey-haired wife, the young daughter, baited by brutal boors and having the police, who should have been their natural protectors, adopting from the beginning a harsh tone towards them and accusing them, beyond all sense and reason, of being the cause of their own troubles and of persecuting and maligning themselves. Such an exhibition, sustained, I am sorry to say, by Lord Gladstone and all the forces of the Home Office, would have been incredible had I not actually examined the facts.

  The articles caused a storm of indignation through the country. “Truth,” Sir George Lewis and other forces joined in the good work. A committee was formed by the Government to examine and report. It consisted of Sir Arthur Wilson, the Hon. John Lloyd Wharton and Sir Albert de Rutzen. Their finding, which came to hand in June, was a compromise document, for though they were severe upon the condemnation of Edalji and saw no evidence which associated him with the crime, they still clung to the theory that he had written the anonymous letters, that he had therefore been himself contributory to the miscarriage of justice, and that for this reason all compensation for his long period of suffering should be denied him.

  It was a wretched decision, and the Law Society at the prompting of Sir George Lewis showed what they thought of it by at once readmitting Edalji to the roll of solicitors with leave to practise, which they would never have done had they thought him capable of dishonourable conduct. But the result stands. To this day this unfortunate man, whose humble family has paid many hundreds of pounds in expenses, has never been able to get one shilling of compensation for the wrong done. It is a blot upon the record of English Justice, and even now it should be wiped out. It is to be remembered that the man was never tried for writing the letters — a charge which could not have been sustained — so that as the matter stands he has got no redress for three years of admitted false imprisonment, on the score that he did something else for which he has never been tried. What a travesty of Justice! The “Daily Telegraph “got up a subscription for him which ran to some £300. The first use that he made of the money was to repay an old aunt who had advanced the funds for his defence. He came to my wedding reception, and there was no guest whom I was prouder to see.

  So far, my work had been satisfactory. Where I caused myself great trouble was that in my local exploration at Wyrley I had come across what seemed to me a very direct clue as to both the writer, or rather writers, of the letters, and also of the identity of the mutilator — though the latter word may also have been in the plural. I became interested, the more so as the facts were very complex and I had to do with people who were insane as well as criminal. I have several letters threatening my life in the same writing as those which assailed the Edaljis — a fact which did not appear to shake in the least the Home Office conviction that George Edalji had written them all. Mentally I began to class the Home Office officials as insane also. The sad fact is that officialdom in England stands solid together, and that when you are forced to attack it you need not expect justice, but rather that you are up against an unavowed Trade Union the members of which are not going to act the blackleg to each other, and which subordinates the public interest to a false idea of loyalty. What
confronts you is a determination to admit nothing which inculpates another official, and as to the idea of punishing another official for offences which have caused misery to helpless victims, it never comes within their horizon. Even now, after the lapse of so many years, I can hardly think with patience of the handling of this case.

  The mistake that I made, so far as my own interests were concerned, was that having got on the track of the miscreant I let the police and the Home Office know my results before they were absolutely completed. There was a strong primé facie case, but it needed the goodwill and co-operation of the authorities to ram it home. That co-operation was wanting, which was intelligible, in the case of the local police, since it traversed their previous convictions and conclusions, but was inexcusable in the Home Office. The law officers of the Crown upheld their view that there was not a primâ facie case, but I fear that consciously or unconsciously the same trade union principle was at work. Let me briefly state the case that the public may judge. I will call the suspect “X.” I was able to show:

  That “X “had shown a peculiar knife or horse-lancet to some one and had stated that this knife did the crimes. I had this knife in my possession.

  That this knife or a similar knife must have been used in some of the crimes, as shown by the shallow incision.

  That “X “had been trained in the slaughter-yard and the cattle-ship, and was accustomed to brutal treatment of animals.

  That he had a clear record both of anonymous letters and of destructive propensities.

  That his writing and that of his brother exactly fitted into the two writings of the anonymous letters. In this I had strong independent evidence.

  That he had shown signs of periodical insanity, and that his household and bedroom were such that he could leave unseen at any hour of the night.

  There were very many corroborative evidences, but those were the main ones, coupled with the fact that when “X “was away for some years the letters and outrages stopped, but began again when he returned. On the other hand, when Edalji was put in prison the outrages went on the same as before.

  It will hardly be believed that after I had laid these facts before the Home Office they managed to present the House of Commons with the official legal opinion that there was not a primâ facie case, while a high official of the Government said to me: “I see no more evidence against these two brothers than against myself and my brother.” The points I mention are taken from the paper I laid before the law officers of the Crown, which lies before me as I write, so the facts are exactly as stated.

  I had one letter in sorrow and also in anger from the Staffordshire police complaining that I should be libelling this poor young man whose identity could easily be established.

  I do not know what has become of “X “or how often he has been convicted since, but on the last occasion of which I have notes the magistrate said in condemning him to six months’ imprisonment with hard labour: “His character was extremely bad, he having been convicted of arson, of stealing on three occasions and of damage. On his own confession he had committed a deliberate and cruel theft from his aged mother and it was impossible to overlook the seriousness of the case.” So much for the inoffensive youth whom I had libelled! But what about Edalji’s three years of gaol?

  On September 18, 1907, I married Miss Jean Leckie, the younger daughter of a Blackheath family whom I had known for years, and who was a dear friend of my mother and sister. There are some things which one feels too intimately to be able to express, and I can only say that the years have passed without one shadow coming to mar even for a moment the sunshine of my Indian summer which now deepens to a golden autumn. She and my three younger children with the kindly sympathy of my two elder ones have made my home an ideally happy one.

  My wife’s people had a house at Crowborough, and there they had gone to reside. As they were very attached I thought it would be a happy arrangement not to separate them, so I bought a house close by, named “Windlesham.” As I paid for it by a sum of money which I recovered after I had been unjustly defrauded of it, my friends suggested “Swindlesham “as a more appropriate name. Thus it came about that in 1907 I left Undershaw, Hindhead, after ten years’ residence, and moved myself and my belongings to the highlands of Sussex, where I still dwell in the few months of settled life which give me a rest between my wanderings.

  Very soon after my marriage, having just got clear of the Edalji case, I became entangled in that of Oscar Slater. The one was in a way the cause of the other, for since I was generally given credit for having got Edalji out of his troubles, it was hoped by those who believed that Slater’s condemnation was a miscarriage of justice that I might be able to do the same for him. I went into the matter most reluctantly, but when I glanced at the facts, I saw that it was an even worse case than the Edalji one, and that this unhappy man had in all probability no more to do with the murder for which he had been condemned than I had. I am convinced that when on being convicted he cried out to the judge that he never knew that such a woman as the murdered woman existed he was speaking the literal truth.

  In one respect the Oscar Slater case was not so serious as the Edalji one, because Slater was not a very desirable member of society. He had never, so far as is known, been in trouble as a criminal, but he was a gambler and adventurer of uncertain morals and dubious ways — a German Jew by extraction, living under an alias. Edalji, on the other hand, was a blameless youth. But in another aspect Slater’s case was worse than that of Edalji, since the charge was murder. He was very nearly hanged, and finally the life sentence was actually carried out, so that the wrong was never righted and at the present moment the unfortunate man is in gaol. It is a dreadful blot upon the administration of justice in Scotland, and such judicial crimes are not, I am convinced, done with impunity even to the most humble. Somehow — somewhere, there comes a national punishment in return.

  The case was roughly this: an elderly woman, Miss Gilchrist, was done to death most brutally in her flat, while her servant-maid, Helen Lambie, was absent for ten minutes on an errand. Her head was beaten to pieces by some hard instrument. The neighbours were alarmed by the noise, and one of them, together with the maid, actually saw the murderer, a young man, leave the flat and pass him at the door. The police description at the time was by no means in agreement with Slater’s appearance. Robbery did not appear to be the motive of the crime, for nothing was missing unless it was a single diamond brooch. On the other hand, a box of papers had been broken into and left in disorder. The date was December 21, 1908.

  And now comes the great fact which is admitted by all, and which makes the whole case wildly improbable if not utterly impossible. It was thought that a diamond brooch had been taken. It was found out that a diamond brooch had also been pawned by the Bohemian Slater, who had started for America. Was it not clear that he was the murderer? New York was warned. Slater was arrested and in due time was returned to Glasgow. Then came the fiasco. It was found beyond all doubt that the brooch in question had been in Slater’s possession for years, and that it had nothing to do with Miss Gilchrist at all.

  This should have been the end of the case. It was too preposterous to suppose that out of all the folk in Glasgow the police had arrested the right man by pure chance — for that was what it amounted to. But the public had lost its head, and so had the police. If the case had completely gone to pieces surely it could be reconstructed in some fresh form. Slater was poor and friendless. He had lived with a woman, which shocked Scotch morality. As one writer boldly said in the press: “Even if he did not do it, he deserved to be condemned, anyhow.” A case was made up in the most absurd manner. A half-crown card of tools was found in his box with the sort of tools which are found on such cards. The frail hammer was evidently the instrument which had beaten in the woman’s skull. The handle might have been cleaned. Then surely there had been blood on it. The police description was already amended so as to be nearer to Slater. He, a sallow, dark-haired Jew, was picked
out by witnesses from among a group of fair Scotsmen. Some one had been seen waiting in the street for some nights before. This some one was variously described by many witnesses. Some descriptions would fit Slater, some were his very opposite. The people who saw the murderer leave thought it might be Slater, but were not sure. The chief witness, Adams, was very short-sighted and had not his glasses. A clear alibi was proved by Slater, but as his mistress and his servant girl were the witnesses, it was not allowed. Whom could he produce save the inmates of his house? No attempt was ever made to show that Slater had any connection with Miss Gilchrist, or with the maid, Lambie, and as Slater was really a stranger in Glasgow, it was impossible to see how he could have known anything about this retired old maid. But he was not too well defended, while Mr. Ure, the Advocate-General of Scotland, prosecuting for the State, thundered away in a most violent speech in which several statements were made, uncorrected by Judge Guthrie, which were very inexact, and which must have powerfully swayed the jury. Finally, the Crown got a conviction by nine votes to six (five “not proven “) — which, of course, would have meant a new trial in England, and the wretched foreigner was condemned to death. The scaffold was actually erected, and it was only two mornings before his execution that the order came which prevented a judicial murder. As it was, the man became a convict — and is one still.

  It is an atrocious story, and as I read it and realised the wickedness of it all, I was moved to do all I could for the man. I was aided by the opinion of Sir Herbert Stephen, who read the evidence and declared that there was not even a primâ facie case against the man. I, therefore, started a newspaper agitation and wrote a small book with an account of the whole matter. The consciences of some people responded, and finally we got up sufficient pressure to induce the Government to appoint a Commissioner, Sheriff Miller, to examine the case. It was all to no purpose, and the examination was a farce. The terms of reference were so narrow that the conduct of the police was entirely excluded, which was really the very thing at issue, since we held that where their original evidence failed them, they had strained many points in trying to build up a case and to obtain a verdict. It was also decided that evidence should not be on oath. The result was that there was no result, nor could there be with such limitations. None the less, some fresh evidence was put forward which further weakened the already very weak case for the prosecution. For example, at the trial it had been stated that Slater, on reaching Liverpool from Glasgow, had gone to a Liverpool hotel under a false name, as if he were trying to throw the police off his track. It was shown that this was not true, and that he had signed the register with his own Glasgow name. I say his Glasgow name, for he had several pseudonyms in the course of his not too reputable career, and, as a fact, he took his actual passage under a false name, showing that he intended to make a clear start in America. He was, according to his own account, pursued by some woman — probably his lawful wife — and this covering of tracks was to escape this huntress. The fact that he used his own name at the hotel showed that the new name was for American rather than for British use, and that he had no fear of Glasgow pursuit.