JEAN. How did it begin? It began as everything begins. A child wants to see.
JEAN is joined by a woman of twenty-five, plainly but formally dressed, carrying a suit of women’s clothes. She is half-Indian and her name is MAUD. JEAN hands her the horseshoe.
Apparently, he’d just learnt to walk. A door there to be pushed; he pushes it, walks in, and looks.
MAUD. And what did he…?
JEAN. A room, closed curtains, and the bed. And what was on the bed.
MAUD (handing JEAN items of clothing which JEAN puts on). And what was on the…?
JEAN. His first memory.
MAUD (helping JEAN into her suit). You know, I’m not sure George has a first memory. And, in our house, making things up was not encouraged.
JEAN (to MAUD). Of course not.
MAUD. Fibbers. Tellers of tall tales.
JEAN. Indeed. Whereas, with Arthur, it was different.
Behind the two women, another scene is emerging: the foyer of another London hotel.
A man who’ll spend his life telling stories of unnatural death. Who will eventually decide that death is not a locked door, but a door left ajar. His first memory: the dead body of his grandmother.
MAUD hands JEAN an item of clothing.
MAUD. And that’s how it began?
MAUD carries on helping JEAN to dress as we move into:
DOORMAN. May I assist you?
GEORGE. This is the Charing Cross Hotel?
DOORMAN. It is.
GEORGE. I am – I have an appointment to meet someone. In the lobby?
The DOORMAN gestures round the stage. GEORGE peers.
I would imagine, in his later forties. A literary personage. With, I understand, a considerable moustache.
The DOORMAN looks round.
DOORMAN. I fear there is no personage of that description.
GEORGE. Then I’ll wait.
GEORGE goes to a winged armchair and sits, facing away from the entrance. He thinks of opening his case, but changes his mind. Picking up a newspaper, he reads that instead, holding it at a strange angle. At the same time, ARTHUR enters the hotel. He is a large, burly man of forty-seven, with a still-distinct Scottish accent and – as predicted – an impressive moustache. He carries a package.
ARTHUR. Good afternoon.
DOORMAN (recognising ARTHUR). Ah, good afternoon, Sir –
ARTHUR raises a finger to his lips, stopping the DOORMAN in his tracks.
ARTHUR. Thank you. I am meeting a young man. Of – I would imagine – Hindoo appearance.
DOORMAN (moving to escort ARTHUR). He’s over here, sir.
ARTHUR. No.
ARTHUR can see some of GEORGE, but not enough to see why the newspaper is at a peculiar angle. So he takes a chair, stands on it, and looks at GEORGE. The DOORMAN is taken aback by ARTHUR’s behaviour.
(To the DOORMAN.) Is there a private room I could use to conduct an interview?
DOORMAN. I’m sure there’s somewhere, Sir –
ARTHUR (interrupting again). Well, good.
(Insistent.) Thank you so much.
The DOORMAN goes in search of a private room, as:
JEAN. So, yes, that’s how it began. Like this.
Looking at ARTHUR.
The small boy stared, and, forty-five years on…
ARTHUR, satisfied with his covert inspection of GEORGE, descends from the chair and heads over to him.
MAUD (looking at GEORGE). …the grown man was still staring.
JEAN and MAUD disappear as ARTHUR reaches GEORGE.
ARTHUR (pronouncing the name ‘ee-dal-jee’). Mr Edalji, my name is / Arthur –
GEORGE. Yes, I know.
He puts down his newspaper, stands, and puts out his hand. The two men shake.
ARTHUR. I’m very pleased to meet you.
GEORGE. As am I.
The DOORMAN reappears.
ARTHUR. Success?
DOORMAN. Sir, there’s a writing room.
ARTHUR (both an order to the DOORMAN and an offer to GEORGE). And, perhaps, a whisky and water?
The DOORMAN turns and waves to an offstage WAITER.
GEORGE. Uh, no.
ARTHUR. Or something else?
A WAITER appears.
GEORGE. No, thank you.
ARTHUR. Then, just one for me.
The DOORMAN mouths ‘whisky and water’ to the WAITER, and gestures the two men to the writing room. The WAITER goes.
DOORMAN. This way, gentlemen.
ARTHUR (gesturing for him to precede him, once again stressing the second syllable). Please, Mr Edalji.
They go into a downstage area representing the writing room, with a table, chairs and a hatstand. As ARTHUR tips the doorman.
(Gesturing to the hatstand.) Would you care to…?
GEORGE. No, I am quite comfortable.
ARTHUR. I’m very glad.
As the DOORMAN goes out, ARTHUR tosses his hat onto the hatstand. GEORGE notes the protocol, takes his own hat off, puts it on the table, and sits. ARTHUR takes off his overcoat and hangs it up.
Have you come far?
GEORGE. Not very. I have lodgings in East Kilburn.
ARTHUR. Convenient for Lord’s.
GEORGE. The House of Lords?
ARTHUR. The Marylebone Cricket Club.
Slight pause. He mimes a drive to silly mid-off. GEORGE doesn’t seem to get it, so ARTHUR hands him the package.
But I imagine you know me for my other claim to fame.
GEORGE. Of course.
ARTHUR. I have brought you – I hope you will forgive me – a copy of a book of mine.
GEORGE. I’m very grateful.
ARTHUR gestures that GEORGE should open it. He does.
ARTHUR. It is – I’ve signed it.
GEORGE. The White Company.
ARTHUR. You don’t possess it?
GEORGE. No. It is, presumably, about the great detective –
ARTHUR. No, it is not about ‘the great detective’.
GEORGE. Oh, I… apol/ogise –
ARTHUR. It is set in the medieval period. It is a tale of gallant knights and their heroic deeds. It is my finest work.
GEORGE. You think so?
ARTHUR. I know so.
Pause.
(Still mispronouncing.) But perhaps, now, Mr Edalji, to the matter in hand.
GEORGE. In fact, if you don’t mind, it’s actually –
(‘Ay-dal-ji’.) Edalji.
A moment.
ARTHUR. I apologise.
GEORGE. No matter. I mean, it does matter. But I’m used to it.
ARTHUR. Of course.
Slight pause.
(Waving his pipe.) Do you mind?
GEORGE. Of course.
ARTHUR starts to put his pipe away.
(Quickly.) I mean, of course not. Please.
The WAITER enters with a tray of whisky and water.
WAITER. Your whisky, Sir Arthur.
ARTHUR. Thank you very much.
The WAITER puts the tray on the table and goes out. The two men speak simultaneously.
GEORGE. Um, now, Sir Ar –
ARTHUR. So. Mr Ed –
They both stop. Another go:
GEORGE. Please, do –
ARTHUR. Go on.
They stop again. ARTHUR concedes ‘defeat’.
(Lighting his pipe, and pronouncing GEORGE’s name correctly:) Mr Edalji, there is a tradition in my detective stories…
GEORGE. Yes, I fear that, although I know about / your work…
ARTHUR. …that they start with somebody describing a preceding chain of circumstance. The chain of circumstance which brought them…
GEORGE. Sir Arthur, I wrote you a letter.
ARTHUR. Yes.
GEORGE. Which describes the ‘chain of circumstance’ in full.
ARTHUR. I have no doubt.
GEORGE. Then, why –
ARTHUR. I haven’t read your letter.
GEORGE. You haven’t / read my –
ARTHUR. Or rather, I’ve read the first paragraph. From which I concluded that it was worth seeing you.
GEORGE. The first paragraph merely summarises the outcome of my case.
ARTHUR. Yes. That is usually my place to start.
GEORGE. I see.
ARTHUR (pats his pocket). I still have the letter, should I need it.
GEORGE. Well…
ARTHUR. But now, I’d like you to return to the beginning.
GEORGE (with a slight note of sarcasm). The beginning. Well, my father was born as a Parsee in Bombay.
Slight pause.
ARTHUR. A Parsee. Yes.
Slight pause.
GEORGE. He converted to the Anglican faith, and took Holy Orders. My mother, on the other hand, is a Scot by birth, though her father held a living in the Shropshire town of Ketley, hence my father being appointed to the parish of Great Wyrley.
ARTHUR. I meant, the beginning of the affair you wrote to me about.
Slight pause.
GEORGE. This is, all in…
ARTHUR. But even so.
GEORGE (again, finding it hard to conceal an element of tetchiness). Well, I suppose the ‘affair’ began with a disquieting incident, which occurred in 1892. When I was sixteen.
ARTHUR. Which was?
GEORGE. The discovery of a strange object on our doorstep.
ARTHUR. This being, the doorstep of…
GEORGE. …my father’s vicarage, in Great Wyrley, Staffordshire.
ARTHUR. And the object was?
GEORGE. A key.
ARTHUR. A key.
GEORGE. Belonging to a school I had attended at Walsall.
ARTHUR. You mean, previously.
GEORGE. By now, I was studying Law in Birmingham.
ARTHUR. Good, good. And did you know who placed the key…?
GEORGE. No, we had no idea.
ARTHUR. But why ‘disquieting’?
GEORGE. Shortly afterwards, we found an empty milk churn on the lawn.
ARTHUR. A milk churn.
GEORGE. Containing a dead blackbird.
ARTHUR. And was there any repetition of this incident?
GEORGE. A pewter ladle appeared on a window sill. Three broken eggs on the front doorstep.
ARTHUR. Three eggs…
GEORGE. A dead rabbit.
ARTHUR. Perhaps, from natural causes…
GEORGE. Pinioned by a garden fork.
ARTHUR. Ah. And did you have any notion who / might have…
GEORGE. And then there were the letters. Most of which, of course, our parents kept from us. Particularly, my sister.
ARTHUR. Why?
GEORGE. My sister Maud is of a highly fragile / disposition.
ARTHUR. Yes, of course. And these letters were…
GEORGE. Abusive. Accusatory. Blasphemous.
ARTHUR. Anonymous?
GEORGE. Or signed with obviously fictitious names.
ARTHUR. Like?
GEORGE. Satan.
ARTHUR. Ah.
GEORGE. And then, a series of what you might describe as hoaxes.
ARTHUR. Such as?
GEORGE. I make this all quite clear in / my letter…
ARTHUR. Nonetheless.
GEORGE. An advertisement was placed in the Cannock Chase Courier offering matrimonial introductions, from our address.
ARTHUR. And did this help to identify the / perpetrator?
GEORGE. The advertisement was placed by post.
ARTHUR. And then?
GEORGE. We were in receipt of many goods we had not ordered – linen napkins, several gallons of black paint, a gaggle of live geese…
ARTHUR. There is an element, of an impish wit…
GEORGE. One day a bailiff came to distrain our goods in favour of these unwanted items. A curate arrived from Norfolk to perform an exorcism. A dressmaker from Stafford came to measure up my sister Maud for a wedding dress. Needless to say, there was / no prospect…
ARTHUR. Of course.
GEORGE. Impish, as you say.
ARTHUR. And may I ask, what action did you…?
GEORGE. My father naturally took out his own advertisement, outlining these – harassments, listing both the letters and their place and time of posting, and asking readers to report their suspicions, and the perpetrators to examine their consciences.
ARTHUR. And was there any response?
GEORGE. Oh, yes. A week later, in three local newspapers, in a black box, headed ‘An Abject Apology’.
ARTHUR. And was it signed?
GEORGE. Oh, yes. Two signatories. One, Frederick Brookes, the son of an ironmonger, also in receipt of malicious correspondence.
ARTHUR. And the other?
GEORGE. Was myself.
ARTHUR. But, obviously…
GEORGE. Obviously.
ARTHUR. And did the harassments continue?
GEORGE. Shortly afterwards it was announced that the vicarage was in the business of despatching ladies’ corsetry. That’s when it wasn’t serving as a slaughterhouse. And then, an advertisement is placed, offering the entire contents of the vicarage for auction. In the Blackpool Echo.
ARTHUR. And why is that of particular significance?
GEORGE. Because, after that, it stopped.
ARTHUR. You mean…
GEORGE. I mean, the persecutions ceased.
ARTHUR. A great relief.
GEORGE. Until it started up again.
In the main foyer area, JEAN enters from the street with Alfred Wood, known by ARTHUR as WOODIE, a former schoolmaster in his thirties, carrying parcels. A little embarrassed, he consults the DOORMAN as to ARTHUR’s whereabouts, and then leads JEAN to the writing room.
ARTHUR. How long a gap?
GEORGE. Seven years or so.
ARTHUR. By which time you had graduated?
GEORGE. I had completed articles, opened offices as a solicitor in Birmingham, and published a short treatise on railway law.
ARTHUR. When?
GEORGE. When the first horse was mutilated in the village.
ARTHUR looks round suddenly, hearing a distant scream. A shadow looms across the stage. At the same moment, WOODIE comes into the writing room. ARTHUR looks back at GEORGE.
ARTHUR. What?
WOODIE. Sir Arthur…
ARTHUR. Woodie. Your sense of timing is / impeccable.
JEAN has entered the writing room. ARTHUR puts his pipe down quickly and stands, as does GEORGE.
JEAN. Arthur.
ARTHUR. Jean. What –
JEAN. I was in a hansom. I saw Woodie stumbling along the Strand with packages.
ARTHUR. Christmas.
JEAN. So did you come up in the Wolseley?
ARTHUR. Yes, of course. My dear, may I introduce / Mr George –
JEAN. How do you do. So the lassitude has dwindled, then.
ARTHUR. Obviously. Jean –
JEAN. ‘This constant, ennervating torpor.’
ARTHUR. My dear…
JEAN. Sufficiently for you to ‘spin on up to town’.
Slight pause.
ARTHUR. My dear. May I introduce Mr George – (Wrong pronunciation.) Edalji. I’m sorry, I mean – (Right pronunciation.) Edalji.
JEAN. I’ve interrupted you. I’m sorry, Mr Edalji.
She goes quickly out.
ARTHUR. Forgive me.
He follows JEAN out.
WOODIE. George Edalji.
GEORGE. Yes.
ARTHUR has caught up with JEAN.
ARTHUR. My dearest.
JEAN. You are ‘too fatigued to take the simplest of decisions…’
GEORGE. In Parsee, the stress is always / on the first syllable…
ARTHUR. This young man claims to be a victim of a terrible injustice.
WOODIE. Not the only thing that’s stressed this afternoon.
JEAN. Then you must return to him.
ARTHUR takes her hand.
ARTHUR. My love…
JEAN. A ‘victim of injustice’. Then you must certainly take up his cause. The decision takes itself.
JEAN turns and goes out quickly, as:
WOODIE (hand out to GEORGE). Alfred Wood.
As WOODIE shakes GEORGE’s hand, ARTHUR re-enters the writing room.
ARTHUR. I apologise.
GEORGE. It is no / matter.
ARTHUR. In fact, I bought the car in Birmingham.
GEORGE. The car?
ARTHUR. The Wolseley.
Taking money from his wallet and giving it to WOODIE.
Woodie, go and get yourself a spot of luncheon.
GEORGE. Was that Lady Doyle?
WOODIE bites his lip. A difficult moment.
WOODIE. Um, Lady Doyle / passed on –
ARTHUR. My wife died in July.
GEORGE. Oh, I’m…
ARTHUR. Miss Leckie is a… friend / of mine…
GEORGE. Uh, please accept my…
ARTHUR. It is no matter.
GEORGE. Last July, I was not regularly reading newspapers.
WOODIE. My ‘spot of lunch’, then.
ARTHUR. If you’d be so kind.
WOODIE goes out. ARTHUR gestures GEORGE to sit, and then picks up and relights his pipe.
Now, Mr Edalji, where were we?
GEORGE. I think I had just opened offices…
ARTHUR. As a solicitor in Birmingham. Of course. Now, I must tell you, Mr Edalji, that when reporters finish asking me why I killed off ‘the great detective’ – to which the answer is that I view it as justified homicide in self-defence – they usually ask me ‘where it all began’. And I inform them that I learnt my craft at my mother’s kitchen range, where she would fill the time it takes to stir the porridge with a tale or two of distant times. And when she reached the moment of the hero or the heroine’s most exquisite peril, she would tap the pan, and raise the stick, and pause. When Mr Wood arrived, you had raised the porridge stick. Please bring it down.
GEORGE. I’m sorry, I don’t follow.
ARTHUR. You had reached ‘the first horse to be mutilated in the village’.
GEORGE. There was a number.
ARTHUR. No, I meant, you had reached a point / in the story –
GEORGE. And some cows. And I believe three sheep.
ARTHUR. They were killed?
GEORGE. As I understand it, they were – cut. Maimed. But left in such a state that they had to be put down.
ARTHUR. But none of them were found… pinioned on your lawn?
GEORGE. No. It was not they who were pinioned.
A moment. Then GEORGE opens his case and finds a document.
On the night of the 27th of June, two further horses were ripped, the property of Quinton Colliery. Apparently, these pit ponies are quite valuable. Two days later, this letter was delivered to Hednesford Police Station.
He hands over the letter.
It is a copy, obviously. I gained access to it later on.
ARTHUR (reads). ‘I have got a daredevil face and can run well, and when they formed that gang at…’ (‘Wyr’ as in ‘fur’.) Wyrley?
GEORGE nods.
‘…they got me to join. I know all about horses and beasts and how to catch them best. I caught each among the belly but they didn’t spurt much blood.’
He looks to the end of the letter.
Signed: ‘William Greatorex’.
GEORGE. A schoolboy. Not the author, obviously.
ARTHUR. And the letter-writer lists the members of what he calls ‘the Great Wyrley Gang’.
GEORGE. Most of whom are quite unknown to me.
ARTHUR. Including ‘Edalji the Lawyer’. And were there further threats?
GEORGE. Oh, yes. Both to livestock and to little girls.
ARTHUR. To little girls?
GEORGE. Apparently.
ARTHUR. And was this generally known?
GEORGE. I have no idea.
ARTHUR decides to move on.
ARTHUR. And were there more letters to you or to your family?
GEORGE takes out a second letter, puts on his spectacles, and reads it.
GEORGE. ‘I do not know you, but I have sometimes seen you on the railways, and do not expect I would like you much if I did know you, as I do not like natives.’ And he advises me that I should go on holiday, so I am away when the next case happens.
ARTHUR. Sound counsel.
GEORGE. I’d say, libellous.
ARTHUR. And did you act on it? I mean, did you approach the police.
GEORGE. I was myself approached by a Sergeant Upton. Not for the first time.
The fat, ruddy-faced, middle-aged SergeantUPTON comes on. During the following, the set transforms into a police interview room. GEORGE stands and takes off his overcoat. He is in summer clothes.
UPTON. Good evening.
ARTHUR. Did you know him?
GEORGE. Oh, yes. He was the officer who ‘investigated’ the first incident.
ARTHUR. When you were a boy.
UPTON. So you’re the young fellow found the key?
GEORGE. Yes. It was on the doorstep. Have you found out where it’s from?
UPTON (with his notebook). Not yet. Your name?
GEORGE. You know my name.
UPTON. Name?
GEORGE. George.
UPTON. And surname?
GEORGE. You know my surname. It’s the same as my father’s and my mother’s.
UPTON. Surname?
GEORGE. Edalji.
UPTON. Now I think you’d better spell that out for me.
ARTHUR. And that was not the last occasion?
GEORGE. One evening, I had started college, I was walking through the lanes, thinking about an argument I had to formulate for a moot debate.
ARTHUR. When?
GEORGE. He jumps out at me.
UPTON. On your way to Walsall, eh?
GEORGE. I beg your pardon?
UPTON. You heard what I said.
GEORGE. You asked if I was on my way to Walsall. Which this is not. As we both know.
UPTON. ‘As we both know. As we both know.’
GEORGE. Yes, as I / say –
UPTON. ‘As we both know’, you know the way to Walsall, don’t you?
ARTHUR. And ‘now’, after the horse-ripping?
GEORGE. I am walking from the station, following my return from Birmingham, when I hear a step behind me.
UPTON. Good evening.
GEORGE. Sergeant Upton.
UPTON. ’Sright. Enjoying life, are we?
GEORGE. What do you want?
UPTON. Are we sleeping well?
GEORGE. I’m sleeping very well. Why do you ask?
UPTON. Oh, just in case you might be thinking about sleepwalking.
ARTHUR. Sleepwalking?
UPTON. Only, you see, we’ve flooded the district with specials. So sleepwalking would be a very bad idea. Even for a so-li-ci-tor.
Now another policeman enters: Inspector CAMPBELL, a ‘ginger-haired, camel-headed, long-backed man of about forty’, to an interview room. He carries a chair.
GEORGE. So I decided to request a meeting with the newly appointed investigating officer. An Inspector Campbell. At a police station of his choice.
CAMPBELL (mispronouncing). Mr Edalji.
GEORGE, taking a book from his case.
GEORGE. Thank you for seeing me, Inspector. I am grateful for your time. I have three items on my agenda. But first, I would like you to accept this.
GEORGE proffers him the book, as UPTON brings over a chair for GEORGE.
CAMPBELL. Um…
GEORGE. It is a book of my own authorship. Railway Law for the ‘Man in the Train’.
CAMPBELL. I see.
GEORGE. The two hundred and thirty-eighth copy.
CAMPBELL. Well, that’s very kind of you, sir, but I’m afraid police regulations forbid the acceptance of gifts from the general public. Now, if you’d follow me…
CAMPBELL leads GEORGE towards UPTON. ARTHUR remains, watching.
GEORGE. Oh, it’s hardly a bribe, Inspector. Can you not regard it as an addition to your library?
CAMPBELL. Our ‘library’. Now, Sergeant, do we have a library?
GEORGE sees UPTON.
UPTON. Well, we could always start one, I suppose.
CAMPBELL gestures to GEORGE to sit, which he does. CAMPBELL sits himself.
CAMPBELL. But perhaps we should return to your ‘agenda’.
GEORGE. The first item is this letter, which I received last week.
GEORGE hands CAMPBELL the letter he read to ARTHUR.
CAMPBELL. Well well well.
GEORGE. Postage deficient.
CAMPBELL. Any idea who it’s from?
GEORGE. It is unsigned.
CAMPBELL (handing the letter to UPTON). So may I ask if you intend to follow his advice? Go off on holiday?
GEORGE. Inspector. Don’t you see this as a libel?
CAMPBELL and UPTON look at each other and smile.
UPTON (quoting from the letter). A ‘right sort’. ‘People do not think you a right sort.’ What d’you make of that?
GEORGE. What do you make of it?
CAMPBELL. It might mean that you don’t fit in.
GEORGE. You mean, I don’t play in the Great Wyrley cricket team?
UPTON. Oh, don’t you?
GEORGE. Nor do I patronise the public houses.
CAMPBELL. Ah.
GEORGE. Nor for that matter do I smoke tobacco.
CAMPBELL. Well, we’ll just have to wait and ask the letter-writer when we catch him. And your next item?
GEORGE. My next / item?
CAMPBELL. On your ‘agenda’.
GEORGE. I wish to register a strong complaint.
CAMPBELL. Oh, what about?
GEORGE. Who about. Sergeant Upton.
Pause.
CAMPBELL. Upon what grounds?
GEORGE. On our last encounter, Sergeant Upton made some singularly threatening insinuations.
CAMPBELL. Oh. What did the Sergeant say?
GEORGE. He asked if I’d been ‘sleeping well’.
Pause.
CAMPBELL. Did he?
GEORGE. He said that the area had been flooded with special constables.
CAMPBELL. That’s true.
GEORGE. And he warned me against sleepwalking.
CAMPBELL. Good advice.
Pause.
GEORGE. Inspector, clearly, Sergeant Upton was implying that I had been / prowling round –
CAMPBELL. But perhaps it’s difficult, in Sergeant Upton’s presence. Would you like me to ask him to withdraw?
Pause.
GEORGE. No, thank you. I have made my point.
CAMPBELL. And it has been noted. Now, if that’s completed your ‘agenda’…
GEORGE. No, Inspector. I said I had three items.
CAMPBELL. Oh, I thought…
GEORGE. The third is a suggestion. For your inquiry.
CAMPBELL. A suggestion.
GEORGE. Bloodhounds.
Pause.
CAMPBELL. I beg your pardon?
GEORGE. As I’m sure you are aware, they have an excellent sense of smell. Were you to acquire a pair of trained bloodhounds, they would surely lead you from the scene of the next mutilation directly to the criminal.
Pause.
CAMPBELL. Bloodhounds.
GEORGE. That’s right.
UPTON. A pair of ’em.
GEORGE. Yes, I believe…
CAMPBELL. Sounds like something out of a penny dreadful.
UPTON. If not a shilling shocker.
UPTON is convulsed with laughter. CAMPBELL is trying to suppress his, as he stands to gesture GEORGE out.
CAMPBELL. Well, sir, I’m very grateful for your visit.
UPTON. Maybe we could keep the bloodhounds in the library.
The two policemen enjoy the joke and leave. GEORGE stands. ARTHUR is there. Pause.
ARTHUR. So it was not – in every sense – a satisfactory encounter?
GEORGE. No.
ARTHUR. And may I assume the ponies were not the last creatures to be mutilated in the village?
GEORGE. Yes. I mean, you may assume that.
ARTHUR. And – dare I ask – was this the last time you met Inspector Campbell?
GEORGE. No, I was to meet him again, at greater length. And under different circumstances.
ARTHUR. And was that, immediately following another / outrage –
GEORGE is struck by a sudden memory.
GEORGE. Yes. No.
ARTHUR. Um, George…
GEORGE. Yes. It was the next thing of significance. No, in that it was after… something else.
Slight pause.
ARTHUR. And may I ask…?
GEORGE. There was an incident… It was not of any great importance.
ARTHUR. Nonetheless.
GEORGE sees MAUD, on the other side of the stage, slowly putting on a pair of light summer gloves and testing a parasol.
GEORGE. It was, you might say, singular. On my father’s prompting, I spent a day out with my sister.
ARTHUR. Where?
GEORGE. At Aberystwyth.
ARTHUR. This is your sister of the ‘highly fragile disposition’.
GEORGE. She hardly ever left the house.
ARTHUR. And that’s the thing that was so singular?
GEORGE. No, what was singular, in retrospect… was that it was the last entirely carefree day of my life.
MAUD looks over to GEORGE, smiles a little smile, and goes out.
ARTHUR (gently). And why…?
GEORGE. Because I returned home to a letter ordering three hundred copies of my book, without a cheque or postal order, signed ‘Beelzebub’. And two weeks after that…
Once again, ARTHUR turns to a distant scream, and senses a shadow quickly passing across the stage.
ARTHUR. …there was another maiming.
GEORGE. Yes. Again, a pony, the property of the colliery.
ARTHUR. And the police thought you were…
GEORGE. They were at the vicarage by eight o’clock. By which time, obviously, I was on the train to Birmingham.
ARTHUR. George, you’re not saying they / arrested you?
GEORGE. At 11.00 a.m., Inspector Campbell presented himself at my rooms at Newhall Street.
ARTHUR. And how did you respond to that?
GEORGE. I told him I was not surprised.
ARTHUR. You told him what?
GEORGE. That I was not surprised. I had been expecting it for some considerable time.
ARTHUR. And was that, entirely wise?
GEORGE. And then they took me off to Cannock.
GEORGE goes to a different, more formal interview room, as:
Changing at Walsall. Via Birchalls, Bloxwich, Wyrley and Churchbridge. Arriving Cannock at 1.29.
CAMPBELL. So, Mr – (Mispronounces.) Edalji, you must know what we’re here for.
GEORGE. I know what you’re here for, Inspector.
UPTON takes notes.
CAMPBELL. You understand your legal rights?
GEORGE. Well, I understand the rules of police procedure, and the rights of the accused.
CAMPBELL. Well, you’ll doubtless inform us if we step out of line. So, you know why you’re here.
GEORGE. I’m here because you have arrested me.
CAMPBELL. Mr Edalji, there’s no point in being clever with me. I’ve dealt with far harder cases than you. Now, tell me why you’re here.
GEORGE. Inspector, I do not intend to answer the sort of general questions you employ when embarked on what is customarily known as a fishing expedition. I shall answer any specific and relevant questions you choose to put to me, as truthfully as I can.
CAMPBELL. That’s very good of you. So, tell me about the Great Wyrley Gang.
GEORGE. Now you are talking like a shilling shocker.
CAMPBELL. When did you meet William Greatorex?
GEORGE. I know no one… Greatorex? I believe he is a schoolboy. What’s he got to do with this?
CAMPBELL. Who are the other members of the Great Wyrley Gang?
GEORGE. Inspector, my answer to that is fully implied in my previous answers. Obviously.
CAMPBELL. Tell me what your movements were when you got home last night.
GEORGE. I did a little legal business. Then I left the house and walked to see Mr Hands the bootmaker.
CAMPBELL. Why?
GEORGE. Because he is making me a pair of boots.
CAMPBELL. Is Hands in on this?
Pause.
And?
GEORGE. And he made his fitting. And I walked around a while. And I returned shortly after 9.30 for my supper.
CAMPBELL. Where did you walk?
GEORGE. Around the lanes. I walk every day. I never really pay attention.
CAMPBELL. Did you walk towards the colliery?
GEORGE. I’m not sure. There was doubtless a special constable around, you could ask him.
CAMPBELL. Oh, I will. And then you had your supper, and went out again.
GEORGE. No. After supper, I went to bed.
CAMPBELL. The clothes that you were wearing last night had animal hairs on them.
GEORGE. You went to my house?
CAMPBELL. Of course. We asked your mother to show us the clothes that you were wearing. The coat had hairs. How do you explain that?
GEORGE. Well, I do live in the country. For my sins.
CAMPBELL. For your sins indeed. So you deny you left the house between the hours of 9.30 p.m. and daybreak?
GEORGE. Between 9.30 p.m. and 7.20 a.m., when I leave for work.
CAMPBELL. But you can’t prove that.
GEORGE. On the contrary. My father and I sleep in the same room. Each night he locks the door.
UPTON snorts. Pause.
CAMPBELL. I’m sorry, could you repeat that?
GEORGE. My father and I sleep in the same room. Each night he locks the door.
CAMPBELL. How long has this… arrangement been in place?
GEORGE. Since I was ten.
CAMPBELL. And you are now…?
GEORGE. Twenty-seven.
CAMPBELL. And your father, when he locks the door, do you know where he puts the key?
GEORGE. He doesn’t put it anywhere. He leaves it in the lock.
CAMPBELL. So it is perfectly easy for you to leave the room?
GEORGE. I have no need to leave the room.
CAMPBELL. A call of nature?
GEORGE. There’s a pot beneath my bed. I never use it. But if you are asking, could I leave the room without my father waking, then no. My father is a very light sleeper, and he is currently suffering from lumbago. The key makes a loud squeak when it turns.
CAMPBELL. That all seems remarkably convenient. How many razors do you own?
GEORGE. I don’t own a razor.
CAMPBELL. But you shave?
GEORGE. I shave with one of my father’s.
CAMPBELL. Who doesn’t trust his twenty-seven-year-old son with his own razor?
UPTON. How singular.
Pause.
CAMPBELL. Mr Edalji, do you like animals?
GEORGE. Well, I am very fond of my sister’s cat.
CAMPBELL. Your sister, yes. Did you know that someone’s threatened to slice up twenty young girls in your village?
UPTON passes CAMPBELL a letter.
GEORGE. Oh, yes?
CAMPBELL (reads). ‘There will be merry times at Wyrley in November, when they start on little girls, for there will be twenty wenches like the horses before next March.’
Slight pause.
You don’t seem very shocked by that.
GEORGE says nothing.
Why did you say you weren’t surprised when we arrested you?
UPTON. Perhaps you think it’s because your father’s a Hindoo.
GEORGE. My father is actually a Parsee.
CAMPBELL. Your boots have mud on them.
GEORGE. As I say, I live, for my sins, in the country.
CAMPBELL. Your coat has horse hairs on it. You were not surprised to be arrested.
GEORGE. Inspector, you are implying that my statement proves your allegations, which is palpably untrue. Please don’t insult my intelligence.
CAMPBELL. Your intelligence is important to you, isn’t it?
Pause.
It’s important to you to be more intelligent than other people?
Slight pause.
And to demonstrate that fact?
Pause.
UPTON. Silence.
CAMPBELL. Yes.
He stands. ARTHUR appears again.
Think of the pony, George. Imagine what it must be like, to have your stomach ripped open by someone else’s father’s razor.
CAMPBELL and UPTON go out.
ARTHUR. And did you? Imagine what it might be like?
GEORGE looks up, looking a little bemused by the question.
You know, George, my first memory was seeing my dead grandmother. And imagining what had happened to her. Surely, you must have thought…
Suddenly, in the distance, the shadow of a horse, rearing and screaming. ARTHUR turns towards it. GEORGE remains still.
GEORGE. You know… I’m not sure I actually have… what you could call a ‘first memory’.
ARTHUR. No?
Enter JEAN and MAUD, dressed as at the end of the first scene.
GEORGE. I was not brought up in a household where imagination was regarded as a virtue.
JEAN. So what did he do next?
MAUD. I think he felt he would be safest in the place he knew best.
JEAN. Which was?
MAUD. The law of England.
Enter LitchfieldMEEK, GEORGE’s solicitor, in his early forties, with Mr VACHELL, his cheerful and corpulent barrister, in his fifties.
Which is why his first act was to engage a reputable solicitor…
MEEK. Mr Litchfield Meek.
MAUD. …who in turn engaged a barrister…
VACHELL. Mr Vachell.
MAUD. …who would demonstrate to the jury that he had a perfect alibi.
JEAN. And was he confident he’d be exonerated?
ARTHUR. And were you confident of your acquittal?
MAUD. Oh yes.
GEORGE. Oh yes.
MAUD. So George… imagined.
MAUD, JEAN and ARTHUR disappear.
VACHELL (shaking GEORGE’s hand). With great enthusiasm. Mr – (Mispronouncing.) Edalji, let me say at once that I judge this prosecution scandalous.
GEORGE. I am obviously pleased.
VACHELL. Of course, I shall not say so to the jury. I shall merely concentrate on what seem to me to be the strong points of your case.
GEORGE. Which are?
VACHELL. That there is no evidence you committed this crime. There is no motive for you committing this crime, and no opportunity. I shall work it up a little for the court, but that will be the essence of my case.
GEORGE. And who is acting for the crown?
MEEK (after a tiny pause). We have Mr Disturnal.
GEORGE. And this is bad for us?
MEEK. No, I…
VACHELL. Mr Meek is paid to emphasise the – less obviously advantageous aspects of the case.
GEORGE. And you are paid to be unreasonably optimistic?
VACHELL. Ah, Mr Edalji, I fear you may have missed your calling. You would clearly prove a formidable adversary at the bar.
MEEK (quickly). Though not, of course, in this particular…
GEORGE. Please, Mr Meek. It has never crossed my mind to defend myself.
MEEK. I’m very glad.
GEORGE. But there are two points I wish to raise about the conduct of my case.
VACHELL and MEEK look at each other.
VACHELL. Please.
MEEK. Do.
GEORGE. The first is the matter of the newspapers.
VACHELL. Aha.
GEORGE. At the committal, the Birmingham Gazette reported I was twenty-eight but looked younger, and that my appearance was oriental in its stolidity.
VACHELL. Yes, well.
GEORGE. And that my aged Hindoo father and white-haired English mother followed the proceedings with pathetic interest.
MEEK. Indeed.
GEORGE. I am twenty-seven. My mother is Scottish. My father is a Parsee not a Hindoo.
MEEK. It’s near enough for the Gazette.
GEORGE. But, Mr Meek, what if I said you were a Welshman?
MEEK. I would not hold you inaccurate, as my mother had Welsh blood.
GEORGE. Or a Frenchman?
MEEK. Now, sir, you go too far.
GEORGE. And ‘stolid’? And an ‘oriental’?
VACHELL. ‘Stolid’ is good, Mr Edalji. At least they didn’t say you were ‘inscrutable’. Or ‘wily’. The defence is quite content with ‘stolid’.
GEORGE. And then there is the matter of the pronunciation of my name.
MEEK (right then wrong pronuncitation). Edalji not Edalji.
VACHELL. Forgive me.
GEORGE. Might I suggest that Mr Vachell makes an announcement at the beginning of the trial?
VACHELL. What, as to the pronunciation of your name?
Pause.
GEORGE. Yes, I…
MEEK. George, how may I best put this? Of course it is your name, and both of us will strive to pronounce it correctly, while we are with you. In court… I think we might say, ‘when in Rome’.
GEORGE. When in / Rome?
VACHELL. What Mr Meek means is that we shall acknowledge the court’s right to pronounce your name. What you call ‘mispronouncing’, we might call… making you more English.
GEORGE. And less oriental?
MEEK. Yes.
Pause.
GEORGE. Then I ask you, please, gentlemen, to mispronounce my name on all occasions, so I can get used to it.
MEEK. Of course.
GEORGE. For, after all, my case relies on the evidence of an Englishman.
VACHELL (meaning GEORGE). Exactly.
GEORGE. A clergyman of the Church of England, who will swear on the Holy Bible that his son had been asleep in a locked bedroom at the time when the outrage was committed.
Slight pause.
VACHELL. Well, indeed.
MEEK and VACHELL glance at each other and leave, as MAUD and JEAN appear.
MAUD. In fact, this wasn’t the first time I had seen my brother in a courtroom. When we were growing up, he’d make me be a jury, so he could test the nicer points of railway law.
JEAN. And were you a good juror?
MAUD. Well, I came to understand the basic principle. That what matters isn’t actually what happened, but what can be proved to such a jury.
JEAN. The kind he faced now.
MAUD. Yes.
We are in the room below the courtroom. MEEK and VACHELL come to GEORGE.
VACHELL. Well, we were never going to dent the ‘expert Mr Gurrin’ on your handwriting.
GEORGE. He did say categorically that I did not write two of the letters and a postcard.
MEEK. Though of course…
GEORGE. …his assurance on that point served merely to endorse his other ascriptions.
VACHELL. True.
MEEK. With Dr Butter, on the other hand, I feel that we made progress. We have disposed of the idea that the mutilations could have been committed with your father’s razor.
GEORGE. But there is the matter of the horse hairs. Twenty-nine of them, picked from my jacket. Judged by Dr Butter to be similar in length, colour and structure to the pony’s.
Pause.
MEEK. George, in my experience, the second day is often worst for the defence, and the third the best.
VACHELL. And of course we have your evidence to come.
GEORGE. Of course.
MEEK. And your mother and your sister.
GEORGE. And my father.
A very slight pause.
MEEK. Yes.
MAUD turns to JEAN.
MAUD. And, on the third day, everyone agreed that George gave a most assured performance.
MEEK (to GEORGE). If I may say so, you were particularly telling upon the matter of your remark upon arrest.
MAUD (quoting GEORGE). ‘There had been a campaign of rumour against me for some time.’
GEORGE. It was quite evident that the police were following my movements.
MAUD (quoting GEORGE). ‘So, no, I was not surprised.’
VACHELL. And even when Mr Disturnal raised the matter of the horse hairs…
MAUD (quoting GEORGE). ‘Dr Butter did not say they were identical. He said that they were similar.’
GEORGE (remembering Mr Disturnal). ‘Similar in length, colour and structure. How do you explain this, Mr – (Wrong.) Edalji?’
MEEK. A question which you answered in an exemplary fashion.
MAUD (again, quoting GEORGE). ‘I am unable to. I am not an expert on animal hairs. All I can say is that Dr Butter did not say they were identical.’
GEORGE. But then there was my father.
MAUD. But then there was our father.
GEORGE. And the matter of the lock.
MAUD. There was – a line of questioning about the bedroom lock.
GEORGE. ‘Reverend Edalji, I imagine you are very proud of your son, George.’
MAUD. ‘In fact, sir, it is Edalji.’
GEORGE. ‘I see.’
MAUD. ‘But of course, yes, I am very proud of him.’
GEORGE. ‘Always been good and dutiful to you and Mrs – (Elaborately correct.) Edalji.’
MAUD. ‘Yes, certainly.’
GEORGE. ‘You must be proud of such a clever boy.’
MAUD. ‘Of course.’
From now on it’s possible that GEORGE delivers Disturnal’s lines directly to MAUD, as she delivers their father’s lines back to him.
GEORGE. ‘Mr Edalji, you told Mr Vachell that if your son had left the room in the middle of the night, you would know, because the key squeaks in the lock.’
MAUD. ‘Yes.’
GEORGE. ‘For as long as you can remember?’
MAUD. ‘Yes.’
GEORGE. ‘And this squeak, sir, how would you describe it?’
MAUD. ‘What do you mean? It is a squeak.’
GEORGE. ‘A loud squeak, or a soft squeak?’
MAUD. ‘I would describe it as a loud squeak.’
GEORGE. ‘The key squeaks loudly, twice.’
MAUD. ‘It squeaks loudly every time it turns.’
GEORGE. ‘I’m sorry, I mean, twice a night. Once at bedtime, and once in the morning.’
MAUD. ‘Yes.’
GEORGE. ‘And at any other time?’
MAUD. ‘No.’
GEORGE. ‘No one ever leaves the bedroom in the night.’
MAUD. ‘No.’
GEORGE. ‘For seventeen years.’
MAUD. ‘No.’
GEORGE. ‘You are sure of this?’
MAUD. ‘As sure as I can be.’
GEORGE. ‘Because the key has never turned.’
MAUD. ‘As I have said repeatedly.’
GEORGE. ‘Because if it had turned, it would wake you up.’
MAUD. ‘As I have also said repeatedly.’
GEORGE. ‘Do you not see the contradiction in that statement?’
MAUD. ‘No, I do not.’
By now, once again, MAUD is speaking to JEAN and GEORGE to ARTHUR.
GEORGE. ‘You say the key has never been turned in the night. You say, however, that you’re sure that it would wake you.’
MAUD. ‘Yes!’
GEORGE. ‘How do you know?’
MAUD. ‘Because, as I have said… This is angels dancing on pinheads. I mean, the slightest noise wakes me.’
GEORGE. ‘But you have never been actually woken by the sound of the key turning. Because, as you have said repeatedly…’
MAUD. ‘Yes. I mean, no.’
GEORGE. ‘You have never heard the key turned by the only person who could turn it.’
MAUD. ‘No. I mean, yes.’
GEORGE. ‘Your clever son, of whom you and Mrs Edalji are so obviously proud.’
GEORGE. So that was ‘the best day of the trial’?
MEEK. We have always known that Mr Disturnal / is most adept –
GEORGE. He made my father seem confused. And prickly.
MEEK. Your mother, on the other hand…
GEORGE. …appeared entirely good of heart, utterly loyal, and blindly naive.
Pause.
Mr Meek. My parents were bad witnesses.
MEEK. I would not say that. It’s rather… the best people are not always the best people in the witness box. The more scrupulous they are, the more honest, the more they dwell on each word of the question…
GEORGE. They were bad witnesses.
MEEK. They told the truth. And we should not have expected them to do so in a manner that was not their own. As we must trust the jury to believe them.
MEEK shakes GEORGE’s hand.
Good luck, Mr Edalji.
He goes out.
ARTHUR. So, what happened?
MAUD. I think on the last day, he was in good heart.
GEORGE. I thought: tomorrow, I’ll be in the vicarage.
MAUD. On Sunday…
GEORGE. I’ll listen to my father’s sermon.
GEORGE walks forward. Behind him, the chairs and table of the cell disappear, and the hotel writing room reforms.
MAUD. While on Monday…
GEORGE. The 7.39 will take me back to Newhall Street. Where…
MAUD. …to celebrate his freedom…
GEORGE. …I will take out a subscription to Halsbury’s Laws of England. Yes.
ARTHUR. Yes?
MAUD. Yes.
GEORGE. No.
Pause.
No, that’s wrong. You didn’t mean those words. Unsay them. You meant to say ‘not guilty’.
Pause.
I beg your pardon? Seven years?
The sounds of prison: keys turning; heavy footsteps along metallic surfaces; doors opening and clashing shut.
MAUD. And George looked at me, and I think that he expected I’d be wailing.
GEORGE. But in fact she was gazing up at me, quite gravely, lovingly. And I thought, if I can just retain that look…
MAUD. …then the worst things might be possible.
ARTHUR. But… seven years.
GEORGE. Thinking, that up until this moment, most presumed me innocent.
MAUD. Now almost everyone will think him guilty.
GEORGE. Those who read the newspapers…
JEAN. …shared his morning train ride…
ARTHUR. …your fellow solicitors in Birmingham…
MAUD. They would believe that as well as mutilating animals, he wrote blasphemy and filth.
GEORGE. As will, of course, my father’s congregation. My mother’s parish round…
MAUD. We insisted that we knew him to be innocent.
GEORGE. But for how long? Today, ‘we know our son, and we believe him innocent’. But in six months? Four years?
Slight pause.
And even Maud, my sister? With her look of trust and certainty and love? Might my sister Maud not falter?
MAUD. And was there no end, to this vortex of imagining?
MAUD and JEAN go out. GEORGE stands there.
ARTHUR. Seven years. It’s unimaginable.
He takes GEORGE by the arm and leads him to the reconstructed writing room. During this, WOODIE enters and sits in the main lobby, waiting for ARTHUR.
But they obviously released you early. Seven years, you’d still have four to serve. They saw their error, and released you.
He gestures GEORGE to sit, which he does.
GEORGE. No. The grounds for my release were ‘compassionate’. They have not pardoned me. No one has told me if the Home Office regards me as guilty or not guilty. Until the conviction is expunged, I cannot be readmitted to the roll. Sir Arthur, the only thought that kept me going through these years in prison, was that I could one day return to work as a solicitor.
ARTHUR. And so you write to me, with the request that I win you a free pardon and a large sum in compensation.
GEORGE. Sir Arthur, I must make it absolutely clear that money is not important. I want my name back. And my practice. To get back to normal.
ARTHUR. Of course. But the money is important. The English respect money. It will prove not just that you are innocent but that you were imprisoned wrongly.
GEORGE. So do you mean, you are prepared / to help me?
ARTHUR sits and takes out a notebook.
ARTHUR. Now, I have asked you this before, but is there anyone who you suspect?
GEORGE. Suspect, of…?
ARTHUR. All of it. The persecutions, the forged letters, the horse-ripping.
GEORGE. So you’re prepared to / help me –
ARTHUR. Did you have any enemies in Great Wyrley?
GEORGE. Evidently. But as to who they / are…
ARTHUR. No one who had a particular reason to dislike you?
GEORGE. I was the clever boy at school.
ARTHUR. The only clever boy?
GEORGE. No, there were two of us.
ARTHUR. And did anyone have an animus against your family?
GEORGE. Sir Arthur, I’m a lawyer. I am uncomfortable with guesswork. I deal in logic, reasoning and evidence. Which is why I wrote to you.
Slight pause.
ARTHUR. And who doesn’t deal in reasoning and evidence?
GEORGE. Sir Arthur, are you a Christian?
Slight pause.
ARTHUR. Why do you ask?
GEORGE. As you know, I was brought up in the vicarage. Naturally, I believed the teachings of the Bible were and are the best guide to living a true and honourable life. But then my… my ordeal began.
He looks at ARTHUR to see how this is going down.
For my father, naturally, this has all served to confirm his faith, as if it needed confirmation. He thinks the new century will bring a harmonious co-mingling of the races. To which cause he regards me as a – kind of martyr.
ARTHUR gives a little, supportive gesture.
I, on the other hand… I must confess, that incarceration did not strengthen my belief. On the contrary. Yet when I told my father that you had agreed to see me, he responded that you were the instrument of God’s purpose in the world.
ARTHUR. Well… for myself, I cannot see how your time in prison, or the loss of your profession, can possibly serve God’s purpose.
GEORGE. We think alike.
ARTHUR. However, I agree with your father that this new century is likely to bring about extraordinary spiritual developments. I think – no, I believe, I know that we are near to proving that the greatest barrier to human beings living true and honourable lives is but a – veil. We are on the verge of finding evidence that death is not a door closed in our faces, but a door left ajar.
Slight pause.
Forgive me. It’s a hobby horse. No, it’s a great deal more than that.
To cover his slight embarrassment at having spoken so forcibly, ARTHUR glances at his watch, notes the time that has passed, pockets his notebook and stands.
Now, I fear, I must…
GEORGE. But, Sir Arthur, will you…? Do you mean to…?
As ARTHUR puts on his coat and hat:
ARTHUR. Do I mean to what?
GEORGE. Do you mean to help me?
Pause. ARTHUR looks at GEORGE.
ARTHUR. Who was the other clever boy?
GEORGE. Why do you ask?
ARTHUR. I shall need a contact, an acquaintance in the village.
GEORGE. So…?
ARTHUR. I shall also want to call upon your family. Unobstrusively, of course.
GEORGE. So, then, you’re going to – ?
ARTHUR. So then, George, I am going to do something very indiscreet. I am going to make a lot of noise. The English – the official English – do not like noise. They think it vulgar. But we – you and I, George – are not official Englishmen. So we can bang the drum and shake the tree and see what rotten fruit falls down.
GEORGE is taken aback. After a moment:
GEORGE. Um… Harry Charlesworth was the other clever boy.
ARTHUR (whipping out his notebook and noting the name). Capital.
He is making to go.
GEORGE. But you, Sir Arthur. You think me innocent?
ARTHUR. George, as I say, I knew it would be worth my while to see you by the end of your first paragraph. But having actually seen you, I have a vital piece of evidence already.
He leaves a slight pause.
GEORGE. Uh, may I ask / what –
ARTHUR. Do you know the exact value of your myopia? Six, seven dioptres? I am only guessing.
GEORGE. I’m afraid I have no idea.
ARTHUR. Having only recently acquired spectacles.
GEORGE. Yes, since I left prison. How do you…?
ARTHUR. As to the myopia, the fact you held your newspaper three inches from your face. As to the spectacles, I assure you, the absence of visible indentations down your nose are clear testimony as to when they were prescribed. Certainly long after you were convicted of locating, quieting and then mutilating a small pony in the pitch dark in the middle of a field.
Slight pause.
GEORGE. And my first paragraph?
ARTHUR. Again, an absence. The words ‘Sherlock Holmes’. Good afternoon.
He shakes GEORGE’s hand and goes quickly into the lobby. WOODIE stands.
WOODIE. Sir Arthur, I’m so sorry.
ARTHUR. What about?
WOODIE. Miss Leckie.
ARTHUR. What about Miss Leckie?
WOODIE says nothing. MAUD enters, near GEORGE.
Oh, it’s no matter. I think she felt I should have let her know I was in town.
A beat. Then:
Can you bring the Wolseley?
WOODIE. Yes, of course.
ARTHUR. Woodie, I have taken a decision.
WOODIE. You have, sir?
ARTHUR. Yes. I have found my mission.
WOODIE. Right.
WOODIE goes out. Back in the writing room, GEORGE opens The White Company, as JEAN and MAUD enter.
GEORGE (reading a passage about halfway through the book). ‘ “Once more, Sir Oliver,” said Nigel, looking shoreward with sparkling eyes, “do we find ourselves at the gate of honour, the door which hath so often led us to all that is knightly and worthy.” ’
He continues to flip through the book.
MAUD. And you, Miss Leckie?
Realising JEAN is no longer ‘Miss Leckie’:
Oh, I’m sorry.
JEAN. Don’t worry. We met ten years ago. And I too did not mention Sherlock Holmes.
ARTHUR hears JEAN’s voice and turns.
MAUD. What did you say?
JEAN. As I recall, I asked him about a photographic exhibition. Of a voyage to the Arctic. Which led him on to reminisce about his own experiences.
ARTHUR. In my youth I spent a period as doctor on a whaling vessel.
JEAN. And an extensive anecdote about his crossing of an Alpine pass.
ARTHUR. So, without my skis, I was obliged to make my descent in a considerably less dignified / manner –
JEAN. And then I said I’d like to learn to ski.
ARTHUR. I, um… I think it most unlikely that a woman…
JEAN. And that I had good balance, and had ridden since the age of four.
ARTHUR. It is not, I think, so much balance as the brute strength needed to keep / upright –
JEAN. Oh, I am quite strong. And I imagine I have better balance than you, given your size. It must be an advantage, having a lower centre of gravity. And being much less heavy, I should not do so much damage were I to fall.
ARTHUR. Well, yes, I suppose…
JEAN. So will you teach me? One day?
Slight pause.
ARTHUR. If you insist.
JEAN. Next week I am singing Beethoven at a musical afternoon.
ARTHUR. I shall be there.
JEAN. I shall hold you to both pledges, Mr Doyle.
The DOORMAN comes to ARTHUR.
DOORMAN. Your car’s outside, Sir Arthur.
ARTHUR. Thank you.
ARTHUR tips the DOORMAN and goes out.
JEAN (to MAUD). And we did meet again. And we discussed my skiing lessons. But of course we weren’t discussing skiing lessons. And I told him that he was in love with me, and I with him.
MAUD looks a little shocked.
You look a little shocked.
MAUD. I didn’t mean to.
JEAN. But you should.
Slight pause.
For he also told me something I already knew. That he had been married for twelve years to Louisa, known as Touie, that they lived contentedly at Hindhead, Surrey, with their two children, and that she was dying of consumption. And would be, for nine years.
A moment before JEAN and MAUD leave. GEORGE is still reading The White Company.
GEORGE. ‘Perchance Sir Nigel, with his love of all the dying usages of chivalry, might have contrived some strange ordeal or feat of arms by which his love should be put to the test.’
ARTHUR. So there it is. The colliery paddock.
WOODIE. From the vicarage, across a field, over a fence and then a hedge…
ARTHUR. The passage underneath the railway.
WOODIE. Across another fence, another hedge…
ARTHUR. More, through it.
WOODIE. And another field.
ARTHUR checks his watch.
ARTHUR. In eighteen and a half minutes. Two fit men with good eyesight on a bright if wintry day.
WOODIE. One of them the most recognisable man of letters in the country.
ARTHUR (gesturing with his muffler). Who has concealed his most recognisable feature.
MAUD, very well wrapped up, has entered.
MAUD. Ah, Sir Arthur. There you are.
WOODIE. Um…
ARTHUR. Ah.
MAUD. I am Maud Edalji. I saw you at the vicarage. And then you walked away.
ARTHUR (with a satisfied nod at WOODIE). We were a little early.
MAUD. Yes, I know. We were surprised you took the 12.18 from Birmingham.
ARTHUR. You know what train…?
MAUD. Our maid walks out with the son of the assistant stationmaster. He’s apparently an avid reader of your stories. The son, that is.
ARTHUR. Is he now.
WOODIE. Clearly not deceived by / the concealment –
ARTHUR. Miss Edalji, I’m very pleased to meet you. This is my secretary, Mr Wood. But, surely, there was no need to pursue us through the snow. In your condition.
MAUD. In my ‘condition’?
ARTHUR. Your brother tells me you are very delicate.
MAUD. A brisk walk does me no harm. There is a slightly quicker way. And I wanted to speak with you before you met my parents.
ARTHUR. Ah.
MAUD. You will doubtless wish to see the many letters we received.
ARTHUR. I am hoping they will lend them to me.
MAUD. You must insist they show you the full collection.
ARTHUR. They might – withhold…?
MAUD. There are some letters which they obviously find disturbing.
ARTHUR. Yes, of course.
MAUD. But also, they may hold back the letter we received from the Chief Constable.
ARTHUR. From the Chief Constable?
MAUD. My father wrote to him. In an attempt to gain his support in discovering the author of the persecutions.
ARTHUR. An excellent idea.
MAUD. So my father thought.
ARTHUR. But it didn’t prove to be so?
MAUD. As my brother had predicted.
WOODIE. You could say that Mr Edalji referred / to this –
ARTHUR. Yes, I shall say that. Miss Edalji, I’m very grateful for your advice.
WOODIE. And now, maybe…
ARTHUR. But might I ask a question?
MAUD. Yes?
ARTHUR. You appreciate, I have only met your brother once.
MAUD. Yes, of course.
ARTHUR. He has had a terrible experience.
MAUD. He has.
ARTHUR. I wondered, you see, what… what he…
MAUD. …was like before. As a young man.
ARTHUR. Exactly.
MAUD. Who’d shared a bedroom with his father for so many years.
ARTHUR. Yes.
MAUD. Living a particularly sheltered life. Between his office and the vicarage.
ARTHUR. I wondered – if he had ever had a mind to set up his own home. To marry.
MAUD. I think he had a mind to. In general principle.
ARTHUR. Whereas, I have found, that marriage is a course best pursued in the particular.
MAUD. Did he ever talk about a trip to Aberystwyth?
Slight pause.
ARTHUR. Just before he was arrested. He said it was the last entirely carefree day of his life.
MAUD. Yes, that’s what he said about it afterwards.
ARTHUR. It wasn’t like that at the time?
MAUD. We walked along the seafront. We decided not to take a pleasure boat around the bay. We took luncheon at the second-best hotel and climbed up to the castle, which he described as ‘an offence under the Sale of Goods Act’, where I could just make out the peak of Snowdon.
ARTHUR. Which your brother obviously could not.
MAUD. So I promised him that one day I would buy him a fine pair of binoculars. A promise I fulfilled at Christmas.
ARTHUR. I’m sure he was delighted.
MAUD. I doubt he’s opened them. Or ever will.
Pause.
My brother is not a man who likes new things. Or who wants to see things larger than they initially appear.
ARTHUR. What do you mean?
MAUD. Sir Arthur, what is your interest in this matter?
ARTHUR. To right what I regard as a monstrous stain upon the annals of our country.
MAUD. Yes, of course. Whereas my brother’s wants might be… smaller.
ARTHUR. Your brother’s wants are my entire concern.
MAUD. I’m sure of it. It’s just that…
Slight pause.
ARTHUR. Please, go on.
MAUD. It doesn’t matter. And you’re right, Mr Wood. My father will expect you to be punctual.
WOODIE (checks). Twenty minutes to.
ARTHUR. Did you say there was a shortcut?
MAUD. I should arrive a little before you. And you will, I think, wish to avoid that group of young men standing near the horses in the field.
ARTHUR. Oh, yes.
ARTHUR twirls his muffler around his face.
WOODIE. What do they want?
MAUD. Well, one of them is the assistant stationmaster’s son. So it might be that he wants an autograph.
WOODIE. And the others?
MAUD. A famous man comes here to prove my brother’s innocence. Ask yourself how that might look, to others in the village. Who might not be – quite so innocent.
ARTHUR. Yes. Yes, of course.
MAUD. So, I would go the other way.
She goes out. ARTHUR and WOODIE look at each other. ARTHUR wants to go towards the young men.
ARTHUR. So the barbarians are at our very gates. Do we skulk away, or mount our charger?
WOODIE. Uh… Sir Arthur.
ARTHUR. Yes?
WOODIE. I’ve read up the newspapers, as you asked me to.
ARTHUR. And you think – ?
WOODIE. I think somebody who rips open a cow’s udder, or a horse’s stomach, cutting through the muscle to the guts, and leaving them to bleed to death… is best avoided. Charger or no charger.
A moment.
ARTHUR. Even so.
ARTHUR flaps. Then he decides to take WOODIE’s advice, and go back the way they came. The distant sound of a horse, screaming; ARTHUR follows WOODIE out. The screaming is overtaken by the sounds of a steam train.
ARTHUR. So, our visit to the family.
WOODIE. The Hindoo father thinks you wrote The Tell-Tale Heart.
ARTHUR. He’s not a Hindoo.
WOODIE. The Scottish mother thinks she might detect a lilt of Edinburgh.
ARTHUR. As of course she does. These pleasantries concluded…
WOODIE waves two thick files.
WOODIE. They produce the letters.
ARTHUR. All of them.
WOODIE. Eventually.
ARTHUR. And then we make our call on Harry Charlesworth in his milking parlour. The ‘only other clever boy at school’.
WOODIE. To whom you offer a ‘retainer’.
ARTHUR. In exchange for which he furnishes much useful information.
WOODIE. George was ‘the coloured vicar’s son’. He didn’t go out much, didn’t have close friends and was unpopular at school. And finally…
ARTHUR. To Mr Brookes the ironmonger.
WOODIE (nodding to a package). From whom you buy a bootscraper.
ARTHUR. And who lends us the letters he received.
WOODIE. For which he takes a small ‘deposit’.
ARTHUR. Which include… a threat of blackmail against his son, Frederick – connected with a complicated incident in which he was alleged to have spat at an old woman at Walsall Station. With another boy, whose name…
WOODIE. …was proffered in exchange for a copper bucket and two mops.
ARTHUR. Whose name was Wynn? Or Speck?
WOODIE. No, Speck was the one who broke the railway compartment window.
ARTHUR. A rich array of dramatis personae. So, our day’s work, Woodie.
WOODIE. To be honest, sir, I don’t think we’ve made much progress.
ARTHUR. Ah, but the progress we have made has been in several different directions. And we did need a bootscraper.
WOODIE. Another bootscraper.
ARTHUR. And here we are.
They stand.
BELLBOY. Will this room do? I’m ’fraid it ain’t…
ARTHUR. This will do splendidly. Can you bring us up some supper?
BELLBOY (glances at his watch). ’S’alf past eight. Don’t s’pose there’s much hot supper left.
ARTHUR. Then cold will suffice. With a – pint of stout?
WOODIE nods.
And a glass of burgundy.
BELLBOY. Very well, Sir Arthur.
ARTHUR puts his finger to his lips.
Sir.
The BELLBOY goes out.
WOODIE. You see, Sir Arthur. Even in Birmingham.
ARTHUR. No wonder. A thrusting, energetic, forward-looking and informed metropolis.
WOODIE. Just not the Imperial Family Hotel.
ARTHUR. Come come.
WOODIE (imitating the BELLBOY). ‘I don’t s’pose…’
ARTHUR. Don’t be a spoilsport, Woodie. Supper will arrive. Along with burgundy and stout. But in the meantime…
Slight pause.
WOODIE (shrugs). Sound away.
ARTHUR. Anson, the Chief Constable.
WOODIE. Well, yes.
ARTHUR looks through the letters.
ARTHUR. A person of distinction. Second son to the Second Earl of Litchfield. Late Royal Artillery. And yet, his force pursues what looks like a vendetta against a country parson’s son.
WOODIE. He pursues what looks like a vendetta…
ARTHUR (reads). ‘I do not know the name of the offender, though I have my particular suspicions.’ As if he is accusing Edalji himself…
WOODIE. Sir Arthur, you know me. I look for the obvious answer.
ARTHUR. Which, in this case…
WOODIE. …is that Edalji isn’t any old country parson.
ARTHUR. That is indeed very obvious, Alfred. So obvious it cannot be the case. Captain Anson is an English gentleman.
WOODIE. Oh, right. Son to the Second Earl of Litchfield.
ARTHUR. But let us not abandon hope of progress, nor of supper. A greater problem is the matter of the horse hairs, found on George’s jacket, and against which we keep bumping up. If we could leapfrog the obvious on this one…
WOODIE. Thank you, Sir Arthur.
ARTHUR. The police surgeon – to whom I have naturally written asking for an interview – gave evidence that there were hairs – twenty-nine in all – similar in length, colour and structure to those of the mutilated pony, on George’s jacket. George’s explanation is that he might have picked the hairs up leaning on a gate.
WOODIE. Which sounds unlikely.
ARTHUR. So either the surgeon was mistaken, or…
WOODIE. Or else, he’s guilty.
ARTHUR. A view I cannot countenance.
WOODIE. I know, Sir Arthur. But, without some feasible / alternative…
ARTHUR. While the third blank concerns the letters. The persecutions take place in two separate outbreaks. The first from ’92 – around the time of the Walsall school key – up to ’95. Then it stops, and doesn’t start on up again till February ’03. So why the gap?
WOODIE. Well, it might have been two different people.
ARTHUR. Obviously.
WOODIE. Or maybe the person wasn’t there.
ARTHUR. And?
WOODIE. I don’t know, Sir Arthur. Maybe he was in jail. Or Birmingham. Or jail in Birmingham. Or he’d run away to sea…
ARTHUR (more in sorrow than in anger). Woodie.
(Looking through the letters.) Now, question four is obviously Milton…
WOODIE. Milton?
ARTHUR. Yes. Don’t you remember, in the letter…
A double knock at the door.
WOODIE. Letter?
Knock knock. ARTHUR is looking at the letters.
ARTHUR. Now, where was it?
Double knock.
Yes, what? Bring it in!
The BELLBOY admits a tall, grey-haired man in his outer clothing. His name is DrBUTTER.
BELLBOY. A gentleman to see you.
ARTHUR. Oh. To whom might we…?
BUTTER. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?
ARTHUR. Uh – yes?
BUTTER. You wrote to me, stating that you were staying here at the Imperial Hotel.
The BELLBOY goes out and wheels in a trolley with supper.
ARTHUR. I did?
BUTTER. I had an appointment at the police courts and so decided I might call by on the off-chance. My name is Butter. I gave evidence in the trial of George Edalji.
ARTHUR. Ah, yes. Indeed. Good Lord.
He tips the BELLBOY, who goes out.
Would you care for some refreshment?
BUTTER. No, thank you. I have a train in just over a quarter of an hour.
He sits.
ARTHUR. In that case… Dr Butter, this is very good of you.
BUTTER. Oh, I’m very glad to make the acquaintance of the author ofThe White Company.
ARTHUR. As I am to make / yours.
BUTTER. As long as it is clearly understood that everything I say will be treated in the strictest confidence, and that you will not repeat any statement I may make without giving me the opportunity to endorse, correct or withdraw it.
ARTHUR. Yes, of course. Dr Butter, I have naturally read the reports of your evidence in George Edalji’s trial.
BUTTER. Good.
ARTHUR. It was clear that both judge and jury regarded it as most authoritative.
BUTTER. So I would hope.
ARTHUR. You could say, it secured George Edalji’s conviction.
BUTTER. Not alone, I think. The evidence of the handwriting expert was decisive also.
ARTHUR. I think particularly of the hairs – twenty-nine, I think – that were found on the young man’s jacket. Which you judged as ‘similar’ to those from a piece of skin cut from the pony.
BUTTER. Yes.
ARTHUR. But not the same.
BUTTER. No.
ARTHUR. Because they might not be the same?
BUTTER. No, that would be a conclusion, rather than an observation. But to say that they were similar in length, colour and structure is to say they were the same.
ARTHUR. No doubt in your mind?
BUTTER. Sir Arthur, in the witness box, I always err on the side of caution. But, between ourselves, the hairs on the clothes of the accused came from the mutilated pony.
ARTHUR. I see.
WOODIE throws ARTHUR a sympathetic look.
So that’s that, I suppose.
BUTTER. Well, that is not for me to judge.
He stands.
ARTHUR. And all from the same horse.
BUTTER. Yes.
ARTHUR. And from the same part of the body.
Slight pause.
BUTTER. Yes?
ARTHUR. The belly, I believe?
BUTTER. That is correct.
ARTHUR. Although in fact the hairs on the different parts of a horse or pony would be a different length, or even structure? Hair from the back, or tail, or mane?
BUTTER. That is also true. Sir Arthur…
ARTHUR. Dr Butter, let us assume that you and I go out to disembowel a horse.
BUTTER. In fact, the pony was not disembowelled.
ARTHUR. To rip a horse, then. We approach it, calm it down. We stroke the muzzle, or the flank. Then imagine how we might hold it when we rip it. We might put our arm across its back…
BUTTER. Well, obviously, I have never attended such a gruesome scene.
ARTHUR. But is it not frankly inconceivable that the hairs that ended up on your or my jacket would be all from the same place? Would you not expect hairs from another part?
BUTTER. It is not a matter of what I might expect, but what I found.
ARTHUR. You work at Cannock, I believe?
BUTTER. Yes.
ARTHUR. The piece of skin was not cut by you.
BUTTER. No, I never saw the animal.
ARTHUR. So it was delivered to you? With the jacket?
BUTTER. They arrived at the same time.
ARTHUR. Delivered by the same police officer.
BUTTER. Yes.
ARTHUR. In the same parcel?
BUTTER. Yes.
ARTHUR. And obviously, these items were kept scrupulously apart? While in your possession?
BUTTER. I see where you are heading. Yes, they were kept scrupulously apart. And if I may anticipate, no, they did not come rolled together in a sack. They were separately wrapped and sealed, no amount of shaking could have made the hairs escape from one package to the other, and to suggest otherwise is to impugn my integrity as well as that of the police.
ARTHUR. Of course. I apologise.
BUTTER. You didn’t ask the question.
ARTHUR. But naturally I would have done.
WOODIE is tapping his watch.
And now perhaps we should allow you to go and catch your train.
WOODIE is shaking his head, mimes cutting something.
BUTTER (standing). Thank you. I hope I have been of some assistance.
ARTHUR. Certainly. Oh, there is one other question.
BUTTER. Yes?
ARTHUR. Do you know at what time the horse was…
WOODIE shakes his head and reiterates the cutting gesture.
When the section of the horse’s flesh was cut?
BUTTER. Well, the crime was discovered shortly after six, as I recall. But the section was not cut until after the animal was put out of its misery.
ARTHUR. And you received it when?
BUTTER. About nine.
ARTHUR. No later?
BUTTER. Certainly not. I know what time it arrived, as I had complained of their insistence that I receive it that day. I told them I could not possibly stay beyond nine o’clock, which was when the parcel eventually arrived.
ARTHUR. I’m sorry. The mistake was mine. I thought you meant nine in the morning.
BUTTER. I imagine that was round about the time when the sample was being cut. Cannock is several miles from Great Wyrley.
ARTHUR. Exactly so. Many thanks again, Dr Butter. You are clearly a formidable witness.
BUTTER. Well, I am experienced, and my evidence is based on scientific observation.
ARTHUR. Unlike, perhaps, some others in the witness box?
BUTTER. Indeed.
ARTHUR picks up that BUTTER is debating whether to say something else.
ARTHUR. Indeed what, Dr Butter?
BUTTER. Sir Arthur, did you follow the case of Adolf Beck? A Norwegian, I recall. Accused of fraud, against several women with whom, it was alleged, he had relations.
ARTHUR. No, I…
BUTTER. His conviction was overturned, at a committee of inquiry. On the grounds that a crucial piece of prosecution evidence was utterly discredited. I’d say, ’04? It might repay attention. Good evening.
ARTHUR. Good evening. And thank you.
BUTTER goes out. ARTHUR goes immediately into action, dictating tasks to WOODIE, who notes them down.
Letters. The headmaster of Walsall School, to trace back the boy, Speck. ‘The Case of the Unfraudulent Norwegian.’
WOODIE. Beck.
ARTHUR. Beck, Speck. Unfortunate.
WOODIE. Not something you’d write in a story.
ARTHUR. No. And yes, I think so, Anson, the Chief Constable of Staffordshire. Requesting an interview at his earliest convenience.
WOODIE. You think we’ve got enough to / make a case?
ARTHUR. Twelve hours, Woodie. The police had George’s coat and the pony’s skin for twelve hours. Why?
The Imperial Hotel and its occupants disappear into darkness. JEAN appears with MAUD.
JEAN. And so, we set the terms of our relationship. We would meet, and even be alone. But it would go no further.
So when my brother thinks that we might motor over to the Doyle establishment, there are no hidden undertones or innuendoes.
And when he introduces me to his mother, she can reassure him that he’s doing right.
But then, of course, his wife does die. And for some time, naturally, he falls prey to a lassitude, an ennervating torpor, he cannot take the simplest of decisions. Including the decision to disclose…
Imagining, perhaps, that Touie might have known. Or worse, that his daughter might have known. And worst of all, for a man who has always held ‘good liars’ in especial contempt: that he will have to lie and lie and lie again. And, in that sense, that there is no difference between the truth and how the world perceives it, between the thing and its appearance, between innocence and guilt. And was there no end to this vortex of imagining? Or any feat of arms to set it right?
ARTHUR. No, rubbish, invitation, circular… aha. The oculist.
WOODIE has entered with the various purchases from the Birmingham trip, perhaps a little more extensive now.
WOODIE. One bucket.
ARTHUR. Just as I thought: left eye, minus 8.75 diop. sphere, right eye minus 8.25. And a permanent structural condition. Long term. Incurable.
WOODIE. I’m very pleased, Sir Arthur.
ARTHUR. No, invitation, bill. Three to Him. Headmaster. Ah.
As ARTHUR opens out the letter, WOODIE picks up one of the discarded letters and reads the postmark.
WOODIE. Kyoto.
ARTHUR. Remind me to write to him about the school literature curriculum.
WOODIE. The literature curriculum?
ARTHUR. ‘The burning lake of hell.’ Oh, dammit.
WOODIE (to himself). Fiery lake.
ARTHUR. No ‘Speck’ on the school rolls. ‘Nothing between “Sharp” and “Sutton”.’
WOODIE. That’s odd.
ARTHUR. Damned inconvenient. Bill, circular, no, bill. Ah. Adolf Beck.
WOODIE. The allegedly philandering Norwegian.
ARTHUR. Found guilty on the evidence of Thomas Gurrin, expert in analysis of handwriting. This evidence ‘conclusively discredited’. Reprimanded by the Committee of Inquiry! That’s Thomas Gurrin, who assured the Staffordshire Assizes that George Edalji wrote letters to himself signed ‘Satan’.
WOODIE. Bull’s-eye, Sir Arthur.
ARTHUR. So first thing tomorrow, we send off George’s writing and the letters to our expert. Ha!
WOODIE is picking up the discarded letters.
WOODIE. I’ll get on to it first thing.
ARTHUR. Bill, rubbish, invitation.
Tossing a pile of envelopes, tied in twine, to WOODIE.
‘221B Baker Street’ – return to senders… And last but not least. The Chief Constable.
WOODIE. That’s quick.
ARTHUR (reading the letter). Who wonders if I might care to dine with him and Mrs Anson any day next week. Being much interested to discover what ‘Sherlock Holmes’ makes of a case in ‘real life’. Oh, and I may bring the great detective with me if I like. Mrs Anson would be charmed to meet him.
He looks at WOODIE.
WOODIE. Sir Arthur, you know my views on dressing up.
WOODIE spots a particular discarded letter and picks it up.
ARTHUR. They’re rattled! The handwriting’s collapsing! We’ll find the letter-writer. The hairs were clearly put there by the police.
WOODIE. Um, sir… I think, Miss Leckie?
ARTHUR. What? Oh, yes.
He takes the letter and pockets it.
George Edalji was framed! The guilty are still out there! Perhaps they were the young men standing watching in the field! The tree is shaking, Woodie! Watch for rotten fruit. It’s obvious!
He strides out, waving the letters, leaving WOODIE alone.
WOODIE. Or even, elementary.
End of Act One.