The True Crime Files of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Conan Doyle, Sir Arthur
Ed. Hines, Stephen
Berkeley Prime Crime: New York 2001
ISBN 0-425-17952-4
290pp
Date finished: 2004-01-19
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Ten years after writing the Sherlock Holmes stories, Conan Doyle became embroiled with two miscarriages of justice. This book collects Conan Doyle's writings on the cases, the response to his articles, and the editor adds historical notes and context. The text is a bit dry in spots, but both cases are interesting episodes in Conan Doyle's life, especially the Edalji case.
In the first case George Edalji, a young solicitor, was accused of mutilating horses and cattle near his residence in the countryside. He was also held to have written a series of anonymous letters that claimed he was the culprit. This scenario is quite implausible -- why would you kill animals secretly and then write anonymous letters claiming you did it? -- and the defense quite reasonably pointed to a campaign of harassment against the Edaljis that had been running off and on since 1888. But Edalji was of mixed race, having an Indian father and an English mother, and the police were prejudiced against him from the beginning; in relation to an 1892 theft of a key, the chief of police wrote Edalji's father "I shall not pretend to believe any protestations of ignorance which your son may make about this key." He was tried and sentenced to prison for the killing of one pony. In 1906 the case came to Conan Doyle's attention and he pursued it in the newspapers, writing articles and arguing over various points in the letter columns. Edalji was suddenly released, though not declared innocent of the charges, and the matter was sent to the Home Office, who pardoned Edalji but denied him any compensation.
Conan Doyle's participation in the second case was less pronounced. Oscar Slater was a shady character arrested for the murder of an elderly Glasgow woman, but there wasn't really any evidence against him and no indication that he'd even heard of the woman. Despite the case being taken to the public by Conan Doyle's 1912 book, Slater wasn't released until the 1920s.