CONAN DOYLE DOES A SHERLOCK

Shrabani Basu’s book tells the story of how Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective knowhow once came to the rescue of a beleaguered Parsi lawyer

- Bhavya Dore

THE MYSTERY OF THE PARSEE LAWYER

by Shrabani Basu

BLOOMSBURY

Towards the late 19th century, the family of an Indian vicar in rural England became the target of malicious anonymous letters, pranks and other assorted mischief. In 1903, things took a more sinister turn, when village cattle started to turn up mutilated or dead—the work of a night-time assailant in Great Wyrley, near Birmingham. George Edalji, a lawyer and the eldest son of Shapoorji, a Parsi convert to Anglicanism, and a white British woman, quickly came to be accused of the crimes. Despite dubious and contradictory evidence, the short-sighted “oriental” was decried as a blood-thirsty maniac with mysterious proclivities.

Tried and convicted in an inflamed atmosphere of racism and sentenced to a seven-year prison term, Edalji lost his legal licence and any hope of a reprieve— there was not yet a system in place for appeals. Still, Edalji was steadfast in protesting his innocence, and with little to lose, wrote to Arthur Conan Doyle, the wildly popular writer of Sherlock Holmes’ adventures. Outraged by the apparent injustice, Conan Doyle, by now a respected public figure, set out to investigate. The British justice system had met its match.