Beschreibung:

DOYLE, Sir Arthur Conan (1859-1930). Two autograph letters signed to Mr [Ian A.] Aldis (Headmaster of Walsall Grammar School), Crowborough, 27 November [19]07 and Tunbridge Wells, n.d. [2 December 1907], together 3½ pages, 8vo (the first letter split in vertical and horizontal folds); and two autograph letters signed by Aldis addressed to S. Powis, 1 and 4 December 1907, and an envelope. Conan Doyle asks for help in his investigation into the notorious Edalji case. 'During the Edalji persecution of 1892 the Walsall school key was stolen, and was left in the Edalji's grounds ... Can you remember whether some suspicion attached at the time to a rather unsavoury youth named Royden Sharp, or "Spec. Sharp"'. Conan Doyle gives his reasons for thinking that Sharp may have been the author of the 'scurrilous anonymous letters', and the perpetrator of the crimes for which Edalji was convicted. Aldis forwards Conan Doyle's letters to the present headmaster at the school and asks him to look into the report books for any comments about Sharp. CONAN DOYLE PLAYS DETECTIVE. George Edalji, the solicitor son of a Parsee clergyman living near Birmingham, was convicted of a series of brutal attacks, in which ponies and cattle were slashed and maimed. Edalji's father had previously been the victim of malicious letters and warped practical jokes, and the key to Walsall Grammar School was mysteriously left on his doorstep. Conan Doyle devoted eight months to examining the case, demolishing the police evidence and focusing attention on Sharp, who had been expelled from the school. He eventually succeeded in proving, to his own satisfaction at least, that Sharp was responsible for the crimes for which Edalji had spent three years in prison.