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birth to be a solemn truth, annually celebrated, but he has left behind the nervous exaltation that still infects Horace and Maud. Nor does he share the trivial hopes his old schoolfellows at Rugeley used openly to express: for frivolous presents of a kind which have no place at the Vicarage. They also annually set their hearts on snow, and would even demean the faith by praying for it.
    George has no interest in skating or sledding or the building of snowmen. He has already embarked on his future career. He has left Rugeley and is studying law at Mason College in Birmingham. If he applies himself, and passes the first examination, he will become an articled clerk. After five years of articles, there will be final examinations, and then he will become a solicitor. He sees himself with a desk, a set of bound law books and a suit with a fob chain slung between his waistcoat pockets like golden rope. He imagines himself being respected. He imagines himself with a hat.
    It is almost dark when he gets home late on the afternoon of December 12th. As he reaches the front door of the Vicarage he notices an object lying on the step. He bends, then squats to examine it more closely. It is a large key, cold to the touch and heavy in the hand. George does not know what to make of it. The keys to the Vicarage are much smaller; so is that of the schoolroom. The church key is different again; nor does this seem to be a farm key of any kind. But its weight suggests a serious purpose.
    He takes it to his father, who is equally puzzled.
    ‘On the step, you say?’ Another question to which Father already knows the answer.
    ‘Yes, Father.’
    ‘And you saw no one put it there?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘And did you meet anyone coming away from the Vicarage on your way from the station?’
    ‘No, Father.’
    The key is sent with a note to Hednesford police station, and three days later, when George returns from college, Sergeant Upton is sitting in the kitchen. Father is still out on his parish rounds; Mother is hovering anxiously. It crosses George’s mind that there is a reward for finding the key. If this was one of those stories the boys at Rugeley used to love, it would open a strongbox or treasure chest, and the hero would next require a crumpled map with an X marked on it. George has no taste for such adventures, which always strike him as far too unlikely.
    Sergeant Upton is a red-faced man with the build of a blacksmith; his dark serge uniform constricts him, and is perhaps the cause of the wheezing noises he makes. He looks George up and down, nodding to himself as he does so.
    ‘So you’re the young fellow that found the key?’
    George remembers his attempts to play the detective when Elizabeth Foster was writing on walls. Now there is another mystery, but this time with a policeman and a future solicitor involved. It feels appropriate as well as exciting.
    ‘Yes. It was on the doorstep.’ The Sergeant doesn’t respond to this, but carries on nodding to himself. He seems to need putting at his ease, so George tries to help. ‘Is there a reward?’
    The Sergeant looks surprised. ‘Now why would you be wondering if there’s a reward? You of all people?’
    George takes this to mean that there isn’t one. Perhaps the policeman has only come to congratulate him on returning lost property. ‘Have you found out where it’s from?’
    Upton doesn’t reply to this either. Instead, he takes out a notebook and pencil.
    ‘Name?’
    ‘You know my name.’
    ‘Name, I said.’
    The Sergeant really could be more civil, George thinks.
    ‘George.’
    ‘Yes. Go on.’
    ‘Ernest.’
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘Thompson.’
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘You know my surname. It’s the same as my father’s. And my mother’s.’
    ‘Go on, I say, you uppish little fellow.’
    ‘Edalji.’
    ‘Ah yes,’ says the Sergeant. ‘Now I think you’d better spell that out for me.’

Arthur
    Arthur’s marriage, like his remembered life, began in death.
    He qualified