Rumpole and the Angel of Death

by John Mortimer

  I yawned a little, bit my tongue to keep myself awake, and then looked up to the ceiling of the old courtroom. The public gallery was quite full but there, standing in a doorway at the back of it, I saw Skelton, the murdered man.

  I swear to you, Dodo, I saw him clearly. There were no head wounds, of course. In fact he looked remarkably well and suntanned as though, since his death, he’d found time for a Caribbean holiday. Indeed, he looked as though he were still on holiday. His white shirt was open at the neck, he wore a blazer and, I think, fawn-coloured trousers. He seemed to be reasonably interested in the proceedings caused by his death, although I couldn’t help noticing, as the police evidence droned on, that he covered his mouth with the back of his hand, politely concealing a small yawn.

  I must have given a small gasp, an intake of breath, hardly a cry and certainly not loud enough to stir Rumpole from his simulated sleep. But Danny looked towards where I was staring and it seemed to me that he aged quite suddenly. I had, at my most besotted moments, given him late fifties and now he was middle seventies, without a doubt, in front of my eyes. He got to his feet and, in trying to go quietly, stumbled a little, bowed to the Judge and left the Court.

  I made sure that Michael, sitting in the dock, his hands folded in his lap and his head down, couldn’t see who was in the gallery immediately above his head, and so he missed the sight of his father returned from the grave and looking extremely well. I also saw that Rumpole wasn’t looking. Then I turned my eyes to heaven again and there, by the gallery doorway, Danny Newcombe was whispering urgently to the ghost – for if it wasn’t Dimitri Skelton’s spirit I had no idea, I promise you, Dodo, what it was. But I was going to find out. I got up, did my best possible bow to the Judge who, as usual, also looked dead, and left the Court. As I left Rumpole opened one speculative eye.

  I came out of the courtroom door into the entrance hall and I heard voices from the stairs which lead down from the public gallery. You know what I took into my head to do, Dodo? I hid! You might think I’m not exactly the shape for it now, not sylphlike as I was when we squeezed in behind the dormitory door to jump out and scare that ghastly little show-off, Dorothy Bliss, witless. But the hall was pretty dark and there were some thick stone pillars and I tucked behind them somehow. I was just in time to see Danny and the deceased cross to the main entrance. Danny was talking quietly but his voice echoed across the stone floor. I suppose he might have been speaking to a ghost. ‘I told you to keep away,’ he was saying. ‘I told you to go back down under and never come near me again.’ Then he pulled open one of the big glass doors and they both stepped out into the sunlight.

  I tried to walk quietly across the hallway then. My footsteps seemed to clatter and echo but there was no one there to notice me. I stood by the doors and looked through to the sunlit car park. I saw the figure that seemed to be Dimitri Skelton get into a car and Danny slammed the door. The car was parked very near the Law Court steps and I could see a sticker for RUDYARDS’S CARS, LEWES on the back window. I was even able to notice part of the number: ARB and I think it ended with an S. You see, at that moment, I had stopped being a discontented housewife with longings for a newer world. At that moment, Dodo, I had become a lawyer – or at least a detective.

  Oh, when the man with the suntan and the open-necked shirt drove the car away, I made quite sure, Dodo, that he wasn’t dead. I’ve had very little experience of the after-life, but I don’t think dead people go driving around East Sussex in a hired car.

  I didn’t go back to Court that afternoon; I had too much to think about. What was that poem of Michael’s? Something about ‘The dead around us all reply’? Well, the dead, or someone very like the dead, had brought a message to me which I knew was important although I didn’t fully understand it yet. There was a lot still to find out so I took a taxi to Long Acre, about five miles out of the town, and asked the driver to wait for me.

  It had obviously been a lovely old farmhouse, Dodo, but there was something rather flashy and obviously false about it, like a woman who has had too obvious a face-lift and wears a lot of costume jewellery. Carriage lamps gleamed brassily on each side of the front door. There were white plastic lounging- chairs around the pool bar, a lot of chalky-white statues from a garden centre – cherubs and frogs and things like that – and an ostentatious burglar alarm. I walked round to the back of the house and knocked at the Beazleys’ door. There was some noisy shuffling and gasping from inside and then Mrs Beazley opened it. I introduced myself, said I was just passing and there was something I wanted to ask her. When I told her that my husband, one of the lawyers in the case, doted on treacle tart, and I was never quite sure of the recipe, she invited me in. She was alone and seemed in need of company.

  ‘Spoonful of black treacle,’ she told me, ‘to go with the golden syrup. Three teaspoonfuls of white breadcrumbs and the grated rind of a lemon. I’ll write it out for you if you’d like.’ At which, she sat down heavily at the kitchen table. ‘Would you?’ I said. ‘That would be extremely kind.’ While she made off in the direction of a pencil and paper I carried on, ‘Life must seem strange to you, without Mr Skelton?’

  ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen to us,’ Mrs Beazley gasped. ‘I don’t know what he’s done for us in the will. Mr Newcombe’s not told us about that.’

  ‘Mr Newcombe?’

  ‘The gentleman what’s the family solicitor.’ She waddled back to the table and sat down with the pencil and paper which she forgot about as we moved away from the subject of treacle tart.

  ‘Yes, of course.’ I knew what Dimitri Skelton had done about the Beazleys in his will – nothing. He didn’t seem to have been a man who cared much for the people who worked for him but I didn’t say that. I said, ‘Mr Skelton must have been very handsome. Such an attractive man, wasn’t he?’

  ‘To some people, I suppose.’ She spoke as though she had a considerable contempt for handsome men, this scarcely mobile woman with a passion for war films. ‘To that secretary of his, I suppose he was attractive. That’s why we were going to have to leave anyway. Even if none of this had ever happened.’ She spoke of ‘this’ – a terrible murder, Dodo – as though it had been an inconveniently leaking radiator. ‘Raymond and I couldn’t have stayed after she took over.’

  ‘You didn’t like Miss – ?’

  ‘Miss Ashton. Miss Elizabeth Ashton. Came into my kitchen and said she’d show me how to cook. Trendy food, she said, like they got in some place up in London. Pasta – that meant spaghetti – but she would call it pasta. Well, you don’t need much brain to boil spaghetti and I could do that, but she wanted it with scallops and squids in it, and stuff like that. If he wants fish, I told her, what about a nice fish pie? One night she decided to cook for herself and made a terrible mess of my kitchen. Clean out the saucepans? She wouldn’t have considered it!’

  ‘Wasn’t she Australian?’

  ‘That’s no excuse though, is it? Yes, I think he said she’d come from Australia. Mr Skelton had some relation over there, cousin or something, and he’d said she might be suitable for the job. Far too suitable Raymond and I thought he found her. We couldn’t have stayed. Not if she were permanent.’

  I have to say, Dodo, I felt quite triumphant, when she told me that. You see, I was out on my own and far, far ahead of Rumpole. I thought perhaps that Mrs Beazley had still more to tell me, so I said, ‘I did admire the way you gave your evidence. It must have been terrifying standing up there in front of all those people in wigs.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mind once I got started. And your husband was very nice to me. Nice as pie he was, though they warned me he could be a bit of a terrier with a witness. The trouble was . . .’ She hesitated.

  ‘Yes, Mrs Beazley. What was the trouble?’

  ‘Well, you can’t tell them everything, can you? You’re only meant to answer their questions.’

  ‘Is there anything you didn’t tell them?’

  She panted a little and then said, ‘Yes. About Ra
ymond.’

  ‘What about Raymond?’

  ‘Well, he missed a bit of the film, a really good bit he missed, when they was hand-fighting. He had to go to the toilet, if I have to be honest. And he looked out of the window, upstairs.

  And in the yard between us and the big house there was a car parked.’

  ‘A strange car?’

  ‘Well, Ray’d never seen it before. He happened to notice the number. I know the first three letters, if you like, because they happen to be his initials.’

  ‘What are your husband’s names? Raymond Beazley?’

  ‘Albert Raymond Beazley. We went to Mr Newcombe, you know, and asked if we should say anything about it. But he said it wasn’t that important. I think it may have been, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Beazley, I think it may have been very important indeed. Now, do you think there’s any chance of a cup of coffee while we write out that recipe?’ It was a bit of cheek saying that, I knew, in someone else’s kitchen. But I felt I’d earned it.

  When I got back to the hotel I had some telephone calls to make: one to Rudyard’s Cars and another to the house of Dr Christie-Vickers – who, I was not altogether surprised to find, had got back from his holiday trip in France. Then I have to confess, Dodo, that such was my mood that I went straight into the bar and ordered myself a small sherry, and there was the bull-necked Turnbull in conversation with a strange-looking creature. I believe she was a woman, but her hair was clipped and bristly, a sort of stubble all over her head. At first sight, her face seemed beautiful and even young. But when you looked more closely she had lines which, like you or I, Dodo, she made no attempt to conceal. She wore patched jeans and a sort of camouflage jacket over a T-shirt, and enormous earrings. She was smoking what seemed to be a homemade cigarette and talking very quietly, so I couldn’t overhear what she was saying. After a while she got up and left. Turnbull finished what looked like a dark and generous whisky and said, ‘Good evening, Mrs Rumpole,’ on his way out.

  ‘Was that a New Age traveller?’ I asked him as though my curiosity was perfectly idle.

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I thought that was what they looked like.’

  ‘She’d read about the case in the local paper.’

  ‘And you’re going to call her?’

  ‘Hardly. You know what she said?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘That she knew we needed one of the travellers to give evidence and she’d say anything for a hundred pounds in the hand. Terrible world, isn’t it, Mrs Rumpole? They live like pigs and then pervert the course of justice. Good evening to you.’

  ‘Good evening, Mr Turnbull.’ I tried my best to look as though I believed what he’d told me. Then, I’m very much afraid, I ordered another sherry. I had hardly finished it when Rumpole came into the Downlands Bar looking tired and not particularly happy. I told him to order a large red wine – a bottle of it, if that would cheer him up – and invited him to sit beside me.

  ‘Hilda, are you feeling well?’ He looked, I have to admit, apprehensive. ‘Have you something to tell me?’

  ‘A good many things. But first let me ask you something. What do you call down under?’

  ‘Down under?’ The poor man looked entirely confused and, when the first glass of wine was put in front of him, he took a quick and consoling gulp. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t mean hell, Rumpole. I don’t mean where Don Giovanni ended up. Where else do you call down under?’

  ‘Do you mean Australia?’

  ‘Yes, Rumpole, I mean Australia.’ And, of course, that was what Danny meant.

  ‘Hilda, I asked if you were feeling well. Has this trial been too much for you?’

  ‘Not at all. I was afraid it was too much for you. So I’ve found you a defence.’

  ‘I thought you went out shopping.’ He gave a distinctly mirthless laugh. ‘Where did you get my new defence from, Marks & Sparks? You were out shopping a long time. I was surprised that Mr Daniel Newcombe had the courtesy to stay with me. When he went out of Court this morning I saw you troop after him soon enough.’

  ‘Rumpole’ – I hope I smiled tolerantly, as that would have been the most effective way – ‘you’re never jealous, are you?’

  ‘Jealous? Should I be?’

  ‘No, I really don’t think you should. Mr Newcombe and I left the Court because we both saw Dimitri Skelton in the public gallery.’

  ‘Hilda! You’re joking . . .’ Or delirious, I felt was what he wanted to say.

  ‘It wasn’t exactly funny.’

  ‘You mean you saw . . .’

  ‘The man they all say was murdered.’

  ‘I’ve tried that defence before.’ Rumpole was back to his usual patronizing self. ‘Witnesses saying they saw the corpse alive after the date of the murder. It has a sort of biblical authority, I suppose, but it never worked particularly well down the Old Bailey. Is that your defence, Hilda?’

  ‘No, as a matter of fact it isn’t. We didn’t see Dimitri Skelton.’

  ‘Hilda, please . . . I’m tired and unusually depressed.’

  ‘If you’re tired, sit back in your chair and listen, Rumpole. I’ll tell you who we did see. And then you’d better scoot down to the cells early tomorrow morning and ask your Michael Skelton some pertinent questions.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Such as, how much he knows about Miss Elizabeth Ashton from down under?’ He looked at me then and, entirely for his own good, decided to listen quietly. We talked for a while, time enough for Rumpole to get through a bottle of wine, and do you know, Dodo, it was the most serious, even enjoyable, conversation we’d had for a long time. It didn’t take him long to get the hang of what I was saying and when he did he knew exactly what to do. When I had told him everything he said, ‘I suppose you realize what this means?’

  ‘What it means for Michael Skelton?’

  ‘No. For your friend Danny boy.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I do realize.’

  ‘And you don’t mind?’

  ‘No,’ I told him, ‘I don’t think I mind at all.’

  Rumpole left very early in the morning to go to the cells and have a further conversation with the non-talkative Michael

  Skelton. Dodo, I felt strangely calm. I realized that for the last few months, ever since that dinner in the Sheridan with Danny Newcombe, in fact, I’d been nervous, strung up and even, if I have to say it myself, rather silly. Now I had killed what had been going on in my mind for a long time. Rumpole always says that the real murderers he had met – I mean the ones who had actually done it – were always strangely calm, as though something had been decided for ever.

  Anyway, after Rumpole had gone I had a nice bath, making full use of the complimentary sachet of Country Garden toiletries in the little wickerwork basket on the glass shelf. I have to confess that I pinched the verbena shampoo and hollyhock skin freshener, together with a little packet of sewing stuff. I do find that staying in hotels brings out everyone’s criminal tendencies. Then I put on the rather nice coat and skirt I had been wearing in Court and went down to the Sussex-by-the-Sea coffee shop for the full English breakfast. And there was Danny Newcombe, standing at a table by the door, throwing down his Financial Times and offering me a seat at his table. I accepted and sat down.

  ‘So we’re going to have the pleasure of your company in Court again today, Hilda?’

  ‘If you think it’s a pleasure, yes.’

  ‘You must have thought it rather strange when I suddenly bolted out yesterday.’

  ‘I didn’t think it strange at all,’ I lied.

  ‘I thought I saw someone I knew in the public gallery. Did you see me go up there?’

  ‘No.’ I went on lying.

  ‘It was all a mistake. I mean, it wasn’t anyone I knew.’

  ‘Well, that’s all right then.’

  ‘Yes.’ And then he said, very seriously now, ‘I’m afraid there’s not much hope for us.’
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br />   I looked at him and said, ‘You mean you’re afraid there’s not much hope for Michael Skelton?’

  ‘That’s what I mean, yes.’

  ‘I don’t think you should be so sure of that. You never know what Rumpole’s going to pull out of the bag.’

  ‘You mean you do know, Hilda?’ He gave me his best twinkling smile, complete with the wrinkles at the corners of the eyes. ‘And you promised to tell me if he had one of his funny ideas, didn’t you?’ I thought for one dreadful moment that he was going to add ‘You naughty girl, Hilda’.

  ‘If I promised that,’ I told him, ‘I’m afraid I’m not going to keep my promise.’

  ‘Whyever not?’

  ‘Because I don’t think Rumpole would like it. Oh, and I’ll tell you something else I’m not going to do.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I’m not going to smite the sounding furrows. I have to tell you this, Mr Newcombe. It’s far too late to seek a newer world.’

  He looked at me then as though he didn’t quite understand what I was talking about. I noticed he had dropped a lump of scrambled egg on what he told me was the Sheridan Club tie. I have to tell you, Dodo, that I thought it looked quite disgusting.

  ‘Members of the Jury. Young Michael Skelton may seem guilty, kneeling beside the body, his father’s blood on his hands, clutching that fatal golf club. But things, Members of the Jury, are not always as they seem. Let us together, you and I, set out to discover the truth behind that strange and terrible apparition. Ladies and gentlemen, look back to the time when you were but twenty years old and consider how you would have felt if you’d had to go into the witness-box and defend yourself on such a serious charge as this. It would be an ordeal for anyone.’ And here Rumpole’s voice sank to a tone of deep insincerity and he leaned forward and stared at the Jury. ‘It must be terrible for the innocent.’ Then he straightened up and trumpeted out the summons ‘Call Michael Skelton’.