‘Long time, Rumpole, such a very long time no see.’
When I first put on the whitest of white wigs, having joined the chambers of C. H. Wystan, my wife Hilda’s ‘Daddy’, there was, if I recollect, a rather chubby, smiling-for-no-reason young barrister, reduced to inarticulate jelly by appearing in court for something really taxing, like fixing a date for a hearing. His career in the law had been short and unimpressive, but Chappy Bowers, as he rather liked to be known, had, as the climax of an apparently harmless and uneventful life, ‘bumped into’ Hilda after ringing her up because he’d heard of my collapse in court. Unexpected and uninvited, he turned up and sat himself down in my visitor’s chair just when my mind was full of strange and far more interesting business at Badgershide Wood. He still managed to look boyish in his grey-haired age. His face was round and chubby, his eyes blue and anxious to please and he had, over the years, become no more articulate.
‘When we were, er … in chambers together, I – well, what I mean is we – were both of us, what’s the word? Umm … smitten by Hilda Wystan.’
‘I suppose we were.’ I didn’t want to tell him that, from my point of view, I sometimes felt that the smiting had gone on for a lifetime.
‘What I really came to, well … I mean, umm, what I came to … well, really, and in all honest truth, Rumpole, to say was that if anything should happen to you. And it’s a big “if”.’
‘No, it’s not.’ I couldn’t help correcting him. ‘It’s not a big “if” at all. I collapsed in court with a dicky ticker. I’m confined in the hospital block and have no idea when I’ll get out of it. Any day, to be honest with you, I might lose my grasp of the twig.’
‘Well, if that … Well if … Which umm – we profoundly … Well, not profoundly. What’s the word?’
‘Sincerely?’
‘That’s it, Rumpole! Trust you, old fellow. You always knew the right word. Sincerely.’
‘That’s the word you use when you don’t mean what you’re saying.’
‘No? Not really? No! I do mean this. Of … umm. Of course I do. If, again I say if, you should drop off the … What was it, Rumpole?’
‘Twig?’ I suggested.
‘Yes, if you should drop off the twig, Hilda knows she’d always have someone to look after her.’
‘You mean her friend Dodo Mackintosh?’
‘No, Rumpole.’ Now the words came out in a rush. ‘I honestly mean me.’
‘You’d look after Hilda, if I turned up my toes?’
‘It would be an honour and a privilege.’
‘Then all I can say, Chappy, old darling, for the sake of your health and sanity, is I’d better make an astonishing recovery.’
Conversation dried up then, until Chappy leant towards me and said in a penetrating whisper, ‘That fellow in the next bed – looks, well … umm, chained up.’
‘That’s because he is chained up,’ I explained. ‘It’s what they do to you nowadays if you get shot.’
When Chappy had gone back to his golf club, apparently unshaken in his desire to take care of She Who Must Be Obeyed, I asked Ted, the screw, to put the headphones on again for another dose of Petula Clark and asked the wounded suspect just a few more questions.
‘You parked your car round the back of the house. Did you notice a kitchen window open?’
‘It was quite dark.’
‘A window broken?’
‘I didn’t notice.’
‘Did you break a window?’
‘I told you, I came in by the front door.’
‘You say the major was there waiting. He opened it for you.’
‘He must have seen my car arrive.’
‘You told me that.’
After that I gave my full attention to the evidence of the scene of crime officer, with particular relation to finger-prints.
‘Henry.’ I was on the ward telephone to my clerk.
‘Mr Rumpole! We heard you were taken really bad, sir. It’s good to hear you’re still with us, as you might say.’
‘As you might say, Henry, if you were in a particularly tactless mood. Never mind. It’s wonderful to hear your voice. Just like old times.’
‘It’s not about work, is it, sir? Mrs Rumpole rang to say we weren’t to worry you about work. She said you’d be resting from now on. It made me feel envious. Not much rest round Equity Court. Not for a clerk, there isn’t.’
‘It’s not about my work. Actually, it’s about someone else’s work. Mr Erskine-Brown’s got an attempted robbery case called Stoker.’
‘The Badgershide Wood job? I’m afraid it’s going to clash with a civil he’s got. Personal injury with real money to it. Claude’s leading Mizz Probert in the crime.’
‘Henry.’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Remind me to order the drinks in Pommeroy’s if you let them clash. And go for the civil.’
‘That’s what I had in mind. But why exactly?’
‘Who knows? I might be leading Mizz Liz in the Badgershide shooting business. Stranger things have happened.’
‘You think Mrs Rumpole would allow it, sir … ?’
‘We’ll wait and see if we’ve got any sort of defence. Oh, and get Bonny Bernard to give me a ring here, will you? The Princess Margaret ward. You have to sell your soul here to make an outside call.’
The system was that a telephone was wheeled to the side of your bed as though it was a cardiogram machine or materials for a blanket bath. If there was a call for you, it came after a short interval. If you wanted to make a call you had to wait a considerable time for the instrument, and also provide money to cover its cost. I had to pay out to call Henry, so I was relieved when Bonny Bernard’s voice was wheeled towards me, with a selection of pills as an after-breakfast treat.
‘You had a brief in a sensational shoot-out in an old-age pensioner’s home and you sent it to Erskine-Brown?’ I accused the man.
‘I was planning it for you. But then we heard you’d left the Bar.’
‘The Bar? I never left it. Left life perhaps, but the Bar? Never! Now listen, my old darling. It’s very possible that Claude Queer Customer may not be able to do this case owing to the pressures of civil work in the personal injuries department.’
‘So we’ll have to look elsewhere, then.’
‘You may not have to look very far. The future depends, to a certain extent, on the evidence of the heart. All I ask is that you don’t rush into any decisions. And there’s one thing you can do.’ I gave Bonny Bernard certain instructions and then I asked him if he’d like to speak to his client. ‘He happens to be here beside me.’
‘Mr Rumpole,’ Bernard’s question came in a horrified whisper, ‘you’re not in the nick, are you?’
‘Don’t worry, old darling. He’s in hospital.’
I covered the mouthpiece and called to my neighbour, ‘Would you like to speak to your solicitor?’
‘No point, is there? He came to see me before you got here. Then he sent me all these papers. I could see it in his face. He didn’t believe a word I said.’
‘We’ll talk to you later,’ I told Bernard, ‘when we’ve decided if there’s a possible defence.’
‘Can’t you remember, Mr Rumpole, you’re meant to rest …’ My old friend started some form of protest and I put the phone down gently.
It happened a few mornings later when Stoker needed some minor surgery. He was wheeled away chained to his trolley and accompanied by his shadow, Ted, the ever-present screw. I saw another visitor enter the ward, a thin, hawk-like figure in a crumpled mackintosh, carrying, like an angel in a painting, a stiff, upright bunch of white lilies as though to deck the top of a coffin. He sat in my visitor’s chair, removed his hat, and Esmeralda, the cheerful Jamaican nurse we were always glad to see, relieved him of his flowers, promising to put them in water.
‘Would you rather have had grapes, Mr Rumpole?’
‘Grapes, lilies, it’s all the same to me,’ I told him. ‘It’s you I wanted to se
e, Fig. You’re going to provide the key to my present problem.’
‘Your heart?’
Did Ferdinand Isaac Gerald (known to us as Fig) Newton believe that I credited him with medical skills?
‘Of course not. My heart can look after itself. It would, however, be greatly encouraged by a solution to the mystery of the Badgershide Wood shooting.’
‘Is it a mystery, Mr Rumpole? In my paper it’s just a decent citizen defending himself and his property.’
‘Perhaps your paper doesn’t know the half of it.’
‘No? You may be right, Mr Rumpole. What’s the other half, then?’
‘That’s exactly what I want you to find out. Hang around Badgershide Wood with your ears open. Find out all you can about the eccentric major. Oh and there’s a girl called Dawn something who works at Snippers the hairdressers.’
‘You want her kept under twenty-four-hour observation? I’m afraid we’re in for some inclement weather.’ Fig sniffed gloomily, as though in anticipation of the cold he was likely to catch.
‘Don’t just observe her. Meet her. Take her off to the Thai restaurant. Make her like you. Say that if she tells us all she knows, it just might help her wounded lover escape a lengthy sentence. Mention my name if you have to. Say that Rumpole is relying on her. No, better still, tell her that a hospital patient in chains thinks of her constantly.’
‘I brought you a few grapes, Rumpole.’
‘That was very thoughtful of you, Hilda.’
‘Don’t eat them all at once. They looked nice in the shop.’ She Who Must pulled off a couple and chewed them thoughtfully. ‘Not bad at all. Nice and juicy. Well now, Rumpole.’ She looked at me with an eye born to command. ‘I want you to make a complete recovery.’
‘Anything you say, Hilda.’ I had no intention of arguing with her. ‘Your fancy man was here.’
‘My what?’
‘Your fellow. Your little bit on the side,’ I might have said. Instead I stuck to ‘Your friend Chappy Bowers. The one who took you out to a candlelit dinner. I hope you enjoyed it.’
‘I did not enjoy it, Rumpole!’
‘Veal escalope on the tough side, was it? Nasty collapse of the soufflé at … What was it called?’
‘Chez Achille in Soho. The ladies’ lavatory was down a long, damp staircase and far too near the kitchen, and I didn’t find the tablecloth entirely clean.’
‘And no candles?’
‘Oh yes. There was a nasty guttering thing in an old wine bottle. The waiter was extremely familiar with Chappy and said, “Another of your girlfriends, Mr Bowers?” before we even got a glance at the menu.’
‘Wasn’t that rather a compliment?’ The waiter, I thought, was laying it on with a trowel by putting Hilda in the ‘girlfriend’ category.
‘Not to be called a girlfriend of Chappy’s. I imagine they’re a lot of old trouts.’
‘Oh yes,’ I nodded. ‘Of course that’s what they probably are.’
‘I wouldn’t want to be the “girlfriend”, Rumpole, of any man who added up his bill.’
‘Did Chappy do that?’
‘Worse than that. They gave us each, Rumpole, a “selection of vegetables” on two small plates.’
‘That was bad news?’
‘I wasn’t greatly impressed. We had a few bullet-hard potatoes, some green beans that were also undercooked, and three undersized carrots. Well, Chappy actually asked for a reduction because we hadn’t eaten the potatoes.’
‘On the tight side, as I remember. Always fumbled for his money when it was his turn at Pommeroy’s.’
‘He is the sort of man, Rumpole, who would check up on a woman’s shopping list.’
I knew a great deal of the Rumpoles’ income was frittered away on such luxuries as Ajax, kitchen rolls and saucepan scourers, but I would never have intruded on the sanctity of Hilda’s list.
‘So I want you to recover, Rumpole,’ she went on. ‘You may have your faults, but you don’t argue about the selection of vegetables. So, what I’m trying to tell you is, I simply couldn’t put up with a person like Chappy Bowers. I want you back round the house.’
‘That is very encouraging, Hilda.’
‘I hope you will agree to give up work entirely. That’s the only way you’re going to get well. It’s so good your being here, where you can’t spend your time worrying about crimes.’
I glanced at the prisoner in the next bed. He lowered the Daily Beacon slightly and closed one eye in a discreet wink.
I took the opportunity to discuss the major with the customers in the Badger’s Arms as well as the staff at the local garage and the owners of at least two of the antiques shops. On all sides he’s spoken of as a hero who was acting in self-defence and to protect his property. There is no sympathy whatsoever for the client.
Fig Newton’s reports never concealed the bad news, for which he has a particular relish. He went on:
The major is admired as an amiable eccentric. ‘His own man,’ the landlord of the Badger’s Arms told me. ‘One of the old school. Friendly with everyone, likes his drop of Scotch and always got an eye for the ladies.’ It’s the landlord’s opinion that the client, when he entered the major’s house, got exactly what he deserved. Several of the regulars in the Badger’s Arms and the landlord said they had seen the client, whom they recognized from his photograph in the papers, on his visits to Snippers the hairdressers.
I myself called at Snippers on the pretext of a hair wash and trim, as the place is advertised as ‘unisex’. Dawn Maresfield was engaged with another client and I was attended to by a ‘trainee stylist’. I did, however, get the chance of a word with Miss Maresfield, and when I told her we were acting in the interests of David Stoker, she agreed to meet me after work. We fixed a rendezvous in the Pizza Palace of the Parallelogram Shopping Mall, about eight miles from Badgershide Wood. Her reason for choosing this venue was, she said, that ‘people were talking’.
At my meeting with Miss Maresfield, I formed a favourable impression of her and think that, if the time should ever come, she’d make a good witness. She said she was very disappointed with David, who she thought had gone back to his old criminal ways and ruined his life. She was, however, extremely worried about his condition and, when pressed, said she would see him again, and I feel she retains her affection for him.
Her attitude to the major was in marked contrast to the view of him held by all the other witnesses. When I first mentioned him she sighed heavily and said, ‘Don’t talk about him.’ When I told her that he was what I wanted her to talk about, she said he’d been a pest, a nuisance, a bit of a joke at times, and at times a menace. I asked if that meant he had taken a fancy to her, and she said she would have described it as ‘besotted’. He’d sent her flowers, presents, bits of jewellery that had belonged to his family which didn’t suit her and she had no use for. She said she’d been out with him once or twice but she’d got tired of moving his hand off her knee. ‘He even tried to stick his tongue down my throat in the car and would have if I hadn’t clenched my teeth on him. At his age it is just ridiculous.’ His letters to her became ‘just disgusting’, so she stopped opening them. Quite recently he’d telephoned her at work and told her he knew she’d marry him if it wasn’t for that ‘bloody little crook’ he’d seen her with. She thought that when he said that he was probably drunk, because she’d never told him about Stoker and, as far as she knew, they’d never met. She never told Stoker about the major’s advances as she was afraid he’d go up to the big house and make a scene, which would do her no good: she relied on the major’s many friends of both sexes to get their hair styled at Snippers.
I don’t know how much this helps and I am not clear at the moment what further steps I can take. I therefore await further instructions and I enclose my account, which includes travel expenses and a reasonable sum for entertaining at the Badger’s Arms and the Pizza Palace in the Parallelogram Shopping Mall.
(signed) F. I. G. Newton. Member of the Nati
onal Institute of Enquiry Agents
I put down Fig’s report and yes, I thought, we’re ready for trial. I had a great deal to say and I could hardly wait for an opportunity to say it.
It was late, almost midnight, when I began my final speech. I made it to a jury which included the snorer, the tooth-grinder and the serial urinator, who stayed in his bed during the greater part of it. I was sufficiently confident of my case to allow Ted, the screw on duty, to remove his earphones and listen from the public gallery. Quietly and, I believe, with perfect fairness, I outlined the prosecution case, the facts which had appeared in all the newspapers, the story of an outraged householder who was merely upholding the sacred principle that an Englishman’s home is his castle.
‘Now I come,’ I spoke even more quietly, causing the jury to listen attentively as I lured them into taking another and totally different view of the facts, ‘to the case for the defence of David Stoker. The defence is not made easier by the fact that it is well known that he had committed offences in the past, indeed he has written about them and spoken about them on television. We are not trying him for his past offences, and you must be even more vigilant to see that he is not now, because of his past, convicted of a crime he didn’t commit.
‘The first thing that puzzled me was the report of the scene of crime officer who was in charge of taking fingerprints. There were, of course there were, Mr Stoker’s fingerprints on the old army pistol on the library table, but, extraordinarily enough, members of the jury, nowhere else. In the light of that, let us consider how he got into the house.
‘You will remember the kitchen window, broken and forced, things knocked over by the kitchen sink, clear signs that someone had climbed in that way. But none of Mr Stoker’s fingerprints! Many of the major’s fingerprints, of course – that was to be expected, in his kitchen. But what is suggested here? That Mr Stoker wore gloves? No gloves were found on him or anywhere near the scene of the crime. And remember, he was taken straight from the library floor to hospital. Do you think he climbed in through the kitchen window and then carefully wiped all the surfaces on which he might have left his prints? Can you picture that happening, Members of the Jury? Is it within the realms of probability? Let us take this matter a little further. There were none of Mr Stoker’s prints by the front door, none on the bell push, none at all. Does that, or does it not, Members of the Jury, support the suggestion that the major heard Mr Stoker’s car arrive and park at the back of the house, so he opened the front door to him? Was Mr Stoker a visitor the major was expecting? Could it be, could it just possibly be, he was a visitor the major had invited? The major has said he never saw Mr Stoker before in his life. Can you really believe that, if he opened the door before Mr Stoker had even rung the bell? Let us see, shall we, if we can find the facts that might account for this.
Forever Rumpole Page 45
