The Second Rumpole Omnibus

by John Mortimer

  ‘You and Dr Ned Dacre went on holiday to Crete together, didn’t you? Before he was married.’

  There was a distinct pause, and the doctor looked down at the rail of the witness-box as she admitted it.

  ‘Yes. We did.’

  The dear old ‘Gardeners’ Question Time’ fans on the jury looked suddenly interested, as if I had revealed a new and deadly form of potato blight. I pressed on.

  ‘Did you become, what expression would you like me to use, his girlfriend, paramour, mistress?’

  ‘We shared a bed together, yes.’ Now the pathologist looked up at me, defiant.

  ‘Presumably not for the purpose of revising your anatomy notes together?’ I got a small chuckle from the jury which increased the witness’s irritation.

  ‘He was my lover. If that’s how you want to put it.’

  ‘Thank you, Dr Gorle. I’m sure the members of the jury understand. And I would also like the jury to understand that you became extremely angry when Dr Ned Dacre got married.’ There was another long pause, but the answer she came up with was moderately helpful.

  ‘I was disappointed, yes.’

  ‘Angry and jealous of the lady whose dead body you examined?’ I suggested.

  ‘I suppose I was naturally upset that Ned Dacre had married someone else.’

  ‘So upset that you wrote him a letter, only a week or so before this tragedy, in which you told him you wanted to hurt him as much as you possibly could?’ Now the jury were entirely hooked. I saw Munroe staring at me, no doubt wondering if I could produce the letter. The witness may have decided that I could, anyway she didn’t risk an outright denial.

  ‘I may have done.’

  ‘You may have done!’ I tried the effect of a passage of fortissimo incredulity. ‘But by then Dr Ned Dacre had been married for eight years and his wife had borne him two children. And yet you were still harbouring this terrible grudge?’

  She answered quickly this time, and with a great intensity.

  ‘There are some things you don’t forget, Mr Rumpole.’

  ‘And some things you don’t forgive, Dr Gorle? Has your feeling of jealousy and hatred for my client in any way coloured your evidence against him?’

  Of course I expected her to deny this. During the course of cross-examination you may angle for useful admissions, hints and half-truths which can come with the cunning cast of a seemingly innocent question. But the time always comes when you must confront the witness with a clear suggestion, a final formality of assertion and denial, when the subtleties are over. I was surprised, therefore, when the lady from the morgues found it difficult to answer the question in its simplest form. There was a prolonged silence.

  ‘Has it, Dr Gorle?’ I pressed her gently for an answer.

  Only Dr Gorle knew if she was biased. If she’d denied the suggestion hotly no one could have contradicted her. Instead of doing so, she finally came out with,

  ‘I don’t think so.’ And she said it so unconvincingly that I saw the jury’s disapproval. It was the first game to Rumpole, and the witness seemed to have lost her confidence when I moved on to deal with the medical evidence. Fortunately a long career as an Old Bailey hack has given me a working knowledge of the habits of dead bodies.

  ‘Dr Gorle. After death a body becomes subject to a condition called “hypostasis”?’

  ‘That is so. Yes.’

  ‘The blood drains to the lowest area when circulation ceases?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So that if the body has been lying on its back, the blood would naturally drain to the buttocks and the backs of the legs?’

  ‘That’s perfectly right,’ she answered, now without hesitation.

  ‘Did you say, Mr Rumpole’s right about that?’ The Judge was making a note of the cross-examination.

  ‘Yes, my Lord.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you, Doctor.’ I paused to frame the next question carefully. ‘And the draining of the blood causes discoloration of the skin of a dead body which can look like bruising?’ I began to get an eerie feeling that it was all going too well, when the pale lady doctor admitted, again most helpfully,

  ‘It can look exactly like bruising, yes.’

  ‘Therefore it is difficult to tell simply by the colour of the skin if a patch is caused by “hypostasis” or bruising? It can be very misleading?’

  ‘Yes. It can be.’

  ‘So you must insert a knife under the skin to see what has caused the discoloration, must you not?’

  ‘That is the standard test, yes.’

  ‘If some blood flows, it is “hypostasis”, but if the blood under the skin has coagulated and does not flow, it is probably a bruise?’

  ‘What do you have to say about that, Dr Gorle?’ the Judge asked the witness, and she came back with a glowing tribute to the amateur pathologist in the wig.

  ‘I would say, my Lord, that Mr Rumpole would be well equipped to lecture on forensic medicine.’

  ‘That test was carried out in a case called the Penge Bungalow Murders, Dr Gorle.’ I disclosed the source of almost all my information, and added a flattering, ‘No doubt before you were born.’ I had never got on so well with a hostile witness.

  ‘I’m afraid it was.’

  ‘So what happened when you inserted a knife into the coloured portions?’ I had asked the question in a manner which was almost sickeningly polite, but Dr Pamela looked greatly shaken. Finally, in a voice of contrition she admitted,

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I didn’t carry out that particular test.’

  ‘You didn’t?’ I tried to sound encouragingly neutral to hide my incredulity.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can you tell us why not?’ The Judge now sounded more like an advocate than the calm, detached Mr Justice Rumpole.

  ‘I’m afraid that I must have jumped to the conclusion that they were bruises and I didn’t trouble to carry out any further test, my Lord.’

  ‘You jumped to the conclusion?’ There was no doubt about it. The courteous McManus was deeply shocked.

  ‘Yes.’ Dr Pamela looked paler, and her voice was trembling on the edge of inaudibility.

  ‘You know, Dr Gorle, the jury aren’t going to be asked to convict Dr Dacre by “jumping to conclusions”.’ I blessed the old darling on the Bench when he said that, and began to see a distinct hope of returning my client to piles and prescriptions in the not-too-distant future.

  ‘My Lord is, of course, perfectly right,’ I told the witness. ‘The case against Dr Ned Dacre has to be proved beyond reasonable doubt, so that the jury are sure. Can I take it that you’re not sure there were any bruises at all?’

  There was a pause and then out came the most beautiful answer.

  ‘Not as you put it now. No. I’m not sure.’

  Again I had the strange feeling that it was too easy. I felt like a toreador poised for a life-and-death struggle, seeing instead the ring doors open to admit a rather gentle and obedient cow.

  ‘I’m not sure there were any bruises,’ His Lordship repeated to himself as he wrote it down in his note.

  ‘And so you’re not sure Mrs Dacre was attacked by anyone?’ It was a question I would normally have avoided. With this witness, it seemed, I could dare anything.

  ‘I can’t be sure. No.’

  And again, the Judge wrote it down.

  ‘So she may simply have stumbled, hit her head against the coffee table, and died of a cerebral haemorrhage?’

  ‘It might have happened in that way. Yes.’ Dr Gorle was giving it to me with jam on it.

  ‘Stumbled because she had had too much to drink?’

  The cooperative witness turned to the Judge.

  ‘Her blood alcohol level was considerably above the breathalyser limit, yes, my Lord.’

  ‘And you knew this family?’

  ‘I knew about them. Yes.’

  ‘And was it not one of your complaints that, in marrying Sally, Dr Ned had married a drun
k?’

  ‘I did say that in my letter.’

  ‘The sort of girl who might drink too much wine, stumble against a chromium coffee table, hit her head and receive a cerebral haemorrhage, by accident?’ It was the full frontal question, but I felt no embarrassment now in asking it. The Judge was also keen on getting an answer and he said,

  ‘Well, Dr Gorle?’

  ‘I must admit it might’ve happened that way. Yes.’

  It was all over then, bar the odd bit of shouting. I said, ‘Thank you very much, Dr Pamela Gorle.’ And meant it. It was game, set and match to Rumpole. We had a bit of legal argument between counsel and then I was intoxicated by the delightful sensation of winning. The pleasant Judge told the jury that, in view of the concessions made by the expert witness, there really was no evidence on which they could possible convict the good doctor, and directed them to stop the case and pronounce those two words which are always music to Rumpole’s ears, ‘Not guilty’. We all went outin to the corridor and loyal patients came to shake Ned’s hand and congratulate him as politely as if he’d just won first prize for growing the longest leek.

  ‘Mr Rumpole. I knew you’d come up trumps, sir. I shall never forget this, never!’ Old Dr Harry was pumping my hand, slapping my shoulder, and I thought I saw tears in his eyes. But then I looked across the crowd, at a door through which the expert witness, the Crown’s pathologist, Dr Pamela Gorle had just appeared. She was smiling at Dr Ned and, unless I was very much mistaken, he was smiling back. Was it only a smile, or did I detect the tremble of a wink? I left his father and went up to the young doctor. He smiled his undying gratitude.

  ‘Mr Rumpole. Dad was right. You’re the best!’ Dr Ned was kind enough to say.

  ‘Nonsense. It was easy.’ I looked at him and said, ‘Too easy.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ Dr Ned looked genuinely puzzled.

  I didn’t answer him. Instead, I asked a question.

  ‘I was meaning to ask you this before, Doctor. I don’t suppose it matters now, but I’d like to know the answer, for my own satisfaction. What sort of soufflé was it you cooked for your wife that evening?’ He might have lied, but I don’t suppose he thought there was any point in it. Instead he answered as if he enjoyed telling the truth.

  ‘Cheese.’

  I was at breakfast with She Who Must Be Obeyed a few days later, after I had managed to spring the charming young doctor, and my wife was brandishing another mauve letter from her friend Dorothy or ‘Dodo’, the nervous tea-shop owner from the West Country.

  ‘Another letter from Dodo! She’s really feeling much better. So much more calm!’

  ‘She’s been taking these new pills, didn’t you say?’

  ‘Yes, I think that’s what it must be.’

  I remembered about a drug Dr Ned was discussing with his father for possible use on his nervous wife. Was it the same drug that was keeping Dodo off cheese?

  ‘Then Dodo will be feeling better. So long as she doesn’t eat cheese. If she eats cheese when she’s on some sort of tranquillizer she’s likely to go the way of the doctor’s beautiful wife, and end up with a haemorrhage of the brain.’

  I had a letter too. An invitation to a cocktail party in Hunter’s Hill. Dr Ned Dacre, it seemed, felt that he had something to celebrate.

  ‘Mr Rumpole! I’m so glad you could come.’ Dr Ned greeted me enthusiastically.

  I looked round the pleasant room, at the pleasant faces of grateful patients and the two thoroughly nice children handing round canapés. I noticed the Queen of the Morgues, Dr Pamela Gorle, dressed up to the nines, and then I looked at the nice young doctor who was now pouring me out a generous Buck’s Fizz made, regardless of the expense, with the best Krug. I spoke to him quietly.

  ‘You got off, of course. They can’t try you again for the same murder. That was the arrangement, wasn’t it?’

  ‘What “arrangement”?’ The young doctor was still smiling in a welcoming sort of way.

  ‘Oh, the arrangement between you and the Crown pathologist, of course. The plan that she’d make some rather silly suggestions about bruises and admit she was wrong. Of course, she lied about the contents of the stomach. You’re a very careful young man, Dr Ned. Now they can never try you for what you really did.’

  ‘You’re joking!’ But I saw that he had stopped smiling.

  ‘I was never more serious in my life.’

  ‘What did I really do?’ We seemed to be alone. A little whispering oasis of doubt and suspicion in the middle of the happy, chattering cocktail party. I told him what he’d done.

  ‘You opened a few of those new tranquillizer capsules and poured them into your wife’s Chianti. The cheese in the soufflé reacted in just the way you’d planned. All you had to do was make sure she hit her head on the table.’

  We stood in silence. The children came up and we refused canapés. Then Dr Ned opened an alabaster box and lit a cigarette with a gold lighter.

  ‘What’re you going to do about it?’ I could see that he was smiling again.

  ‘Nothing I can do now. You know that,’ I told him. ‘Except to tell you that I know. I’m not quite the idiot you and Dr Pamela took me for. As least you know that, Dr Ned.’

  He was a murderer. Divorce would have given him freedom but not his rich wife’s money; so he became a simple, old-fashioned murderer. And what was almost worse, he had used me as part of his crime. Worst of all, he had done his best to spoil the golden memory of the Penge Bungalow Murders for me.

  ‘Quiet everyone! I think Ned’s got something to say!’ Old Dr Harry Dacre was banging on a table with his glass. In due course quiet settled on the party and young Dr Ned made his announcement.

  ‘I just wanted to say. Now all our friends are here. Under one roof. That of course no one can ever replace Sally. For me and the children. But with Simon and Sara’s approval…’ He smiled at his charming children. ‘There’s going to be another doctor in the Dacre family. Pamela’s agreed to become my wife.’

  In the ensuing clapping, kisses, congratulations and mixing of more Buck’s Fizz, Rumpole left the party.

  I hear it was a thoroughly nice wedding. I looked hard at the photograph in the paper and tried to detect, in that open and smiling young doctor’s face, a sign of guilt.

  ‘… that perilous stuff

  Which weighs upon the heart.’

  I saw none.

  Rumpole and the Spirit of Christmas

  I realized that Christmas was upon us when I saw a sprig of holly over the list of prisoners hung on the wall of the cells under the Old Bailey.

  I pulled out a new box of small cigars and found its opening obstructed by a tinselled band on which a scarlet-faced Santa was seen hurrying a sleigh full of carcinoma-packed goodies to the Rejoicing World. I lit one as the lethargic screw, with a complexion the colour of faded Bronco, regretfully left his doorstep sandwich and mug of sweet tea to unlock the gate.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Rumpole. Come to visit a customer?’

  ‘Happy Christmas, officer,’ I said as cheerfully as possible. ‘Is Mr Timson at home?’

  ‘Well, I don’t believe he’s slipped down to his little place in the country.’

  Such were the pleasantries that were exchanged between us legal hacks and discontented screws; jokes that no doubt have changed little since the turnkeys locked the door at Newgate to let in a pessimistic advocate, or the cells under the Coliseum were opened to admit the unwelcome news of the Imperial thumbs-down.

  ‘My Mum wants me home for Christmas.’

  ‘Which Christmas?’ It would have been an unreasonable remark and I refrained from it. Instead, I said, ‘All things are possible.’

  As I sat in the interviewing room, an Old Bailey hack of some considerable experience, looking through my brief and inadvertently using my waistcoat as an ashtray, I hoped I wasn’t on another loser. I had had a run of bad luck during that autumn season, and young Edward Timson was part of that huge south London family whose criminal
activities provided such welcome grist to the Rumpole mill. The charge in the seventeen-year-old Eddie’s case was nothing less than wilful murder.

  ‘We’re in with a chance though, Mr Rumpole, ain’t we?’

  Like all his family, young Timson was a confirmed optimist. And yet, of course, the merest outsider in the Grand National, the hundred-to-one shot, is in with a chance, and nothing is more like going round the course at Aintree than living through a murder trial. In this particular case, a fanatical prosecutor named Wrigglesworth, known to me as the Mad Monk, was to represent Beechers and Mr Justice Vosper, a bright but wintry-hearted Judge who always felt it his duty to lead for the prosecution, was to play the part of a particularly menacing fence at the Canal Turn.

  ‘A chance. Well, yes, of course you’ve got a chance, if they can’t establish common purpose, and no one knows which of you bright lads had the weapon.’

  No doubt the time had come for a brief glance at the prosecution case, not an entirely cheering prospect. Eddie, also known as ‘Turpin’ Timson, lived in a kind of decaying barracks, a sort of high-rise Lubianka, known as Keir Hardie Court, somewhere in south London, together with his parents, his various brothers and his thirteen-year-old sister, Noreen. This particular branch of the Timson family lived on the thirteenth floor. Below them, on the twelfth, lived the large clan of the O’Dowds. The war between the Timsons and the O’Dowds began, it seems, with the casting of the Nativity play at the local comprehensive school.

  Christmas comes earlier each year and the school show was planned about September. When Bridget O’Dowd was chosen to play the lead in the face of strong competition from Noreen Timson, an incident occurred comparable in historical importance to the assassination of an obscure Austrian archduke at Sarajevo. Noreen Timson announced, in the playground, that Bridget O’Dowd was a spotty little tart quite unsuited to play any role of which the most notable characteristic was virginity.

  Hearing this, Bridget O’Dowd kicked Noreen Timson behind the anthracite bunkers. Within a few days war was declared between the Timson and O’Dowd children, and a present of lit fireworks was posted through the O’Dowd front door. On what is known as the ‘night in question’, reinforcements of O’Dowds and Timsons arrived in old bangers from a number of south London addresses and battle was joined on the stone staircase, a bleak terrain of peeling walls scrawled with graffiti, blowing empty Coca-Cola tins and torn newspapers. The weapons seemed to have been articles in general domestic use such as bread knives, carving knives, broom handles and a heavy screwdriver.