John Mortimer - Rumpole A La Carte

by Rumpole A La Carte(lit)

  'They're all the same. Take that wretched doctor of yours.' 'DrRahmat?' A woman only has to wander into his surgery with a sore throat and he's trying to get into her knickers. Just like Claude.' Claude looks after people with sore throats?' I wasn't follow" her drift.

  'H get him, though. I'll cross-examine the life out of him. e U be struck off for ten years.' 'Claude?' 'No. Dr Rahmat.' 'What's Dr Rahmat got to do with it?' 'I'm prosecuting him before the General Medical Council.' 'First rate!' I tried to sound enthusiastic, but I saw the unhappy doctor's hopes fading rapidly. 'I'll have a foeman worthy of my steel. Foe-woman, I'm sorry. You have to be so careful when you talk to lady barristers nowadays.' 'I don't know how you could defend a person like that.' 'You know I have to defend a person like anyone.' 'But you couldn't defend a real snake.' 'Dr Rahmat?' 'No!' And she added in such a tone that I came to the conclusion that hell hath absolutely no fury like a Mrs Phillida Erskine-Brown, Q.c. scorned, 'Claude!' 'All right,' I said. 'What's Claude done now?' As the waiter had set smoked salmon and Sancerre before us, it seemed a suitable moment to get on with putting the indictment. By way of answer, Mrs Erskine-Brown opened the slender black brief-case she had brought with her and produced a copy of a somewhat lurid magazine called Casanova. On the cover of this publication a bikini-clad young woman disported herself with a medicine ball, both articles looking as though they had been inflated with a bicycle pump.

  'Let me read you this.' Phillida flicked through what were, no doubt, distressing pages of photographs and came to rest among the advertisements which, when I got a chance to examine them at my leisure, were mostly of the lonely hearts variety.

  ' "Barrister. Good-looking and young at heart,"' Phillida read in tones of such disgust that they almost put me off my lunch.

  ' "In a rut. Bored with the humdrum of married life. Seeks a new partner for the occasional fling. Country walks, operagoing, three-star restaurant treats and all the other pleasures of life. Tall and slender preferred. Write with a photograph, 'f possible, to..." And there's a box number. There you ardjr Read it for yourself if you want to.' She almost threw the(tm) exhibit at me, drained her wine glass at a gulp and ordered us 178both a refill from the waiter. I glanced at it as I asked, 'So how do you connect this with Claude?' 'It's obvious, isn't it? He's a barrister and "opera-going".' 'There are about four thousand barristers and some of them must go to the Opera. I don't think, Mrs Erskine-Brown, that your evidence is absolutely conclusive.' 'I found this in his room in Chambers, Rumpole,' Phillida said between gritted teeth. 'Now. What further proof do you want?' 'I see.' This last piece of testimony did seem to have landed the unfortunate Claude in the manure. 'Well,' I admitted, 'things are beginning to look rather black for the accused.' As I said this, I was glancing further down the page of Casanova and found boxes announcing the service of 'escorts' and ladies equipped to give massage treatment 'in the hotel or home'.

  These announcements were embellished with photographs and one struck me as familiar. It was under the heading naughty MARIETTA WILL KEEP YOU COMPANY AT DINNERS OUT OR business functions. There was a snap of this companionable girl. Her hair had been done over more elaborately than when she appeared in the Daily Beacon, but there was no mistaking the wide eyes and small, even features and slightly protruding teeth of Miss Liptrott, the girl who was about to bring about the downfall of Doctor Rahmat.

  During the beef and Beaujolais, our Portia rattled on about her husband's character defects and his pathetic failure even to be unfaithful without advertising for it in the public prints.

  Then, perhaps, feeling she had confided too much, she remembered a conference in Chambers, paid the bill and left me.

  She went so hurriedly, in fact, that I found myself still in possession of the copy of Casanova, and I finished the Brouilly, which would never have been seen dead in Pommeroy's, and again contemplated the features of the undoubted Miss Liptrott.

  Dr Rahmat's case seemed to follow me around that day, °r, glancing across die restaurant, I spotted the large, muscular d jovial figure of Dr Tim Cogger, lunching profusely with someone I recognized as the fellow with the brief-case, who ad apparently been trying to flog his pills and potions around i79 the quackery. I raised what remained in my glass in salutations but Dr Rahmat's senior partner, although he glanced in my direction, seemed not to have noticed me at all.

  When I got back to my room in Chambers, I propped Casanova up on my desk, got a line from Henry and started to dial. I heard a ringing tone and, as I was saying, 'Is that the Naughty Marietta escort service?', I was aware of the door opening and our Head of Chambers sidled into the room and stood agape as I heard the whispered reply, 'Yes. This is Marietta speaking.' 'Marietta Liptrott, I presume?' 'Who are you? Are you the newspapers?' 'No, I promise you. Just someone in need of an escort. I heard from a friend that you were a very companionable young lady.' 'Oh, well. Yes. I suppose that's all right.' There was a pause but no denial of the name. 'When's the function?' 'It's not for me, actually.' I raised my voice slightly and turned to smile at the intruder. 'It's for a friend of mine. He wants to take you along to add a little colour to a ladies' night at the Lawyers As Christians Society. Call you back with the details.

  Nice to talk to you. Miss Liptrott.' I put down the telephone.

  'Rumpole! Is that your idea of a joke?' 'Well, you shouldn't have been standing there listening to a private conversation.' 'I couldn't help hearing that you were using Chambers telephone facilities to call up an escort agency.' 'Of course, you could help it. You could have beaten a hasty retreat.' 'Rumpole. You're a married man.' 'That has not escaped my attention.' 'I don't ask why you should feel the need to do that sort of thing...' 'Good. Nice to chat to you. Bollard. Now, if you don't mind '' closing the door on your way out...' He moved towards the exit and then paused. 'Rumpole,' he said solemnly, 'don't you think you ought to make a clean breast of it to Hilda?' 180'A clean br&ast of what?' 'The fact that you're troubled by those sort of, well, needs.' 'Ballard', I looked at tie man with pity, 'when you next feel the need to talk absolute balderdash, why don't you make a clean breast (of it to Mate;'?' He went then but was lack in a twinkling, his head round the door. 'I forgot why I dropped in,' he confessed.

  'On the chamce of earwigging a salacious phone call?' I suggested.

  'No, it wasn't that. Novl remember. I've had a word with Mrs Whittaker. It seems you've asked her to take a note for you in that G.M.C. caseofymrs. Are you sure it's not distasteful in any way?' 'I promise. She can res"rt to ear-plugs for the more sensational parts 'of the evidence.' When I was finally relieved of Bollard's comipany, I cortinued a close study of infectious mononucleosis in the Pnniples and Practice of Medicine I had got out of the llibrary. Thea I called on Mrs Erskine-Brown to return the incriminating magazine she had left with me in the restaurant.

  'There you are,' I said, when I entered the comfortably appointed Q.C.'s room Ptiillida inhabited apart from her husband.

  I dropped the distasteful magazine on her desk. 'You left the vital evidence intlie restaurant. What are you going to do to the unfoa-tunate Claude? Confront him with it?' 'No good att all.' She cane to a quick legal decision. 'He'd only say it wasn't him 01 something equally devious. No. I shall trap him with it. Leare him absolutely no way of escape.' Traps were being set all around by Phillida, not only for Claude but for the unfortunate Dr Rahmat as well.

  There are some exquisite echoes in India; there is the whisper round the dome at Bijapui; there are the long, solid sentences that voyage through the air at Mandu, and return unbroken to their creator.' So wrote oil E. M. Forster, whose work I had turneto? together withtb Principles and Practice of Medicine, y way of preparation forthe struggle ahead. The old literary arling might well have had something to say about the echoes that the accusation against Dr Rahmat sent reverberating round the small world of Rumpole, to be half heard, mainly misunderstood and set up fresh rumours. One evening as we sat over our chops in Froxbury Mansions, Hilda, who had apparently caught one such
echo said, 'I've arranged for you to see Dr Cogger.' 'Why on earth?' 'Well, you certainly can't see Dr Rahmat. I don't know why on earth you're defending him.' 'I'm defending him because he's in trouble.' 'Anyway, that Marguerite Ballard rang up and said Sam was worried about you and that you'd seemed rather strange lately.

  What were you doing strange, Rumpole?' 'I suppose phoning up escorts,' I answered her through a certain amount of chop and mashed potato.

  'What did you say?' 'I said I suppose I was feeling out of sorts.' I had changed my mind about taking Hilda into my confidence. It would have taken too long and she might well not have accepted my evidence.

  'Well, if you're feeling out of sorts, stop complaining to me about it. Go and see Dr Cogger tomorrow evening, on your way home from Chambers. Do try and have a bit of sense, Rumpole.' So evening surgery found me, ever obedient, waiting for the green light to flash beside Dr Cogger's name. I sat among people with varying degrees of illness, coughing and sneezing their way through outdated copies of Punch, the Sunday Fortress cooking supplement. Good Housekeeping and the Illustrated London News. Pale children played with the brokendown toys provided, an antique Chinaman clutched the handle of his walking-stick and muttered ferociously to himself, a very thin girl bit her lip and sat holding her boyfriend's hand. The flats and bedsits around the Gloucester Road had 1 handed over their sick and dying. Then I put down the back number of Country Life which hadn't been holding my attention and saw what surely must have been an unusual sight in a doctor's waiting-room, the lurid cover of Casanova. ' 182'I) you take this regularly?' I approached the receptionist witbhe dubious periodical in my hand.

  'It at all. It shouldn't have been left out there. Of course it'd pset the old people.' F)m Miss Dankwerts's look of pity, I could see I was being take for one of the easily upset old people. 'You mean', my curisity was aroused, 'Casanova isn't normally available in the 'airing-room?' 'C course not. As a matter of fact,' she gave a small smile at the tpense of the medical men from whom she obviously felt as 3)of as she did from her patients, and whispered, 'the cleaing lady found it in one of the doctors' rooms. It should new ? have been put out.' 'C course. The advertisements are rather interesting thoh. You might find a friend.' And, before she could deal withhis outrageous suggestion, the green light flashed and I wasdmitted into Dr Cogger's presence with the folded Casanoofiwelling my jacket pocket.

  'Nell, Mr Rumpole. What seems to be the trouble?' The Door was as cheerful and hearty as ever. ,.

  'Bon't know. Failing eyesight, perhaps. I thought I saw you havig lunch in the Savoy Grill, but I must've been mistaken.

  Yodidn't seem to recognize me when I raised my glass to you.' 'Tie Savoy Grill?' He smiled at me, a big man with huge hans and a surprisingly gentle voice. 'That's a bit out of the clasofa struggling G.P.' '& it wasn't you then?' 'lhardly think so.' He shook his head. 'Now', he was turrng over my notes, 'it seems your wife made this appointmer.

  What does she think is wrong with you?' '?meone told her I was behaving rather strangely in my Chitibers.' 'phaving strangely?' He was adding these words to the log of pmpole's weaknesses, where they would be immortalized tog(her with my weight. 'What sort of strangeness?' ell, ringing up escort agencies.' 'pcort agencies? But, Mr Rumpole, why ever should you do thai' 183 ': 'I suppose they thought I was looking for escorts.' 'You mean, young girls to take out to dinner? That sort of thing?' 'That sort of thing. Yes.' 'My dear Mr Rumpole', he leant back in his chair and his smile was entirely kindly, 'I shouldn't let that worry you in the least. A lot of men, perfectly decent chaps, in my experience, feel the need of young, fresh, well, young company.

  It doesn't mean they're sick in any way. It's perfectly natural.' 'Is that what you think?' 'Oh, yes. I do, quite honestly.' 'I thought it might be.' 'Oh, did you?' His smile faded and he gave me a look, I thought, of some unease. Of course, that may have been because I was being such a terse and unforthcoming patient.

  'Yes. When I saw that magazine Casanova in your waitingroom.' 'Oh, that!' He was smiling again, at full beam. 'I can't think how it got there.' 'It's full of advertisements for escorts, companions, people for nights out on the town. All that sort of thing.' 'Is it? I didn't look. It seems to have interested you.' 'Yes, it did. Your receptionist said it was found in one of the doctors' rooms.' 'Well, Mr Rumpole, my partners are big boys now. I really can't be expected to nanny them. Perhaps I should have, though. When I think of the trouble poor old Rahmat's got himself into, Now', he looked at his watch and seemed to decide that his time was being wasted in idle chatter, 'what would you say your problem is, medically?' 'Medically,' I told him, 'I can't sleep. I seem to wake up around one o'clock in the morning and worry about poor old Rahmat, as you rightly call him.' * 'My dear Mr Rumpole. Why should you worry?' 'I suppose, because I'm defending him.' For the first time Dr Cogger looked startled and unsure of himself. 'You are?' He frowned. 'I hadn't realized that. Perhaps 184we shouldn't have been talking about it. I've been asked to give evidence.' 'For the Doctor? I didn't think we'd asked you.' 'No. Well, for the Council. I just told them what I knew. I certainly don't want to make things any more difficult for Rahmat. Look. I'll write you out some pills. Perfectly harmless. Just take one when you wake up in the middle of the night. At least that should stop you worrying.' 'About Dr Rahmat?' 'If you can manage it. I know. It's distressing for all of us when a doctor goes off the rails.' 'Rumpole, I'm terribly worried.' 'Oh, dear.' 'Worried and frankly mystified.' It didn't take much to mystify Erskine-Brown, and as we sat together in Pommeroy's, our day's work done, I waited to hear what detail of our life on earth was puzzling him at the moment.

  'It's about Philly. She's taken to calling herself "The Rut".' 'The what?' ; 'The Rut! I come home and there'll be a note: gone ROUND TO MARGOT'S, SO I DON'T BORE YOU TO DEATH.

  "the rut". Why do you think she calls herself "The Rut"?' 'I have no idea.' 'Do you think it has some amorous significance? I looked it up in The Oxford English in the Bar library. It refers, Rumpole, to periods of sexual excitement in certain animals.' 'Didn't you ask your wife what she meant?' 'Of course.' 'What did she say?' 'That I should know, if anyone did.' 'And you found that reply enigmatic?' 'I certainly did.' I looked at the man. I wouldn't have thought Claude had y special talent for lying, but he spoke with apparent convictlon d not an eyelid was batted.

  Ql, "

  ne s also begun to ask me about country walks.' ay again.' 185 Rumpole a h Carte 'She says, "When are you going out for another country walk, Claud?" She knows that country walks are just not my scene.' 'I shouldithave thought so.' 'They tirii'ou out and you get your shoes dirty. Whatever gave her the idea I want to go tramping around the countryside?' 'Are you sire you didn't?' For an aisiver he shook his head sadly and said, 'Do you know I reall'fun worried about Philly. Do you think she ought to see a docnr?' 'I think,' Itold him, 'that she's about to see about a dozen of them. In the&eneral Medical Council. And I'm sure she'll do this case life she does all her cases, brilliantly.' And she'll have you stiriied up too, Claude, I thought as I looked at the man who still seemed to be seeing his perilous situation through a gliss darkly.

  I left Pomeroy's and when I disembarked from the bus and was making my way towards the mansion flat, I saw Dr Rahmat hurring along the street in front of me. I called out and he turned like a startled hare and then managed a smile of greeting. 'Tie barrister-at-law. And looking extremely fit, if I may say so.' 'I wanted(r) see you. There's a question that I should have asked. Mr Icrnard was trying to get hold of you at the surgery.' 'Alas, I an seldom there now. The patients don't seem too dead keen on seeing me. But shall we walk along? I have an appointment.' 'All right It's about Dr Cogger,' I said, when we were on the move. 'Bid you and he ever quarrel about anything?' Dr Rahmat warn a few steps in silence and I prompted him, 'If I'm going tcaefend you, you'd better trust me.' 'Well,' headmitted, 'we had a few words once. About the drugs.' 'What about the drugs?' 'He was alrays wanting me to prescribe...' Here he mentioned a number of long. Latinized trade names
which went, I 186have to confess, in at one of my ears and out at the other.

  'They were very expensive drugs, most of them from Marchmain's, and I told him that my patients would be just as well off with a few kind words and a couple of aspirins.' 'How did he react to that?' 'Badly. He got in a most terrible bait. He went so far as to saw that he didn't want partners who were so pig ignorant on the subject of new drugs. I'm sure it was said in the heat of the moment and he didn't mean it exactly.' We had reached the Star of Hyderabad, our local Indian eatery, and Dr Rahmat stopped in front of its red and gold door. 'I am most reluctant to part from you, great barrister-atlaw, but, alas, I have an appointment.' 'I'll come in with you for a moment. You can buy me a beer.' 'It would be a pleasure, but some other time, I'm afraid.

  This is an appointment of a private nature.' He then bolted into the Star of Hyderabad and, resisting all temptations to peer in and see who he was dating, I headed off to an empty house, for it was one of the nights when Hilda was at her bridge lesson with Marigold Featherstone.

  At about nine o'clock the phone rang and a familiar voice said, 'Is Horace there? It's Bambi.' 'This is a recorded message,' I answered in a nasal and mechanical tone. 'I'm afraid we are not available at the moment, but if you will leave your name and telephone number, we will get back to you as soon as possible.