‘Just the thought of you, going for a walk in any sort of wood.’
‘One has to make sacrifices – for all-important murders. We found some tyre marks, the remains of a sort of camp-fire and an old shirt bearing the legend LESBIANS WITH ATTITUDE.’
‘Talking of Danny Newcombe, Rumpole.’
‘I wasn’t. I was talking of his clerk.’
‘Danny’s invited me to Covent Garden next Thursday. He didn’t think you’d care for the opera.’
‘Opera? Isn’t that the stuff Claude Erskine-Brown takes young legal ladies to when he’s trying to get off with them? No, Danny’s damned right, I wouldn’t care for it. I’d rather be stuck before Mr Injustice Graves on a six months’ post office fraud. But why on earth has he asked you, Hilda?’
‘I think, Rumpole’ – the time had come to take his mind off his murder case and give him something serious to worry about – ‘that Danny Newcombe has taken a bit of a shine to me.’ There was a short silence and then Rumpole said, ‘The first thing Danny Newcombe’s got to do is to find those New Age travellers.’ At that moment he didn’t seem to give a hoot whether his instructing solicitor had taken a shine to me or not, and, quite honestly, Dodo, I decided to proceed accordingly.
Well, there I was in the Crush Bar at Covent Garden Opera House, which I had often heard about, but never been crushed in before. It was the first interval and I had sat for an hour and a half in the great gold and plush of the place, letting the music wash over me and getting little clue about the story from the words which occasionally flickered on a screen over the stage. I couldn’t really understand what the fuss over Don Giovanni was all about. He was a shortish, stout person, who sweated a good deal, and I would be prepared to say that, as a lady-killer, he didn’t rank far ahead of Rumpole. I had bought something new and blue for the occasion from Debenham’s and, by an amazing coincidence, Danny was also wearing a dark blue suit with a cornflower-coloured tie which made him look younger and went stunningly with his eyes. There at least, I thought, as he came towards me with two glasses of champagne, was a man who might have made a thousand and three conquests in Spain.
‘This is a great treat for me,’ he said, as he handed me a glass clouded by the iced wine. ‘My favourite opera with a truly sympathetic companion!’
‘A treat for me,’ I told him, ‘to be in a theatre without having to give Rumpole a quick dig with my elbow every time his eyes start to close and the snores threatens to begin.’
‘I hope he doesn’t mind our going out together?’
‘Not at all. He’s perfectly happy to be left at home with your murder.’
‘Oh, dear. Is he boring you to death with that?’
‘I do get rather a lot of the Skeltons. When I was trying to eat my supper the other night he insisted on reading out the father’s will. . .’
‘Was that interesting?’
‘Not really. Rumpole seemed surprised to discover that Michael wasn’t the only person to benefit.’
‘Oh, you mean the Aussie secretary. We checked up on her. She had gone to a girlfriend’s birthday party in Wimbledon and spent the night there. She was celebrating until she went to bed around two in the morning. Anyway, I doubt if she’d be much of a hand with a golf club. You know, looking round this bar, I can see a good many people I’ve acted for when they were charged with various offences. They all look extremely prosperous and, of course . . .’
‘And what?’ I asked when he hesitated, smiling.
‘Envious. That I’m with such a charming companion. Oh, good evening, Judge.’ We were joined, not by one of Danny’s clients, but by a woman sent to try them, Mrs Justice Phillida Erskine-Brown, always known to Rumpole (who, for many years, had had the softest of spots for her) as the Portia of his Chambers. In her wake trailed her husband Claude Erskine-Brown, now a Q.C. You will remember, Dodo, that he only achieved what Rumpole calls Queer Customer status when his wife was made up to a scarlet judge, adding beauty and an unexpected degree of serenity to the Bench. ‘Hilda Rumpole and Mr Newcombe. Good heavens!’ her ladyship delivered judgement. ‘It is a surprise seeing you two here together.’
‘Hilda had a free evening and I was happy to introduce her to my favourite opera.’
‘I’m afraid it’s not my favourite Leporello.’ Claude Erskine-Brown looked as though he’d been invited to a feast and offered a damp sausage-roll. ‘Quite the worst “Non voglio piu servire” I’ve ever heard at the Garden.’
‘But, of course, you’re not usually listening so carefully, are you, Claude? You’re usually far more interested in whomever you happen to have invited. Isn’t that true?’ The Judge accompanied her question with a sort of humourless laugh, and I remembered that she’d learnt the art of cross-examination from Rumpole.
‘How’s the Skelton case going?’ Claude asked Danny with, I thought, ill-concealed anxiety. ‘I only ask because my diary’s getting pretty full since I took silk.’
‘Oh, I think Danny’s going to leave R. v. Skelton to Rumpole.’ I spoke as a person with inside knowledge. ‘He’s not taking in a leader.’
‘Can that be right?’ Claude looked seriously concerned, but his wife said, ‘Not a bad idea, that. Rumpole’s always at his best in a hopeless case.’
‘But he’ll start attacking the police. He’ll try to destroy all the prosecution witnesses. They won’t like that sort of thing in East Sussex.’ Claude moved closer to Danny in a vain attempt to sell his forensic talents as though they were double-glazing, and Phillida leant forward and asked for a word in my ear. They were a few words and they came as a question, ‘Don’t tell me you’re going out with Danny Newcombe?’
‘Well, isn’t it obvious?’
‘Is it?’
‘We’re not exactly sitting at home watching television, are we?’
‘But, you mean . . . you’re actually going out with him.’
‘Yes, of course. Well, we’ve only actually done it twice.’ There was what I believe is known as a pregnant pause, and then Phillida said, ‘And Rumpole doesn’t know?’
‘Well, he knows about the opera. I haven’t told him about the other thing.’ I had, you will remember, Dodo, kept quiet about the Brasserie San Quentin.
The Judge gave me a long look of deep concern and said, ‘I promise you, Hilda, your secret is absolutely safe with me. And if Claude starts blabbering, I’ll do him for contempt of Court!’ Before she could explain this urgent but mysterious message, the interval was over and the bell called us to the further adventures of the Don, who, in my honest opinion, Dodo, couldn’t hold a candle to Danny Newcombe in the lady-killing department.
In the second interval we saw Phillida and Claude together in the distance, talking to each other with unusual vivacity and studiously avoiding looking in our direction, as though we were tedious relations they hoped they need have nothing further to do with, or people suffering from a contagious disease. I might have taken some offence at this, Dodo, but I was too busy listening to what Danny was saying to me. Although his eyes were still bright and smiling, his voice had become low and unusually serious. He looked at me, Dodo, in what I can only describe as a yearning sort of way and said, ‘Sometimes I long for a complete change in my life.’
‘I’m sure we all do.’
‘I’d love to give up the legal treadmill. Go away to the sunshine. Perhaps with new companions, or a new companion. You know what, Hilda?’
‘No, what?’ Quite honestly, Dodo, I was feeling quite weak at the knees, and I’m quite sure it wasn’t the champagne when he said, ‘ “’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.” ’
I couldn’t look at him, Dodo. I glanced across at the Judge and her husband, and caught them turning hurriedly away. Then I stared down into my glass of champagne and knocked the rest of it back. My mouth was full of air bubbles which made me suddenly speechless, which may have been just as well.
“‘Push off, and sitting well in order smite / The sounding furrows;”’ Danny went on and I re
alized that he was reciting poetry, as Rumpole does at important moments. I don’t know what you’d’ve thought, Dodo, but I was quite sure that the words contained some sort of an invitation. Then we were summoned to see the last bit of the opera, where the General’s statue comes to supper, and the unfortunate lady’s man is sent down to hell.
Some nights later the scene was far less exciting. Rumpole and I were sitting either side of the gas fire in Froxbury Mansions, and I thought I’d discover whether he was noticing me or not, so I asked, ‘What are those photographs, Rumpole?’
‘Oh, nothing very sensational.’ His brief in Skelton was spread out on the floor around him. ‘Pictures I got Turnbull to take in the woods. The remains of the gypsy encampment. I’m getting Newcombe to advertise: ANY NEW AGE TRAVELLERS WHO MET A YOUNG MAN WHO READ POETRY TO THEM ABOUT 1O.45 ON THE NIGHT OF 12TH MAY ... I thought he should put it in Time Out, the Big Issue and the East Sussex Gazette. Can you think of anything else politically correct gypsies might read?’
‘I have no idea what gypsies read.’ I went back to the Daily Telegraph crossword, but Rumpole was in an unusually communicative mood. ‘I had the most extraordinary conversation with Claude Erskine-Brown,’ he told me. ‘By the way, he’s prosecuting me in Skelton. Graves is coming down to try it.’
‘I thought Claude was busy angling to lead you.’
‘Did you hear that at your bridge lesson?’
‘Yes.’ It was very strange, Dodo, how quickly I took to telling Rumpole some untruths.
‘Well, Danny wouldn’t brief him, but Ambrose Clough, who was prosecuting, went off with jaundice and Claude got the brief. Oh, yes, and he’s leading Mizz Liz Probert. She’ll know what paper New Age travellers take in, I’ll have to ask her. Anyway, Claude and I were chatting about the case and he suddenly said, “Philly and I are tremendously sorry for you, Rumpole.”’
‘Why on earth did he say that?’ I asked, knowing the answer.
‘That’s what I asked him. I told him I’d done far more hopeless cases than Michael Skelton, and I thought I’d been able to put up with the funereal Graves in the past and the old Death’s Head had no further terrors for me. Furthermore, having Claude for the Prosecution was always a distinct plus for the Defence ..
‘How very kind of you, Rumpole, to tell him that.’
‘And then he said the reason he felt sorry for me had got nothing to do with the case.’
‘Well, what on earth had it got to do with?’
‘ “If you don’t want to talk about it, of course, I understand perfectly,” Claude said, in a most mysterious way.
‘ “Have you been taking lessons from the Sphinx, old thing?” I ventured to ask Claude. “You’re speaking in riddles.”
‘“It must have come” – the chump Claude looked at me extremely seriously – “like a dagger through the heart.”
“‘If you’re speaking of my occasional fits of indiscretion I find a quick brandy works wonders,” I told him, and then he asked how long you and I had been married.’
‘And what did you tell him?’
‘That I couldn’t remember.’
‘Typical, Rumpole. Entirely typical. Well, it’s getting along for forty-seven years.’ Nearly half a century, and, I wondered, Dodo, if that made it too late to seek a newer world?
‘And then Claude said the most extraordinary thing,’ Rumpole said, quite seriously. “‘It might make it a lot easier if you were thinner.” ’
‘What did he mean?’
‘I asked him that and he said, “Positions and all that sort of thing.” Can you understand what he meant?’
‘No.’ That was true, at least, Dodo. Quite honestly I couldn’t.
‘Do you think anything would be easier if I were thinner?’ Rumpole was puzzled.
‘Putting on your socks, perhaps.’
‘Perhaps that’s what he meant.’ Rumpole thought it over. ‘Claude said that a simple diet might make all the difference. Then he gave me a long, sorrowful look and buggered off.’ I turned my own long, sorrowful look back to the Daily Telegraph crossword, which had managed to defeat me, and silence reigned in Froxbury Mansions until Rumpole said, ‘Skelton’s fixed for the fourth of next month. It’ll be quite an occasion. Danny Newcombe’s attending the trial in person. He’ll be staying in the same hotel. Rather a drawback, really. I don’t want to spend every dinner time getting unhelpful advice from my instructing solicitor.’
‘Rumpole ...’ I started, not after I’d thought things over, but after I’d given way to a sudden, irresistible temptation, ‘can I come too?’
‘Come where?’
‘To East Sussex Assizes. To stay in the . . .’
‘The Old Bear hotel?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why on earth would you want to do that?’
‘Because it’s a long time since I’ve seen you in action, Rumpole.’
‘What do you mean, Hilda?’
‘I mean, it’s a long time since I’ve seen you in Court.’
‘Well, if you really want to. I’ll be working most evenings. I mean, I don’t suppose it’ll be much fun for you.’
‘Oh, I think I might like it quite a lot.’ And then, after we had sat in silence for another five minutes, I said, ‘Rumpole . . .’
‘Yes, Hilda.’
‘You know the poem you’re always reciting: “’Tis not too late to seek a newer world ... / We are not now that strength which in old days / Moved earth and heaven;”?’
Rumpole’s brief was folded and in his lap with his hands over it. He sat back in his chair, his eyes shut and recited:
‘We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.’
‘“And not to yield,”’ I repeated. ‘I’m not quite sure about that.’
It was true, Dodo, I hadn’t seen Rumpole in Court for a long time, and I had to admit, reluctantly, that as soon as he took his seat in the second row (the front one is reserved for the
Queer Customers), he was a man in his element. Mr Justice Graves looked just like Rumpole’s description – a man on his deathbed about to make a will, cutting out almost everyone he could think of. Claude, opening the case, looked nervous and not always in complete control of his voice, which trilled up into a high note of indignation as he described the peculiar horror of the crime. Liz Probert, sitting behind him, was frowning as though she feared some terrible insult to women was about to be offered in evidence, although I couldn’t for the life of me see how the case concerned women at all. Michael Skelton, in the dock, was small, dark, pale and neat, looking absurdly young, like a schoolboy at some important event such as a prizegiving, and not like a murderer at all; although I wondered if there was any particular way of recognizing a murderer, and how many of those old clients Danny recognized in the Crush Bar might have done someone in. Only Rumpole, spreading out his papers, dropping them on the floor, pushing back his wig to scratch his head, or pushing it forward as he yawned heavily and closed his eyes, seemed likely to dominate the courtroom. He looked, I thought, far more at home than he ever does in Froxbury Mansions; and I was in no doubt he would continue his real life in Court whether I was there or not.
I sat with the solicitors, next to Danny. The Court was so full that we had to sit close together and, from time to time, when he moved to look for a statement or pass a note, his arm brushed mine. I could feel the roughness of his sleeve and smell his discreet eau de cologne. On Danny’s other side sat Mr Turnbull, a squat, red-faced man with a bull neck who called me madam and already seemed to regard me as attached to his employer rather than to Rumpole.
Well, Dodo, I don’t know how much you remember of the Skelton murder trial, and I’m certainly not going to bore you by going through all the evidence that took up one of the stranges
t and most unnerving weeks of my life. Of course I remember every moment of it. But it’s difficult for me to write about it without cold shivers and flushes of embarrassment but, as we used to say long ago, if you can live through Gertie’s French lessons, you can live through anything, so here goes.
First came the Beazleys who worked for Skelton and lived in a cottage about fifty yards from the back door of Long Acre. Mrs Beazley, a wobbling, panting woman, with a look of perpetual discontent, was the cook-housekeeper, and Mr Beazley, a short, weaselly sort of person, who spoke as though he was always apologizing for something – perhaps working for the deceased plastic surgeon meant always having to say you’re sorry – was the driver and handyman.
‘I’m afraid Mrs Beazley has quite a taste for old war films, my Lord,’ Beazley apologized from the witness stand. ‘And we had the one on again about the Yankees fighting over a Pacific island . . .’
‘Iwojima,’ Claude was helping him, as Rumpole growled, ‘Don’t lead . . .’
‘Iwojima. Thank you, sir. Well. The guns were firing and the bombs dropping and my wife, sir, was thoroughly enjoying herself, and that was it until the film finished. I doubt very much if we’d’ve heard anything from the house before then.’
‘And what time did the film end?’ Claude asked.
‘I think it was about eleven o’clock time.’
‘And what happened after that?’
‘Well, I heard someone calling from the house. It was a sort of call for help.’ And then Beazley described how he went across to the house and found a scene of bloodstained confusion, and saw Michael Skelton holding a golf club beside the battered body of his father, who appeared to be already dead.
‘Now then, Beasley.’ Rumpole, it seemed, was prepared to sail into the first prosecution witness with his guns blazing. ‘You heard a cry for help and you crossed the yard and went into the house. How long did it take you to get into the hallway from the moment you heard the cry?’
‘I might venture to suggest ... a matter of seconds, sir.’
‘You might venture to suggest it, Beazley. And you might well be correct. And when you first saw Mr Skelton Senior, he appeared to you to be dead?’
Rumpole and the Angel of Death Page 12