The Angel of Death no doubt appears in many guises. She may not always be palely beautiful and shrouded in black. In the particularly tricky case which called on my considerable skills and had a somewhat surprising result, the fell spirit appeared as a dumpy, grey-haired, bespectacled lady who wore sensible shoes, a shapeless tweed skirt, a dun-coloured cardigan and a cheerful smile. This last was hard to explain considering her position of peril in Number One Court at the Bailey. She was a Dr Elizabeth Ireton, known to her many patients and admirers as Dr Betty, and she carried on her practice from a chaotic surgery in Notting Hill Gate.
I’ll admit I was rather distracted that breakfast time in the kitchen of our so-called mansion flat in the Gloucester Road. I was trying to gain as much strength as possible from a couple of eggs on a fried slice, pick up a smattering of the events of the day from the wireless and make notes in the case of Dr Ireton, with whom I had a conference booked for five o’clock. My usual calm detachment about that case was unsettled by the discovery that the corpse in question was that of Judge Chippy with whom I had shared so many a friendly jar. There was little time to spare before I had to set off for a banal matter of receiving a huge consignment of frozen oven-ready Thai dinners in Snaresbrook.
Accordingly, I stuffed the papers in my battered briefcase, placed my pen in the top pocket and submerged my dirty plate and cutlery in the washing-up bowl, in accordance with the law formulated by She Who Must Be Obeyed.
‘Rumpole!’ The voice of authority was particularly sharp that morning. ‘Have you the remotest idea what you have done?’
‘A remote idea, Hilda. I have prepared for work. I am going out into the harsh, unsympathetic world of a Crown Court for the sole purpose of keeping this leaky old mansion flat afloat and well-stocked with Fairy Liquid and suchlike luxuries . . .’
‘Is this the way you usually prepare for work?’
‘By consuming a light cooked breakfast and doing a bit of last-minute homework? How else?’
‘And I suppose you intend to appear in Court with the butter knife sticking out of your top pocket, having thrown your fountain-pen into the sink.’
A glance at my top pocket told me that She Who Must Be Obeyed, forever eagle-eyed, had sized up the situation pretty accurately. ‘A moment of confusion,’ I agreed. ‘My mind was on more serious subjects. Particularly it was on a Dr Ireton, up on a charge of wilful murder.’
‘Dr Betty?’ As usual Hilda was about four steps ahead of me. ‘She’s the most wonderful person. Truly wonderful!’
‘You’re not thinking of her as Quack By Appointment to the Rumpole household?’ I asked with some apprehension. ‘She’s accused of doing in his Honour Charles Chippy Chippenham, a circuit Judge for whom I had an unusual affection.’
‘She didn’t do it, Rumpole!’
‘My dear old thing, I’m sure you know best.’
‘I was at school with her. She was a house monitor and we all simply adored her. I promised you’d get her off.’
‘Hilda, I know you have enormous respect for me as a courtroom genius, but your good Dr Betty was apparently a leading light in Lethe, a society to promote the joys of euthanasia . ..’
‘It’s not a question of your being a genius, Rumpole. It’s just that I told Betty Ireton that you’d have me to answer to if you didn’t win her case. I know quite well she believes passionately’ – and here I saw Hilda watching me closely as I dried the fountain-pen – ‘that life shouldn’t be needlessly prolonged. Not, at any rate, after old people have completely lost their senses.’
The case of the frozen Thai dinners wound remorselessly on and was finally adjourned to the next day. When I got back to Chambers I found my room inhabited by a tallish, thinnish man in a blue suit with hair just over his ears and the sort of moustache once worn by South American revolutionaries and now sported by those who travel the Home Counties trying to flog double-glazing to the natives. He had soft, brown eyes, a wristwatch with a heavy metallic strap which gleamed in imitation of gold, and all around him hung a deafening odour of aftershave. This intruder appeared to be measuring my room, and the top of my desk, with a long, wavering, metal tape.
‘At long last,’ I said, as I unloaded the antique briefcase. ‘Bollard’s got the decorators in.’
‘It’s Horace Rumpole, isn’t it? I’m Vince.’
‘Vince?’
‘Vince Blewitt.’
‘Glad to know you, Mr Blewitt, but you can’t start rubbing down now. I’m about to have a conference.’ I was a little puzzled; we’d had the decorators in more than once in the last half-century and none of them had introduced themselves so eagerly.
‘Rubbing down?’ The man seemed mystified.
‘Preparing to paint.’
‘Oh, that!’ Vince was laughing, showing off a line of teeth which would have graced a television advertisement. ‘No, I’m not here regarding the paint. I’m just measuring your workspace so I can see if it makes sense in terms of your personal through-put in the organization’s overall workload. That’s what I’m regarding. And I have to tell you, Horace, I’m going to have a job justifying your area in terms of your contribution to overall Chambers’ market profitability.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ I sat down wearily in the workspace area and lit a small cigar. ‘And I’m not sure I want to. But I assume you’re only passing through?’
‘Hasn’t Sam Ballard told you? My appointment was confirmed at the last Chambers’ meeting.’
‘I’ve given up Chambers’ meetings,’ I told him. ‘I regard them as a serious health hazard.’
‘I’m really going to enjoy this opportunity. That Dot Clapton. Am I going to enjoy working with her! Isn’t she something else?’
‘What else do you mean? She’s our general typist and telephone answerer.’
‘And much more. That girl’s got a big future in front of her!’ Here, the man laughed in a curiously humourless way. ‘Oh, and there’s another thought I’d like to share with you.’
‘Please. Don’t share anything else with me.’
‘Looking at your own workload, Horace, what strikes me is this: you fight all your cases. They go on far too long. Of course you get daily refreshers, don’t you?’
‘Whenever I can.’ All I could think of at that moment was how refreshing it would be to get this bugger Blewitt out of my room.
‘But the brief fee for the first day has far more profitability?’
‘If you’re trying to say it’s worth more money, the answer is yes.’
‘So why not accept the brief and bargain for a plea, whatever you do? Then you’d be free to take another one the next day. And so on. Do I need to spell it out? That way you could increase market share on your personal achievement record.’
‘And a lot of innocent people might end up in chokey. You say you’ve joined our Chambers? Are you a lawyer?’
‘Good heavens, no!’ Blewitt seemed to find the suggestion mildly amusing. ‘My experience was in business. Sam Ballard head-hunted me from catering.’
‘Catering, eh?’ I looked at him closely. He had, I thought, a distinctly fishy appearance. ‘Frozen Thai dinners come into it at all, did they?’
‘From time to time. Do you have an interest in oriental cuisine, Horace?’
‘None at all. But I do have an interest in my conference in a murder case which is just about to arrive.’
‘Likely to be a plea?’ Blewitt appeared hopeful.
‘Over my dead body.’
‘Well, make sure it’s a maximum contributor to Chambers’ cashflow.’
‘That’s quite impossible,’ I told him. ‘If I don’t do this case free, gratis and for nothing, I shall get into serious trouble with She Who Must Be Obeyed.’
‘Whoever’s that?’
‘Be so good as to leave me, Blewitt. I see you have a great deal to learn about life in Equity Court. Things you’d never pick up in catering.’
He left me then, and I thought I
wasn’t only landed with the Defence of Dr Betty Ireton but the Defence of our Chambers against the death-dealing ministrations of Vincent Blewitt.
After our new legal administrator had left my presence, I refreshed my memory, from the papers in front of me, on the circumstances of old Chippy’s death.
It seemed that he had a considerable private fortune passed down from some eighteenth-century Chippenham who had ransacked the Far East whilst working for the East India Company. He had lived with his wife Connie in a large Victorian house near Holland Park until she died of cancer. Chippy was heartbroken and began to show the early symptoms of the disease which led to his retirement from the Bench – Alzheimer’s. This is a condition in which the mind atrophies, the patient becomes apparently infantile, incomprehensible and incontinent. Early symptoms are a certain vagueness and loss of memory (such as washing up your fountain-pen? Perish the thought!). After the complaint has taken hold, the victim remains physically healthy and may live on for many years to the distress, no doubt, of the relatives. Whether, although unable to express themselves in words, those with Alzheimer’s may still enjoy moments of happiness must remain a mystery.
As he became increasingly helpless, Chippy’s nephew Dickie and Dickie’s wife, Ursula, moved in to look after him. They kept their ten-year-old son, Andrew, reasonably quiet and they devoted themselves to the old man. He was also cared for by a Nurse Pargeter, who came when the young Chippenhams went out in the evenings, and by Dr Betty, who, according to the witnesses’ statements, got on like a house on fire with the old man.
In fact they were such good friends that Dr Betty used to call at least one or two times a week and sit with Chippy. They would drink a small whisky together and the old man had, in the doctor’s presence, occasional moments of lucidity, when he would laugh at an old legal joke or weep like a child when remembering his wife. When she left, Dr Betty would, on her own admission, leave her patient a sleeping tablet, or even two, to see him through the night. So far, Dr Betty’s behaviour couldn’t be criticized, except for the fact that she thought it right to prescribe barbiturates. But, to be fair to her, she was told that these were the soporifics Chippy relied on in the days when he still had all his marbles.
One night the Chippenhams went out to dinner. Nurse Pargeter had been engaged with another patient and Dr Betty volunteered to sit with Chippy. (I couldn’t help wondering if her kindness on that occasion included a release from this vale of tears.) When the Chippenhams arrived home Dr Betty told them that her patient was asleep and she left then. The old man died that night with a suddenness that the nurse, who found him in the morning, thought suspicious. In an autopsy his stomach was found to contain the residue of a massive overdose of the sleeping tablets Dr Betty had prescribed and also a considerable quantity of alcohol. Dr Betty was well known as a passionate supporter of euthanasia and she was charged with murder. She was given bail and her trial was due to start in three weeks’ time.
‘Of course I remember Hilda. She was such a quiet, shy girl at school.’ I looked at Dr Betty, sitting in my client’s chair in Chambers, and came to the conclusion that here was a quite unreliable witness. The suggestion of a quiet and shy Hilda was not, on the face of it, one that would satisfy the burden of proof.
‘She told me that you don’t think life should be needlessly prolonged in certain circumstances. Is that right?’
‘Oh, yes.’ The doctor, I judged, was in her late sixties but her smile was that of an innocent; her eyes behind her spectacles were shining with as girlish an enthusiasm as when she led her mustard-keen team out on to the hockey field. ‘Death is such a lovely thing when you’re feeling really poorly,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why we don’t all give it a hearty welcome.’
‘“The grave’s a fine and private place,”’ I reminded her, ‘“But none, I think, do there embrace.”’
‘How do we know, Mr Rumpole? How can we possibly know? Are you really sure there won’t be any cuddles beyond the grave?’
‘Cuddles? I hardly think so.’
‘We’re so prejudiced against the dead!’ Dr Betty was almost giggling and her glasses were glinting. ‘Rather like there used to be prejudice against women when I went in for medicine. There must be so many really nice dead people!’
‘You believe in the afterlife?’
‘Oh, I think so. But whatever sort of life goes on after death, I’d be out of a job there, wouldn’t I? No one would need a doctor.’
‘Or a barrister?’ Or might there be some celestial tribunal at which a crafty advocate could get a sinner off hell? Plenty of briefs, of course, but my heart sank at the thought of eternal work before a jury of prejudiced saints. I decided to return to the business in hand. ‘Do you think that sufferers from Alzheimer’s disease are appropriate candidates for the Elysian Fields?’
‘Of course they are! I’d fully decided to send old Chippy off there as soon as I judged the time was ripe.’
My heart sank further. The danger of having a conference with customers accused of murder is that they may tell you they did the deed and then, of course, the fight is over and you have no alternative but to stagger into Court with your hands up. That’s why, during such conferences, it’s much wiser to discuss the Maastricht Treaty or Whither the Deutschmark? than to refer directly to the crude facts of the charge. It was my error to have done so and now I had to tell Dr Betty that she had as good as pleaded guilty.
‘No, I haven’t,’ she told me, still, it seemed, in a merry mood. ‘I’m not guilty of anything.’
‘You’re not?’
‘Of course not! It’s true I was prepared to release old Chippy from this unsatisfactory world, when the time came.’
‘And it had come the night he died?’
‘No, it certainly had not! He was still having lucid intervals. I would have done it eventually, but not then.’ I meant to rob the bank, Guv, but not on that particular occasion: it didn’t sound much of a defence, but I was determined to make the most of it.
‘So do you think’ – I threw Dr Betty a lifeline – ‘Chippy might have got depressed during the night and committed suicide?’
‘Of course not!’ I’d never had a client who was so cheerfully anxious to sink herself. ‘He was an old soldier. He always told me that he regarded suicide as cowardice in the face of the enemy. He’d have battled on against all odds, until I decided to sound the retreat.’
It hadn’t been an easy day and to go straight home to Froxbury Mansions without a therapeutic visit to Pommeroy’s Wine Bar would have been like facing an operation without an anaesthetic. So, because my alcohol content had sunk to a dangerous low, I pushed open the glass door and made for the bar. I saw, on top of a stool, a crumpled figure slumped in deepest gloom and attacking what I thought was far from his first gin-and-Dubonnet. Closer examination proved him to be our learned clerk.
‘Cheer up, Henry,’ I said, when I had called upon Jack Pommeroy to pour a large Chateau Fleet Street and mark it up on the slate. ‘It may never happen!’
‘It has happened, Mr Rumpole. And I could manage another of the same if you’re ordering. Our new legal administrator has happened.’
‘You mean the blighter Blewitt?’
‘Tell me honestly, Mr Rumpole, have you ever seriously considered taking your own life?’
‘No.’ It was perfectly true. Even in the darkest days, even when I was put on trial for professional misconduct after a run-in with a hostile judge and when She Who Must Be Obeyed’s disapproval of my way of life meant that there was not only an east wind blowing in Froxbury Mansions but a major hurricane, I could always find solace in a small cigar, a glass of Pommeroy’s plonk, a stroll down to the Old Bailey in the autumn sunshine and the possibility of a new brief to test my forensic skills. ‘I have never felt the slightest temptation to place my head in the gas oven.’
‘Neither have I,’ Henry told me and I congratulated him. ‘We’re all electric at home. But, I have to say, I’m tempted by a han
dful of aspirins.’
‘Messy,’ I told him. ‘And, in my experience, not entirely dependable. But why this desperate remedy?’
‘I have lost everything, Mr Rumpole.’
‘Everything?’
‘Everything I care about. Dot Clapton and I. Our relationship is over.’
‘Really? I didn’t think it ever began.’
‘Too right, Mr Rumpole. Too very right!’ Our clerk laughed bitterly. ‘And my job has gone. What’s my future? Staying at home . . .’
‘In Bexleyheath?’
‘Exactly. Helping out with a bit of shopping. Decorating the bathroom. And my wife will lose all respect for me as a breadwinner.’
‘Your wife, the Alderperson?’
‘Chairman of Social Services. It gives her a lot of status.’
‘You’ll have a good deal of time for your amateur dramatics.’
‘I have been offered the lead in Laburnum Grove.I turned it down.’
‘But why, Henry?’
‘Because I’m losing my job, and I’ve got no heart left for taking on a leading role!’
Further inquiry revealed what I should have known if I’d had more of a taste for Chambers’ meetings. The skinflint Bollard had decided to get rid of a decent old-fashioned barrister’s clerk who got a percentage of our takings and to appoint a legal administrator, at what I was to discover was a ludicrously high salary. ‘Vince takes over at the end of the month,’ Henry told me.
‘Vince?’
‘He asked me to call him Vince. He said that for us two to be on first-name terms would “ease the process”. And what makes me so bitter, Mr Rumpole, is I think he’s got his eye on our Dot.’ Mizz Clapton is so casually beautiful that I thought she must have many eyes on her, but I didn’t think it would cheer up our soon to be ex-clerk to tell him that. Instead I gave him my considered opinion on what I took to be the heart or nub of the matter.
Rumpole and the Angel of Death Page 25