John Mortimer - Rumpole A La Carte

by Rumpole A La Carte(lit)

  After some delay, the Reverend Bill called from behind the door that he wouldn't be a minute. Then the little man I was to discover to be Howard Swainton, the famous author, came bouncing down the corridor, carrying a bunch of red roses and a glossy paperback of his own writing. 'Visiting the sick, are P' he said. 'We all seem to have the same idea.' Well, yes. This is my husband.' Hilda introduced me and °wainton raised his eyebrows higher than I would have believed possible.

  'Is it, really?' he said. 'I am surprised.' 'And this is Mr Howard Swainton,' Hilda went on, undeterred, 'the Howard Swainton.' 'How do you do. I'm the Horace Rumpole,' I told him.

  'Your wife says you're a barrister.' Swainton seemed to find the notion somewhat absurd, as though I were a conjuror or an undertaker's mute. 'I am an Old Bailey hack,' I admitted.

  'And we've all been wondering when you'd turn up.' Swainton was still smiling, and I asked him, 'Why? Are you in some sort of trouble?' Before matters could further deteriorate, the vicar opened his cabin door and Hilda once again performed the introductions.

  'I'm afraid Mavis is still feeling a little groggy,' Bill Britwell told us. 'She just wants to rest quietly.' Hilda said she understood perfectly, but Howard Swainton, saying, 'I come bearing gifts!' and calling out 'Mavis!', invaded the room remorselessly, although Bill protested again, 'I'm not sure she feels like visitors.' We followed, somewhat helplessly, in Howard's wake as he forged ahead. The woman whom I took to be Mavis Britwell was lying in the bed furthest from the door. The clothes were pulled up around her and only the top of her head was visible from where we stood. Howard Swainton continued his advance, saying, 'Flowers for the poor invalid and my latest in paperback!' I saw him put his gifts down on the narrow table between the two beds, and, in doing so, he knocked over a glass of water which spilled on to Mavis's bed. She put out an arm automatically to protect herself and I couldn't help seeing what Swainton must also have noticed: the sick Mrs Britwell had apparently retired to bed fully dressed.

  'Oh, dear. How terribly clumsy of me!' Swainton was dabbing at the wet bed with his handkerchief. But Mavis had drawn the covers around her again and still lay with her face turned away from us. 'Perhaps you could go now?' her husband said with admirable patience. 'Mavis does want to be perfectly * quiet.' 'Yes, of course.' Swainton was apologetic. 'I do understand.

  Come along, the Rumpoles.' We left the cabin then and Swainton soon parted from us to collect his secretary for dinner.

  'She was dressed,' Hilda said when we were left alone. 'She was wearing her blouse and cardie.' 'Perhaps the Reverend Bill fancies her in bed in a cardie.' 'Dont be disgusting, Rumpole!' And then Hilda told me something else she had noticed. The two heavy silver-framed photogiaphs, which had stood on the dressing-table when she first visited the Britwells' cabin, had disappeared. She Who Must Be Obeyed has a dead eye for detail and would have risen to great heights in the Criminal Investigation Department.

  The Oil Salts' bar was liberally decorated with lifebelts, lobster neis, ships in bottles, charts, compasses and waitresses with sa:lor hats. There was a grand piano at which a small, pink-faced, bespectacled accompanist played as Miss Gloria de la Hay e sang her way down Memory Lane. Gloria, a tall woman in a seqained dress, who made great play with a green chiffon handkerchief, must have been in her sixties, and her red curls no douat owed little to nature. However, she had kept her figure md her long-nosed, wide-mouthed face, although probably never beautiful, was intelligent and humorous. She was singing 'Smoke Gets in Your Eyes' and, with dinner over, we were awaiting our assignation with Gravestone in the company of Bill Britwell, Linda Milsom and Howard Swainton Mrs Mivis Britwell still being, her husband insisted, unwell and confined to her room. Hilda was giving an account of what she wo-ild have it thought of as a happy meeting with Sir Gerald Graves.

  'Is he someone you've crossed swords with?' Swainton asked me. 'Inthe Courts?' 'Swords? Nothing so gentlemanly. Let's say, chemical weapons. The old darling's summing up is pure poison gas.' 'Oh, go on, Rumpole!' Hilda was having none of this. 'He was absolutely charming to you on the boat deck.' 'What's the matter with the claret, Hilda? Glued to the table?, That was just part of his diabolical cunning.' 'Rumpole, are you sure you haven't had enough?' She was reluctant to pass the bottle.

  'Of course, I'm sure cop" s lethal Lordship without a drink inside you is like an operation without an anaesthetic.' ln At which, dead on tim Mr I ' berthed himself at our table, saying, 'You're reiiisl11 Rumpole.' 'Oh, Judge! Everyone', " puoduced the old faceache as though she owned him, ' ' Gerald Graves. Howard, Swainton, the Howard SV S da, his personal assistant, and Bill Britwell, the Reverend.Liir Gerald Graves.' 'Five past nine exactly.' f11!, f had been studying his watch during these prelimi"Vudnd I weighed in with 'Silence! The Court's in isio es 'Well, now. Our seco ni, sea, rm sure ' a"

  enjoying it?' Graves's fac011 (tselfmto an unusual and wintry smile. te7 'Best time we've had sidth Axe S, my Lord,' I told him.

  'What was that you sai Rul / 'It's absolutely thrillil mold,' I translated, a little more loudly. L 'I'm afraid', the Reve ot, 'y011'" have to excuse me.' J11' 'Oh. So soon?' 'Can't you relax. Bill? f01 (roubles.' Swainton tried to detain him. 'Enjoy a dfi wiWal live judge.' 'I must get back to Ma-' a S 'It's his wife. Judge. S n well,'Howard Swanton said with apparent co 't as Gloria switched from 'Smoke Gets in Your es' Atianks for the Memory, Bill agreed, 'Well, not quits the ' ,(' 'I'm sorry to hear it.' Jrave ticsympathetic. 'Well, I do hope she's able to join us to"1" w, 'I'm sure she hopes so too-' Sfowron was smiling as he said it. 'Give her all our best shes ,tier the Judge is thinking f ofher.' ' ". 'Yes. Yes, I will. That's ve I.' And Bill Britwell retreated from the Old Sal' ba kg, 'Please! Don't let me j break up the party.' WherP0 saiton came, like the terrier ;..: v Svi' 142 &",.

  Hilda had described, bounding and yapping into the conversation with 'I say. Judge. Horace Rumpole was just talking about your little scraps in Court.' 'Oh, yes? We do have a bit of fun from time to time. Don't we Rumpole?' Graves smiled contentedly but Swainton started to stir the legal brew with obvious relish. 'That wasn't exactly how Rumpole put it,' he said. 'Of course, I do understand.

  Barristers are the natural enemies of judges. Judges and well, my lot, detective-story writers. We want answers.

  We want to ferret out the truth. In the end we want to tell the world who's guilty!' 'Well put, if I may say so, Mr Swainton!' Graves had clearly found a kindred spirit. 'In your tales the mysteries are always solved and the criminal pays ' 'Enormous royalties!' I chipped in, 'I have no doubt.' 'His heavy debt to society!' Graves corrected me and then continued his love affair with the bouncy little novelist. 'You always find the answer, Swainton. That's what makes your books such a thumping good read.' Gloria had stopped singing now and was refreshing herself at the bar. Her plump accompanist was going round the tables with a pad and pencil, asking for requests for the singer's next number.

  'Thank you. Judge. Most kind of you.' Howard Swainton was clearly not above saluting the judicial backside. 'But the Horace Rumpoles of this world always want to raise a verbal smokescreen of "reasonable doubt". Tactics, you see. They do it so the guilty can slide away to safety.' 'Touche, Rumpole! Hasn't Mr Swainton rather got you there?' Graves was clearly delighted by the author's somewhat tormented prose.

  'Not louche in the least!' I told him. 'Anyway, I've heard it so many times before from those who want to convict someone, anyone, and don't care very much who it is. There speaks the ice of the Old Bill.' But I don't understand. His name's Howard.' Miss Linda "som, however rapid her shorthand, was not exactly quick °n the uptake.

  r 143 'Detective Inspector Swainton', I was now in full flood 'distrusts deeding e0111 and wants all trials to take place in the friendly iieighbourhood nick. He's so keen on getting at the truth that' ihe can't find it, he'll invent it, like the end of a detective stry-' 'Is this ho he g0 on in Court?' Swainton asked with a smile to the pdge, wno assured him, 'Oh, all the time.' 'Then you have "Y heartfelt sympathy. Judge,
' Swainton said and I ccd scarcely withhold my tears for his poor old Lordship. 'Thank you,' Graves said. 'Tell me, Swainton, are you working P11 some wonderful new mystery to delight us?' Then my a111111011 was distracted by the little accompanist, who asked m? 'd care to write down a request for Gloria. I looked across at c ialli sequined woman, apparently downing a large port d lemon, and I was whisked back down the decades to rrY carefree bachelor days. I was leaving Equity Court when ihs Chambers were then run by Hilda's Daddy, C. H. Wystai1' for a chop and a pint of stout at the Cock tavern and ld decided to give myself a treat by dropping in to the Old MPitan music hall, long since defunct, in the Edeware Road, There I might see jugglers and adagio dancers and Max Milr? e 'Cheeky Chappie', and... At this point I scribbled a sg i on ih6 accompanist's pad. He looked at it I thought wlt some surprise, and carried it back to Gloria.

  And then brgiug me painfully back to the present, I heard Swainton tell118 P01 °fhis latest masterpiece.

  'In Absence of Body,' he said, 'I am now thinking along these lines. A worn311' a middle-aged woman, perfectly ordinary, is on a cruise wh her new husband. He's a fellow who has taken the precautic11 ° insuring her life for a tidy sum. He tells everyone she'8 "I' hut in fact she's lying in bed in their cabin' here Swainto eant forward and put a hand on Graves's knee for emphasis, '"y dressed: 'I see!' Gr?8 was delighted with the mystery. 'So the plot thickens.' t ' y j'g g tnh? y011 understand,' Swainton assured him. It s so much stranger than fiction. Rumpole was a witness to the fact that whe we ealled on Mrs Mavis Britwell in her cabin, 144 she was lying in bed with her clothes on! I don't know why it is but I seem to have a talent for attracting mysteries.' 'You mean she wanted you to believe she was ill?' Graves asked.

  'Or someone wanted us to believe she was ill,' Swainton told him. 'Of course, one doesn't want to make any rash accusations.' 'Doesn't one?' I asked. 'It sounds as though one was absolutely longing to.' But Mr Justice Graves was clearly having the time of his old life. 'Swainton,' he said, 'I'd very much like to know how your story ends.' 'Would you. Judge? I'm afraid we'll all just have to wait and see. No harm, of course, in keeping our eyes open in the meanwhile.' At which moment, the accompanist pounded some rhythmic chords on the piano and Gloria burst into the ditty whose words I could still remember, along with long stretches of The Oxford Book of English Verse, better than most of the news I heard yesterday: 'Who's that kicking up a noise?

  My little sister!

  Whose that giggling with the boys?

  My little sister!

  Whose lemonade is laced with gin?

  Who taught the vicar how to sin?

  Knock on her door and she'll let you in!

  My little sister!

  Who's always been the teacher's pet?

  Who took our puppy to the vet?

  T That was last night and she's not home yet! * My little sister!' 'What an extraordinary song!' Hilda said when my request Performance was over.

  'Yes,' I told her. 'Takes you back, doesn't it? Takes me back, yway.' en the party in the Old Salts' bar was over, Hilda slipped B-, 5 her arm through mine and led me across r the deck to the ship's rail. I feared some romantic demonstratidon and looked around for help, but the only person about seemed to be Bill Britwell, wrapped in a heavy raincoat, who was standing some way from us. It was somewhat draughty and a finec rain was falling, but there was a moon and the sound of a" distant dance band.

  Hilda, apparently, drew the greatest encouragement from these facts.

  'The sound of music across the water.", Stars. You and I by the rail. Finding each other... Listen, Rumpole! What do you think the Med. is trying to say to us?' 'It probably wants to tell you it's the I Bay of Biscay,' I suggested.

  'Is there nothing you feel romantic aboout?' 'Of course there is.' I couldn't let: that charge go unanswered.

  'There you are, you see!' Hilda was clearly pleased. 'I always thought so. What exactly?' 'Steak and kidney pudding.' I gave htier the list. 'The jury system, the presumption of innocence.' 'Anything else?' 'Oh. Of course. I almost forgot,' I reasssured her.

  'Yes?' 'Wordsworth.' There was a thoughtful silence then and Hilda, like Gloria, went off down Memory Lane. 'It doesi-n't seem so very long ago,' she said, 'that I was a young girl, ;and you asked Daddy for my hand in marriage.' 'And he gave it to me!' I remembered i it well.

  'Daddy was always so generous. Tell me, Rumpole. Now we're alone', Hilda started off. I'm rot sure what sort of intimate subject she was about to broachl because I had to warn her, 'But we're not alone. Look!' She turned her head and we both saw' Bill Britwell standing by the rail, staring down at the sea and aapparently involved in (, his own thoughts. Then, oblivious to ou existence, he opened his coat, under which he had concealed two silver-framed photographs, much like those Hilda had1 seen on the dressing146 table on her first visit to his cabin. He looked at them for a moment and dropped them towards the blackness of the passing sea. He turned from the rail then and walked away, not noticing Hilda and me, or Howard Swainton, who had also come out of the Old Salts' bar a few minutes before and had been watching this mysterious episode with considerable fascination. "

  Time, on a cruise ship, tends to drag; watching water pass by you slowly is not the most exciting occupation in the world.

  Hilda spent her time having her hair done, or her face creamed, or taking steam-baths, or being pounded to some sort of pulp in the massage parlour. I slept a good deal or walked round the deck. I was engaged in this mild exercise when I came within earshot of that indefatigable pair. Graves and Swainton, the Judge and the detective writer, who were sitting on deckchairs, drinking soup. I loitered behind a boat for a little, catching the drift of their conversation.

  'Photographs?' The Judge was puzzled. 'In silver frames? and he threw them into the sea?' 'That's what it looked like.' 'But why would a man do such a thing?' 'Ask yourselves that. Members of the Jury.' I emerged and posed the question, 'Is the Court in secret session or can anyone join?' 'Ah, Rumpole. There you are.' Graves, given a case to try, seemed to be in excellent humour. 'Now then, I believe you were also a witness. Why would a man throw photographs into the sea? That is indeed the question we have to ask. And perhaps, with your long experience of the criminal classes, you can suggest a solution?' 'I'm on holiday. What Britwell did with his photographs seems entirely his own affair.' But Swainton clearly didn't Aink so. 'I can offer a solution.' He gave us one of his plots for ""thing. 'Suppose the Reverend Bill isn't a Reverend at all. I believe a lot of con men go on these cruises.' That is an entirely unfounded suggestion by the Prosecution, my Lord.' I had the automatic reaction of the life-long defender, at which moment the steward trundled the soup trolley up to me and Graves, by now well in to presiding over the upper-deck Court, said, 'Please, Mr Rumpole! Let Mr Swainton complete his submission. Your turn will come later.' 'Oh, is that soup?' I turned my attention to the steward.

  'Thank you very much.' 'Suppose Bill Britwell wanted to remove all trace of the person in the photographs?' Swainton suggested.

  'Two persons,' I corrected him. 'Hilda told me there were two photographs. One was Bill Britwell and his wife. The other was of a young girl. Are you suggesting he wanted to remove all trace of two people? Is that the prosecution case?' 'Please, Mr Rumpole, it hasn't come to a prosecution yet,' Graves said unconvincingly.

  'His wife? This is very interesting!' Swainton yelped terrierlike after the information. 'One picture was of his wife. Now, why should he throw that into the sea?' 'God knows. Perhaps it didn't do her justice,' I suggested, and Swainton looked thoughtful and said, in a deeply meaningful sort of way, 'Or was it a symbolic act?' 'A what?' I wasn't following his drift, if indeed he had one.