The Collected Stories of Rumpole

by John Mortimer

  We went quickly, and without argument, through the formal evidence of photographs, fingerprints and the finding of the body, and then my learned friend announced that he intended to call the pathologist.

  ‘Will that be convenient to you, Mr Rumpole?’ The Judge, as I have said, was a perfect gent.

  ‘Certainly, my Lord. That will be quite convenient.’ I made myself perfectly pleasant in return.

  ‘I wish to make quite sure, Mr Rumpole, that you have every opportunity to prepare yourself to cross-examine the expert witness.’

  You see what I mean? Old McManus was making sure I would have no alibi if I didn’t succeed in cracking Dr Pamela. I’d’ve been far better off with someone like the mad Judge Bullingham, charging head-on at the defence. In this very pleasant trial, Rumpole would have no excuses. However, there was no help for it, so I bowed and said,

  ‘I’m quite prepared, my Lord. Thank you.’

  ‘Very well. Mr Munroe, as you are about to call the pathologist …’

  ‘Yes, my Lord.’ My opponent was on his feet.

  ‘I suppose the jury will have to look at the photographs of the dead lady?’

  ‘Yes, my Lord. It is Bundle No. 4.’

  Pictures of a good-looking young woman, naked, bruised, battered and laid on a mortuary slab, are always harrowing and never helpful to the defence. McManus, J, introduced them to the jury quietly, but effectively.

  ‘Members of the jury,’ said the Judge. ‘I’m afraid you will find these photographs extremely distressing. It is necessary for you to see them so you may understand the medical evidence fully, but I’m sure Counsel will take the matter as shortly as possible. These things are never pleasant.’

  Death isn’t pleasant, nor is murder. In the nicest possible way, the Judge was pointing out the horrific nature of the crime of which Dr Ned was charged. It was something you just didn’t do in that part of Surrey.

  ‘I swear by Almighty God that the evidence I shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’

  I was aroused from my thoughts by the sound of the pathologist taking her Bible oath. Owen Munroe hitched up his gown, sorted out his papers and started his examination-in-chief.

  ‘Dr Pamela Gorle?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you examine the body of the late Sally Dacre, the deceased in this case?’

  ‘I did. Yes.’

  ‘Just tell us what you found.’

  ‘I found a well-nourished, healthy woman of thirty-five years of age who had died from a cerebral haemorrhage. There was evidence of a recent meal.’ The demure pathologist had a voice ever gentle and low, an excellent thing in a woman, but a bit of a drawback in the witness-box. I had to strain my ears to follow her drift. And unlike the well-nourished and healthy deceased, Dr Pamela was pale and even uninteresting to look at. Her hair was thin and mousy, she wore a black suit and National Health spectacles behind which her eyes glowed with some obsession. I couldn’t be sure whether it was love of her gloomy work or hatred of Dr Ned.

  ‘You say that you found widespread bruising on the deceased’s back and buttocks. What was that consistent with?’

  ‘I thought it was consistent with a violent attack from behind. I thought Mrs Dacre had probably been struck and kicked by … well, it appeared that she was alone that evening with her husband.’

  ‘I object!’ I had risen to protest, but the perfect gent on the Bench was ahead of me.

  ‘Yes, Mr Rumpole. And you are perfectly right to do so. Dr Gorle, it is not for you to say who beat this lady and kicked her. That is entirely a matter for the jury. That is why Mr Rumpole has quite rightly objected.’

  I wished his Lordship would stop being so lethally pleasant. ‘But I understand,’ the Judge continued, ‘that your evidence is that she was kicked and beaten – by someone.’ McManus, J, made it clear that Sally Dacre had been attacked brutally, and the jury could have the undoubted pleasure of saying who did it.

  ‘Yes, my Lord.’

  ‘Kicked and beaten!’ His Lordship repeated the words for good measure, and after he’d written them down and underlined them with his red pencil, Munroe wound up his examination-in-chief.

  ‘The immediate cause of death was?’

  ‘A cerebral haemorrhage, as I said!’

  ‘Could you form any opinion as to how that came about?’ Munroe asked.

  ‘Just a moment.’ McManus, J, gave me one of his charming smiles from the Bench. ‘Have you any objection to her opinion, Mr Rumpole?’

  ‘My Lord, I wouldn’t seek to prevent this witness saying anything she wishes in her effort to implicate my client in his wife’s tragic death.’

  McManus, J, looked slightly puzzled at that, and seemed to wonder if it was an entirely gentlemanly remark. However, he only said, ‘Very well. Do please answer the question, Dr Gorle.’

  ‘My opinion, my Lord, is that the deceased had received a blow to the head in the course of the attack.’

  ‘The attack you have already described?’

  ‘That is so, my Lord.’

  ‘Thank you, Dr Gorle,’ said Owen Munroe, and sat down with a quietly satisfied air and left the witness to me.

  I stood up, horribly conscious that the next quarter of an hour would decide the future of my client. Would Dr Ned Dacre go back to his pleasant house and practice, or was he fated to vanish into some distant prison only to emerge, pale and unemployable, after ten or more long years? If I couldn’t break down the medical evidence our case was hopeless. I stood in the silent Court, shuffling the photographs and the doctor’s notes, wondering whether to lead up to my charge of bias gently laying what traps I could on the way, or go in with all my guns blazing. I seemed to stand for a long time undecided, with moist hands and a curious feeling of dread at the responsibility I had undertaken in the pit of my stomach, and then I made a decision. I would start with my best point.

  ‘Dr Gorle. Just help me. You knew Dr Ned Dacre well, didn’t you?’

  The first question had been asked. We’d very soon find out if it were the right one.

  ‘We were at Barts together.’ Dr Gorle showed no sign of having been hit amidships.

  ‘And went out together, as the saying is?’ I said sweetly.

  ‘Occasionally, yes.’

  ‘ “Going out” as so often nowadays meaning “staying in” together?’ I used a slightly louder voice, and was gratified to see that the witness looked distinctly narked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Yes. I think you should make that a little clearer, Mr Rumpole,’ the Judge intervened, in the pleasantest possible way.

  ‘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 discolouration 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 discolouration, 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 co-operative 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 drunk?’

  ‘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 out into 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 t
he 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.