Rumpole and the Angel of Death (16 page)

‘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 strangest 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?'

‘He appeared to me to be very dead, sir.'

‘So if he was dead, then he's unlikely to have been able to call out for help a few seconds before?'

‘That would seem to follow, Mr Rumpole.' A weary and sepulchral voice came from the Bench, apparently inviting Rumpole to get on with it and not waste time. At which my husband, with elaborate courtesy, said, ‘Thank you, my Lord. Thank you for that helpful interruption in favour of the Defence. Now, Beazley, you say you and your wife were watching a war film at ten forty-five?'

‘He has already told us that, Mr Rumpole.' Graves was making it clear that he hadn't joined the defence team.

‘Any rumpus in the hallway which took place at that time would have been drowned by the battle of Iwojima?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘So you heard no voices from the house at that time?'

‘No, sir.'

‘But when you did hear a voice, we are agreed it could hardly have been that of Mr Skelton Senior?'

‘No, sir.'

‘It might very well have been the voice of my client, young Michael Skelton?'

‘It might have been.'

‘Calling for help for the man he's accused of murdering? Is
that
your evidence?'

And without waiting for a reply, Rumpole swathed himself in his gown and sat down in triumph. This gesture had the unfortunate effect of tempting Graves (Mr Injustice Gravestone, I've heard Rumpole call him) to restore the balance by asking the witness if it were also possible that the young man was calling for help because he didn't realize how seriously he had injured his father, a proposition with which the obedient Beazley was delighted to agree.

‘The Judge is against us,' Danny turned to whisper to Rumpole.

‘So much the better.' Rumpole was indestructibly cheerful. ‘We'll make the Jury realize how highly prejudiced the old Death's Head is. That might get us a sympathy verdict.'

But all looks of sympathy seemed to me to drain out of the Jury's faces when Mrs Beazley struggled into the witness-box and described what had happened when she served dinner on that fatal evening. From the first course (‘a nice roast beef done with my own horseradish sauce and all the trimmings,' she panted), she'd heard father and son arguing, and the son getting more and more agitated, as Mr Skelton stayed calm and determined. Michael would have to finish his medical course or he wouldn't get another penny, his father told him. And, if he thought he could live on poetry, he was welcome to try it, eked out with a bit of National Assistance, but he wasn't going to live for nothing in his father's house. I thought it was strange of Mr Skelton to tell his son all that with a heavily breathing cook in the room, but perhaps he was one of those people who think their workers are deaf and blind, and probably have no real existence at all.

The evidence was at its worst when Mrs Beazley came back with the treacle tart and cream. ‘Mr Skelton always had a sweet tooth, bless him, and I make treacle tart according to my own recipe which, he said, couldn't be beaten.' She had no doubt about what she heard. Michael was standing up and shouting at his father, ‘I've got a whole long life to lead and you might die quite soon.' There was a sudden, awful silence and then Mrs Beazley went on. ‘They just looked at each other and neither of them said anything. I set the plates for their dessert and just got out as quick as I could.' When she came back to clear away at about nine o'clock, the dining-room was empty and she thought they had probably gone into the drawing-room. (Mr Skelton always liked the coffee served
with
the pudding.) Then she settled down to watch her favourite war film and knew no more until her husband told her that he'd telephoned for the police and an ambulance was on its way.

Rumpole always told me that if a witness was telling the truth you should keep the cross-examination short. I don't know why he told me that, Dodo. He could hardly have thought that I'd ever be in a position to cross-examine anybody. So he was clearly anxious to get Mrs Beazley out of the witness-box as quickly as possible. He established the fact that Michael might have left the house after dinner and not returned until after eleven, and then he let her go. Danny turned his head and whispered in my ear, ‘He hasn't even challenged her evidence about Michael saying his father might die quite soon. The strongest evidence against us and Rumpole hasn't even contradicted it!' It seemed to me he spoke more in sorrow than in anger.