Rumpole and the Angel of Death (12 page)

‘Are you going deaf, Mr Rumpole?' the Judge raised his voice to me as though at the severely afflicted.

‘Not quite yet, my Lord.' I turned to this witness. ‘Are you divorced from this Mr Charing?'

‘Not quite yet, Mr Rumpole,' the witness answered with a smile and won a laugh from the Jury. The Judge's pursed lips were stretched into a smile, and the inert beanbag was shaken up and repositioned in his chair. ‘The divorce hasn't gone through,' Tricia explained when order was restored.

‘Yet you call yourself Miss Fothergill?'

‘It was such an unhappy relationship. I wanted to make a clean break.'

‘Surely you can understand that, Mr Rumpole?' Jamie was giving the witness his full and unqualified support.

‘And have you now found a new and happier relationship?' Little Marcus, the mouse that roared, rose to object, but the learned Judge needed no persuading. ‘That was an entirely irrelevant and embarrassing question, Mr Rumpole. Please be more careful in the future.'

‘I hope we shall all be careful,' I said, ‘in our efforts to discover the truth. So I understand you live alone, Miss Fothergill, in Cherry Trees in the village of Wayleave?'

‘That is another entirely improper question. What does it matter whether this young lady lives alone or not?' This time the Judge was doing Marcus's objections for him. ‘We'd be greatly obliged, Mr Rumpole, if you'd move on to something relevant.'

‘I'll move on to something very relevant. Do you say you saw a man coming out of Fallows Wood carrying wire on the day before the hunt?'

‘That's right.'

‘What time was it?'

‘One o'clock.'

‘How do you know?'

‘I'd just looked at my watch. I was out for a hack and had to be home before two because my lawyer was ringing me. I saw it was only one and I decided to do the long round through Plashy Bottom. Then I saw the man coming out of the wood, with the coil of wire.'

‘When you saw the man with the wire, you were alone?'

‘Yes.'

‘No one else saw him at that time?'

‘Not so far as I know.'

‘You say you thought he might have been working for Telecom or the electricity company? Did you see a van from any of those companies?'

‘No.'

‘Or the van the saboteurs came in?'

‘I didn't see the van then, no. Of course it might have been parked on the road.'

‘Or it might still have been parked in the village. As far as you know.'

‘As far as I know.'

‘You saw a man the next day, shouting at Mrs Eyles?'

‘That was the same man. Yes.'

‘Why didn't you warn everyone in the hunt that you'd seen that man coming out of the wood, carrying wire?'

‘I suppose I just didn't put two and two together at the time. It was only when I heard Dorothea had been killed by a wire . . .'

‘You put two and two together then?' The Judge was ever helpful to his favourite witness.

‘Yes, my Lord. And I was going to say that, in all the excitement of starting out with the hunt, I may have forgotten what I saw, just for a little while.'

‘I don't suppose Mr Rumpole knows much about the excitement of the hunt.' Jamie MacBain was wreathed in smiles and seemed almost on the point of laying a finger alongside his nose.

I didn't join in the obedient titters from the Jury, or the shocked intake of breath from the faces in the public gallery. I started the long and unrewarding task of chipping away at Tricia's identification. How far had she been away from the wood? Was the sun in her eyes? How fast was her horse moving at the time? As is the way with such questioning, the more the witness was attacked the more positive she became.

‘On your way back to your house in Wayleave, on the day before the hunt, did you pass Janet Freebody's cottage?'

‘Yes, I had to pass that way.' Tricia made it clear that she wouldn't go near anything of Janet Freebody's unless it were absolutely necessary.

‘Did you see the sabs' van parked outside Miss Freebody's cottage?'

‘I think I did. I can't honestly remember.'

‘Was it locked?'

‘How would she know that, Mr Rumpole?' Jamie put his oar in.

‘Perhaps you tried the door.'

‘I certainly didn't! I was just riding past.'

‘Let me ask you something else. Mr Logan has told us that you left the hunt shortly before the police arrived with the news of Mrs Eyles's death. There was something wrong with your horse. What was it?'

‘Oh, Trumpeter had lost a shoe,' Tricia said as casually as possible. ‘It must have happened earlier, but I hadn't noticed it. I noticed it then and I had to take him home.'

It was a moment when I felt a tingle of excitement, as though, after a long search in deep and muddy waters, we had struck some hard edge of the truth. ‘Miss Fothergill,' I asked her, ‘were you riding with Mrs Eyles in Fallows Wood on the day she met her death?'

The Jury were looking at Tricia, suddenly interested. Even Jamie MacBain didn't rush to her assistance.

‘No, of course I wasn't.' She turned to the Judge with a small, incredulous giggle which meant ‘What a silly question'.

‘My Lord. I call on my learned friend to admit that a horseshoe was found by Inspector Palmer near to the stile in Fallows Wood.'

‘Perfectly true, my Lord,' Marcus admitted. ‘It was found some weeks after Mrs Eyles died.'

‘So it might have been dropped by one of any number of horses at any unknown time?' Jamie was delighted to point out. ‘Isn't that so, Miss Fothergill?' Tricia was pleased to agree and repeated that she had never ridden through Fallows Wood that day. I was coming to the end of my questions.

‘When your divorce proceedings are over, Miss Fothergill, are you going to embark on another marriage?' I asked and waited for the protest. It came. Little Marcus drew himself up to his full height and objected. Jamie agreed entirely and said that he wouldn't allow any question about the witness's private life. So my conversation with Tricia ended, finally silenced by the Judge's ruling.

At the end of the afternoon I came out of Court frustrated, despondent, seeing nothing in front of me but a pathetic guilty plea. Gavin hurried away to see Den in the cells and I heard an urgent voice saying, ‘Mr Rumpole! I've got to talk to you.' I looked around and there was Janet Freebody, showing every sign of desperation. I saw Roy and a representative group of the sabs watching us, as well as the hunters who were leaving the Court. I said I'd meet her in the Carpenters Arms round the corner in half an hour.

‘It's kind of you to see me. So kind.' I realized I had never looked closely at Janet Freebody before, but just filed her away in my mind as a grey-haired schoolmistress in a tweed skirt. It was true that her hair was grey and her skirt was tweed but her eyes were blue, her eyelids finely moulded and her long, serious face beautiful as the faces on grave madonnas or serious angels in old paintings. At that moment her cheeks were pink and her hands, caressing her glass of gin-and-tonic, were long-fingered and elegant.

‘What is it you want to tell me?'

She didn't answer directly, but asked me a question. ‘Wasn't it at one o'clock that Dennis was meant to be coming out of that wood, carrying wire?'

‘That's what Tricia said.'

‘Well, he wasn't. I know where he was.'

‘Where?'

‘In bed with me.'

I looked at her and said, ‘Thank you for telling me.'

‘I know I've got to tell that in Court. Den's going to be furious.' And then it all came out, shyly at first, nervously, and then with increasing confidence. She'd had an affair with shaven-headed Roy, who was jealous of Den and now in a perpetually bad temper. She and Dennis had waited until the others went out to the pub to go upstairs, where, it seemed, the solemn Den forgot his duty to the animals in his love for the schoolmistress. Meanwhile, the saboteurs' van was unlocked and unattended outside Janet's front gate.

‘You can't go on pretending.'

‘Pretending what?'

‘Pretending you're guilty, just to help animals. I doubt very much whether the animals are going to be grateful to you. In fact they'll hardly notice. Like Launce's dog, Crab. Do you know
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
?'

‘How do they come into the case?'

‘They don't. They're in a play. So is Launce. And so is his dog, Crab. When Crab farts at the Duke's dinner party, Launce takes the blame for it and is whipped out of the room. Launce also sat in the stocks for puddings Crab stole and stood in the pillory for geese Crab killed. How did Crab reward him? Simply by lifting his leg and peeing against Madam Silvia's skirt. That's how much Crab appreciated Launce's extraordinary sacrifice.'

There was a silence and then Dennis said, ‘Mr Rumpole.'

‘Yes, Den.'

‘I am not quite following the drift of your argument.'

‘It's just that Launce led an unrewarding life trying to take the blame for other people's crimes. Don't be a martyr! And don't pretend to be a murderer.'

‘I'm not.'

‘Of course you are. And what do you think it's going to get you? A vote of thanks from all the foxes in Gloucestershire?'

‘I don't know what you're saying, Mr Rumpole.'

‘I'm saying, come out of some fairy-story world full of kind little furry animals and horrible humans and tell the truth for a change.'

‘What's the truth?'

‘That you didn't kill anyone. All right, you can shout bloodthirsty threats and work yourself into a fury against toffs on horses. But I don't believe you'd really hurt a fly. Particularly not a fly.'

It was early in the morning, before Jamie MacBain had disposed of bacon and eggs in his lodgings, and I was alone with my client in the cells. I hadn't bothered to tell Gavin about this dawn meeting, and he would have been distressed, I'm sure, at Dennis's look of pain.

‘I'm thinking of the cause.'

‘The cause that can't accept that we're all hunters, more or less?'

‘And I told you I was guilty.'

‘You told me a lie. That was always obvious.'

‘Why? Why was it obvious?'

‘Because you had no way of knowing that Dorothea Eyles was going to leave the hunt and gallop between the trees in Fallows Wood.'

‘You can't prove it.' For a moment Den was lit up with the light of battle.

‘Prove what?'

‘That I'm innocent.'

‘Really! Of all the cockeyed clients. I've had some dotty ones but never one that didn't want to be proved innocent before.' It was early in the morning and the hotel had only been serving the continental breakfast. I'm afraid that my temper was short and I didn't mince my words. ‘I can prove you didn't carry wire out of the wood at one o'clock on the day before the murder.'

‘How?'

‘Because you were doing something far more sensible. You were making love to Janet Freebody.'

There was a silence. Den looked down at his large hands, folded on his lap. Then he looked up again and said, ‘Janet's not going to say that, surely?'

‘Yes, she is. She's going to brave the story in the
Sun
and the giggles in her class at the comprehensive, and she's going to say it loud and clear.'

‘I'm not going to let her.'

‘You can't stop her.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because you're going to tell the truth also. And because you're going to fight this case to the bitter end. With a little help from me, you might even win.'

‘Why should I fight it?' Den looked back at his hands, avoiding my eye. ‘You give me one good reason.'

So then I gave him one very good reason indeed. ‘You can't tell the story,' I warned Den. ‘It can't be proved and you'd be sued for libel. But I promise to tell them what I know.' Later, when I had finished with Den, I went into the robing-room to slip into the fancy dress and there I confronted little Marcus, combing his mouse-coloured hair. ‘My learned friend,' I told him, ‘I'm serving an alibi notice on you. Only one witness.

You'll be a sweetheart and tell darling old Jamie that you don't want an adjournment or anything awkward like that. I can rely on you, can't I, Marcus?'

‘Why on earth' – Marcus looked like a very determined mouse that morning – ‘should you think that you can rely on me?'

‘Because,' I told him, with some confidence, ‘if you behave well, Hilda and my good self might see our way to looking after Bernadette while you're away in the Chancery Division.'

‘That' – little Marcus turned back to the mirror and the careful arrangement of his hair – ‘puts an entirely different complexion on the matter.'

‘What is the single most important fact about this case, Members of the Jury? The fact which I ask you to take with you into your room and put first and last in your deliberations. It's just this: Mrs Eyles met her death half a mile from any point where the hunt had been. If Dennis Pearson intended to kill her, how did he lure her away to that remote woodland path? Did he offer her a date or an assignation? Did he promise to give her the winner of the two-thirty at Cheltenham? Or did he say, “Just gallop along the track in Fallows Wood and you'll probably be killed by a bit of tight wire I stretched there yesterday lunchtime”? How did he organize not only that she should be killed, but that she should go so far out of her way to meet her death? It was impossible to organize it, was it not, Members of the Jury? Doesn't that mean that you must have doubts about Dennis Pearson's guilt?

‘Remember, he was seen at various places during the hunt, with the other saboteurs, shouting his usual abuse at the riders. So whoever went off and lured Dorothea Eyles to her death, it certainly wasn't him. And remember this, if he's guilty, the whole hunt would have had to come down that track, and the first to be killed wouldn't have been Mrs Eyles but the Master of Foxhounds himself, or one of the hunt servants. The Prosecution haven't even tried to explain these mysteries and, unless they can explain them, you cannot be certain of guilt.'