Rumpole and the Angel of Death (17 page)

I'll spare you all the gory details, Dodo. Rumpole particularly enjoyed himself with the forensic evidence. He seems to regard himself as the greatest living authority on bloodstains. There was blood of his father's group on Michael's hands, his shirt cuffs, on one of his sleeves and on the head of the golf club. Rumpole seemed to be suggesting that the blood got on Michael's clothes when he knelt down to examine his father's wounds, and I thought that he had made a bit of headway with this theory, in spite of the gloomy interventions of the learned Judge. ‘I thought your client didn't want to be a doctor, Mr Rumpole,' was one of them. ‘I don't know why he would have been so anxious to examine the wounds.' Rumpole also got the scene of the crime officer to agree that the grandfather clock in the hall had fallen over and stopped at ten forty-five, which probably would have been the time of the attack. He also established that it was a Saturday, and that Skelton had been playing golf and had left his bag of clubs in the hall, so his assailant wouldn't have had far to look for a weapon.

At four o'clock Claude got to his feet and asked to raise a matter. He told the Judge that the Defence had filed an alibi notice stating that Michael Skelton was in the woods reading a poem he had written to some New Age travellers. However, Mr Rumpole had failed to give the Prosecution the names of the witnesses they intended to call to support this so-called alibi.

‘Well, Mr Rumpole?' Graves asked in a voice as near to doom as he could make it. ‘Why has the Defence not supplied the names of their alibi witnesses?'

‘Simply because we haven't traced them yet, my Lord.' Rumpole can, when hard pressed to it, manage a disarming smile.

‘And what steps have you taken?'

‘We have advertised, my Lord, in several publications.'

‘Aren't these travellers committing an offence under the new Criminal Justice Act? I imagine they were camping without permission in Mr Skelton's woodland.'

‘Even those who commit offences read newspapers, my Lord. We shall produce the advertisements we placed in
Time Out.'

‘Time
what,
Mr Rumpole?' His Lordship was making a note.

‘
Out,
my Lord. The
Big Issue
and the
East Sussex Gazette –
have you got them there?' Rumpole leant forward to whisper to Danny who, in close consultation with Turnbull, was going through the file.

‘I'm afraid we didn't.'

‘You didn't what?'

‘I'm sorry, Mr Rumpole.' The red-faced clerk was looking extremely flustered. ‘Pressure of work. I'm afraid the advertising got overlooked.'

‘Overlooked! This is a charge of murder, you know, not an unrenewed dog licence.' I saw Claude and Liz Probert smiling, enjoying Rumpole's discomfiture, and Danny, as shocked as he was, told Rumpole, ‘I'm afraid there's no excuse for Turnbull. Of course, I can't deal with every detail personally. I've told him that.'

Well, Rumpole managed to wipe the anger off his face and stood up and smiled again. He asked Graves to adjourn the case so that the advertisements might be published. After lengthy argument, his Lordship refused to grant an adjournment. The case could take several more days and would be fully reported in the press. When he left Court, Rumpole said, ‘Thank God, he's given us a ground for appeal!' But I could tell that he was still very angry indeed.

Rumpole was late getting back to the hotel that night, so Danny and I decided to go in to dinner without him. It was hardly cheerful in the dining-room, distinctly cold, hung with sporting prints and heavy with the smell of furniture polish and overcooked lamb. Whilst we were waiting for the soup, Danny said, ‘I'm seriously worried about your husband, Hilda.'

‘Why?' At that moment I wasn't worrying about Rumpole particularly.

‘He's started off badly, getting on the wrong side of the Judge. And I'm not at all sure the Jury like the way he's handling our case. Do you honestly think he wants to win?'

‘I honestly think Rumpole wants to win every case he does. The only thing is . . .'

‘What, Hilda?'

‘I think he was cross because the advertisements hadn't gone in the papers.'

‘I tore Turnbull off a most terrific strip about that. Not that I believe it was a particularly hopeful line of country. Can you imagine any of these travellers turning up? Let's face it, Hilda, those sort of free spirits spend their time keeping away from the law.'

The soup came then, beige in colour and not particularly hot. In spite of these drawbacks, I was enjoying my stay at the Old Bear, particularly when Danny gave me one of his most twinkling looks and said, in a confidential sort of way, ‘Hilda?'

‘Yes.'

‘Will you do something for me?'

I don't know why it was, Dodo, that I felt suddenly breathless when he asked me that, but I tried to answer him as calmly as possible. ‘It depends what it is. But I'll try . . .'

‘Keep an eye on Rumpole, will you? I know he's not pleased with me, and he may not tell me what he's got in mind. So if he's planning to take any sort of peculiar line . . .'

‘What sort of peculiar line?'

‘I don't know. But if he gets any really strange ideas you will let me know, won't you?'

‘I suppose so,' I found myself saying. ‘Well, all right.'

‘Thank you, Hilda dear. I knew I could trust you.' And then he put his hand on mine.

I can see it now in my mind's eye, Dodo. My hand was on the table and his, slightly suntanned, with the carefully tended nails and heavy gold signet ring on the little finger was on top of it, and then I looked up and there was Rumpole standing in the doorway. I think he must have seen where Danny's hand was but he never mentioned it; and as for me, well you may be sure, Dodo, I never asked him whether he had seen it or not.

‘I hope you don't mind. We've started without you.' Danny gave my husband his most dazzling smile.

‘Apparently.' Rumpole was far from friendly.

‘You haven't been working?' I wanted to sound sympathetic.

‘Someone has to. I've been down the cells with Michael.'

‘I don't suppose you learnt anything new?'

‘As a matter of fact I did. Something he hadn't the sense to tell us before. He said he didn't, out of respect for his father's memory. He's a strange lad. It's almost as though he wants to get himself convicted. Anyway, he gave me the name of the doctor.'

‘Which doctor, Rumpole?'

‘Fellow called Christie-Vickers. Minds a shop somewhere in Harley Street. Michael isn't sure where. About two weeks before the quarrel . . .'

‘You mean the quarrel when Skelton got killed?' Danny interrupted.

‘No, I mean the quarrel Mrs Beazley heard at dinner . . . His father told him that Christie-Vickers had diagnosed cancer of the prostate. That's why he said the skin doctor might die soon, and he couldn't expect Michael to live on doing a job he hated.'

‘He's only just thought of that?' Danny looked doubtful.

‘He's only just decided to tell us. Perhaps he's beginning to realize that even poets can't ignore the evidence against them.'

‘It wasn't a particularly nice thing for the boy to say to his father.' I was feeling as sceptical as Danny did about young Skelton.

‘He's not accused of not being particularly nice, Hilda.' Rumpole was quite sharp with me, Dodo. ‘He's on trial for murder.'

‘So you want me to get on to this Christie-Vickers?' Danny got out a little pad in a leather case and made a note with a gold pencil.

‘Now would hardly be soon enough.' So Danny went off to telephone and, when the waitress came to take his order, Rumpole astonished me. ‘Just a green salad if you can manage it,' he said. ‘And perhaps a hunk of cheese. A smallish hunk, I suppose.'

‘Rumpole' – I looked at him – ‘are you sickening for something?'

‘I don't think so,' he said. ‘Are you?' We didn't say much more until Danny came back and said he'd found Dr Christie- Vickers in the telephone book and tried his house number but got no reply. He'd ring the Harley Street consulting room in the morning.

That night I honestly thought I must tell Rumpole. Tell him what, you may say after reading this far, which, as a story of illicit love and infidelity, would be considered too uneventful for your average parish magazine and would certainly not get a line in the
Daily Telegraph.
But Danny had invited me, hadn't he, not only to the opera but to share his life? What else was all that stuff about it not being too late to seek a newer world and pushing off and smiting the sounding furrows? I was sitting up in my twin bed in the Old Bear as these thoughts flickered through my mind, looking at the yellowing walls and repeated patterns of daisies on the curtains and bed covers, the elecric kettle and assorted tea bags on a rather unsteady shelf, and hearing the sound, like a whale rising up through the waves and spouting, which was Rumpole cleaning his teeth in the
en suite
bathroom. When he came back with his hair standing on end, in his old camel-hair dressing-gown and striped pyjamas, he looked, I thought, like a small boy to whom something unexpectedly outrageous has suddenly happened. I really don't know why it was, perhaps I wanted to put off telling him for as long as possible, or did I want to justify myself by putting Rumpole in the wrong? Quite honestly, Dodo, I can't be sure why I did it, but I said, ‘Danny's worried about the way you're doing the case.'

‘Danny? Why do you call him Danny?'

‘You said everyone did.'

‘Perhaps
everyone
hasn't got a special reason. Have you, Hilda?'

‘I told you. He's worried about the case.'

‘I expect he has other worries on his mind also. What was that wretched opera you saw?
Don Giovanni
? That bed-hopping Spaniard had a few worries on his plate from what I remember. And didn't he come to a sticky end?'

‘Rumpole!' I didn't like the turn the conversation was taking. ‘You're going to lose Skelton, aren't you?'

‘Why? Am I in the habit of losing cases?'

‘It has been known. Danny . . .'

‘Let's call him Mr Newcombe, shall we? Now that you've really got to know him.'

‘All right. Mr Newcombe says it's obvious Michael did it for the money. Even if you lose and he goes away for ten years, he'll come out and collect three million.'

‘Did Newcombe tell you that?'

‘He didn't say he couldn't.'

At this point, Rumpole sat down on the edge of my bed and began to talk in a slow and patient sort of way, as though to a child. ‘A murderer can't profit as a result of his crime, Hilda. If Michael's convicted of murder he won't be able to benefit from his father's estate. Newcombe knows that as well as I do.'

‘Did Michael know?'

‘He said he did, when I pointed it out to him.'

‘Then he must be an extremely stupid young man.'

‘Not at all. He got a scholarship to King's. And he writes poetry, of a sort.'

‘So he does the murder in a way which is almost certain to be discovered, hangs about by the corpse and calls for help so that a witness can see him with a bloodstained golf club in his hand – all so that he won't get the money from his father's will. Does that really sound likely?'

Rumpole, who had been looking at me with a mixture of resentment and grief, now spoke with unusual respect. ‘Hilda,' he said, ‘I don't know how you managed it but you seem to have hit on a better argument than a little queasiness at the sight of blood.'

‘Thank you.' I was able to look dignified and aloof. ‘You're perfectly at liberty to use it, Rumpole.'

He couldn't quite decide how to reply to that and, instead of raising the difficult subject of Danny Newcombe again, he took off his dressing-gown, hung it up, as usual, on the floor and climbed into his twin bed.

‘Perhaps we should go to sleep now. You've got the police interviews tomorrow, remember?' I switched off my light and he switched off his.

‘Hilda?' His voice came out of the darkness. ‘Have you got anything else to tell me?'

‘No, Rumpole. Not now, anyway. Let's go to sleep.'

But I didn't. I lay awake for a long time. And I was surprised to find that I was no longer thinking about pushing off and smiting the sounding furrows. I was remembering the pale, calm face of Michael Skelton and asking myself questions which became more unnerving as I stared into the darkness where familiar objects, such as Rumpole's fallen dressing-gown and the electric kettle, seemed to take on new and surprising shapes.

The next morning, I have to confess, Dodo, was boring. I was sitting in Court, turning over the photographs bound together in a slim volume and marked Prosecution I (you see how used I'm getting to courtroom expressions). Before the Judge sat, Mr Turnbull told us that he'd rung Christie-Vickers's secretary, and the doctor was driving through France with his wife but they'd do their best to find him. Rumpole had received the news fairly calmly, for him, and when the police were reading accounts of their interviews with Michael from their notebooks, he closed his eyes and acted the part of someone enjoying a light doze, in order to show the Jury how unimportant the evidence was. Turnbull had gone off on some errand and I was alone in the front row with Danny, who was also finding it hard to keep his eyes open.

I'm not as squeamish as young Michael, Dodo. You know how we used to open up a frog in biology lessons? And I had no qualms about cutting up a rabbit when we used to eat them after the war. But, I must confess, I flicked over the photos taken on the mortuary slab and the colour close-ups of the head wounds. I enjoyed the exterior views of Long Acre and thought that such a spread would be a step up from Froxbury Mansions. And then I got to the most recent photograph of the beauty doctor when he was alive – the picture the police used for the purposes of identification. He was as handsome as his son, with the same high arched nose, full lips and large, dark eyes and black hair. Only, the surgeon's good looks were more arrogant, more supercilious, and his hair was just starting to turn grey over the ears. I thought it odd that the victim looked more dangerous and even brutal than his killer.