"Mortimer, John - Rumpole A La Carte" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mortimer John)

Such were the characters in the drama which was played out on the evening of the graduation ceremony, in the ViceChancellor's home. After dinner, Mrs O'Leary was in the kitchen, engaged in polishing some of Charles's silver, the care of which was her particular pride. The kitchen door was a little open and it gave on to the paved entrance hall, which had been the scene of our tea party, so she was able to hear the sound of upraised male voices from the doorway of the ViceChancellor's study on the first floor. She distinguished the words 'licking the Chancellor's boots' and she was afterwards able to swear that they were shouted in Professor Clympton's voice. Then she heard Charles shout, 'You've gone mad!

Totally mad!' and footsteps on the staircase, followed by the words she couldn't altogether make out in Clympton's voice.

However, she was sure she heard an 'oh!' and then 'temporary' and finally 'more is'. This was followed by further incomprehensible shouting, a noise like wood breaking and a crash.

There were then footsteps running across the marble, and the sound of the front door opening and banging shut.

When she got out into the hall, she first noticed that part of the wooden banister of the staircase was broken. And then beneath it she saw the slight, elegant figure of Hay den Charles lying on the blood-stained floor. She knelt beside him, held his wrist and called his name but he was past hearing her.

The next day, after the police had been called and made their preliminary inquiries. Detective Inspector Wallace and Detective Sergeant Rose, both of the local force, called on Professor Clive Clympton and asked him to account for his movements at around ten o'clock the previous evening. The Professor, who must have remembered what I had told him about the right to silence, said he had no intention of answering 85 their questions. From then on, in all matters of importance concerning the Gunster case, he shut up like an oyster.

It wasn't only among those accused of crime that silence appeared to be golden. Shortly after the news of Hayden Charles's death had appeared in the papers, I was in my room in Chambers, preparing for an extremely tedious Post Office fraud due in the next day, when Soapy Sam Ballard, Q.c., the sanctimonious leader of our group of legal hacks in Equity Court, put his head round my door and said, 'You're working late.' 'Oh, no,' I told him. 'I'm just arranging my large collection of foreign postage stamps.' 'Are you, really?' 'No, of course not!' The fellow does ask the most idiotic questions. Undeterred by the coolness of my welcome, he made his way into the room, carrying, I couldn't help noticing, a moderate-sized zipper-bag covered in some tartan, and no doubt plastic, material.

'I just called in to put this away in my room,' Ballard said, as though it explained everything.

'This what?' 'This bag.' 'Oh, that.' Ballard clearly had more in mind than introducing me to his bag, for he sat in my client's chair and prepared to unburden himself.

'I wanted to talk to you some time. I mean, Rumpole, how do you find marriage?' 'In my experience, you usually don't. It finds you. It comes creeping up unexpectedly and grabs you by the collar. How's Matey?' I was referring, of course, to Mrs Ballard for whom Soapy Sam had fallen whilst she was the Old Bailey matron, administering first aid to both sides of the law. 'You mean my wife, I assume?' Ballard guessed right. 'You remember the wonderful work she did at the Central Criminal Court?' 'She was a dab hand with the Elastoplast from what I can remember,' I assured him.

'Much loved, wasn't she, by all you fellows?' 86'Well, let's say, hghly respected.' 'Highly respected Yes!' When we had reached this accord, Ballard seemed stumped for words. He straightened his tie, crossed and recrossed his legs, pulled at his fingers until he seemed in danger of wrenching them off, and finally came out with, 'Rumpole, what's your opinion of seciets? In married life?' 'Absolutely essential.' I had no doubt about it.

'Is one entitled 10 keep things from one's spouse, for instance?' He asked the question after a good deal of finger pulling and, out of consideration for his joints, I was able to reassure him, 'As rrany things as possible. Everything you tell the other side just pves them material for cross-examination.

That's the first lessai in advocacy. Bollard.' 'I wanted your opinion because of the slight, well, difference, that has arisen between Marguerite and myself.' 'Who the hell's Marguerite?' I was no longer following the fellow's drift.

'Marguerite, Runpole, is my wife. The person you call Matey.' 'Oh, yes, of coirse.' My memory was now jogged. 'Why didn't you say so?'But here Ballard drew a deep breath and took me into his corfidence. 'She called into Chambers, having been at her refresler course in sprains and fractures. She doesn't work now, (f course, but she likes to keep her hand in.

And Henry told her I'd already left. At five o'clock. And he thoughtlessly addec that he imagined I'd gone home because I was carrying my "tirtan bag". He meant this very bag, Rumpole.

This one!' Ani to remove all doubt, he slapped the small item of luggage on he floor beside him. 'It's most unfortunate that Henry should lave mentioned this bag at all,' he went on mysteriously, 'becaise I never take it home!' 'Oh, naturally rot.' I had no idea what the fellow was talking about.

'And Marguerite keeps on asking where I was going with this particular bag, he told me. 'I think, quite honestly, she's curious to know aboit what's inside it.' 'I'll look up some of the defences to a charge of carrying 87 house-breaking instruments.' I tried to comfort him with a helpful suggestion. 'Let's say you're doing evening-classes in locksmithery?' 'I've told her that there are certain things, even in married life, which a man is entitled to keep to himself.' He ignored my attempt to treat him like one of my more villainous clients and asked, 'Am I within my rights, Rumpole?' 'Your right to silence,' I reminded him, I hope, correctly, 'it's been yours since Magna Carta!' 'I'm glad you said that.' Soapy Sam seemed enormously relieved. 'I'm very glad to hear you say that, as a married man.' 'Of course, you can't stop the other side thinking the worst,' I warned him.

'Just at the moment,' Ballard admitted, 'that's exactly what she thinks. Really she needs something to take her mind off it.

It would make a great deal of difference to Marguerite's happiness if she saw more of you fellows in Chambers.' 'She can see us at any time,' I told him. 'Not that we're much to look at.' 'No. I mean, I think it might be a terrific help if you and Hilda invited her to dinner at your place.' 'Is that what she'd like?' I was greatly taken aback.

'Well. Yes.' 'You're telling me in confidence that Matey would like to be asked to dinner in Froxbury Mansions?' I was still incredulous.

'Well, yes. She would.' 'Don't worry,' I promised him, 'I won't breathe a word to Hilda about it.' 'Rumpole!' Ballard gave a plaintive sort of bleat.

'Oh, well. Come if you want to!' I decided to humour the man. 'Dinner with She Who Must? Your Matey's got a curious idea of fun.' And then I could restrain my curiosity no longer and had to ask, 'What on earth have you got in that bag?' 'I think, Rumpole', Ballard was standing firmly on his rights, 'that's a question I prefer not to answer.' When I got back to the mansion flat I broke the news to Hilda.

'Ballard's invited himself and Matey to dinner,' I said. 'I fear for the man's sanity. He's carrying round a sort of tartan holdall, the contents of which he refuses to divulge. It makes him look like a Scottish pox-doctor.' But She Who Must Be Obeyed had other news to impart. 'Do stop prattling, Rumpole,' she said. 'Just come along in and listen to what she's got to say.' 'Who's got to say?' 'Audrey, of course. She's got nobody but us to turn to.' I found Audrey Wystan in the living-room. She was one of the apple-cheeked, dark-haired girls with the bright-eyed, enthusiastic appearance of those Russian dolls which come in various sizes. If you can imagine an apple-cheeked Russian doll on the verge of tears, that's how Audrey looked as I joined her.

'Thank God you've come. Uncle Horace,' she said in a shaky voice to me. 'They've arrested Clive.' 'Clive?' 'Professor Clympton. You remember?' 'Of course. The academic revolutionary.' v 'He wants you to appear at his trial.' At that moment I had only read about Hayden Charles's death in the paper and knew nothing of the questioning of the English Professor or of his possible involvement in the matter.

So I said he had made a wise choice and asked, 'What sort of trial? Driving whilst tiddly?' 'They say it's murder. He thinks you'll understand.' 'About murder? Well, yes. A little...' 'No!' Audrey said with particular emphasis, as though delivering a message. 'He says you'll understand about keeping silent.' So, accompanied by Mizz Liz Probert, as note-taker and general amanuensis, and Mr Beazley, a small, puzzled Gunster solicitor, who had probably up till then spent a blameless life conveying houses and drafting wills, I turned up in the interview room at Brixton prison to take instructions from the captive Professor. I was surprised by his presence there, as the crime had taken place in the North, but the trial was fixed at the Old Bailey. However, we started by discussing what seemed to be Clympton's principal concern. 'The right to silence,' he said, 'they haven't abolished it yet?' 89 'Not here, old darling,' I reassured him. 'Only in Northern Ireland, where we've handed the forces of evil a famous victory by allowing them to rob us of one of our priceless freedoms.