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

'Cousin Everard wants to take me up there for a break.' Hilda, who was clearing away, removed a half-drunk cup of tea from my hand.

'A break from what?' I was mystified.

'From you, Rumpole. Don't you think I need it? After that disastrous evening at La Maison?' 'Was it a disaster? I quite enjoyed it. England's greatest chef laboured and gave birth to a ridiculous mouse. People'd pay good money to see a trick like that.' ' You were the disaster, Rumpole,' she said, as she consigned my last piece of toast to the tidy-bin. 'You were unforgivable.

Mashed spuds! Why ever did you use such a vulgar expression?' 'Hilda,' I protested, I thought, reasonably, 'I have heard some fairly fruity language round the Courts in the course of a long life of crime. But I've never heard it suggested that the words "mashed spuds" would bring a blush to the cheek of the tenderest virgin.' 'Don't try to be funny, Rumpole. You upset that brilliant chef, Mr O'Higgins. You deeply upset Cousin Everard!' 'Well', I had to put the case for the Defence, 'Everard kept on suggesting I didn't make enough to feed you properly.

Typical commercial lawyer. Criminal law is about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Commercial law is about money.

That's what I think, anyway.' Hilda looked at me, weighed up the evidence and summed up, not entirely in my favour. 'I don't think you made that terrible fuss because of what you thought about the commercial law,' she said. 'You did it because you have to be a "character", don't you? Wherever you go. Well, I don't know if I'm going to be able to put up with your "character" much longer.' I don't know why but what she said made me feel, quite suddenly and in a most unusual way, uncertain of myself.

What was Hilda talking about exactly? I asked for further and better particulars.

'You have to be one all the time, don't you?' She was clearly getting into her stride. 'With your cigar ash and steak and kidney and Pommeroy's Ordinary Red and your arguments.

Always arguments! Why do you have to go on arguing, Rumpole?' 'Arguing?

It's been my life, Hilda,' I tried to explain.

'Well, it's not mine! Not any more. Cousin Everard doesn't argue in public. He is quiet and polite.' 'If you like that sort of thing.' The subject of Cousin Everard was starting to pall on me.

'Yes, Rumpole. Yes, I do. That's why I agreed to go on this trip.' 'Trip?' 'Everard and I are going to tour all the restaurants in England with stars. We're going to Bath and York and Devizes.

And you can stay here and eat all the mashed spuds you want.' 'What?' I hadn't up till then taken Le Chateau Duddon entirely seriously. 'You really mean it?' 'Oh, yes. I think so. The living is hardly gracious here, is it?' v". 'Х' ' Х ' On the way to my place of work I spent an uncomfortable quarter of in hour thinking over what She Who Must Be Obeyed had said about me having to be a 'character'. It seemed an unfair charge. I drink Chateau Thames Embankment because it's all I can afford. It keeps me regular and blots out certain painful memories, such as a bad day in Court in front of Tudge Graves, an old darling who undoubtedly passes iced water every time he goes to the Gents. I enjoy the fragrance of a small cigar. I relish an argument. This is the way of life I have chosen. I don't have to do any of these things in order to be a character. Do I?

I was jerked out of this unaccustomed introspection on my arrival in the clerk's room at Chambers. Henry, our clerk, was striking bargains with solicitors over the telephone whilst Dianne sat in front of her typewriter, her head bowed over a lengthy and elaborate manicure. Uncle Tom, our oldest inhabitant, who hasn't had a brief in Court since anyone can remember, was working hard at improving his putting skills with an old mashie niblick and a clutch of golf balls, the hole being represented by the waste-paper basket laid on its side.

Almost as soon as I got into this familiar environment I was comforted by the sight of a man who seemed to be in far deeper trouble than I was. Claude Erskine-Brown came up to me in a manner that I can only describe as furtive.

'Rumpole,' he said, 'as you may know, Philly is away in Cardiff doing a long fraud.' 'Your wife,' I congratulated the man, 'goes from strength to strength.' 'What I mean is, Rumpole', Claude's voice sank below the level of Henry's telephone calls, 'you may have noticed me the other night. In La Maison JeanPierre.' 'Noticed you, Claude? Of course not! You were only in the company of a lady who stood on a chair and screamed like a banshee with toothache. No one could have possibly noticed you.' I did my best to comfort the man. 'It was purely a business arrangement,' he reassured me.

'Pretty rum way of conducting business.' 'The lady was Miss Tricia Benbow. My instructing solicitor in the V.A.T. case,' he told me, as though that explained everyAing.

'Claude, I have had some experience of the law and it's a good plan, when entertaining solicitors in order to tout for briefs, not to introduce mice into their plats dujour.' The telephone by Dianne's typewriter rang. She blew on her nail lacquer and answered it, as Claude's voice rose in anguished protest. 'Good heavens. You don't think I did that, do you, Rumpole? The whole thing was a disaster! An absolute tragedy! Which may have appalling consequences...' 'Your wife on the phone, Mr Erskine-Brown,' Dianne interrupted him and Claude went to answer the call with all the eager cheerfulness of a French aristocrat who is told the tumbril is at the door. As he was telling his wife he hoped things were going splendidly in Cardiff, and that he rarely went out in the evenings, in fact usually settled down to a scrambled egg in front of the telly, there was a sound of rushing water without and our Head of Chambers joined us.

'Something extremely serious has happened.' Sam Ballard, Q.c. made the announcement as though war had broken out.

He is a pallid sort of person who usually looks as though he has just bitten into a sour apple. His hair, I have to tell you, seems to be slicked down with some kind of pomade.

'Someone nicked the nail-brush in the Chambers loo?' I suggested helpfully.

'How did you guess?' He turned on me, amazed, as though I had the gift of second sight.

'It corresponds to your idea of something serious. Also I notice such things.' 'Odd that you should know immediately what I was talking about, Rumpole.' By now Ballard's amazement had turned to deep suspicion.

'Not guilty, my Lord,' I assured him. 'Didn't you have a meeting of your God-bothering society here last week?' 'The Lawyers As Christians committee. We met here. What of it?' '"Cleanliness is next to godliness." Isn't that their motto?

The devout are notable nail-brush nickers.' As I said this, I watched Erskine-Brown lay the telephone to rest and leave the room with the air of a man who has merely postponed the evil hour. Ballard was still on the subject of serious crime in the 10 facilities. 'It's of vital importance in any place of work. Henry,' he batted on, 'that the highest standards of hygiene are maintained!