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

'About her illness, I suppose. He wants to see her.' 'Why should he want that?' 'You know what judges are,' I told him. 'Always poking their noses into things that don't really concern them. Shall we see your wife tonight at the fancy-dress party?' 'Well. No. I'm afraid not. Mavis won't be up to it. Such a pity. It's the sort of thing she'd love so much, if she were only feeling herself.' And then Hilda joined us, looking, although I say it myself, superb. She was wearing a helmet and breastplate and carrying a golden trident and a shield emblazoned with the Union Jack. Staring at my wife with undisguised admiration, I could only express myself in song: 'Rule Britannia!

Britannia rules the waves, (I warbled) Britain never, never, never shall be...' 'Is it going too far?' She asked nervously. But I shook my head and looked at Bill Britwell as I completed the verse: f, 'Marri-ed to a mermaied, At the bottom of the deep blue seal' There was a sound of considerable revelry by night and as that 156 old terror of the Spanish Main, Pirate Cap'n Rumpole made his way in the company of assorted pierrots, slave girls, pashas, clowns, Neptunes and mermaids towards the big saloon from which the strains of dance music were sounding, I passed an office doorway from which a Chinese mandarin emerged in the company of Captain Order, who was attending the festivities disguised as a ship's captain. As I passed them I heard Order saw 'The police at Gib have the message, sir. So if he can't produce the lady...' 'Yes, yes. Captain.' The mandarin, who looked only a little less snooty and superior than Mr Justice Graves in his normal guise, did his best to shut the officer up as he saw this old sea-dog approaching from windward. 'Why there you are, Rumpole! Have you had some sort of an accident to your eye? Nothing serious, I hope.' Hilda and I have not danced together since our first honeymoon. As I have already indicated, the exercise was not a startling success and that night, with all the other excitement going on, she seemed content not to repeat the experiment. We sat in front of a bottle of the Bilgewater red, to which I had grown quite attached in an appalling sort of way, and we watched the dancers. Howard Swainton, as an undersized Viking, was steering the lanky Linda Milsom, a slave girl, who towered over him. It might be an exaggeration to say his eyelevel was that of the jewel in her navel, but not too much of one. Across the room we could see the Reverend Bill holding a glass and admiring the scene. He was wearing a turban, a scimitar and a lurid beard. 'Bluebeard!' Hilda said. 'How very appropriate.' 'Oh, for heaven's sake!' I told her, 'don't you start imagining things.' And then a familiarly icy voice cut into our conversation.

'Mrs Rumpole,' said the ridiculously boring mandarin, might I ask you to give me the honour of this dance?' She who Must Be Obeyed, apparently delighted, said, 'Of course, Judge, what tremendous fun!' My worst fears were confirmed and they waltzed away together with incomprehensible zest.

In due course, Swainton and his houri came to sit at our able and, looking idly at the throng, we witnessed the entry of ░ ""olgirls in gym-slips and straw hats. One was tall and i57 thin and clearly Gloria. The other, small and plump, wore a schoolgirl mask to which a pigtailed wig was attached. Swainton immediately guessed that this was Miss de la Haye's little accompanist in disguise. 'Betty Dee and Buttercup,' I said, only half aloud, as this strange couple crossed the room, and Linda Milsom, who was having trouble retaining the liverish-looking glass eye in her navel, said, 'Some people sure like to make themselves look ridiculous.' A little time passed and then Swainton said, 'Well, that beats everything!' 'What?' I asked, removing my nose from my glass and shifting the patch so that I had two eyes available.

'An alleged vicar dancing with a bar pianist in drag.' It was true. The Reverend Bill and the small schoolgirl were waltzing expertly. 'I think,' I said, 'I could be about to solve the mystery of the Absent Body.' 'I very much doubt it.' Swainton was not impressed with my deductive powers.

'Would you like me to try?' And, before he could answer, I asked Linda to cut in and invite Bill Britwell for a dance.

'Oh,' she appealed to her boss, 'do I have to?' 'Why not?' Swainton shrugged his shoulders. 'It might be entertaining to watch Counsel for the Defence barking up the wrong tree.' When instructed by the best-selling author. Miss Milsom acted with decision and aplomb. I saw her cross the floor and speak to Bill Britwell. He looked at his partner, who surrendered more or less gracefully and was left alone on the floor. Before the small schoolgirl could regain the table where Gloria was waiting, Cap'n Rumpole had drawn up alongside.

'I'm afraid I'm no dancer,' I said. 'So shall we go out for a breath of air?' Without waiting for a reply, I took the schoolgirl's arm and steered her towards the doors which led out to the deck.

So there I was by the rail of the ship again, in the moonlight with music playing in the background, faced, not by Hilda, but by a small, round figure wearing a schoolgirl mask.

'Betty Dee and Buttercup,' I said. 'You were Buttercup, weren't you? The little sister, the young girl in the photograph 158 Rill Britwell threw into the sea? Not that there was any need for that. No one really remembered you.' 'What do you want?' A small voice spoke from behind the mask.

'To set your mind at rest,' I promised. 'No one knows you've been part of a music-hall act. No one's going to hold that against you. Bill can preach sermons to the Anglicans of Malta and no one's going to care a toss about Betty Dee and Buttercup. It's the other part you were worried about, wasn't it? The part you played down the Old Bailey. A long time ago.

Such a long time. When we were all very young indeed. Oh, so very young. Before I did the Penge Bungalow Murders, which is no longer even recent history. All the same I was at the Bar when it happened. You know, you should've had me to defend you. You really should. It was a touching story. A young girl married to a drunk, a husband who beat her. Who was he?

"Happy" Harry Harman? He even did a drunk act on the stage, didn't he? Drunk acts are never very funny. I read all about it in the News of the World because I wanted the brief.

He beat you and you stabbed him in the throat with a pair of scissors. You should never have got five years for manslaughter.

I'd've got you off with not a dry eye in the jury-box, even though the efficient young Counsel for the Prosecution was a cold fish called Gerald Graves. It's all right. He is not going to remember you.' 'Isn't he?' The small voice spoke again.

'Of course not. Lawyers and judges hardly ever remember the faces they've sent to prison.' 'Are you sure?' I was conscious that we were no longer alone on the deck.

Bill Britwell had come out of the doors behind us, followed by Cjraves and Howard Swainton, who must have suspected that rile drama they had concocted was reaching a conclusion. 'Oh, y, I said, 'you can come out of hiding now.' She must have believed me because she lifted her hands and carefully removed the mask. She was only a little nervous as s e stood the moonlight, smiling at her husband. And the Judge and the mystery writer, for once, had nothing to say.

, 159 'Such a pleasure, isn't it,' I asked them, 'to have Mrs Mavis Britwell back with us again?' The Rock of Gibraltar looked much as expected, towering over the strange little community which can be looked at as the last outpost of a vanishing Empire or as a tiny section of the Wimbledon of fifty years ago, tacked improbably on to the bottom of Spain. The good ship Boadicea was safely docked the next morning and, as the passengers disembarked for a guided tour with a full English tea thrown in, I stood once more at the rail, this time in the company of Mr 'Miscarriage of Justice' Graves. I had just taken him for a guided tour round the facts of the Britwell case.

'So she decided to vanish?' he asked me.

'Not at all. She went to stay with her old friend. Miss Gloria de la Have, for a few days.' And then I asked him, 'She didn't look familiar to you?' 'No. No, I can't say she did. Why?' ' "Old men forget"', I wasn't about to explain, ' "yet all shall be forgot.'"

'What did you say?' His Lordship wasn't following my drift.

'I said, "What a load of trouble you've got."' 'Trouble? You're not making yourself clear, Rumpole.' 'You as good as accused the Reverend Bill of shoving his dear wife through the porthole.' I recited the charges. 'You reported the story to the ship's captain, who no doubt wired it to the Gibraltar police. That was clear publication and a pretty good basis for an action for defamation. Wouldn't you say?' 'Defamation?' The Judge repeated the dread word. 'Oh, yes,' I reminded him, 'and juries have been quite absurdly generous with damages lately. Remember my offer to defend you?' My mind went back to a distant bail application. 'Please call on my services at any time.' 'Rumpole', the Judicial face peered at me anxiously, 'you don't honestly think they'd sue?' 'My dear Judge, I think you're innocent, of course, until you're proved guilty. That's such an important principle to keep in mind on all occasions.' 160 And then I heard a distant cry of 'Rumpole!' Hilda was kitted out and ready to call on the Barbary apes.

'Ah, that's my wife. I'd better go. We're on a honeymoon too you see. Our second. And it may disappoint you to know, we're innocent of any crime whatsoever.'There is, when you come to think about it, no relationship more important than that of a man with his quack, or 'regular medical attendant', as Soapy Sam Ballard would no doubt choose to call him. A legal hack relies on his quack to raise him to his feet, to keep him breathing, to enable him to crossexamine in a deadly manner and then, gentle as any sucking dove, move the Jury to tears. Without the occasional ministrations of his quack, the criminal defender would be but a memory, an empty seat in Chambers to be filled by some white-wig with a word processor, and a few unkind anecdotes in the Bar mess. There might be tears shed around Brixton and the Scrubs, but the Judiciary would greet my departure with considerable relief. In order to postpone the evil hour as long as possible, I am in need of the life-support of a reasonably competent quack.

Mind you, I do a great deal for my own health by what is known in the Sunday papers as a 'sensible life-style'. I am careful to take, however rough and painful the experience may be, a considerable quantity of Pommeroy's Very Ordinary, which I have always found keeps me astonishingly regular. I force myself to consume substantial luncheons of steak and kidney pud and mashed potatoes in the pub opposite the Old Bailey, and I do this in order to ward off infection and prevent weakness during the afternoon.

My customary exercise consists of a short stroll from the Temple tube station to Equity Court, and rising to object to impertinent questions put by prosecuting counsel. I avoid all such indulgences as jogging or squash, activities which I have known to put an early end to many a promising career at the Bar.