"Mortimer, John - Rumpole on Trial" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mortimer John)

'We have a truly distinguished head of hair now,' the man said as he wafted. 'Seems a shame to put that old hat of yours on it, sir.' I am ashamed to say that I stopped at the Savoy Tailors on my way down the Strand and, stung by Alfred's comment, invested in a new hat. So there it was, hanging up in Rules, and there was I, clipped and perfumed, waiting in a crimson recess, under an alabaster statue of a naked goddess in a glass dome, crumbling bread and wondering if the encounter, the invitation and its acceptance, hadn't been part of a curious dream. But then she was there in front of me, smiling a breathless apology, dressed in a suede jacket, a cream silk 46 " shirt and velvet trousers and smelling of fresh fields, while I had the uneasy feeling that I was giving off the odour of a cut-price dance hall in Buenos Aires.

'Well, now.' I hoisted up a menu as soon as she had settled down. 'I don't know what you'd like. Steak and kidney, or rare beef, or Irish stew?' 'You don't eat meat, do you?' Elizabeth looked as amazed as she would have been if I'd confessed to robbing church poor-boxes or raping traffic wardens.

'Well, it has been known.' 'Oh. How long's that been going on?' 'Well, I suppose I must have put away a herd or two of cows over the years. A few flocks of sheep...' 'Mr Rumpole!' She didn't sound strict, only as though she wanted to reason with me.

'Please. Horace.' 'Horace?' 'I'm afraid so.' 'You don't believe in killing animals, do you?' She started her gentle persuasion.

'Well, animals do spend quite a lot of time killing each other.' 'Perhaps you should have more respect for them than they have for themselves.' She smiled reasonably.

'Well, of course. Naturally. Every time I pass a sheep I raise my hat. I say, "I've got an enormous amount of respect for you. Especially for your kidneys."' 'You're making a joke.' She was still smiling.

'It's a bad habit I've got into.' I was saved from further apologies by the waiter appearing with his order pad. Meanwhile Elizabeth was surveying our fellow guests, who, in Rules at lunchtime, were largely of the masculine persuasion.

'Look at all these men around us, eating meat. Pink faces.

Self-satisfied accountants, probably. You don't want to look like them, do you? So what about a selection of fresh vegetables?' 'Well, if you really think...' I had, after all, come to see her and not the roast pheasant.

'Perhaps some cheese afterwards?' 47 'Don't let's go mad.' 'Just vegetables for you, sir?' the waiter asked in the sort of voice you use when talking to the terminally ill.

'Yes. Yes, of course.' And I asked the man, 'Do you think I want to look like an accountant?' 'You look very nice,' Elizabeth told me when the waiter had left us.

'So do you.' 'In fact you look beautiful. All sort of silvery.' 'You mean, knocking on a bit?' 'Oh, I don't think age matters in the least.' 'I'm sure you're right.' 'Not when it comes to love.' 'Did you say love?' I could hardly believe my ears. But Elizabeth somewhat dashed my hopes by saying, 'In fact I can love most people, can't you, Horace? You strike me as being someone full of love.' 'Well, yes, I suppose so. I suppose I can love people, with a few exceptions. Mr Justice Oliphant, for instance, or Sam Ballard. He's the Head of my Chambers.' 'What's the matter with him, Horace? Isn't he lovable?' 'Well, I wouldn't say that being "lovable" was one of Soapy Sam's most obvious qualities.' 'Love him! That's what he probably needs most. What's your birth sign?' So we went on to a discussion of the heavens and I was learning that Venus was moving into the path of Sagittarius, my star sign, when the waiter appeared with the wine list. I was just about to choose a better than usual claret to ginger up the vegetables, when she said, 'Meeting you's quite enough stimulation for me, Horace. Isn't it for you?' 'Well, yes. More than enough.' 'So I'm sure we don't need wine. What's their water like?' I had to confess that I had never tasted the water in Rules, or anywhere else come to that. After the waiter had been dispatched to fetch a jug full of this unusual tipple I asked her why she'd wanted to have lunch with me.

'Does there have to be a reason?' 48 ' 'There usually is.' 'You say that because you're a lawyer.' She leant forward confidentially. 'I just admired you so much when you were doing Billy's case. And then I saw you looking at me during the Schubert. I thought I'd like to get to know you better.' 'Billy's case?' 'A boy I was at college with. He was put on trial and you defended him. Brilliantly. I used to come and watch you from the public gallery every day. You must remember.' What could I say? That Billy rang no bell with me, or I must have been too busy in court to pay the attention to the public gallery it clearly deserved? I took the line of maximum politeness and said, 'Of course, I remember.' At which point the waiter returned and asked me if I'd like to taste the water.

When the joke was over and the man had withdrawn, Elizabeth pushed back her hair, looked down at the tablecloth and confessed, 'I've been so lonely lately.' 'I don't believe that. I mean, you're part of a trio.' 'We still play marvellously together', she agreed. 'But Tom can't seem to realize I am married to Desmond...' So she began to tell me about her life with the musicians.

Desmond Casterini was the pianist and her husband. Tom Randall was the hefty athlete astride the cello. He, it seemed, was terribly jealous of Desmond, and Desmond was inexcusably suspicious of Tom. The men quarrelled over Elizabeth, and their jealousy, she told me, became a sort of unlovely bond between them. In this welter of masculine emotion she felt left out, unconsidered, no more than an object they were both fighting over. And Desmond made her nervous because he had this 'wild blood' in him.

'What do you mean?' 'His father's half Italian, half Irish. Very passionate, apparently, when he was young.' And then she took me completely by surprise as she said, 'It's his father's gun.' 'His whatr 'An old revolver. Desmond keeps it as a sort of memento.

Also he says he needs it for our protection. I suppose his father had enemies.' 49 'You mean it works?' I hated to think of her in such a household. 'He's got ammunition?' She nodded and I advised her to tell him to hand it in to the police. I thought it must be an unnerving thing to have about, especially for a vegetarian.

'We're together so much, we three.' She sighed again and began to make little indented tramlines with her fork on the tablecloth. 'Sometimes I feel I want to get miles away from both of them. It would help so much if you and I could meet.

Just occasionally. So I could have someone to talk to.' 'I don't see why that couldn't be arranged.' 'I get this feeling that something awful's going to happen,' she said very quietly. 'Don't ask me what exactly.' Then I looked down and saw a strange sight. Her hand was on mine. It felt cool and comforting and as if there was no weight to it at all. She kept it there for a little while, and then I turned to the vegetables, which were no substitute for this brief contact. We talked of other things, their strange rehearsal room in an old block of studios near Warren Street station, and my triumphs in various cases. When we parted in Maiden Lane she kissed my cheek swiftly and ran off to greet a dawdling taxi. I didn't see her again until after the events which seemed to confirm all her most terrible fears.

I'm not sure how much truth there was around us legal hacks at that period, but there was certainly a good deal of beauty. I have already told you about Miss Dorothy, generally known as Dot, Clapton, who was now installed behind the typewriter in the clerk's room, getting on with her job while turning the head of Claude Erskine-Brown, a part of his body which, at the sight of any reasonably attractive young woman, spins round like a teetotum. Dot, it appeared to me, was very young, very pretty, extremely sensible and had her head screwed on firmly. Of one thing I am sure: the relationship between Claude Erskine-Brown and Dot never reached the sultry |,f temperature which he hoped for. She treated him politely and ignored all his attempts to impress her as an important barrister or to flirt with her as a dashing young opera buff.

Now it appeared that on his way into the clerk's room one quiet afternoon, when most of the numbers of Chambers had better things to do, Claude heard, through the door which had been left open a crack, the voice of Henry, our clerk, addressing Dot in a manner most lascivious. I have since verified the words used and Henry undoubtedly referred to 'The deep pools of your eyes, the suggestion of soft breasts beneath that modest, white shirt, and the whisper your stockings make when you cross your legs'. To which Dot was heard to reply, 'You mustn't say those things. You know you mustn't, thus displaying her good taste in English prose as well as much sensible caution. At the end of it all. Henry suggested they get far away from 'the grey little people' they worked with to a place where he hoped that their bodies might mingle.

Unable to contain himself any longer, Claude burst into the clerk's room, where he saw Henry on his knees and Dot looking becomingly modest. When he asked what had been going on. Henry rose in a dignified manner and said he and our typist had been sending out fee notes 'so you and the other ladies and gentlemen in Chambers all get your creature comforts. I'm also trying to fix your civil at Romford County Court. Now, is there any other information you was requiring, sir?' The first I heard of this remarkable scene was when I was walking back from the Old Bailey in the company of Soapy Sam Ballard, Q.c., the alleged Head of our Chambers. We had been co-defending and I had managed to get his client out as well as my own, so he was in a fairly sunny mood until Claude came panting up to him with the tale of dire deeds and desperate misconduct in the clerk's room at Equity Court.

'Just the man I wanted!' Erskine-Brown addressed our Head, he didn't seem to want me particularly. 'We're in deep trouble, Ballard. I have every reason to believe there's a serious case of harassing in our midst.' 'What on earth's harassing?' Ballard was puzzled.

'Well, harassing, then. But people call it harassing nowadays. Because Americans do.' 'I don't understand that, Erskine-Brown. You're not American,' I told him. 'Anyway, I'm always being harassed, by solicitors who want their papers the day before yesterday and by Henry, who wants me in two places at once, and by Mr Injustice Graves, who frequently interrupts my crossexamination.' 'This is sexual harassing.' Claude was clearly not interested in the less sensual variety. 'Someone is trying to force their amorous advances on a defenceless and innocent young woman.' 'Did you say sexual?' Ballard's nose quivered slightly.

'I'm afraid so.' 'That makes a difference.' 'Indeed it does.' 'Who's the guilty party?' Ballard asked, but Claude didn't want to hand over the leading role in such a dramatic inquiry just yet. 'Someone of importance to us all', he merely dropped a hint, 'someone we've known for a long time.' 'It can't be Rumpole?' Soapy Sam looked at me with deep suspicion.