"Mortimer, John Clifford - Rumpole 01f - Rumpole and the Heavy Brigade" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mortimer John)

'Maurice Nooks told me, he's not taking in a leader.' 'That's right.' 'I know the last time I led you wasn't succesfoul.' 'I'm a bit of a back seat driver, I'm afraid.' 'Of course, you're an old hand at crime," Featherstone conceded.

'An old lag you might say.' 'But it's a question of tactics in this case. Maurice said, if I appeared, it might look as if they'd rather over-egged the pudding.' 'You think the jury might prefer, a bit of good plain cooking?' I looked at him and he smiled delightfully.

'You put things rather well, sometimes.' There was a pause, and then the learned leader got down to what was, I suppose, the nub and the purpose of his visit.

'Horace. I'm anxious to put an end to any sort of rift between the two senior men in Chambers. It doesn't make for a happy ship.' 'Aye aye sir.' I gave him a brief nautical salute from my position at the desk.

'I'm glad you agree. Serieusement, Horace, we don't see enough of each other socially.' He paused again, but I could find nothing to say. ' I've got a couple of tickets for the Scales of Justice ball at the Savoy. Would you join me and Marigold?' To say I was taken aback would be an understatement. I was astonished. 'Let's get this quite clear, Featherstone.' ' Oh "Guthrie", please.' 'Very well Guthrie. You're asking me to trip the light fantastic toe ... with your wife?' 'And if you'd like to bring your good lady.' I looked at Featherstone in total amazement. 'My ...' 'Your missus.' 'Are you referring, at all, to my wife? She Who Must Be Obeyed? Do I take it you actually want to spend an evening out with She!' 'It'll be great fun.' 'Do you really think so?' He had lost me now. I went to the door and unhooked the mac and the old hat, preparatory to calling it a day. However, Featherstone had some urgent matter to communicate, apparently of an embarrassing nature.

' Oh, and Horace ... this is rather embarrassing. It's just that . .. It's well... your name came up on the bench at our Inn only last week. I was lunching with Mr Justice Prestcold.' 'That must have been a jolly occasion,' I told him. 'Like dinner with the Macbeths.' I knew Mr Justice Prestcold of old, and he and I had never hit it off, or seen eye to eye. In fact you might say there was always a cold wind blowing in court between counsel and the bench whenever Rumpole rose to his feet before Prestcold J. He could be guaranteed to ruin my cross-examination, interrupt my speech, fail to sum up the defence and send any Rumpole client down for a hefty six if he could find the slightest excuse for it. Prestcold was an extraordinarily clean man, his cuffs and bands were whiter than white, he was forever polishing his rimless glasses on a succession of snowy handkerchiefs. They say, and God knows what truth there is in it, that Prestcold travels on circuit with a portable loo seat wrapped in plastic. His clerk has the unenviable job of seeing that it is screwed in at the lodgings, so his Lordship may not sit where less fastidious judges have sat before.

' He was asking who we had in Chambers and I was able to tell him Horace Rumpole, inter alia.' ' I can't imagine Frank Prestcold eating. I suppose he might just be brought to sniff the bouquet of a grated carrot.' 'And he said, "You mean the fellow with the disgraceful hat?'"

'Mr Justice Prestcold was talking about my hat? I couldn't believe my ears.

'He seemed to think, forgive me for raising this, that your hat set the worst possible example to younger men at the Bar.' With enormous self-control I kept my temper. 'Well, you can tell Mr Justice Prestcold, the next time you're sharing the Benchers' Vegetarian Platter ... That when I was last before him I took strong exception to his cufflinks. They looked to me just as cheap and glassy as his eyes!' 'Don't take offence, Horace. It's just not worth it, you know, taking offence at Her Majesty's judges. We'll look forward to the Savoy. Best to your good lady.' I crammed on the hat, gave him a farewell wave and left him. I felt, that evening, that I was falling out of love with the law. I really couldn't believe that Mr Justice Prestcold had been discussing my hat. I mean, wasn't the crime rate rising? Wasn't the State encroaching on our liberties? Wasn't Magna Carta tottering? Whither Habeus Corpus? What was to be done about the number of 12-year-old girls who are making advances to old men in cinemas? What I thought was, hadn't judges of England got enough on their plates without worrying about my hat! I gave the matter mature consideration on my way home on the Inner Circle, and decided that they probably hadn't.

A few mornings later I picked up the collection of demands, final demands and positively final demands which constitutes our post and among the hostile brown envelopes I found a gilded and embossed invitation card. I took the whole lot into the kitchen to file away in the tidy bin when She Who Must Be Obeyed entered and caught me at it.

'Horace,' She said severely. 'Whatever are you doing with the post?' 'Just throwing it away. Always throw bills away the first time they come in. Otherwise you only encourage them.' 'If you had a few decent cases, Rumpole, if you weren't always slumming round the Magistrates Courts, you might not be throwing away bills all the time.' At which she pedalled open the tidy bin and spotted the fatal invitation.

'What's that?' 'I think it's the gas.' It was too late, She had picked the card out from among the potato peelings.

' I never saw a gas bill with a gold embossed crest before. It's an invitation! To the Savoy Hotel!' She started to read the thing. 'Horace Rumpole and Lady.' 'You wouldn't enjoy it,' I hastened to assure her.

'Why wouldn't I enjoy it?' She wiped the odd fragment of potato off the card, carried it into the living-room in state, and gave it pride of place on the mantelpiece. I followed her, protesting.

'You know what it is. Boiled shirts. Prawn cocktail. Watching a lot of judges pushing their wives round the parquet to selections from Oklahoma.' 'It'll do you good Rumpole. That's the sort of place you ought to be seen in: the Scales of Justice ball.' ' It's quite impossible.' The situation was becoming desperate.

'I don't see why.' I had an inspiration, and assumed an expression of disgust. 'We're invited by Marigold Featherstone.' 'The wife of your Head of Chambers?' ' An old boot! A domestic tyrant. You know what the wretched Guthrie calls her? She Who Must Be Obeyed. No. The ball is out, Hilda. You and Marigold wouldn't hit it off at all.' Well, I thought, She and sweet Marigold would never meet, so I was risking nothing. I seized the hat and prepared to retreat. 'Got to leave you now. Murder calls.' 'Why didn't you tell me we were back to murder? This is good news.' Hilda was remarkably cheerful that morning.

'Murder,' I told her, 'is certainly better than dancing.' And I was gone about my business. Little did I know that the moment my back was turned Hilda looked up the Featherstone's number in the telephone book.

* 'You can't do it to Peter! I tell you, you can't do it! Fight the case? How can he fight the case?' Leslie Delgardo had quite lost the cool and knowing and of a successful East End businessman. His face was flushed and he thumped his fist on my table, jangling his identity bracelet and disturbing the notice of additional evidence I was reading, that of Bernard Whelpton, known as 'Four Eyes'.

'Whelpton's evidence doesn't help. I'm sure you'll agree, Mr Rumpole,' Nooks said gloomily.

'You read that! You read what "Four Eyes" has to say.' Leslie collapsed breathless into my client's chand. I read the document which ran roughly as follows. 'Tosher MacBride used to take the mick out of Peter on account he stammered and didn't have no girl friends. One night I saw Peter try to speak to a girl in the Paradise Rooms. He was asking the girl to have a drink but his stutter was so terrible. Tosher said to her," Come on, darling ... It'll be breakfast time before the silly git finishes asking for a light ale." After I heard Peter Delgardo say as he'd get Tosher. He said he'd like to cut him one night.' 'He's not a well boy,' Leslie was wiping his forehead with a mauve silk handkerchief.

'When I came out of the Old Justice pub that night I see Tosher on the pavement and Petey Delgardo was kneeling beside him. There was blood all over.' I looked up at Nooks. 'You know it's odd. No one actually saw the stabbing.' 'But Petey was there wasn't he?' Leslie was returning the handkerchief to his breast pocket. 'And what's the answer about the knife?' ' In my humble opinion,' Nooks' opinions were often humble, 'the knife in the car is completely damning.' 'Oh completely.' I got up, lit a small cigar, and told Leslie my own far from humble opinion. 'You know, I'd have had no doubts about this case if you hadn't just proved your brother innocent.' 'I did?' The big man in the chand looked at me in a wild surmise.

'When you sent Doctor Lewis Bleen, the world-famous trick cyclist, the head shrinker extraordinande, down to see Petey in Brixton. If you'd done a stabbing, and you were offered a nice quiet trip to hospital, wouldn't you take it? If the evidence was dead against you?' 'You mean Peter turned it down?' Leslie Delgardo clearly couldn't believe his ears.

'Of course he did!' I told him cheerfully. 'Petey may not be all that bright, poor old darling, but he knows he didn't kill Tosher MacBride.' The committal was at Stepney Magistrates Court and Henry told me that there was a good deal of interest and that the vultures of the press might be there.

'I thought I should warn you sir. Just in case you wanted to buy ...' 'I know, I know,' I interrupted him. 'Perhaps, Henry, there's a certain amount of force in your argument. " Vanity of vanities, all is vanity," said the preacher.' Here was I a barrister of a certain standing, doing a notable murder alone and without a leader, the type of person whose picture might appear in the Evening Standard, and I came to the reluctant conclusion that my present headgear was regrettably unphotogenic. I took a taxi to St James' Street and invested in a bowler, which clamped itself to the head like a vice but which caused Henry, when he saw it, to give me a smile of genuine gratitude.

That evening I had forgotten the whole subject of hats and was concerned with a matter that interests me far more deeply: blood. I had soaked the rubber sponge that helps with the washing up and, standing at the kitchen sink, stabbed violently down into it with a table knife. It produced, as I had suspected, a spray of water, leaving small spots all over my shirt and waistcoat.