Rumpole and the Angel of Death (32 page)

I put down my spoon in the restaurant, which was without a licence and served iced tea with the carrot soup and vegetarian quiche. ‘It's Billy Bloxham's fault,' I said. ‘He should never have developed a taste for rugby football.'

‘
Do
stop thinking about your work, Rumpole,' Hilda rebuked me. ‘Can't you enjoy a day out in the country?'

Quite honestly I couldn't. I was looking forward to Monday and a receiving of stolen fish at Acton. It had nothing to do with human rights at all.

I have, from time to time in these memoirs, had some harsh things to say about judges, utterances of mine which may, I'm afraid, have caused a degree of resentment among their assembled Lordships who like nothing less than being judged. To say that their profession makes them an easy prey to the terrible disease of judgeitis, a mysterious virus causing an often fatal degree of intolerance, pomposity and self-regard, is merely to state the obvious. Being continually bowed to and asked ‘If your Lordship pleases?' is likely to unhinge the best-balanced legal brain; and I have never thought that those who were entirely sane would undertake the thankless task of judging their fellow human beings anyway. However, the exception to the above rule was old Chippy Chippenham, who managed to hold down the job of a senior circuit Judge, entitled to try murder cases somewhere in the wilds of Kent, and remain, whenever I had the luck to appear before him, not only sensible but quite remarkably polite.

Chippy had been a soldier before he was called to the Bar. He had a pink, outdoors sort of face, a small scourer of a grey moustache and bright eyes which made him look younger than he must have been. When I appeared before him I would invariably get a note from him saying, ‘Horace, how about a jar when all this nonsense is over?' I would call round to his room and he would open a bottle of average claret (considerably better, that is, than my usual Château Thames Embankment), and we would discuss old times, which usually meant recalling the fatuous speeches of some more than usually tedious prosecutor.

In Court Chippy sat quietly. He summed up shortly and perfectly fairly (that I
did
object to – a fair summing-up is most likely to get the customer convicted). His sentences erred, if at all, on the side of clemency and were never accompanied by any sort of sermon or homily on the repulsive nature of the accused. I once defended a perfectly likeable old countryman, a gamekeeper turned poacher from somewhere south of Seven- oaks, who, on hearing that his wife was dying from a painful and inoperable cancer, took down his gun and shot her through the head. ‘Deciding who will live and who will die,' Chippy told him, having more or less ordered the Jury to find manslaughter, ‘is a task Almighty God approaches only with caution,' and he gave my rustic client a conditional discharge, presumably on the condition that he didn't shoot any more wives.

The last time I appeared before Chippy he had changed. He found it difficult to remember the name of the fraudster in the dock and whether he'd dealt in spurious loft conversions or non-existent caravans. He shouted at the usher for not supplying him with pencils when a box was on his desk, and quite forgot to invite me round for a jar. Later, I heard he had retired and gone to live with some relatives in London. Later still, such are the revenges brought in by the whirligig of time, he appeared in the curious case of
R.
v.
Dr Elizabeth Ireton,
as the victim of an alleged murder.

The Angel of Death no doubt appears in many guises. She may not always be palely beautiful and shrouded in black. In the particularly tricky case which called on my considerable skills and had a somewhat surprising result, the fell spirit appeared as a dumpy, grey-haired, bespectacled lady who wore sensible shoes, a shapeless tweed skirt, a dun-coloured cardigan and a cheerful smile. This last was hard to explain considering her position of peril in Number One Court at the Bailey. She was a Dr Elizabeth Ireton, known to her many patients and admirers as Dr Betty, and she carried on her practice from a chaotic surgery in Notting Hill Gate.

I'll admit I was rather distracted that breakfast time in the kitchen of our so-called mansion flat in the Gloucester Road. I was trying to gain as much strength as possible from a couple of eggs on a fried slice, pick up a smattering of the events of the day from the wireless and make notes in the case of Dr Ireton, with whom I had a conference booked for five o'clock. My usual calm detachment about that case was unsettled by the discovery that the corpse in question was that of Judge Chippy with whom I had shared so many a friendly jar. There was little time to spare before I had to set off for a banal matter of receiving a huge consignment of frozen oven-ready Thai dinners in Snaresbrook.

Accordingly, I stuffed the papers in my battered briefcase, placed my pen in the top pocket and submerged my dirty plate and cutlery in the washing-up bowl, in accordance with the law formulated by She Who Must Be Obeyed.

‘Rumpole!' The voice of authority was particularly sharp that morning. ‘Have you the remotest idea what you have done?'

‘A remote idea, Hilda. I have prepared for work. I am going out into the harsh, unsympathetic world of a Crown Court for the sole purpose of keeping this leaky old mansion flat afloat and well-stocked with Fairy Liquid and suchlike luxuries . . .'

‘Is this the way you usually prepare for work?'

‘By consuming a light cooked breakfast and doing a bit of last-minute homework? How else?'

‘And I suppose you intend to appear in Court with the butter knife sticking out of your top pocket, having thrown your fountain-pen into the sink.'

A glance at my top pocket told me that She Who Must Be Obeyed, forever eagle-eyed, had sized up the situation pretty accurately. ‘A moment of confusion,' I agreed. ‘My mind was on more serious subjects. Particularly it was on a Dr Ireton, up on a charge of wilful murder.'

‘Dr Betty?' As usual Hilda was about four steps ahead of me. ‘She's the most wonderful person. Truly wonderful!'

‘You're not thinking of her as Quack By Appointment to the Rumpole household?' I asked with some apprehension. ‘She's accused of doing in his Honour Charles Chippy Chippenham, a circuit Judge for whom I had an unusual affection.'

‘She didn't do it, Rumpole!'

‘My dear old thing, I'm sure you know best.'

‘I was at school with her. She was a house monitor and we all simply adored her. I promised you'd get her off.'

‘Hilda, I know you have enormous respect for me as a courtroom genius, but your good Dr Betty was apparently a leading light in Lethe, a society to promote the joys of euthanasia . ..'

‘It's not a question of your being a genius, Rumpole. It's just that I told Betty Ireton that you'd have me to answer to if you didn't win her case. I know quite well she believes passionately' – and here I saw Hilda watching me closely as I dried the fountain-pen – ‘that life shouldn't be needlessly prolonged. Not, at any rate, after old people have completely lost their senses.'

The case of the frozen Thai dinners wound remorselessly on and was finally adjourned to the next day. When I got back to Chambers I found my room inhabited by a tallish, thinnish man in a blue suit with hair just over his ears and the sort of moustache once worn by South American revolutionaries and now sported by those who travel the Home Counties trying to flog double-glazing to the natives. He had soft, brown eyes, a wristwatch with a heavy metallic strap which gleamed in imitation of gold, and all around him hung a deafening odour of aftershave. This intruder appeared to be measuring my room, and the top of my desk, with a long, wavering, metal tape.

‘At long last,' I said, as I unloaded the antique briefcase. ‘Bollard's got the decorators in.'

‘It's Horace Rumpole, isn't it? I'm Vince.'

‘Vince?'

‘Vince Blewitt.'

‘Glad to know you, Mr Blewitt, but you can't start rubbing down now. I'm about to have a conference.' I was a little puzzled; we'd had the decorators in more than once in the last half-century and none of them had introduced themselves so eagerly.

‘Rubbing down?' The man seemed mystified.

‘Preparing to paint.'

‘Oh, that!' Vince was laughing, showing off a line of teeth which would have graced a television advertisement. ‘No, I'm not here regarding the paint. I'm just measuring your workspace so I can see if it makes sense in terms of your personal through-put in the organization's overall workload. That's what I'm regarding. And I have to tell you, Horace, I'm going to have a job justifying your area in terms of your contribution to overall Chambers' market profitability.'

‘I have no idea what you're talking about.' I sat down wearily in the workspace area and lit a small cigar. ‘And I'm not sure I want to. But I assume you're only passing through?'

‘Hasn't Sam Ballard told you? My appointment was confirmed at the last Chambers' meeting.'

‘I've given up Chambers' meetings,' I told him. ‘I regard them as a serious health hazard.'

‘I'm really going to enjoy this opportunity. That Dot Clapton. Am I going to enjoy working with her! Isn't she something else?'

‘What
else
do you mean? She's our general typist and telephone answerer.'

‘And much more. That girl's got a big future in front of her!' Here, the man laughed in a curiously humourless way. ‘Oh, and there's another thought I'd like to share with you.'

‘Please. Don't share anything else with me.'

‘Looking at your own workload, Horace, what strikes me is this: you fight all your cases. They go on far too long. Of course you get daily refreshers, don't you?'

‘Whenever I can.' All I could think of at that moment was how refreshing it would be to get this bugger Blewitt out of my room.

‘But the brief fee for the first day has far more profitability?'

‘If you're trying to say it's worth more money, the answer is yes.'

‘So why not accept the brief and bargain for a plea, whatever you do? Then you'd be free to take another one the next day. And so on. Do I need to spell it out? That way you could increase market share on your personal achievement record.'

‘And a lot of innocent people might end up in chokey. You say you've joined our Chambers? Are you a lawyer?'

‘Good heavens, no!' Blewitt seemed to find the suggestion mildly amusing. ‘My experience was in business. Sam Ballard head-hunted me from catering.'

‘Catering, eh?' I looked at him closely. He had, I thought, a distinctly fishy appearance. ‘Frozen Thai dinners come into it at all, did they?'

‘From time to time. Do you have an interest in oriental cuisine, Horace?'

‘None at all. But I do have an interest in my conference in a murder case which is just about to arrive.'

‘Likely to be a plea?' Blewitt appeared hopeful.

‘Over my dead body.'

‘Well, make sure it's a maximum contributor to Chambers' cashflow.'

‘That's quite impossible,' I told him. ‘If I don't do this case free, gratis and for nothing, I shall get into serious trouble with She Who Must Be Obeyed.'

‘Whoever's that?'

‘Be so good as to leave me, Blewitt. I see you have a great deal to learn about life in Equity Court. Things you'd never pick up in catering.'

He left me then, and I thought I wasn't only landed with the Defence of Dr Betty Ireton but the Defence of our Chambers against the death-dealing ministrations of Vincent Blewitt.

After our new legal administrator had left my presence, I refreshed my memory, from the papers in front of me, on the circumstances of old Chippy's death.

It seemed that he had a considerable private fortune passed down from some eighteenth-century Chippenham who had ransacked the Far East whilst working for the East India Company. He had lived with his wife Connie in a large Victorian house near Holland Park until she died of cancer. Chippy was heartbroken and began to show the early symptoms of the disease which led to his retirement from the Bench – Alzheimer's. This is a condition in which the mind atrophies, the patient becomes apparently infantile, incomprehensible and incontinent. Early symptoms are a certain vagueness and loss of memory (such as washing up your fountain-pen? Perish the thought!). After the complaint has taken hold, the victim remains physically healthy and may live on for many years to the distress, no doubt, of the relatives. Whether, although unable to express themselves in words, those with Alzheimer's may still enjoy moments of happiness must remain a mystery.

As he became increasingly helpless, Chippy's nephew Dickie and Dickie's wife, Ursula, moved in to look after him. They kept their ten-year-old son, Andrew, reasonably quiet and they devoted themselves to the old man. He was also cared for by a Nurse Pargeter, who came when the young Chippenhams went out in the evenings, and by Dr Betty, who, according to the witnesses' statements, got on like a house on fire with the old man.

In fact they were such good friends that Dr Betty used to call at least one or two times a week and sit with Chippy. They would drink a small whisky together and the old man had, in the doctor's presence, occasional moments of lucidity, when he would laugh at an old legal joke or weep like a child when remembering his wife. When she left, Dr Betty would, on her own admission, leave her patient a sleeping tablet, or even two, to see him through the night. So far, Dr Betty's behaviour couldn't be criticized, except for the fact that she thought it right to prescribe barbiturates. But, to be fair to her, she was told that these were the soporifics Chippy relied on in the days when he still had all his marbles.

One night the Chippenhams went out to dinner. Nurse Pargeter had been engaged with another patient and Dr Betty volunteered to sit with Chippy. (I couldn't help wondering if her kindness on that occasion included a release from this vale of tears.) When the Chippenhams arrived home Dr Betty told them that her patient was asleep and she left then. The old man died that night with a suddenness that the nurse, who found him in the morning, thought suspicious. In an autopsy his stomach was found to contain the residue of a massive overdose of the sleeping tablets Dr Betty had prescribed and also a considerable quantity of alcohol. Dr Betty was well known as a passionate supporter of euthanasia and she was charged with murder. She was given bail and her trial was due to start in three weeks' time.