"Mortimer, John Clifford - Rumpole 01d - Rumpole and the Married Lady" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mortimer John)

' I don't know how I can wait.' 'You've waited for three years haven't you? Look forward to seeing you then. Goodnight now, beloved lady." I said that, I suppose, to cheer up Mrs Thripp and to soften the blow as I put down the receiver. Just before I did so I heard a little click, and remembered that Hilda had insisted on an extension in our bedroom.

The next day our clerk's room was buzzing. Henry was on the telephone dispatching barristers to far-flung Magistrates Courts. That smooth young barrister, Erskine-Brown was opening his post and collecting papers, and Uncle Tom, old T. C. Rowley, was starting his day of leisure in Chambers by standing by the mantelpiece and greeting the workers. The ops room was even graced by the presence of our Head of Chambers, GuthrieFeath-erstone, Q.c. M.P., who was taking time off from such vital affair's of state as the Poultry Marketing Act to supervise Dianne who was beating out one of his learned opinions on our old standard Imperial.

Henry told me that my divorce conference was waiting in my room, and Erskine-Brown gave his most condescending smile. 'Divorcing now, Rumpole?' he asked me. I told him I was and asked him if he was still foreclosing on mortgages. 'I'm all for a bit of divorce in Chambers,' Featherstone smiled tolerantly. ' Widens our repertoire. You were getting into a bit of a rut with all that crime. Horace.' ' Crime! It seems a better world. A cleaner world. Down at the Old Bailey,' I told him.

'Don't you find criminal clients a little ~ depressing?' 'Criminal clients? They behave so well.' 'Really Rumpole?' Erskine-Brown sounded quite shocked.

'What do they do?' I asked him. 'Knock people on the head, rob banks, cause, at the worst, a temporary inconvenience. They don't converse by means of notes. They don't lock up the geyser. They don't indulge in three years silence to celebrate the passage of love.' 'Love? Have you become an expert on that, Rumpole?' Erskine-Brown seemed amused. 'Rumpole in Love. Should sell a bomb at the Solicitors Law Stationers.' 'And I'll tell you another great advantage of criminal customers," I went on. 'They're locked up, mostly, pending trial! They can't ring you up at all hours of the day and night. Now you get involved in a divorce and your life's taken over!' "We used to have all the facts of divorce cases printed out in detail in The Times,' Uncle Tom remembered.

' Oh, hello, Uncle Tom.' ' It used to make amusing reading! Better than all this rubbish they print now, about the Common Market. Far more entertaining.' Erskine-Brown left to go about his business, not before I had told him that divorce, for all its drawbacks, was a great deal less sordid than foreclosing on mortgages and then Henry presented me with another brief, a mere twenty-five guineas this time, to be heard by old Archie McFee, the Dock Street magistrate.

'You're an old girl called Mrs Wainscott, sir,' Henry told me. 'Charged with keeping a disorderly house.' 'An old Pro? Is this what I've sunk to now, Henry? Plodding the pavements! Flogging my aged charms round the Dock Street Magistrates Court!' I checked the figure on the front of the brief. 'Twenty-five smackers! Not bad, I suppose. For a short time in Dock Street. Makes you wonder what I could earn round the West End.' I left Henry then; he seemed not to be amused.

The other side, that is to say Mr F. Thripp and his legal advisers, had supplied his wife, married in some far-off and rash moment in a haze of champagne and orange blossom, with the evidence to be used against her. I was somewhat dismayed when I discovered that this evidence included an equal number of notes, typed on the same old Olivetti as that used by the husband, but travelling in the opposite direction. I picked out at random,' To my so-called husband. If you want your shirts washed, take them down to the office and let her do them. She does everything else for you doesn't she? Your so-called wife.' 'Oh dear, Mrs Thripp. I wish you hadn't written this.' I put down the note which I had been viewing through a magnifying glass to check the type. 'By the way, whom did you suspect of doing his washing for him?' I looked at the client, so did Miss Trant who was 'sitting in' in pursuit of knowledge of Rumpole's methods, so did Mr Perfect. Master Norman Thripp, who had joined us, sat in a corner pointing a toy sub-machine gun at me in a way I did my best to ignore.

'Who?' 'We had him watched Mr Rumpole,' Mr Perfect told me.

'He has an elderly secretary. Apparently she's a grandmother. There doesn't seem to be anyone else.' 'There doesn't seem to be anyone else for either of you.' I picked up the husband's answer. 'He alleges you assaulted his trousers.' 'No. No I didn't do that, Mr Rumpole.' 'His evening trousers were damaged apparently.' 'Probably at the cleaners. You remember, he refused to take me to his Ladies Night, he went on his own, so his trousers can't have been all that bad can they?' 'Did you mind him going?' I was finding the Thripp marriage more and more mysterious.

'Mind? Of course I minded.' 'Why?' 'Because I wanted to go with him, of course.' 'You wanted to go with the man who hasn't spoken to you for three years, who communicates by wretched little notes, who locked up your bath water?' At this point Mrs Thripp brought out a small lace handkerchief and started to sob.

' I don't know. I don't know why I wanted to go with him.' The sobs increased in volume. I looked at Mrs Thripp with deep approval.

'All right, Mrs Thripp. I'm simply asking the questions your husband's barrister will ask unless we're extremely lucky.' 'You think my case is hopeless?' Mrs Thripp was mopping up noisily.

'Mr Rumpole's afraid you may not make a good witness.' It was Miss Phyllida Trant, giving her learned opinion uninvited.

'Miss Trant!' I'm afraid I was somewhat sharp with her. 'You may know all about Divorce Law Reform Acts. But I know all about witnesses. Mrs Thripp will be excellent in the box.' I patted the still slightly heaving Thripp shoulder. 'Well done, Mrs Thripp! You broke down at exactly the right stage of the cross-examination.' I picked up the first of the wretched chartered accountant's notes; I was by now looking forward to blasting him out of the witness box, and saw, 'I am going to my Masonic Ladies Night. It's a pity I haven't got a lady to take with me.' "There's not a man sitting as a judge in the Family Division,' I promised her, 'who won't find that note from your husband absolutely intolerable.' When the Thripps, mire etfils, had been shepherded out by their solicitor, Perfect, Miss Trant loitered and said she wanted my advice. I expressed some surprise that she didn't know it all; but I lit a small cigar and, in the best tradition of the Bar, prepared to have my brains picked. It seemed that Miss Trant had been entrusted with a brief for the prosecution, before that great tribunal, old Archibald McFee at the Dock Street Magistrates Court.

'It's a disorderly house. I mean it's an open and shut case. I can't think why Mrs Wainscott's defending.' 'The old trout's probably got a weird taste for keeping out of Holloway.' I blew out smoke, savouring a bit of fun in the offing. Fate had decreed that I should be prosecuted by Miss Phyllida Trant. I kept cunningly quiet about my interest in the case of the Police v. Wainscott and Erskine-Brown's former pupil proceeded to deliver herself into my hands.

'What I wanted to ask you was how much law should I ...' 'Yes?' 'Take? I mean, how many books will this magistrate want, on the prosecution case?' Miss Trant had asked for it. I stood and gave her my learned opinion.

'My dear, Miss Trant. Old Archie McFee is a legal beaver. Double First in Jurisprudence. Reads Russel on Crime in bed and the Appeal Cases on holiday. You want to pot the old bawdy-house keeper ? Quote every case you can think of. Archie'U love you for it. How many books do you need? My advice to you is, fill the taxi!' So we all gathered at Dock Street Magistrates Court. There was old Mother Wainscott, sitting beneath a pile of henna-ed hair in the dock, and there was old Archie McFee, looking desperately bored and gazing yearningly at the clock as Miss Trant with a huge pile of dusty law books in front of her and her glasses on the end of her nose, lectured him endlessly on the law relating to disorderly houses.

'Section 8 of the 1751 Statute, sir. "Any person who acts or behaves him, or herself as Master or Mistress or as the person having the care, government, or managements of any bawdy house or other disorderly house shall be deemed to be the keeper thereof." Now, if I might refer you to Singleton and Ellison, 1895, i, Q.B. page 607 ...' 'Do you have to refer me to it, Miss Trant?' the learned magistrate sighed heavily.

'Oh yes, sir. I'm sure you'll find it most helpful.' I sat smiling quietly, like a happy spider as Miss Trant walked into the web. She had looked shocked when she discovered that I was defending. Now she would discover that I had deceived her. Archie McFee couldn't stand law: his sole interests were rose growing, amateur dramatics and catching the 3.45 back to Esher. I was amazed she couldn't see the fury rising to the level of his stiff collar as he watched the clock and longed for Victoria.

'It is interesting to observe that in R v. Jones it was held that all women under 21 years of age are 'girls' although females may be' women' at the age of eighteen.' Miss Trant was unstoppable.

'I suppose it interests you, Miss Trant.' 'Oh yes, indeed, sir. Turning now, if you please, sir, to the Sexual Offences Act, 1896 ...' A very long time later, when it came to my turn, and the prosecution had sunk under the dead weight of the law, I made a speech guaranteed to get old Archie off to the station in three minutes flat.

' Sir. My learned friend has referred you to many books. I would only remind you of one: a well-known book hi which it is written "Thou shall not bear false witness."* I glared at the young officer in charge of the case. 'And I would apply that remark to the alleged observations of the police officer.' 'Yes. I'm not satisfied this charge is made out. Summons dismissed.' As Archie went, he fired his parting shot. 'With costs, Miss Trant.' Mrs Thripp rang me at home again that evening and told me that her solicitor, Perfect, had fixed up a hearing in ten days' time. She wondered how she could live until then and told me I was her only friend in the world. I was comforting her as best I could and stemming the threatened flow of tears over the wire by saying, 'You'll be free in a couple of weeks. Think of that old darling,' when I noticed that Hilda had come into the room and was viewing me with a look of disapproval. I put down the phone: I suppose to a hostile observer the movement may have looked guilty. However, She Who Must Be Obeyed affected to ignore it and said casually, 'I'm having tea with Dodo tomorrow.' 'Dodo?' 'Dodo Perkins and I were tremendously close at Wycombe Abbey,' said Hilda coldly.

'Oh, Dodo! Yes, of course. The live one.' 'She's living in Devon nowadays. She's running her own tea shop.' 'Well. Nice part, Devon. You won't have seen her for some years.' 'We correspond. I sent her a postcard and said, let's meet when you're next up in London.' She gave me a look I can only describe as meaningful. 'I want to ask her advice about something. We may do some shopping, and have tea at Harrods.' 'Well, go easy on the chocolate gateaux.' •What?' 'I know how much these teas at Harrods cost. I don't want to see all my profit on the disorderly house vanishing down Dodo's little red lane.' Hilda ignored this and merely gave me some quite gratuitous information. 'Dodo never liked you. You know that, Rumpole?' She went, leaving me only vaguely disconcerted. When I went to the gin bottle, however, to prepare an evening Booths and tonic, I was astonished to notice a pencil mark on the label, apparently intended to record the drinking habits of Rumpole. I sloshed out the spirit, well past the plimsoll line. Our existence in Froxbury Court, I thought, was beginning to bear an uncomfortable resemblance to the way life was lived in Maison Thripp.

My life in those days seemed inseparable from women and their troubles. When I got to chambers the next morning I found Miss Phyllida Trant in my room, her glasses off, her eyes red and her voice exceedingly doleful. She announced that, after careful thought, she had decided, in view of her disastrous appearance at the Dock Street Magistrates Court, to give up the Bar and take up some less demanding profession.