Maxim Jakubowski - The Best British Mysteries III

I was giving that last document some thought when Hilda stirred, opened an eye, and instructed me to ring for breakfast.

You’ll have to look after yourself today, Rumpole,’ she told me. ‘Gerald’s going to take me fishing for grayling.’

‘Gerald?’ Was there some new man in Hilda’s life who had turned up in the Cotswolds?

You know. The charming judge you introduced me to last night.’

‘You can’t mean Gravestone?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I mean Gerald Graves.’

‘You’re going fishing with him?’

‘He’s very kindly going to take me to a bit of river he shares with a friend.’

‘How delightful.’ I adopted the ironic tone. ‘If you catch anything, bring it back for supper.’

‘Oh, I’m not going to do any fishing. I’m simply going to watch Gerald from the bank. He’s going to show me how he ties his flies.’

‘How absolutely fascinating.’

She didn’t seem to think she’d said anything at all amusing and she began to lever herself briskly out of bed.

‘Do ring up about that breakfast, Rumpole!’ she said. ‘I’ve got to get ready for Gerald.’

He may be Gerald to you, I thought, but he will always be the Old Gravestone to me.

After Hilda had gone to meet her newfound friend, I finished the bacon and eggs with sausage and fried slice – which I had ordered as an organic, low calorie breakfast – and put a telephone call through to my faithful solicitor Bonny Bernard. I found him at his home talking over a background of shrill and excited children eager for the next morning and the well-filled stockings.

‘Mr Rumpole!’ The man sounded shocked by my call. ‘Don’t you ever take a day off? It’s Christmas Eve!’

‘I know it’s Christmas Eve. I know that perfectly well,’ I told him. ‘And my wife has gone fishing with our sepulchral judge, whom she calls “Gerald”. Meanwhile, have you got any close friends or associates working at Hawkin’s, the solicitor?’

‘Barry Tuck used to be our legal executive – moved there about three years ago.’

‘A cooperative sort of character is he, Tuck?’

‘We got on very well. Yes.’

‘Then get him to find out why Honoria Glossop went to see Tony Hawkin the afternoon before she was shot. It must have been something fairly urgent. She missed a seminar in order to go.’

‘Is it important?’

‘Probably not, but it just might be something we ought to know.’

‘I hope you’re enjoying your Christmas break, Mr Rumpole.’

‘Quite enjoying it. I’d like it better without a certain member of the judiciary. Oh, and I’ve got a hard time ahead.’

‘Working?’

‘No,’ I told my patient solicitor gloomily. ‘Dancing,’

‘Quick, quick, slow, Rumpole. That’s better. Now chassé. Don’t you remember, Rumpole? This is where you chassé.’

The truth was that I remembered little about it. It had been so long ago. How many years could it have been since Hilda and I had trod across a dance floor? Yet here I was in a dinner jacket, which was now uncomfortably tight round the waist, doing my best to walk round this small area of polished parquet in time to the music with one arm round Hilda’s satin-covered waist and my other hand gripping one of hers. Although for much of the time she was walking backwards, she was undoubtedly the one in command of the enterprise. I heard a voice singing, seemingly from far off, above the music of the five-piece band laid on for the hotel’s dinner dance. It was a strange sound and one that I hadn’t heard for what seemed many years – She Who Must be Obeyed was singing. I looked towards my table, rather as someone lost at sea might look towards a distant shore, and I saw Mr Justice Gravestone smiling at us with approval.

‘Well done, Hilda! And you came through that quite creditably I thought, Rumpole. I mean, at least you managed to remain upright, although there were a few dodgy moments coming round that far corner.’

‘That was when I told him chassé. Rumpole couldn’t quite manage it.’

As they were both enjoying a laugh I realised that, during a long day by the river which had, it seemed, produced nothing more than two fish so small that they had had to be returned to their natural environment, Mrs Rumpole had become ‘Hilda’ to the judge, who had become ‘Gerald’.

‘You know, when you retire, Rumpole,’ the judge was sounding sympathetic in the most irritating kind of way, ‘you could take dancing lessons.’

‘There’s so much Rumpole could do if he retired. I keep telling him,’ was Hilda’s contribution. ‘He could have wonderful days like we had, Gerald. Outdoors, close to nature and fishing.’

‘Catching two small grayling you had to put back in the water?’ I was bold enough to ask. ‘It would’ve been easier to pay a quick visit to the fishmongers.’

‘Catching fish is not the point of fishing,’ Hilda told me. Before I could ask her what the point of it was, the judge came up with a suggestion.

‘When you retire, I could teach you fishing, Rumpole. We could have a few days out together.’

‘Now then. Isn’t that kind of Gerald, Rumpole?’ Hilda beamed and I had to mutter, ‘Very kind,’ although the judge’s offer had made me more determined than ever to die with my wig on.

It was at this point that Lorraine the manageress came to the judge with a message. He read it quickly and then said, ‘Poor old Leslie Mulliner. You know him, don’t you, Rumpole? He sits in the chancery division.’

I had to confess I didn’t know anyone who sat in the chancery division.

‘He was going to join us here tomorrow but his wife’s not well.’

‘He said on the phone that you’d do the job for him tomorrow.’ Lorraine seemed anxious.

‘Yes, of course,’ Graves hurried to reassure her. ‘I’ll stand in for him.’

Before I could get any further explanation of the ‘job’, the music had struck up a more contemporary note. Foxtrots were out, and with a cry of ‘Come along Hilda,’ Graves was strutting the dance floor, making curious rhythmic movements with his hands. And Hilda, walking free and unfastened from her partner, was also strutting and waving her arms, smiling with pleasure. It wasn’t, I’m sure, the most up-to-date form of dancing, but it was, I suppose, a gesture from two sedate citizens who were doing their best to become, for a wine-filled moment on Christmas Eve, a couple of teenagers.

Christmas Day at Cherry Picker’s Hall was uneventful. The judge suggested church, and I stood while he and Hilda bellowed out ‘Come, all ye Faithful’. Then we sat among the faithful under the Norman arches, beside the plaques and monuments to so many vanished rectors and country squires, looking out upon the holly round the pulpit and the flowers on the altar. I tried to understand, not for the first time, how a religious belief could become so perverted as to lead to death threats, terror, and a harmless professor shot through the head.

We had lunch in a pub and then the judge announced he had work to do and left us.

After a long and satisfactory sleep, Hilda and I woke around teatime and went to the residents’ lounge. Long before we got to the door, we could hear the excited cries of children, and when we went in we saw them crowded round the Christmas tree. And there, stooping among the presents, was the expected figure in a red dressing gown (trimmed with white fur), Wellington boots, a white beard, and a long red hat. As he picked up a present and turned towards us, I felt that fate had played the greatest practical joke it could have thought up to enliven the festive season.