Murder Most Merry

machete.

“Could that terrible weapon have been in the hands of Mr. Kevin O’Dowd, the deceased in this case?”

“I don’t think so.”

“But can you rule out the possibility?”

“No, I can’t rule it out,” the witness admitted, to my temporary delight.

“You can never rule out the possibility of anything in this world, Mr. Rumpole. But he doesn’t think so. You have your answer.”

Mr. Justice Vosper, in a voice like a splintering iceberg, gave me this unwelcome Christmas present. The case wasn’t going well, but at least, by the end of the first day, the Mad Monk had kept out all mention of the sword. The next day he was to call young Bridget O’Dowd, fresh from her triumph in the Nativity play.

“I say, Rumpole, I’d be so grateful for a little help.”

I was in Pommeroy’s Wine Bar. drowning the sorrows of the day in my usual bottle of the cheapest Chateau Fleet Street (made from grapes which, judging from the bouquet, might have been not so much trodden as kicked to death by sturdy peasants in gum boots) when I looked up to see Wrigglesworth, dressed in an old mackintosh, doing business with Jack Pommeroy at the sales counter. When I crossed to him, he was not buying the jumbo- sized bottle of ginger beer which I imagined might be his celebratory Christmas tipple, but a tempting and respectably aged bottle of Chateau Pichon Longueville.

“What can I do for you. Wrigglesworth?”

“Well, as you know, Rumpole, I live in Croydon.”

“Happiness is given to few of us on this earth,” I said piously.

“And the Anglican Sisters of St. Agnes, Croydon, are anxious to buy a present for their Bishop,” Wrigglesworth explained. “A dozen bottles for Christmas. They’ve asked my advice, Rumpole. I know so little about wine. You wouldn’t care to try this for me? I mean, if you’re not especially busy.”

“I should be hurrying home to dinner.” My wife, Hilda (She Who Must Be Obeyed), was laying on rissoles and frozen peas, washed down by my last bottle of Pommeroy’s extremely ordinary. “However, as it’s Christmas, I don’t mind helping you out, Wrigglesworth.”

The Mad Monk was clearly quite unused to wine. As we sampled the claret together, I saw the chance of getting him to commit himself on the vital question of the evidence of the sword, as well as absorbing an unusually decent bottle. After the Pichon Longueville I was kind enough to help him by sampling a Boyd-Cantenac and then I said, “Excellent, this. But of course the Bishop might be a burgundy man. The nuns might care to invest in a decent Macon.”

“Shall we try a bottle?” Wrigglesworth suggested. “I’d be grateful for your advice.”

“I’ll do my best to help you, my old darling. And while we’re on the subject, that ridiculous bit of evidence about young Timson and the sword—”

“I remember you saying I shouldn’t bring that out because it’s Christmas.”

“Exactly.” Jack Pommeroy had uncorked the Macon and it was mingling with the claret to produce a feeling of peace and goodwill towards men. Wrigglesworth frowned, as though trying to absorb an obscure point of theology.

“I don’t quite see the relevance of Christmas to the question of your man Timson threatening his neighbors with a sword.”

“Surely. Wrigglesworth—” I knew my prosecutor well”—you’re of a religious disposition?” The Mad Monk was the product of some bleak northern Catholic boarding school. He lived alone, and no doubt wore a hair shirt under his black waistcoat and was vowed to celibacy. The fact that he had his nose deep into a glass of burgundy at the moment was due to the benign influence of Rumpole.

“I’m a Christian, yes.”

“Then practice a little Christian tolerance.”

“Tolerance towards evil?”

“Evil?” I asked. “What do you mean, evil?

“Couldn’t that be your trouble. Rumpole? That you really don’t recognize evil when you see it.”

“I suppose,” I said, “evil might be locking up a seventeen-year-old during Her Majesty’s pleasure, when Her Majesty may very probably forget all about him. banging him up with a couple of hard and violent cases and their own chamber-pots for twenty-two hours a day, so he won’t come out till he’s a real, genuine, middle-aged murderer.”

“I did hear the Reverend Mother say—” Wrigglesworth was gazing vacantly at the empty Macon bottle “— that the Bishop likes his glass of port.”

“Then in the spirit of Christmas tolerance I’ll help you to sample some of Pommeroy’s Light and Tawny.”

A little later, Wrigglesworth held up his port glass in a reverent sort of fashion.

“You’re suggesting, are you, that I should make some special concession in this case because it’s Christmastime?”

“Look here, old darling.” I absorbed half my glass, relishing the gentle fruitiness and the slight tang of wood. “If you spent your whole life in that highrise hell-hole called Keir Hardie Court, if you had no fat prosecutions to occupy your attention and no prospect of any job at all, if you had no sort of occupation except war with the O’Dowds—”

“My own flat isn’t particularly comfortable. I don’t know a great deal about your home life, Rumpole. but you don’t seem to be in a tearing hurry to experience it.”

“Touche, Wrigglesworth, my old darling.” I ordered us a couple of refills of Pommeroy’s port to further postpone the encounter with She Who Must Be Obeyed and her rissoles.

“But we don’t have to fight to the death on the staircase,” Wrigglesworth pointed out.

“We don’t have to fight at all, Wrigglesworth.”

“As your client did.”

“As my client may have done. Remember the presumption of innocence.”

“This is rather funny, this is.” The prosecutor pulled back his lips to reveal strong, yellowish teeth and laughed appreciatively. “You know why your man Timson is called ‘Turpin’ ?”

“No.” I drank port uneasily, fearing an unwelcome revelation.

“Because he’s always fighting with that sword of his. He’s called after Dick Turpin, you see, who’s always dueling on television. Do you watch television, Rumpole?”

“Hardly at all.”

“I watch a great deal of television, as I’m alone rather a lot.” Wrigglesworth referred to the box as though it were a sort of penance, like fasting or flagellation. “Detective Inspector Wainwright told me about your client. Rather amusing, I thought it was. He’s retiring this Christmas.”

“My client?”

“No. D. I. Wainwright. Do you think we should settle on this port for the Bishop? Or would you like to try a glass of something else?”

“Christmas,” I told Wrigglesworth severely as we sampled the Cockburn, “is not just a material, pagan celebration. It’s not just an occasion for absorbing superior vintages, old darling. It must be a time when you try to do good, spiritual good to our enemies.”

“To your client, you mean?”

“And to me.”

“To you, Rumpole?”

“For God’s sake, Wrigglesworth!” I was conscious of the fact that my appeal was growing desperate. “I’ve had six losers in a row down the Old Bailey. Can’t I be included in any Christmas spirit that’s going around?”

“You mean, at Christmas especially it is more blessed to give than to receive?”

“I mean exactly that.” I was glad that he seemed, at last, to be following my drift.

“And you think I might give this case to someone, like a Christmas present?”

“If you care to put it that way, yes.”

“I do not care to put it in exactly that way.” He turned his pale-blue eyes on me with what I thought was genuine sympathy. “But I shall try and do the case of R. v. Timson in the way most appropriate to the greatest feast of the Christian year. It is a time, I quite agree, for the giving of presents.”