The Third Rumpole Omnibus by John Mortimer

Author:John Mortimer [Mortimer, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Humour, Mystery & Detective, Traditional, Traditional British
ISBN: 9780140257410
Google: xn0zLa1_UaAC
Amazon: 0140257411
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 1997-01-01T11:00:00+00:00

'Who's that kicking up a noise?

My little sister!

Whose that giggling with the boys?

My little sister!

Whose lemonade is laced with gin?

Who taught the vicar how to sin?

Knock on her door and she'll let you in!

My little sister!

Who's always been the teacher's pet?

Who took our puppy to the vet?

That was last night and she's not home yet!

My little sister!'

'What an extraordinary song!' Hilda said when my request performance was over.

'Yes,' I told her. 'Takes you back, doesn't it? Takes me back, anyway.'

When the party in the Old Salts' bar was over, Hilda slipped her arm through mine and led me across the deck to the ship's rail. I feared some romantic demonstration and looked around for help, but the only person about seemed to be Bill Britwell, wrapped in a heavy raincoat, who was standing some way from us. It was somewhat draughty and a fine rain was falling, but there was a moon and the sound of a distant dance band. Hilda, apparently, drew the greatest encouragement from these facts.

'The sound of music across the water. Stars. You and I by the rail. Finding each other … Listen, Rumpole! What do you think the Med. is trying to say to us?'

'It probably wants to tell you it's the Bay of Biscay,' I suggested.

'Is there nothing you feel romantic about?'

'Of course there is.' I couldn't let that charge go unanswered.

'There you are, you see!' Hilda was clearly pleased. 'I always thought so. What exactly?'

'Steak and kidney pudding.' I gave her the list. 'The jury system, the presumption of innocence.'

'Anything else?'

'Oh. Of course. I almost forgot,' I reassured her.

'Yes?'

'Wordsworth.'

There was a thoughtful silence then and Hilda, like Gloria, went off down Memory Lane. 'It doesn't seem so very long ago,' she said, 'that I was a young girl, and you asked Daddy for my hand in marriage.'

'And he gave it to me!' I remembered it well.

'Daddy was always so generous. Tell me, Rumpole. Now we're alone' – Hilda started off. I'm not sure what sort of intimate subject she was about to broach because I had to warn her, 'But we're not alone. Look!'

She turned her head and we both saw Bill Britwell standing by the rail, staring down at the sea and apparently involved in his own thoughts. Then, oblivious to our existence, he opened his coat, under which he had concealed two silver-framed photographs, much like those Hilda had seen on the dressing-table on her first visit to his cabin. He looked at them for a moment and dropped them towards the blackness of the passing sea. He turned from the rail then and walked away, not noticing Hilda and me, or Howard Swainton, who had also come out of the Old Salts' bar a few minutes before and had been watching this mysterious episode with considerable fascination.

•

Time, on a cruise ship, tends to drag; watching water pass by you slowly is not the most exciting occupation in the world. Hilda spent her time having her hair done, or her face creamed, or taking steam-baths, or being pounded to some sort of pulp in the massage parlour.

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