Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 100, Nos. 4 & 5. Whole Nos. 603 & 604, October 1992

Rocky knew I knew he knewThat I had stolen quite a few.Rocky said I said I would,Give him half and that I should.

I gave him half, what could I do?I knew he knew I knew.

Rumpole and the Dear Departed

by John Mortimer

Rumpole’s keen satirical observations of the social climate of his day are always a treat. But here, in this tale set in 1974, he strikes a particularly poignant note. Criminals, he says, “like the owners of small businesses, seem to have felt the cold winds of the present recession. There just isn’t the crime about that there used to be.” We may wish the same thing could be said today, but for Horace Rumpole, expert in criminal defense, the situation demands a look into a new line of lawyering that treats of wills, testaments, and the strangely communicated wishes of the dead...

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Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyesWrite sorrow on the bosom of the earth.

Let’s choose executors and talk of wills;And yet not so — for what can we bequeathSave our deposed bodies to the ground.

The only reason why I, Horace Rumpole, Rumpole of the Old Bailey, dedicated, from my days as a white-wig and my call to the bar, almost exclusively to a life of crime, should talk of wills, was because of a nasty recession in felonies and misdemeanours. Criminals are, by and large, of an extraordinary Conservative disposition. They believe passionately in free enterprise and strict monetarist policies. They are against state interference of any kind. And yet they, like the owners of small businesses, seem to have felt the cold winds of the present recession. There just isn’t the crime about that there used to be. So when Henry came into my room staggering under the weight of a heavy bundle of papers and said, “Got something a bit more up-market than your usual, Mr. Rumpole; Mowbray and Pontefract want to instruct you in a will case, sir,” I gave him a tentative welcome. Even our learned Head of Chambers, Guthrie Featherstone, Q.C., M.P., could scarce forbear to cheer. “Hear you’ve got your foot in the door of the Chancery Division, Horace. That’s the place to be, my dear old chap. That’s where the money is. Besides, it’s so much better for the reputation of chambers for you not to have dangerous criminals hanging about in the waiting room.”

I said something about dangerous criminals at least being alive. The law of probate, so it seemed to me, is exclusively concerned with the dead.

“ ‘Let’s choose executors and talk of wills; and yet not so’ — for, besides having nothing to bequeath, Rumpole knows almost nothing about the law of probate.”

That is what I told Miss Beasley, the matron of the Sunnyside Nursing Home on the peaceful Sussex coast, when she came to consult me about the testamentary affairs of the late Colonel Ollard. It was nothing less than the truth. I know very little indeed on the subject of wills.

Miss Beasley was a formidable-looking customer: a real heavyweight with iron-grey hair, a powerful chin, and a nose similar in shape to that sported by the late duke of Wellington. She was in mufti when she came to see me (brogues and a tweed suit), but I imagine that in full regimentals, with starched cap and collar, the lace bonnet and medals pinned on the mountainous chest, she must have been enough to put the wind up the bravest invalid.

She gave me the sort of slight tightening of the lips which must have passed, in the wards she presided over, as a smile. “Never you mind, Mr. Rumpole,” she said, “the late Colonel wanted you to act in this case particularly. He has mentioned your name on several occasions.”

“Oh, really? But Miss Beasley, dear lady, the late Colonel Bollard...”

“Colonel Ollard, Mr. Rumpole, Colonel Roderick Ollard, M.C., D.S.O., C.B.E., late of the Pines, Balaclava Road, Cheeveling-on-Sea, and the Sunnyside Nursing Home,” she corrected me firmly. “The dear departed has come through with your name, perfectly clearly more than once.”