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

“A believer in communication with the other side.” At least she had the grace to explain.

“And both you and Colonel Ollard were believers?” Featherstone led her gently on, down the primrose path to disaster.

“Oh yes. We had that much in common.”

“Can you communicate with the late Joseph Stalin, Miss Beasley?” It was a shot in the dark by Featherstone, but it scored a bull’s eye.

“Of course I could,” Miss Beasley said modestly. “But let’s just say I wouldn’t care to.”

“Perhaps not. But can you communicate, for instance, with the late Colonel Ollard?”

“Yes indeed.” She had no doubt about that.

“When did you last do so, Miss Beasley?” said the judge, following his leader, Featherstone, like a bloodhound.

“Yesterday evening, my Lord.”

“Oh dear! Oh, my ears and whiskers!” I groaned to myself as the psychic Matron blundered on, addressing her remarks to the learned judge.

“And I may say that the Colonel is very distressed about this case, my Lord. Very distressed indeed. In fact, he thinks it’s a disgraceful thing to argue about it when he’d made his will perfectly clear and left it in his uniform box. I wouldn’t like to tell you, my Lord, the things that the colonel had to say about his brother Percy.”

“I think you had better not, Miss Beasley.” Featherstone brought her smoothly to a halt. “That would be hearsay evidence. We shall have to wait and see whether my learned friend Mr. Rumpole calls the deceased gentleman as a witness.”

Oh hilarious, I told myself bitterly. Guthrie Featherstone is being most hilarious. My God, he’s working well today!

We, that is, Matron, Mr. Pontefract, and self, had luncheon in the crypt under the Law Courts, a sepulchral hall, where, it seemed, very old plaice and chips come to die. Miss Beasley’s legal team were not in an optimistic mood.

“The judge doesn’t like you all that much I’m afraid, Miss Beasley.” I thought it best to break the news to her gently.

“Never mind, Mr. Rumpole. The feeling is entirely mutual.” She looked, all things considered, ridiculously cheerful.

“If you take my advice, Miss Beasley, you should go for a settlement.” Pontefract was trying to talk some sense into her. “Save what you can from the wreckage. You see, once you had to admit that the late colonel used to talk to the Emperor Napoleon—”

“What’s wrong with talking to the Emperor Napoleon?” Miss Beasley frowned. “He can be quite charming when he puts his mind to it.”

“I don’t think the judge is likely to accept that,” I warned her.

“You’d talk to the Emperor Napoleon, I’m sure, if he came across to you.” Miss Beasley didn’t seem to be getting the drift of my argument. I put it more bluntly.

“Mr. Pontefract is right. The time has come to chuck in the towel. On the best terms we can manage.”

“You mean, surrender?” She looked at us both, displeased.

“Well, on terms, Miss Beasley.” Mr. Pontefract tried to soften the blow, but her answer came like the bugle call which set off the Charge of the Light Brigade.

“Colonel Ollard will never surrender!” she trumpeted. “Anyway, you haven’t cross-examined that wretched Percy Ollard yet. The colonel says Mr. Rumpole’s a great cross-examiner!”

“That’s very kind of him.” I tried to sound modest.

“He says he’ll never forget reading your cross-examination about the bloodstains in the Penge Bungalow Murders. He read every word of it, in the Sunday paper.”

“My dear lady. That was thirty-five years ago. Anyway, I had a jury to play on in that case. I’m at my best with a jury. This is a cold-blooded trial in the Chancery Division, by judge alone, and that judge is distinctly unfriendly.”

“The colonel says, ‘Mr. Rumpole will hit my brother Percy for six.’ ” She repeated the words as if they were Holy Writ.

“Tell the colonel,” I asked her, “that Mr. Rumpole isn’t at his best, without a jury.”

A trial without a jury is like an operation without anaesthetic, or a luncheon without a glass of wine. “Shall we drown this old fish, Pontefract, my old darling,” I suggested, “in a sea of cooking claret?”

What I can’t accept about spiritualism is the idea of millions of dead people (there must be standing room only in the Other Side) kept hanging about just waiting to be sent for by some old girl with a Ouija board in a Brighton boarding house, or a couple of table-tappers in Tring, for the sake of some inane conversation about the Blueness of the Infinite. I mean at least when you’re dead you’ll surely be spared such tedious social occasions. Nevertheless, there was Colonel Ollard apparently at Matey’s beck and call, ready and willing to cross the Great Divide and drop in on her at the turn of a card or the shiver of a wine glass. I was expressing some of these thoughts to Hilda in a feverish sort of way that evening as I hugged my dressing gown round me and downed medicinal claret by the electric fire in Froxbury Court.

“Really, Rumpole,” said She, “don’t be so morbid.”

“I can smell corruption.” I sneezed loudly. “The angel of death is brushing me with his wings.”