“Where’s your doggie?” she asked.
“He’s dead. Darnedest thing. Just had a seizure and that was it. Too bad.”
“What a shame,” commiserated Minnie.
“Actually, he was getting on, and I wasn’t all that fond of him. He was my wife’s dog and when we got divorced and she went to California, she left him with me. I always felt a little silly walking him,” confessed O’Connor.
“Really?” Minnie smiled politely.
“Yeah. So I got another dog, a real man’s dog.”
“Oh?”
“Wanna meet him? Hold on just a sec and I’ll get him.”
Minnie pushed the button for the elevator and prepared to wait. Hearing O’Connor’s door open, she turned. A huge brown-and-black hound hurtled down the hall towards her, pulling O’Connor behind him. Even though the dog was leashed, the man could just barely control it.
“This is Brutus,” panted O’Connor. “He’s a Rottweiler. A real man’s dog.”
“He’s certainly very large — I mean handsome,” stammered a horrified Minnie, as the elevator doors slid open. “I just remembered, I forgot something in my apartment. Goodbye.”
Employing great self-control, Minnie walked back down the hall. Her hands were shaking so that she had quite a struggle with the locks, but she finally gained the safety of her apartment. Once inside, she ran directly to the coffee table, and began scrabbling through the magazines, finally locating the article. Running her trembling finger down the chart so thoughtfully provided by the author, she found the listing for very large dogs, dogs weighing over seventy-five pounds.
“Oh, Tut,” she wailed. “How will I ever get that dog to eat ten jumbo candy bars?”
Rocky Knew
by Don Peyer
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...
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.”
“Come through with it, Miss Beasley?” I must say the phrase struck me as a little odd at the time.
“That is what I said, Mr. Rumpole.” Miss Beasley pursed her lips.
“We should be alleging fraud against the other side, Mr. Rumpole.”
The person who had spoken was Mr. Pontefract, of the highly respected firm of Mowbray and Pontefract, an elderly type of solicitor with a dusty black jacket, a high stiff collar, and the reverent and deeply sympathetic tone of voice of a reputable undertaker. He was someone, I felt sure, who knew all about wills, not to mention graves and worms and epitaphs. And the word he had used had acted like a trumpet call to battle. I felt myself brighten considerably. I beamed on La Beasley and said with confidence:
“Fraud! Now, there is a subject I do know something about. And whom are we alleging fraud against?”
“Mr. Percival Ollard, Mrs. Percival Ollard—” Mr. Pontefract supplied the information.
“That Marcia. She didn’t give a toss for the colonel!” Miss Beasley interrupted with a thrust of the chest and a swift intake of breath.
“And young Peter Ollard, their son, aged thirteen years, represented by his parents as guardians, ad litem.”. Mr. Pontefract completed the catalogue of shame.
“The Colonel thought Peter was a complete sissy, Mr. Rumpole!” Miss Beasley hastened to give me the low-down. “The boy didn’t give a toss for military history, he was more interested in ballet dancing.”
“Young Peter, it appears, had ambitions to enter the West Sussex School of Dance.” Mr. Pontefract made this announcement with deep regret.
“You should have heard Colonel Ollard on the subject!” Miss Beasley gave me another tight little smile.