Murder Most Merry by ed. Abigail Browining Page A

had questioned the doctrine of the immaculate conception “—I have never called a dishonest policeman.”
    “Yours must be a singularly simple faith. Wrigglesworth.”
    “As for the Detective Inspector in this case,” counsel for the prosecution went on, “I’ve known Wainwright for years. In fact, this is his last trial before he retires. He could no more invent a verbal against a defendant than fly.”
    Any more on that tack. I thought, and we should soon be debating how many angels could dance on the point of a pin.
    “Look here, Wrigglesworth. That evidence about my client having a sword: it’s quite irrelevant. I’m sure you’d agree.”
    “Why is it irrelevant?” Wrigglesworth frowned.
    “Because the murder clearly wasn’t done with an antique cavalry saber. It was done with a small, thin blade.”
    “If he’s a man who carries weapons, why isn’t that relevant?”
    “A man? Why do you call him a man? He’s a child. A boy of seventeen!”
    “Man enough to commit a serious crime.”
    “ If he did.”
    “If he didn’t, he’d hardly be in the dock.”
    “That’s the difference between us. Wrigglesworth.” I told him. “I believe in the presumption of innocence. You believe in original sin. Look here, old darling.” I tried to give the Mad Monk a smile of friendship and became conscious of the fact that it looked, no doubt, like an ingratiating sneer. “Give us a chance. You won’t introduce the evidence of the sword, will you?”
    “Why ever not?”
    “Well,” I told him. “the Timsons are an industrious family of criminals. They work hard, they never go on strike. If it weren’t for people like the Timsons, you and I would be out of a job.”
    “They sound in great need of prosecution and punishment. Why shouldn’t I tell the jury about your client’s sword? Can you give me one good reason?”
    “Yes,” I said, as convincingly as possible.
    “What is it?” He peered at me. I thought, unfairly.
    “Well, after all,” I said, doing my best, “it is Christmas.”
    It would be idle to pretend that the first day in Court went well, although Wrigglesworth restrained himself from mentioning the sword in his opening speech, and told me that he was considering whether or not to call evidence about it the next day. I cross-examined a few members of the clan O’Dowd on the presence of lethal articles in the hands of the attacking force. The evidence about this varied, and weapons came and went in the hands of the inhabitants of Number Twelve as the witnesses were blown hither and thither in the winds of Rumpole’s cross-examination. An interested observer from one of the other flats spoke of having seen a 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